Chapter 290: Tangent (2)

There’s no need for grand explanations like ecology or anthropology – humans naturally live by rivers.

Why?

Surprisingly, because humans cannot live without water!

So Central Plains cities are usually built along rivers.

If it’s a big river they’re built alongside it, if it’s a small river they straddle it.

However, small villages are somewhat of an exception, located on vague ridges of mountainsides. This is a characteristic of clan villages completely fortified against raids from neighboring villages, a traditional Central Plains culture.

If it’s not that kind of closed-off neighborhood, they’re usually by rivers.

Meanwhile, the famous Yellow River, one of the three great rivers of the Central Plains, flows above Gamsan.

And the Luohe River, a tributary of the Yellow River, flows below Gamsan.

As an aside, Yellow River means “yellow river”, but the character 河 (he) itself means Yellow River.

The Yellow River is the cradle of civilization, and when these terrible primitive characters were first created, there was only one river – the Yellow River.

So saying “Yellow River” becomes “yellow Yellow (River)”, which when expanded becomes quite ungrammatical as “yellow yellow river river”.

Yellow yellow river river.

And the “Luo” in Luohe River uses the character 洛 from Yellow River. Expanded, this becomes “yellow yellow river (Luo) yellow river (he) river”.

Yellow yellow river yellow river river.

It could be said to be a river with a very strange name.

And so when Qing came down the mountain-

The land had been swept away by mud from flooding and become a wasteland, so they arrived in Luoning city with great difficulty, half-riding the carriage and half getting out to push it when the wheels got stuck.

However, the name of the city Luoning means “wishing peace for the Luohe River”.

As can be seen from this name, it means it’s a city that gets properly screwed when the Luohe River overflows.

And that Luohe River had overflowed.

“Ah…”

What greeted Qing, with mud caked below her knees falling off in clumps, was the horrific sight of a city already completely destroyed.

The city walls closest to the river had collapsed in heaps, and Central Plains people with strong civic consciousness were busily clearing away the debris.

Of course, this wall debris is perfectly recycled with no waste as they carefully take it to repair their own homes destroyed by the flood.

The flood had collapsed the gate tower connected to the city walls, so the gate had already lost its function.

There weren’t even guards at the gate, so they just rode the horses clop clop into the city, and on the left side of the main road by the river there were almost no obstacles blocking the view.

The right side wasn’t intact either, with people busily bailing out muddy water from the buildings that were somewhat intact, sweating profusely.

It’s fortunate if they’re even busy like that, as mostly there were just people sitting blankly with completely defeated expressions, visible everywhere you looked.

Qing’s heart felt heavy seeing that sight.

In fact, Qing had heard many times and knew that floods were a periodic event in the Central Plains.

Aren’t old cities usually built on layers of artifacts and basements buried by repeated floods?

But there was a clear difference between knowing and directly confirming it.

Then she thought of the luggage compartment full of gold.

Right. What would I use picked up gold for?

And there’s nothing that feels as good as being generous with someone else’s money.

But even with that thought, it’s overwhelming.

There’s gold, but what should I do with it?

Of course, Qing is someone who asks if she doesn’t know.

It was one of Qing’s few good points.

So Qing did that, tried to do that.

“Miss Seol. Perhaps. Haah… Never mind.”

I should ask someone I can ask.

Moreover, what would someone who lived in a place with only ice know about floods?

Qing tried thinking for herself for once.

Hmm. First, wouldn’t there be large merchant groups or grain merchants in the city? First use the gold to release food supplies, then pay large companies deposits to handle reconstruction work.

Ah. Right.

There should be an orthodox martial arts sect here too, locals would know better.

So Qing asked around for Luoning Martial Arts Hall, the orthodox sect of Luoning. Hmm. The name sounds completely local.

Qing drove the carriage towards Luoning Martial Arts Hall.

More precisely, the horse went on its own and slightly slowed at intersections, then Qing just pulled the reins to set the direction.

As they went slowly like that (because she didn’t know how to drive fast), a crowd of people gathered in a large open space came into view.

From the driver’s seat, beyond the densely packed heads was a boy hanging by his neck from a tree.

It seemed he was barely breathing, standing on something.

Qing stood up on the driver’s seat to raise her eye level, and saw the boy with the noose around his neck was barely standing on a man’s shoulders.

The man and boy’s faces looked exactly alike, clearly father and son to anyone who saw.

It was a pitiful sight of a son hanging by his neck, barely breathing while standing on his father’s shoulders.

People were throwing mud and stones to hit the father supporting his son, but even while being hit like that the man was desperately maintaining his balance to support his son.

Qing sees people a bit differently.

Rather than three-dimensionally, she sees the karma they possess as numbers, so she roughly gauges their history without being swayed by first impressions.

The man and boy.

21 points of evil karma, 1 point of good karma.

They seemed like ordinary people you could commonly see.

But you never know, so.

Qing lightly jumped down from the carriage, and Seol Iri moved to get down too, grabbing the armrest and bending her body to turn-

“Ah. Miss Seol should just stay here. Why follow when you’re not well? Sit and rest.”

“Yes.”

To Qing’s eyes, Seol Iri’s entire outer skin was covered in dark bruises, so her muscles couldn’t be intact.

So she moved clumsily, but was clearly trying very hard not to show pain, which was a bit pitiful.

But that’s all.

Qing cut off her interest and put her hand on a spectator’s shoulder.

“Hey. What’s going on here? Why is that person hanging there?”

“Why are you touching people’s shoulders, hey.”

The man shrugged off her hand irritably and turned his head, suffering the accident of receiving Qing’s harmful beauty up close.

Qing’s beauty is harmful.

It makes hearts pound excessively, causing blood pressure to spike which can lead to various side effects.

It’s harmful not just physically but very very mentally harmful beauty, so once seen it makes consciousness hazy, especially for married people.

They fall under a curse of seeing dried fish occupying their bedroom when they return home.

“What’s going on?”

“Ahem. Well you see. They say that man designed the flood control for the Luohe River.”

The man lowered his voice.

For some unknown reason, he thought lowering his voice made him sound cool.

“And?”

“He boasted loudly it would be fine for a thousand years, but what’s this? The embankments and dikes all burst from one heavy rain. If he hadn’t built anything the water would have just overflowed a bit, but because of him…”

Apparently there was flood control construction from late last autumn, building new sluice gates and embankments on the Luohe River.

But that was the root of the problem.

If nothing had been built, even with heavy rain the river would have just overflowed as usual and flooded, but building sluice gates to block the water caused the water level to exceed the limit when it rained.

So when the sluice gates burst and water rushed in all at once, the embankments were destroyed in one go.

This led to an even greater disaster engulfing the city, with the destroyed city walls alone showing the scale of the huge calamity.

“Hmm. So the father is the one who did the design?”

“That’s right.”

Barely 1 point of good karma.

But even just 1 point proves the child is innocent, so we can’t just let him die, can we?

“Hmm. Will you move aside?”

“Huh?”

Though she asked them to move, Qing’s arm was already moving, so a path opened up as people were pushed aside by her ox-like strength.

As Qing entered the center of the open space, the projectiles flying at her beauty immediately stopped.

At this, Qing leapt up to cut the rope and grabbed the boy, landing with a thud.

“Everyone, I understand you’re angry, but isn’t this child innocent? The guilty should be punished, but the child just had the misfortune of having the wrong father, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If it’s the father’s fault, of course the son should pay for the crime too!”

Someone shouted angrily.

Murmurs of “That’s right” and “Yeah” quickly spread.

Qing stomped the ground with a bang.

The murmurs that were about to spread again subsided at the vibration everyone felt through their feet.

For the ground to shake from one stomp.

The woman who looked like a fairy became even more fairy-like.

Of course, Qing had no intention of defending the father too.

Flood control construction is a critical matter with human lives at stake, so if there were flaws, he must take responsibility for the disaster whether intentional or not.

The flood victims have the right to throw stones, so it doesn’t matter if they throw stones or set fire to the man, but the child seems innocent.

If he had piled up 300 points of evil karma like that young master from the bandits, Qing would have happily joined in throwing stones, but even if it’s just 1 point, good karma is good karma, isn’t it?

The human heart is cunning, reacting differently to the same words depending on the speaker’s beauty.

When the suddenly appearing heavenly fairy-like peerless beauty spoke, people cleared their throats ahem and didn’t particularly object.

Hmm. But.

Qing looked at the flood control designer.

The father who had been desperately supporting his son now had a completely relieved expression, shooting infinite gratitude at Qing with his eyes.

21 points of evil karma.

Qing was gradually understanding these good and bad karma points, even if she couldn’t explain them exactly.

There’s no intent in good and bad karma.

Points are just assigned based on the results of an individual’s actions, so whether the flood control designer was intentionally negligent, made some calculation error, or didn’t know such heavy rain would fall, he would have received evil karma corresponding to the pain and sorrow from this disaster.

Yet only 21 points of evil karma.

To receive such massive evil karma yet have this score, wasn’t he usually a very kind good person?

That’s when.

“F-fairy! Please save our dad! Our dad is innocent!”

The boy who had been busy catching his breath cried out.

When Qing looked at the boy, he resolutely continued shouting:

“The design could easily handle this much water! If the construction had been done properly it wouldn’t have burst! It’s all because the construction wasn’t done right!”

Hmm. This is a new perspective.

As Qing tried to examine the man again-

“What does a little brat know to be spouting off! He’s just defending his father, how can you say that boy is innocent! We need to hang him up again right now!”

“Aish.”

At this, Qing drew her sword and raised it high, emitting pretty sparkling sword force.

It’s pretty starlight that makes everyone shut their mouths.

That’s because sword force has a sharpness that makes even people who don’t know martial arts, or rather especially commoners, feel like their hearts are dropping with a thud.

After silencing the crowd with a sword force demonstration, Qing examined the man again.

21 points of evil karma.

If the design was proper and he wasn’t involved in the construction, would he have received evil karma from this disaster, or not?

The flood control designer seemed to interpret Qing’s gaze differently.

“…That’s right.”

“What did you say? The construction was done wrong?”

“Having my name left on flood control works like Dogang Sluice Gate was my lifelong wish. It was designed to withstand rain like yesterday for thirty days, a whole month straight.”

“But it burst, didn’t it?”

“The sluice gates should have been opened bit by bit before the water level rose, but the operation may have been unskilled, or the construction may have been shoddy from the start.”

“Hmm. You feel wronged, so why are you only saying this now?”

“I did say it, but then they brought my son…”

“Lies! Lies! That bastard is trying to shift blame to innocent workers-“

Look here. Sparkle sparkle again.

Qing was thrilled at the power of sword force.

Wow. With one shot of this everyone just goes “Let’s all die together”.

But anyway.

Qing extended her sword towards where the voice came from.

“Just now? Who spoke? Someone has been objecting continuously. If you have something to say, you should come out and say it. Why are you hiding? Won’t you come out here?”