Chapter 3: Plugging the Breach in the Mud

The sound of rushing water drowned out the gongs.

By the time Yu Wan reached the South City embankment, muddy water had already flooded the outermost alley. Half the shops along the street were shuttered; the other half had sandbags piled high at their doors. People were weeping, cursing, or kneeling in the muck, scavenging for things their children had dropped.

The breach in the embankment was thirty zhang away. The gap looked like a gaping mouth, churning white foam as the water surged inward. A squad of soldiers sprinted along the bank with torches, but no matter how high they held them, they couldn't pierce the depths of the flood.

"Where are you from?" a supervising soldier blocked her path.

"The west end," Yu Wan replied without stopping, slipping past him.

"Miss, it's dangerous here—"

She didn't hear him.

The muddy water was already knee-deep. She hitched up her skirts and waded toward the breach. Master Zhou was on the bank, stamping his feet in anxiety, but one look from her silenced him.

"What are you doing!" someone shouted from behind.

Yu Wan didn't look back. She reached the edge of the breach, crouched down, and plunged both hands into the muddy water.

"Miss!" Master Zhou’s voice came from behind, breathless.

She didn't answer.

The water was ice-cold, but there was a stone foundation beneath. The embankment's base was well-compacted; it wasn't the earth that had failed, but the gaps between the stones that had been forced open by the water pressure. The current was blasting through those cracks, widening them by the second.

She stood up and walked along both sides of the breach.

To the left was the old embankment; the stones were set deep, but the seams had split. To the right was a newly repaired section from six months ago. The stones were aligned perfectly, but the filler used was ordinary mortar.

"Master Zhou!" she shouted toward the bank. "Swap the mortar for Rice Lime Mortar."

"What?"

"Rice Lime Mortar. The kind you use for City Bricks. Mortar mixed with Rice Paste is stronger than the ordinary stuff."

Master Zhou opened his mouth, staring blankly for a long moment before responding, "But... but we'd have to grind the rice into paste first. Right now—"

"No waiting." Yu Wan crouched back down by the breach. "Start dismantling the stones of the old embankment one by one, all the way down to the base. The base is intact; everything above it is a facade."

"Miss, there are still soldiers guarding the embankment—"

"Tell them to retreat behind the base."

Master Zhou stood on the bank, the wind whipping his robes with a loud snap. He watched the small, slender figure kneeling in the mud and suddenly felt something was off.

The way this girl looked at the embankment—it was like she was looking at a math problem.

She wasn't panicking; she was calculating.

"Men!" he bellowed toward the shore. "Go get the recipe for Rice Lime Mortar! And lime, hurry!"

Three soldiers bolted off, leaving a trail of footprints in the mud.

Water continued to surge through the breach. Yu Wan remained kneeling in the muck, her fingers tracing the crack, feeling for the deepest stone—the one that had already come loose.

"Master Zhou," she called out, "third row of the base, slightly west."

Master Zhou looked in the direction she pointed, but he couldn't see a thing. He shouted the order anyway.

The soldiers rushed over.

"Third row, slightly west."

"Miss, we can't see anything—"

"I can."

The water was too turbid for anyone to see the stones below. But her hands were in the water, and she could feel them.

"Knock that stone out and fill the gap with Rice Lime Mortar."

Master Zhou stared at her for two seconds, then turned and ran.

The chaos on the bank fell silent for a heartbeat.

"Whose daughter is that?" someone asked.

"No idea, she just got here."

"How does she know where the stones are?"

"...Stop asking and get to work."

The muddy water rose to Yu Wan's waist. She stayed on her knees, her fingers sorting through the silt, one movement at a time, as if she were sliding beads on an abacus.

Then, she heard footsteps.

They weren't the heavy boots of soldiers. They were soft, quick, accompanied by the crisp chime of jewelry.

"A-Wan!"

Yu Wan didn't look up.

The newcomer circled to the edge of the breach and stepped into the muddy water. Her skirts were already half-soaked, yet she was smiling.

"A-Wan, why are you here?"

Only then did Yu Wan look up.

The woman was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, wearing a pale yellow gown embroidered with butterflies and pearl flowers in her hair. She wore a smile, but it looked painted on—the corners of her mouth were curled up, but her eyes remained dead.

"A-Wan," Yu Wan said her name.

"A-Wan, Mother knows you've arrived and asked me to bring you home." Yu Wan crouched down to meet her eyes. "This embankment business is for the imperial officials to handle. A young girl like you—"

"And what have the officials handled?" Yu Wan interrupted. Her voice was carried by the wind, quiet but piercing. "The embankment has a thirty-zhang breach. Where are the officials?"

The smile on Yu Wan's face froze.

"A-Wan," she tried a different approach, her voice softening, "Mother wanted me to tell you that regarding the Marquis Manor... the court will investigate. Don't be impatient."

"The Marquis Manor."

Yu Wan straightened up, water dripping from her hem.

"Three years ago, Father was impeached in court on charges of embezzling military funds," she said, her voice flat, as if reading a ledger. "Father did not embezzle. The court investigated for three years and reached a conclusion: they couldn't find anything."

"A-Wan—"

"Couldn't find anything means there was nothing to find." Yu Wan looked at her sister. "But Father died anyway."

The pearl flowers in Yu Wan's hair trembled.

"Clearing the Marquis Manor's name?" Yu Wan smiled thinly. "Clear what? They're clearing Father's name. Since the court found nothing, they're happy to let Father's name rot in the mud."

She leaned over, pulled the last loose stone from the muck, and tossed it onto the bank.

"This stone is loose," she said, "and my father's reputation is loose. If the court won't fish it out, I'll do it myself."

Standing in the muddy water, Yu Wan's expression shifted rapidly. She opened her mouth to speak, but in the end, she only managed: "A-Wan, please calm down."

"I am very calm."

Yu Wan turned and walked toward the other side of the breach.

"A-Wan!" Yu Wan chased after her. "Mother wants me to take you back—"

"I'm not going back."

"You—"

"The people of the Marquis Manor aren't the ones repairing the South City embankment." Yu Wan didn't look back. "The ones repairing it are Master Zhou and a bunch of masons."

She reached the edge of the breach, crouched down, and plunged her hands back into the muddy water.

Yu Wan stood frozen, her pearl flowers swaying in the wind.

"...Let's go," someone whispered behind her.

Yu Wan grit her teeth, turned, and left. Her pale yellow skirts dragged through the mud, turning gray almost instantly.

The people on the bank watched the scene in silence.

Master Zhou arrived with the Rice Lime Mortar—the lime mixed with rice paste was thick and white. The soldiers began filling the breach stone by stone.

Yu Wan remained kneeling in the mud, directing them.

"That one's crooked, move it left." "That one's loose, give it another hammer blow." "The mortar is too thin, make it thicker."

When she spoke, there was no anger, no fire; she sounded as if she were commenting on the pleasant weather.

Master Zhou crouched on the bank, watching her back, and suddenly remembered something.

Three years ago, he had seen a girl on a construction site. Back then, she had been half a head taller than him, wearing double buns, crouching under the scaffolding studying blueprints. The blueprints had been drawn by her father—the Lord of the Marquis Manor, a man who debated water conservancy in the imperial court.

That girl's name was Yu Wan.

Later, the Marquis Manor fell, her father died, and she vanished.

The workers on the site all said the young lady of the Marquis Manor had gone mad and been locked away by her family.

Master Zhou had never believed it.

Looking at the figure crouching in the mud, he suddenly felt that the young lady hadn't gone mad at all.

She just had nowhere to go.

By the time darkness fell, the breach was finally plugged.

It wasn't a perfect seal—a small gap remained, and water was still seeping through. But it was ten times smaller than before. The soldiers piled sandbags on top, stabilizing it for the time being.

"Miss," Master Zhou handed her a dry cloth, "wipe yourself off."

Yu Wan took the cloth and wiped the mud from her face.

"Master Zhou."

"Hmm?"

"The base of the embankment is fine, but the top is a fake," she said. "Three years, and no one has fixed it. The court didn't, the Marquis Manor didn't—once the Manor fell, no one did."

"Do you want to fix it, Miss?"

"Not just the embankment."

Yu Wan stood up and looked south. The breach in the embankment looked like a scar in the night, turning white under the moonlight.

"The ditches in South City, the dams in West City, the river in the east—all of it needs fixing," she said. "Not patching. Rebuilding."

Master Zhou opened his mouth.

"Miss, how much silver would that take?"

"I'll figure out the silver."

"But the court won't approve—"

"If the court won't approve, we won't go through the court." Yu Wan turned around. "Master Zhou, how many craftsmen do you have under you?"

"Twelve masons, eight carpenters, three blacksmiths."

"That's enough."

Yu Wan took a few steps, crouched down, and began drawing in the dirt with a twig.

"South City embankment: leave the base, rebuild the top. Rice Lime Mortar mixed with stone powder. West City dam: raise it by two zhang and add a slope—"

She drew quickly; the lines weren't straight, but the meaning was clear.

Master Zhou crouched beside her, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was off.

"Miss... have you studied this?"

"My father taught me."

Master Zhou's hand trembled.

He remembered the girl with the double buns from three years ago, crouching under the scaffolding with a pen in her hand, drawing on blueprints—drawing waterworks.

The blueprints of the Lord of the Marquis Manor.

"My father said," Yu Wan's voice drifted up from the ground, "that water conservancy is the lifeblood of a city. If the lifeblood is severed, the people die."

She straightened up and stabbed the twig into the mud.

"Master Zhou, we start at dawn tomorrow."

Master Zhou looked at the line scratched into the mud and suddenly felt that something had changed.

When the Marquis Manor fell three years ago, the whole Capital City said the young lady had gone mad.

But right now, standing in the muddy water with moonlight illuminating the grime on her face, there was no madness in her eyes—only clarity.

A clarity as sharp as a calculated waterline.

"Miss," Master Zhou stood up, "if you say we build, we build."

Yu Wan nodded.

"But there's one thing—"

"What?"

"I need to find a place first." Yu Wan looked east. "The wasteland in South City, that burnt-out kiln—it should still be usable."

"A kiln?"

"To fire bricks," Yu Wan said. "To fix the embankment, we need new bricks. The old ones are waterlogged; they're useless."

Master Zhou was silent for a moment.

"Miss," he said, "the court doesn't allow private repairs to the embankment."

Yu Wan looked at him and smiled.

"Master Zhou," she said, "three years ago, the court didn't allow the Marquis Manor to repair the embankment either."

Master Zhou didn't respond.

Yu Wan turned and walked toward the alley, the cloth draped over her shoulder, specks of mud glistening in the moonlight.

"Miss!" Master Zhou called out from behind. "Where is that kiln?"

"South City, the Old Brick Kiln."

"I'll go take a look."

"Tomorrow," Yu Wan said without looking back. "At first light."

She walked away.

Master Zhou stood by the embankment, watching her silhouette vanish at the mouth of the alley.

The wind blew from the south, carrying the scent of raw mud.

The breach was still seeping, but it was stable.

He leaned down and picked up the twig from the ground. There was a line drawn on the earth—crooked, but clear: South City, West City, East City.

Master Zhou gripped the twig tightly for a long time.

Three years ago, he had seen a girl on a construction site, crouching under the scaffolding studying blueprints.

There had been a line on those blueprints.

The same as the one on this twig.

"Lord of the Marquis Manor," Master Zhou stabbed the twig back into the mud, "your daughter... is more like you than you think."

The wind swept his words away.

The night in South City was quiet, save for the sound of water.

Water seeped through the cracks of the embankment, drop by drop, falling into the mud.

Like a person, crouching in the muck, one by one, putting the loose stones back where they belonged.