The construction of the dam in Jia County, Qi Prefecture, had been underway for three years and was now in its final stages.
This summer, abundant moisture along the coastal Xi region had generated several smaller tsunamis—fortunately, precautions were in place, and no civilians or merchants suffered casualties or losses. The moisture traveled northward. Though the weather was still clear and sunny, based on past years’ patterns, Tan’s early autumn rains would not be light.
Tan Jingming, after reporting back to Fengye, had returned to Jia County and first made a detour to inspect the Meng River. Under the scorching sun, Prefect Chen Huaibin was nowhere to be seen—which came as no surprise. Over the three-year construction period, despite the massive scale of the project, Chen Huaibin had personally visited only a handful of times.
Tan Jingming looked closely and, unsurprisingly, spotted Wen Zheng among the crowd—coarse-clothed in hemp, sleeves rolled up, wearing a bamboo hat, carrying gravel like any ordinary laborer.
Three hundred and sixty days a year, Wen Zheng spent two hundred of them here, doing everything himself. A commandery governor, toiling so arduously—yet no one around him found it unusual.
Tan Jingming tapped his whip against his palm, dismounted, and called out to Wen Zheng: “Governor Wen! What a coincidence!”
Wen Zheng looked at the ornately dressed Tan Jingming, at the blue jade pendant at his waist—which had once been Chen Huaibin’s prized possession. His cracked lips parted as if to speak, but in the end, he held back, replying politely: “What a coincidence, Minister Tan.”
“Governor Wen, why must you work so hard? Even if you do all this, the credit goes to others—who will ever see it? Sometimes, you ought to rest. Your body is your own, don’t you agree?” Tan Jingming’s tone was ambiguous—whether teasing or genuinely advising, he wore a smile as he spoke.
Wen Zheng wiped his sweat and, after a long pause, said calmly: “I take your point.”
He neither declared that he had no shame before his sovereign and the people, nor did he mock or retort. He simply said flatly, “I take your point.”
Whether he truly took it to heart, or whether years of being ground down by corrupt colleagues had taught him there was no point arguing with such men, was unclear.
Tan Jingming smiled, said no more, and strode away.
Chen Huaibin could afford to be an absentee supervisor precisely because he had a reliable workhorse like Wen Zheng.
Three years, thirty-six months, hundreds of memorials—all detailing the difficulties of building the Jialing Dam, and all glorifying the achievements of Chen Huaibin’s faction. Yet not once did Wen Zheng’s name appear.
…
In August, the Jialing Dam—completed after three years on the Meng River—faced its first flood season. It withstood the raging currents steadily, transforming them into calm, nourishing flows for the downstream plains.
Over the three years, in addition to building the dam, channels had been cut to divert the most violent waters, merging them with the redirected flow at the old dam—a double layer of protection.
The project was executed brilliantly, and the effort invested was immeasurable. The imperial court issued a commendation. Chen Huaibin, in full ceremonial robes, led the entire Qi Prefecture government in kneeling before the yamen to express gratitude. Beaming with pride, he was at the height of his glory.
During their toasts, he probed Tan Jingming and learned that His Majesty was quite pleased with the Qi Prefecture affair and was considering transferring him.
Tan Jingming was a close minister of the Emperor—Deputy Commander of the Golden Guard, favored by Yu Lingxin. For three years, he had traveled between Qi Prefecture and Fengye on official business, supervising the dam’s construction—a sign of his standing.
Over those three years, he had turned a blind eye to Chen Huaibin’s bribery, called him “brother,” and accepted many bribes himself. They were tied to the same rope. Chen Huaibin had long considered him an ally, trusting his words completely. With someone covering for him, he grew increasingly reckless—visiting the Meng River only a handful of times over three years, let alone personally overseeing the work.
He had believed Tan Jingming’s assurances, expecting the commendation to arrive alongside a promotion order. Instead came a warrant of indictment—forty-three charges meticulously listed, and his co-conspirators imprisoned alongside him, all to be escorted to Fengye for retrial.
Such detailed charges could not have been compiled without years of evidence. Someone close to him must have turned. Even now, he dared not implicate Tan Jingming—nor did he suspect Tan of betraying him.
Tan had taken too many bribes from him. If he fell, he would drag Tan down with him. A clever man would protect him, and thus protect himself. Chen still counted on Tan to maneuver for his acquittal.
The imperial envoy also conveyed a verbal decree from Yu Lingxin: Governor Wen Zheng of Jia County was commended and promoted to Prefect of Qi Prefecture.
In the crowd of kneeling officials, an unremarkable, thin, dark old man suddenly lifted his head.
His loose official robes hung on his lean frame. The bright red fabric only made his weather-beaten, dark skin look rougher—more like a village elder than a commandery governor. His withered hands were like dry branches, his brown skin as solid as earth, etched with furrows.
Wen Zheng could hardly believe it. Chen Huaibin’s downfall alone was unexpected—but to think that the promotion would fall to him was beyond his wildest dreams.
Qi Prefecture had twelve commanderies. He was merely the most unremarkable of them all—no distinguished family background, not particularly quick-witted, a sixty-year-old frame like a candle flickering in the wind, soon to be extinguished. He had long grown accustomed to quietly doing his duty. The position of prefect had never been something he aspired to—no matter how the rotation went, it would never have been his turn.
The sun blazed fiercely, making his kneeling body sway precariously.
The imperial envoy smiled at him and prompted: “Governor Wen, rise and receive the decree. This is good news—His Majesty has seen all your years of hard work.”
He had placed first in the imperial examinations in the tenth year of Shou Ning’s reign, starting as a county magistrate in Zhixia County, Qi Prefecture. Forty years, three reigns—and his name had never appeared on any merit roll. Once, he too had burned with passion, longing to be valued and promoted by the sovereign. Now, he only sought not to fail the people.
His Majesty had seen…
He had seen it all.
Those words echoed in his mind. He kowtowed deeply, only then realizing that hot tears were streaming down his face. After a long moment, a choked sob finally escaped his throat: “This old minister thanks His Majesty—I shall serve unto death.”
Wen Zheng was already old and frail, unsure how much more he could serve his country. But the young new emperor had said he had seen his contributions—his forty years—someone had seen them.
Chen Huaibin and his faction were escorted to Fengye to be tried by the Supreme Court. The evidence was already conclusive, but upon submission, Yu Lingxin temporarily held it back.
Among Chen Huaibin’s forty-odd charges was one: using registered servants as forced labor, pocketing the court’s hired-labor funds for himself.
The charge appeared minor—not particularly significant—but upon closer examination, there was much room for maneuver.
In short, he had used registered servants from Qi Prefecture—from court musicians to household slaves—to replace the able-bodied men hired by the court. Since registered servants belonged to their masters and the government, the wages the court issued for these laborers went straight into the owners’ pockets. Chen Huaibin had profited handsomely from this, sending his own clan’s servants and brokering deals for other wealthy households to do the same.
This time, the dam was mainly supervised by Wen Zheng, so Chen Huaibin’s bribes on this project were limited. But for past projects in Qi Prefecture, rough estimates suggested over a hundred servants had died from labor—all covered up.
Yu Lingxin showed Jiang Nong this charge, twirling the brush between his fingers, tapping the paper with it to draw her attention.
Jiang Nong looked at it with some concern: “The evidence for past cases is hard to trace. Investigating it would be difficult. For the Jialing Dam this time, only a few dozen…”
Seeing she hadn’t caught on, Yu Lingxin smugly propped his feet on the table and wagged a finger at her: “No, no, no. Past evidence is hard to trace—but have you ever heard of ‘shoot the arrow, then paint the target’? He’s going to die anyway. One more scapegoat is just him dying for a worthy cause—serving the people.”
“Haven’t you always wanted to abolish registered servitude? I think this is a good opportunity.”
Jiang Nong suddenly understood.
For the past two or three years, she had indeed been trying to slowly abolish the servitude system through land tax reforms—but with little effect. She could only gradually legislate to protect these people’s rights.
Whenever the idea was raised, the court was filled with opposition, and the streets echoed with dissent.
Yu Lingxin’s opinion was simple: ignore what they said; under enough pressure, no one would dare to object. But Jiang Nong didn’t dare to act rashly—she had to probe carefully, searching for a breakthrough.
The system had persisted for a thousand years. In some ways, the benefits of abolishing it were far outweighed by the instability it would cause. Maintaining the status quo seemed the safest course.
In truth, every time she brought it up, the courtiers wondered why she kept pushing on this matter—it was only causing herself trouble.
“Perhaps maintaining the stability of this land does require sacrificing certain people, or perhaps from the perspective of those in power, abolishing servitude brings little benefit—but I still hope that, as much as possible, every person can live a little better. From where we stand, the people might look like ants—dense and countless—but from each individual’s perspective, one person is a living, breathing person.”
Jiang Nong asked Yu Lingxin: “I know this might sound strange—can you understand? I’ve actually been worried you might oppose it.”
Yu Lingxin truly didn’t understand—other people’s happiness had nothing to do with him. Ever since he’d woken up in the Side Courts in his previous life, mentally unhinged, he’d stopped caring much about others’ lives. But if everyone being happy made Jiang Nong happy—then he agreed it was necessary.
He rested his chin on his hand and nodded: “I understand. I know—when you were unhappy, you didn’t want others to suffer the same; and now that you’re happy, you want everyone else to be happy too.”
It was a pity—he understood the beauty of such a virtue, but didn’t possess it himself. Still, it was enough that one person in the family did.
Yu Lingxin’s “shoot the arrow, then paint the target” plan was to inflate the number of servants who had died in labor to over a thousand, pinning the blame on Chen Huaibin.
Even Chen Huaibin, when presented with the evidence, wept bloody tears and cried out his innocence.
The documentation was drafted by Jiang Nong, passed through various hands to Yu Lingxin, who then flew into a rage at court, sentencing Chen Huaibin to death by slow slicing and his nine clans to exile.
Rumors of over a thousand registered servants dying from labor somehow leaked out of the Supreme Court, stirring the populace to deep sighs of sympathy.
Meanwhile, in front of the Capital Magistrate’s office, a plain-clothed woman knelt, beating the drum to air her grievance—her story moving the surrounding cities to tears.
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