Chapter 88

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In the following few days, Guo Zhengtong led me on a tour all about the place, including some of the fledgling stages of his water management techniques; generous improvements on levees with the addition of narrow bypass channels, and he’s evidently experienced and interested in this.

He asked me for my opinion. I don’t know a single thing about controlling riverflow apart from that it’s best to plant trees in the Loess Plateau to act as a barrier to prevent soil erosion, but it’s not something that’ll take effect immediately, so I find it embarrassing to say. On the contrary, he was overjoyed, praising the originality of my idea. I can’t react for a long time. “This will only yield results after a few decades.”

He still very excited. “Nevertheless, this is a true strategy to fix this!” He gazes into the distance, as if already imagining the day the Yellow River will be free of floods.

I thought of saying that after a few decades, you and I might not be around, but I didn’t. Guo Zhengtong is the kind of person to believe that “sons and grandsons are an inexhaustible resource”, completely unlike me. I’m solely occupied with the speculators before my eyes. It’s completely unlike those who have a firm conviction and are willing to devote themselves to one thing for a lifetime. I don’t know if it’s a gap in era or a difference in personality.

Guo Zhengtong’s methods as an official are something I don’t wish to comment further on, as it’s completely different from me in any case. In this moment, however, I sincerely feel respect for him. It’s a person like him that will make wonders happen on the Earth. If I were a sort without grand ambitions, I would say: the Great Wall, the Pyramids, and the Grand Canal are all things that don’t need to exist.

Guo Zhengtong takes out a book from his sleeve, noting down what I’d said. I take a curious look at it and see that it’s a handwritten manuscript with the two words “River Policy” on it. It’s thick and densely packed with characters, the cover being very old-fashioned with different kinds of handwriting in it, an untold amount of blood and sweat spent on it. Flipping through a few pages, there’s no lack of insightful opinions, with even the tiniest points being considered.

I stand at a surviving river dam, the wind strong and constantly blowing my hair to block my line of sight. I bow my head with nothing to say for a long while.

I don’t want to keep using bureaucratic words to handle this situation. After not speaking, I ask, “Do you have a rough budget for this, Sir Guo? How much will it cost?”

Guo Zhengtong froze, then slowly came to understand what I meant, an incomparably ecstatic expression emerging from his homely face. This is the first time I’ve seen such a profound joy.

He gave me a numeric number. I lower my head for a while, then raise it and speak candidly. “Sir Guo, this amount is currently impossible to take from the national treasury. However, in the future, the treasury will gradually become more and more abudant. I can allocate you some silver every year; it might be lesser at the beginning, but it’ll get larger as time goes on. Even if it takes one or two decades, and so long as you and I haven’t died, there will be a day where it’s all finished. As it’s so, you must plan it out well on which areas are most urgent and need to be done first, as even if it’s urgent and gets repaired, if the upper currents aren’t handled well it’ll still get washed away. Fruitless work is something we cannot do. There isn’t much money, and the silver for a few hundred workers is something we can’t afford to squander.”

His eyes widened in an instant, hands trembling. It was only after a very long time that he managed to squeeze his voice out from his throat. “Sir…”

He suddenly knelt down to me on the dike, wailing as he spoke. “Sir, this lowly official will put his life into this without hesitation!”

My back also trembles, throat constricting with a sob, but I stubbornly keep calm and help him up. “Sir Guo, I should be thanking you many times, for the people of this realm.”

Guo Zhengtong’s tears pour down, dripping onto the dam’s smooth white stone. His rough, suntanned, chicken claw-like hands have been trembling the whole time, and his whole body is stooped over.

I think that, in this plane of existence, this should be a scene written down in history books, yes? It’s hard to believe that I had entered a drama like so. In this world, with the pitfall of this social circle getting deeper and deeper, can someone in that position not cast off their sense of mission?

Guo Zhengtong presently being unswerving to me is at least putting me at a lot of ease. In addition to that, the disaster relief efforts are being conducted in a methodical manner, and includes the post-disaster reconstruction.

Xiao Lu followed Guo Zhengtong all day long. Recalling what he’d said before about wanting to be a good official, and also about how his family was homeless and ruined due to a flood, it’s reasonable that all of his worship has now been concentrated onto Guo Zhengtong. When I think of him, I think of Xiao Zhu and her mostly similar situation. Where is she stranded now? I didn’t have the chance to ask Jinzi last time.

Jinfeng has been around less, as if he’s intentionally avoiding me. I’m starting to fear that that day on horseback wasn’t just me thinking too much. When a thirteen-year-old boy begins to develop, there will be inexplicable fantasies and urges, spring dreams, nocturnal emissions, and curiosity, but none of it means anything. Even if he’s seeing me as the target of a sexual fantasy, it doesn’t mean he likes me. He’s just a kid. Maybe tomorrow’s sexual fantasy target will be switched to Hong Feng. An even higher probability might be that the space upon a horse’s back is too small, and with friction added…

In short, there needs to be an adult to straighten things out and teach them healthy and correct sex-ed, so that they don’t suffer the confusion and get psychological shadows, feeling like they’re being sinful!

But… I’m suffering as I think of how the most-suited and most-logical one for this, Jinzi, isn’t around.

I… I’m not very suitable for this.

Just do it. Why can’t I just do it? I’m a man now, too.

I steeled myself, stood up, and went to find Jinfeng. The boy’s hidden well, as I wasn’t able to find him for a long time, only finding this Yuan Qingyun guy.

“Hah?” I struck first after bumping into him. “Where are you running off to?”

Don’t blame me for being suspicious about him. The bloke had dressed up flirtatiously at the Everfragrant Mansion as that’s what the job needed, and he wouldn’t be dressed so flashily now that he’s moved to a disaster area. Today, though, he’s wearing thin, ice-blue robes with a Jacquard weave.

What’s annoying is that no matter what this incubus wears, he’s very unreasonably MANLY, and entirely unlike me. I, according to Jinzi, am femininely enticing even in my official’s robes.

[T/N: That ‘manly’ was in English, and all-caps, in the original text.]

How very irritating.

Yuan Qingyun seemed to be flustered for a moment, but next he grinned, showing off his neat white teeth. “I’m looking for ice.”

“You’re looking for ice,” I repeated with a raised tone.

“Yeah.” He seemed a bit uncomfortable. “The weather’s getting unbearably hot, and you seem to really not like heat. Every family has an icehouse with ice in it, but I didn’t think that it’d be so destitute here that the provincial governor’s official residence wouldn’t even have one.”

“Guo Zhengtong’s place would naturally not have such an extravagant trifle.” After he said all that, I really do want to drink a bowl of chilled plum soup. However… Yuan Qingyun, having good intentions? I don’t believe that. He was sneaking off to try to do God-knows-what. I have to take extra special care here.

Yuan Qingyun looked me up and down, smiling lazily. “What are you going to do?”

“Have you seen Jinfeng?”

He smirked. “I have.”

Jinfeng was actually hiding in a tree; a bay laurel with a complicated branches and a great many leaves. The laurel’s leaves are thick and extremely acidic to taste, and are used to induce vomiting when eaten. Therefore, while other trees were stripped bare, this one’s lush foliage remains.

I raise my head and call out to all corners of the tree. “Jinfeng! Jinfeng!” After calling him a few times, the boy slips out from it, his tiny face dark. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.” A smile blossoms from my face. “I didn’t even see your shadow for a few days, so I was a little worried.”

He snorted.

I smile at Yuan Qingyun in a ‘your usefulness is over, please vanish from my sight now’ way. “Thanks for your trouble.”

He wasn’t mad, merely giving me his languid grin and carelessly going off elsewhere.

I half-pull, half-drag the unwilling Jinfeng to a secluded place with no one around. He’s quite annoyed, violently struggling away from my hand and raging, “Let go!”

I let go as ordered, then starting thinking about my wording.

“What are you actually doing?” His face is now darker than the bottom of a pan.

Thinking of it back and forth, I decide to first talk about his older brother. “Jinfeng, your brother–“

The little thing is like a hedgehog with one mention of his brother, all his hair puffing up. “What do you want to say?” He asks coldly.

Why is it so hard to communicate with children? I sigh. “Your brother wouldn’t abandon you, or leave you aside. He just has something important he has to do.”

Jinfeng flushed as he sneered. “You want to say that I don’t know my own brother? Then who are you?”

Okay, I’ll admit defeat. Choosing the sensitive subject of Jinzi was my mistake. I’ll just get right to the point.

I take a deep breath. “Jinfeng, have you felt any changes with your body recently?”

“What do you mean?” He looked at me suspiciously, then his face suddenly turned green. “You poisoned me!”

Do… do I laugh or cry? How did he come to this conclusion? “Why would I poison you?”

“Because…” A trace of dark red flashes on his face before disappearing. “Because my brother doesn’t want you! You want to use me to blackmail him into coming back!”

Because his brother doesn’t want me?

A fire blazes in me.

Why isn’t his brother refusing to be with me?

Is Jinzi and I’s relationship so evident at a glance? Even little brats can see it?

I close my eyes, tamping down the fire: I have to be reasonable with a kid.

“Hmph. If I wanted to blackmail him, so long as I told him I’d done it, would I actually have to do anything to you?”

Jinfeng doesn’t have anything to say.

“Well then,” I see that he’s no longer grumbling, and quickly ask, “what changes have there been recently? Is there any hair growing anywhere, for example? Are you having any strange dreams?”

Once he heard me say ‘hair growing anywhere’, he jumped back in revulsion as if I were something disgusting. “What are you thinking of doing?” He said, full of caution.

He’s acting like I want to molest him.

That’s discouraging. What does it matter if Jinfeng learns about sexuality from me? He’s just my Jinzi’s little brother. Even if his sexuality warps when he grows up, what psychological shadow would be affecting it? The majority of ancient people’s sexualities are warped anyways, right? There’s a lot in modern times too. Even Jinzi wouldn’t blame me for talking about it.

I look at him with dismay, weakly shaking my head. “Let’s act like I didn’t say anything, and that I didn’t come looking for you…” Saying so, I turn around and leave.

Unexpectedly, after a few steps out, Jinfeng said something in a very weak voice. I didn’t hear it clearly, so I turned and asked him, “What did you say?”

Jinfeng’s complexion is somewhat pale and his eyes seem to be a bit watery, yet he’s biting his lip extremely hard, hands clenching in the hem of his robes. He looks like he’s struggling with something. “I… I did recently have… weird dreams…”