My Lady Says She Wants to Marry Me - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

By the time Lu Youming woke again, the sky was pitch black. Her stomach was growling in loud protest; she had literally been woken up by hunger.

“So hungry…” She muttered, sitting up in the dark on the small couch in the study. She used a fire striker to light a candle, and a faint, flickering glow filled the room.

“Master, shall I serve the meal?” Xiao Wu’s voice came from outside. Lu Youming rubbed her eyes, adjusted her robes, and opened the door. “What time is it?”

“It is just past the middle of the Xu hour (around 8:00 PM), Master. Should I bring the food?” Xiao Wu stepped forward respectfully. He noticed that even though he was a servant, he didn’t dare help her dress. Lu Youming did everything herself—including washing her own undergarments. While the servants found it strange, no one dared to comment; the rules of the Shao and Su households were strict, and under Su Wanrou’s authority, any idle gossip could lead to being sold off.

“Serve it. I’m starving,” Lu Youming replied. She had become accustomed to the formal speech of the era; it felt natural now within this environment.

Over in the main house, Su Wanrou knew Lu Youming had woken up. Knowing she would likely head back to the yamen soon, Su Wanrou had ordered the kitchen to prepare easily digestible pastries as a late-night snack for her husband to take along. She thoughtfully noted that the people at the yamen were likely too busy to eat proper meals, so having snacks to tide them over would be helpful.

After eating and packing a change of clothes, Lu Youming prepared to leave. She needed to head back to relieve the Master Secretary so he could rest. The Magistrate and Vice-Magistrate were nearly seventy; she couldn’t let the elders pull all-nighters, so the burden of the night shift fell to her, the youngest.

An abrupt storm like this triggered a massive domino effect. While the county seat was currently stable, the surrounding rural townships needed surveying, and official reports had to be drafted for the Prefect. If they could manage the disaster locally, they wouldn’t have to petition the imperial court for relief funds.

When Lu Youming arrived at the yamen with the food box, the senior officials were huddled in the hall, buried in paperwork as various clerks reported in.

“Zijin is here. Good. Let them tell you which areas are hit; I am calculating the emergency budget,” the Vice-Magistrate said without looking up, waving the messengers toward Lu Youming’s desk.

Lu Youming set the food box aside and had a servant distribute the snacks. “Sit down,” she told the clerks. “Eat while you talk. We need to save time.”

“I am the Granary Warden,” one clerk reported. “Thanks to your timely warning, we used sandbags to seal the granaries. The losses have been minimized.”

“Check for leaks constantly,” Lu Youming warned. “That is life-saving grain; it cannot be lost.”

The reports came in a dizzying blur:

“The Daqing River level has dropped slightly…”

“No word yet from the five submerged villages…”

“Two more villages have been hit by rising water…”

Lu Youming’s head throbbed as she recorded the data. By the time the briefing ended, the pastries Su Wanrou had sent were gone. She sent the river official back to the embankments with two fresh horses, touched by his dedication.

Left alone on night duty, Lu Youming sat under eight flickering candles, compiling the reports into a formal document for the Magistrate to review in the morning. She sighed; she had joined up to catch thieves, but here she was doing high-stakes administrative work.

As a light drizzle began to fall again, she sat on the porch listening to the rain. A cold dread settled in her gut. She had a premonition: a true flood was coming.

Su Wanrou’s sleep was fitful. She dreamed of her mother, who had been gone for a long time. In the dream, her mother stood in the middle of a river, waving her away, urging her to leave quickly.

“Mother! Mother, come back!” Su Wanrou cried out in her sleep. She bolted upright, drenched in cold sweat. A maid quickly lit a candle. “Miss, a nightmare?”

Su Wanrou wiped her brow and looked at the empty couch in the room. She realized she had developed a habit of checking that couch every time she woke up. Knowing Lu Youming was there made her feel safe. They shared a secret; Lu Youming listened to her, read with her, and respected her ideas without ever overstepping.

Is there truly such a man in this world? Su Wanrou wondered. Being in the same space as Lu Youming never felt oppressive. She even carried a faint scent of green wood—like cedar or sunshine.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the memory of the dream: her mother drifting away on a small boat. Her heart ached, and tears began to flow.

At the start of the Mao hour (5:00 AM), the sound of a galloping horse shattered the silence of the county seat. Someone hammered on the yamen gates.

“Inform the Magistrate! The flood peak is coming! It has breached the upper embankments! Inform the Magistrate!”

Lu Youming sprinted out to meet the messenger. The river official, covered in mud and gasping for air, grabbed her arm. “Sheriff… quickly… tell the people to evacuate!”

Lu Youming’s face turned pale. The Magistrate arrived, half-dressed, and immediately ordered the gongs to be sounded. The entire county was to evacuate within one hour.

The darkness of the night was filled with the sounds of crying and chaos as people scrambled to pack. Su Wanrou was hurried into a carriage by Liu Qing. The Lu residence was locked tight, with sandbags piled against the doors in a desperate hope to save the structure.

A long line of torches illuminated the frightened citizens as they fled the city gates toward high ground. Lu Youming stayed behind to coordinate. She saw the Magistrate’s carriage off first. “Zijin, I leave the final details to you,” the old man wept.

“Don’t worry, Excellency. Go, quickly!”

Once the bulk of the population had cleared the gates, Lu Youming asked her subordinate, Yang Zhi, “Is my wife safely out?”

“I saw her carriage leave with my own eyes, sir! Everyone is out—we must go now!”

“Not yet. We seal the gates first.” Using the same method as her housekeeper, Lu Youming led a dozen men to block the city gates with sandbags to buy the town some time.

“Sir! The flood is here! We have to go!” a lookout screamed. The water was less than a mile away.

Lu Youming grabbed a rope, secured it to her waist, and kicked off the battlements, sliding down the four-meter wall in seconds. “Tighten your waists! Keep your feet steady! Don’t look down—slide!” she commanded the others.

They leaped onto their horses and raced for the hills. Halfway there, a roar like thunder filled the air—the sound of the flood peak. The muddy water surged forward, obliterating everything in its path.

“Ride faster! The water is here!” Lu Youming bellowed.

Su Wanrou, watching from a carriage on the hillside, saw the torches of the late-comers. As the first light of dawn broke, the relentless wall of brown water finally hit, sweeping away those who hadn’t reached the heights in time.