Xiahou Ren said with a darkened face, “I’ll have someone send them over shortly.”

He paused, reluctant to give away the originals to Zhao Hanzhang, and thus said, “These are my years of painstaking work. I’d like to keep some as a memento. How about I make copies for you after I have them duplicated?”

“How could we trouble Uncle so? Tinghan is also skilled at drawing. Why not entrust the manuscripts to us, and let us do the copying?” Zhao Hanzhang smiled. “Once the drawings are complete, I will personally return the originals to Uncle.”

Xiahou Ren wanted to negotiate further, but Zhao Ming squinted and said, “Zitai wouldn’t be reluctant and thinking of going back on your word, would you?”

Xiahou Ren’s face darkened. The reason he had agreed first before bringing this up was precisely to avoid them thinking this way. Yet sure enough, they still thought it—truly small-minded people! Was he that kind of person?

Xiahou Ren flicked his sleeve and summoned his personal attendant, immediately ordering, “Go back and fetch all my Yuzhou manuscripts.”

Xiahou Ren’s manuscripts were all in his luggage trunks, so for someone like Xiahou Ren who loved to travel, if danger occurred, their life’s work could simply vanish into the long river of history.

Zhao Hanzhang felt she was helping preserve their life’s work for them. With this thought, she accepted the manuscripts the attendant brought over without any psychological burden.

There were many manuscripts. Although it was only the Yuzhou portion, it formed a thick stack. Most were recorded on paper, but some portions were recorded on silk cloth.

Zhao Hanzhang casually pulled out a roll of silk cloth and opened it to look. She discovered it was a topographical map of Shangcai, with handwriting that looked quite old—it should have been drawn several years ago.

Zhao Hanzhang raised her eyebrows slightly, rolled up the silk cloth, and said to the pained-looking Xiahou Ren, “Uncle, rest assured, I will definitely return the manuscripts as quickly as possible.”

Xiahou Ren tried his best not to look at those manuscripts on the table, because it truly pained him too much.

Zhao Ming quit while he was ahead and invited Xiahou Ren, “Our family has prepared some modest wine. Would Zitai drink with me?”

Xiahou Ren looked toward Zhao Hanzhang.

Zhao Ming said with a gratified expression, “Sanniang is most filial and is currently observing mourning for her eldest uncle, so she won’t join us.”

Xiahou Ren had no choice but to leave.

As Zhao Ming departed, he secretly glared at Zhao Hanzhang, warning her to behave herself lately—her reputation had already been established for her, so she better not ruin his good name.

Zhao Cheng looked disapproving. As far as he knew, Zhao Hanzhang had started drinking after the intense mourning period passed and wasn’t observing strict mourning. Fifth Brother doing this—wasn’t that deceiving people?

Zhao Hanzhang successfully received Zhao Ming’s signal, nodded slightly to him, and together with Fu Tinghan respectfully saw the five uncles off at the main gate.

Zhao Hanzhang stood at the main gate respectfully seeing them off. As soon as they walked away, the smile on her face immediately disappeared. She pulled Fu Tinghan and ran toward the house. “Quick, let’s go look at the manuscripts.”

Ji Yuan had also received the news and hurried over. The three of them examined Xiahou Ren’s manuscripts together.

Most of these were drawings, with only some written manuscripts. The written manuscripts mostly recorded local customs and conditions, along with some mountain and river situations.

For example, the Ying River was a branch coming out from the Huai River. Fifty li downstream, because the river channel was narrow, every three or five years the river would overflow. The local people believed it was the river god demanding tribute, so every three years they had to throw livestock offerings into the river.

The nearby villages found it increasingly difficult to afford the ever more expensive offerings and more people fled the villages. But Xiahou Ren believed the river flooding was due to silt accumulation in the channel—clearing the silt would solve it.

This also recorded his conversation with the local county magistrate about this matter.

The magistrate indicated he knew about it and had previously sent people to educate the villagers and arranged for each village to send laborers to clear the river channel. However, the villagers didn’t appreciate it and thought the magistrate was exhausting the people and wasting resources, offending the river god.

Because in the second year after clearing the silt, there was a major flood and the river still overflowed—even worse than previous years.

The magistrate complained bitterly, believing the river flooding at that time had two main reasons: first, that year’s rainfall happened to be more than previous years; second, the laborers were lazy and didn’t clear the silt according to his regulations. They dug up some silt, but there was still a section that hadn’t been cleared. This caused the river channel to become even more narrow and abrupt. When the upstream water flow surged and converged there, it broke through that section of river channel that hadn’t been cleared according to regulations.

However, since then, it had been very difficult for him to command people from those villages to clear silt again.

The magistrate simply gave up and let them continue their annual sacrifices.

Xiahou Ren expressed regret about this matter, then drew the river channel map and left.

Fu Tinghan carefully examined that section of river channel map and said, “To clear silt, just this one section isn’t enough. We need to start clearing from here, and it would be best to dig a new river channel to divert the flow. Not only can it control flooding, it can also increase irrigation for farmland.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “This engineering project is quite substantial and would require considerable manpower and resources.”

Ji Yuan said, “…My lady, the Ying River is in Ruyin, quite far from our Runan. Would you like to first look at the Runan maps?”

“Oh,” Zhao Hanzhang obediently put down that map and manuscript, and started searching for Runan maps.

They weren’t compiled into single sheets—basically one county per map, or sometimes several maps. Xiahou Ren’s mapmaking was also quite capricious. Sometimes village roads and paths were one map, sometimes he drew river channels separately.

Consolidating them into a single map would also be an enormous amount of work. However, this could be done later. For now, they should first copy them. But with so many drawings, and such fine detail, it was equally a huge project.

The three of them spent until evening just organizing them, separating out the various commanderies of Yuzhou, not yet dividing them by county.

Wang Shi came to check twice. Seeing them busy, she sent over food and left without further disturbing them.

She had just changed clothes and was about to lie down when the main gate was suddenly knocked upon. She was startled, “It’s already late at night, who could it be?”

Qinggu went out to inquire and soon returned, “It’s Master Ming, he went straight to the study.”

Wang Shi immediately felt worried, “This late at night… could something have happened?”

Qinggu said, “Could it be about the afternoon competition?”

Wang Shi only learned after Xiahou Ren left that her daughter had competed with someone, but because Zhao Hanzhang had won, she didn’t take it to heart.

Only now did she feel afraid. That Xiahou Ren’s status was quite high—perhaps he minded this competition?

Qinggu, seeing she was truly worried, said, “Shall I go check the study?”

“Go quickly,” Wang Shi turned in a circle and said, “Take some snacks. Also have the kitchen cook some meat. When I went to check in the evening, there were many manuscripts on the table. Mental work makes one hungry quickly, eating meat fills one up fast.”

Qinggu agreed.

Fu’an led Zhao Ming inside. Zhao Hanzhang looked up and casually nodded, “The night is so deep, Uncle, why have you still come over?”

Zhao Ming walked straight forward to look at those manuscripts before her. “What do you think?”

Zhao Hanzhang grinned and presented with both hands the half-organized drawings, “Look here, these are the mountain and river maps of Xiping and Shangcai.”

Zhao Ming opened them and even saw detailed markings of the Zhao family fortress, with even the several roads beside it clearly marked.

He couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine, “When was this drawn? How could Xiahou Ren draw it so detailed?”

“There’s a date below the map.”

Zhao Ming glanced at it, then raised his head to stare at Zhao Hanzhang. “How did you know Xiahou Ren had such maps?”