The Scholar’s Unconventional Little Wife - Chapter 11

Chen San’s handwriting was crooked, with the occasional typo, but his records were incredibly detailed.

“Third month, third day. Heard that the upstream quarry sorts its stone into three grades. Top-grade ‘Face Stone’ is square and hard, reserved for the Prefectural Office, city gates, and other prominent facades. Mid-grade ‘Ramming Stone’ is acceptable for building embankments. Low-grade ‘Grit Stone’ is full of cracks, easily shattered, and sells for less than half the price of mid-grade stone. Yonggu Stone Company mostly supplies a mix of Grit Stone, covered with a layer of good stone on the outside, or uses it exclusively for the inner sides of embankments and underwater sections where it’s hard to inspect.”

“Third month, tenth day. There’s also something fishy about the dimensions of the stone. The official specifications for embankment stones are three feet long, one foot wide, and eight inches thick. However, the ones actually delivered are mostly two feet nine inches long, nine and a half inches wide, and seven and a half inches thick. By saving a little on each block, across thousands or tens of thousands of stones, the saved material and labor costs add up to a massive sum. During inspections, they pile the good stones on the outside and stuff the shorter ones inside.”

“Third month, twenty-second day. The porridge stall served noon porridge. Li Si fainted from hunger and fell into the pot, scalding his arm. The supervisor, Baldy Zhao, accused him of slacking and gave him ten lashes. Usually, the porridge is so thin you can see the bottom of the pot, with only a few grains of rice. But on the same day in the afternoon, the Prefectural Office came to inspect, and the porridge stall temporarily switched to thick porridge. The lords passed by quickly without stopping.”

“The seventh night of the fourth month. On watch, hiding from the rain, listening at the wall. Two runners, drunk, said that over thirty percent of the river construction silver ‘drifted away’ this time. One laughed, ‘Enough to buy another mansion in the east of the prefectural city and keep three or five courtesans.’ The other said, ‘Watch your words. If the dike holds, it’s our merit; if it fails… it’s just an act of God.'”

The words were chilling.

Inappropriately, Lin Ruo’an’s mind flashed back to those anti-corruption documentaries she’d watched in the modern era, and the social news that had flooded the internet. Good grief, she thought, the corrupt officials of ancient and modern times, East and West, all use the same old tricks. Even a professional term like ‘drifted away’ has such a long history!

In the last few pages, Chen San’s handwriting became increasingly erratic and trembling, recording the horrors of the days when the dike breached. How the water swallowed villages, how floating corpses choked the river channels, how the few who managed to survive struggled in the mud like ants… and the officials, not a single shadow to be seen.

Lin Ruo’an cursed under her breath, a feeling of suffocation tightening in her chest. She slammed the private records shut and took several deep breaths.

She pressed her palms against her forehead, rubbing her throbbing temples.

She had come here for the Imperial Examination, a woman disguised as a man in a world that would never accept her. Just surviving in this strange era was hard enough. To recklessly play the “undercover journalist” or “anti-corruption crusader” would be nothing short of suicidal.

Knowing too much could be a curse, especially when you were powerless.

But another voice shrieked in her mind: What about Zhou Wenyuan? The article he was preparing would undoubtedly glorify the “successful disaster relief,” painting a picture of perfect peace and order. It would even portray the very vermin who had bled the people dry, skimming off every inch of stone, every pound of earth, every bowl of rice—as diligent officials who had exhausted themselves for the public good.

Was she supposed to write like that too? To churn out insincere, flowery prose, pretending she didn’t know that beneath this “achievement,” every stone was an inch too short, every cart of earth was mixed with sand, and every bowl of porridge was as clear as water? To watch Zhou Wenyuan, and perhaps countless others like him, climb the ladder of power on the backs of these filthy secrets and whitewashed reports, continuing the cycle?

Conflict. Rage. And a fierce, burning resentment.

Why should those parasites, who fattened themselves on the blood and flesh of the common people, be allowed to don their splendid official robes and continue their reign of terror? Why should the struggling masses, after being squeezed dry, be forced to swallow their own blood and broken teeth in silence?

She reopened the private journal, her gaze fixed on the specific names, locations, and dates. A realization dawned on her: she couldn’t quote it directly. Doing so would endanger Blind Liu and likely bring trouble upon herself.

But… she could use these facts as a skeleton, fleshing it out with deductions and arguments. She would strip away the facade of a “natural disaster” and expose the man-made calamity at its core!

Yes! That’s it! I’ll write a manifesto disguised as a policy proposal! I’ll tear those bastards to shreds!

Her inner critic roared to life, transforming the suffocating frustration of reading the journal into a fierce, combat-ready passion.

She spread out a fresh sheet of paper and ground the ink. But as her brush hovered over the page, she hesitated. Insulting people was easy, but crafting a reasoned, evidence-based policy proposal required skill.

Just as she was racking her brain, a soft knock sounded at the door.

“Come in.”

Xu Wangyou entered cautiously, carrying a coarse earthenware bowl. Inside was a milky-white soup, steaming gently with a few goji berries and red dates floating on top.

“Mother sent this,” she said, placing the bowl on the corner of the desk. Her eyes flickered to the open journal and the messy, scribbled-over draft paper beside it. “Drink it while it’s hot.”

“Thank you.” Lin Ruo’an picked up the bowl. The temperature was perfect. With one sip, the warm, subtly sweet liquid, fragrant with dates, spread from her throat down to her stomach.

“It’s delicious,” she said, her voice filled with genuine pleasure.

Xu Wangyou’s gaze fell on the words “man-made disaster” and “parasites” written with such force on Lin Ruo’an’s manuscript that they seemed to pierce through the paper. She tilted her head, looking slightly puzzled. “Is it that difficult to write?”

“Yes,” Lin Ruo’an put down her bowl and sighed. “Trying to explain things clearly without being too clear… It’s like dancing on a knife’s edge!”

Xu Wangyou seemed to half-understand. She thought for a moment and said, “It’s like… cutting meat. You have to use finesse, following the grain rather than hacking at it. Otherwise, the meat will shred, and you’ll likely cut your hand.”

Lin Ruo’an froze, then her eyes lit up. That analogy… is brilliant!

That’s it! I can’t attack head-on! I have to cut along the grain of “the Sage’s teachings” and “serving the country and the people!” On the surface, it’s a discussion of the successes and failures of flood control, but in reality, every stroke will target official corruption and regulatory failure! I’ll wrap the bloody facts in the language of Confucian ethics! Chen San’s Private Records will be my blade, but I must master the angle and force of each swing!

“Wangyou, you’re a genius!” Lin Ruo’an slapped the table in excitement, nearly knocking over the bowl of soup.

Xu Wangyou jumped, startled. She blinked blankly, having no idea what profound thing she had just said.

Lin Ruo’an didn’t have time to explain. The inspiration had struck, and there was no stopping it now. She grabbed her brush and began scribbling furiously on the manuscript paper.

First, she established a grand thesis: To control the waters, one must first control the officials; to secure the levees, one must first secure the foundation.

Then, she began citing precedents, tracing the history of river engineering from Yu the Great’s Flood Control to the successes and failures of subsequent dynasties. With a sharp turn of phrase, she pivoted to her main point: Yet the failures of recent times are not due to Heaven’s lack of favor, but to the corruption of men.

From there, she could make logical deductions and draw cautionary tales. She took the specific cases from Chen San’s Private Records, broke them down, and blurred the details, transforming them into a barrage of razor-sharp arrows aimed at the stone traders, supervisors, runners, and even the Prefect behind them.

She wrote with such intensity that her brush seemed to dance across the page. At times she gritted her teeth, at others her face lit up with excitement, her inner monologue racing alongside her pen:

This line is perfect! The sarcasm is off the charts! Old Man Chen would probably pull his own beard out in frustration if he read this!

“A hair’s breadth of error leads to a thousand miles of collapse.” These eight characters describe both the engineering and the governance. They’ll understand exactly what I mean.

Zhou Wenyuan, if you truly know the truth, how can you still write your panegyrics to the Emperor with a clear conscience after reading phrases like “the cunning manipulate the system” and “small corruptions accumulate into a great disaster”?

Xu Wangyou stood quietly by the side, watching Lin Ruo’an. The latter was sometimes frowning in deep thought, sometimes writing furiously, her brush scratching relentlessly across the paper. Only after Lin Ruo’an finished a long passage, set down her brush, took a deep breath, and stretched her wrist did Xu Wangyou speak softly, “Do you need more soup?”

Only then did Lin Ruo’an realize she hadn’t left. A warmth spread through her heart as she shook her head. “No, you should go to bed.”

Xu Wangyou nodded, walked to the door, and then turned back to glance at the closed private journal. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked in a low voice, “Is everything written in that book… true?”

Lin Ruo’an nodded. “It was written by an eyewitness.”

“Oh,” Xu Wangyou murmured, then added earnestly, “The person who wrote this book is very meticulous.” With that, she gently closed the door and left.

Lin Ruo’an stared at the closed door, savoring Xu Wangyou’s words. Meticulous? Perhaps. In that kind of environment, remembering such details required more than just meticulousness, it required a kind of perseverance. It was the courage of a small figure using the most concrete numbers and words to record the facts that were about to be erased by the flood and the adults.

She shook her head, casting aside irrelevant emotions, and looked back at the words she had written. The framework was complete, but it still needed flesh and blood, the polishing of phrases. This would be a hard battle, but she was now brimming with fighting spirit.

Support