Returning to the Su residence toward evening, Ning Yi took out paper and brush and began writing down some regulations and provisions on disaster relief and epidemic prevention. Having mulled over these issues many times these past days, putting them down on paper wasn’t especially difficult.

Modern disaster relief strategies naturally differed from those of ancient times and couldn’t simply be copied wholesale. But in many respects — stronger oversight and checks, more orderly prioritization of tasks, greater foresight in numerous areas — modern approaches were, without question, superior. These ideas needed to be combined with and adjusted to the actual circumstances of the Wu dynasty before they could be put to use. This naturally included many methods of disease prevention, but also a pyramid-style structure and system for how to direct, allocate, and manage the refugees — a kind of management philosophy that was precisely Ning Yi’s specialty, and so he wrote it all down together.

Part of the reason for drawing up these provisions was, admittedly, a certain measure of compassion. As a modern man, even one well accustomed to the darker side of the world, the thought of countless people, over the span of a few months, simply falling sick or starving to death was, to some degree, hard to bear. He wasn’t truly cold-blooded — it was simply that a powerful rationality often let him see many things clearly, suppressing a good deal of feeling in the process. Of course, compassion was only part of it; the other part concerned some scheming of his own regarding other matters — the second gift he planned to give old Qin tomorrow.

He spent that entire night busily writing. When Xiao Chan came in carrying a bowl of iced silver-ear soup to urge him to hurry and drink it, he paused briefly to chat with her. “If Young Master won’t eat it, the ice will melt away for nothing…”

Ordinarily Xiao Chan wouldn’t have interrupted him while he was so absorbed in his work, but ice in summer was simply too precious, which was why she’d say something even at the risk of sounding a bit put out. After finishing the soup, he returned to writing with full concentration; Xiao Chan sat quietly in the corner of the room with her needlework, sewing a shoe sole. Su Tan’er also came by once, and seeing him writing so intently, exchanged a smile with Xiao Chan and left.

The next morning, jogging over to Nie Yunzhu’s little building, Nie Yunzhu, sipping her tea, brought up Yuan Jin’er’s recent doings.

“Jin’er’s actually mentioned you for quite a while now — who would’ve thought your first meeting would turn out to be like that yesterday. Ha, Jin’er can be a bit much sometimes — Liheng, don’t hold it against her.”

“Not at all,” Ning Yi laughed. “She’s quite genuine, really.” Does she come by the shop often?”

“Not really — she doesn’t have that much free time. I go visit her occasionally instead. She’s seemed a bit down these past few days.”

“What’s wrong? Is she upset that Qilan won Courtesan of the Realm?”

Yuan Jin’er’s temperament was actually quite good, and given the century-egg matter, Ning Yi had a fairly favorable impression of her — his mind already turning over various verses he could use to help boost her reputation.

Nie Yunzhu shook her head at that.

“Not at all — Jin’er never wanted that title in the first place. Her low spirits are mostly, I think, because of what happened to Feng Xiaojing not long ago.”

“Hm?”

“You were still outside the city those days, so you might not know. After the pageant, Chen Yong, the commander of the Wulie Army, went and harassed Feng Xiaojing again… This kind of thing happened once before — back then, Feng Xiaojing was the reigning courtesan and was nearly driven to jump off a building over it. This time it happened again, only worse — Chen Yong’s wife, believing Feng Xiaojing had been seducing her husband, brought some guards over and beat her, chasing her all through the streets, and by the end she was nearly beaten to death, they say. She’s still bedridden recovering, and there are rumors she’s disfigured or crippled — no one’s quite sure yet. The Yueran Tower where Feng Xiaojing works filed a complaint with the authorities, then withdrew it a few days later, and that was the end of it. The reasons for that hardly need explaining. Jin’er apparently happened to be passing by that day and saw it happen — probably felt some measure of pity for herself, seeing it.”

“Oh.” Ning Yi nodded. “No wonder she wants to go work as a server at Zhuji… If she really does become a server there, I think I could pay her double, or even triple, the usual wage — guarantee she’ll never get beaten.”

Nie Yunzhu laughed. “Trust you to come up with that.”

“Ha, well, let’s just hope she marries soon.”

Nie Yunzhu smiled faintly, lowering her eyes slightly.

Not long after, as the sky brightened, Ning Yi left the little building. After watching his retreating figure disappear, Nie Yunzhu sighed softly and picked up the tea tray to go back inside. Hutao was in the room, watching her with some resentment. “Miss, do you realize that if this keeps up, and that Su Tan’er ever comes looking for you, we’ll both be beaten to death? And you keep talking about some ‘friendship between gentlemen’ — if she really gets the wrong idea, she won’t care about any of that.”

Nie Yunzhu glanced at her, then broke into a happy, even mischievous smile. “Fine then, let her beat me to death. If I really were beaten to death, he’d definitely come…” She thought about this, then sighed again, setting down the tray. “Except if that really happened… it would put him in a difficult position.”

Hutao looked utterly distressed. “Miss, please don’t be crazy — men are all like that. Don’t be fooled by how sweet-talking he seems now; if his proper wife really came knocking, he wouldn’t dare show up, and besides, he’s a matrilocal son-in-law! That Su family young lady is so formidable! Miss…”

“Don’t you dare talk about him like that!” Nie Yunzhu glanced back at her, though there wasn’t really much anger in it — her mind was busy imagining what it might be like if she really were beaten to death. Hutao’s face crumpled with worry, fretting to herself. After a moment, Nie Yunzhu took a deep breath, turned back, picked up the plain peasant-style headscarf beside her and wrapped it around her head. As she passed by Hutao, she pinched the maid’s cheek.

“Hutao, you really are adorable — getting prettier every day… ought to get married soon.”

Saying this cheerfully, she lowered her head as she stepped out through the door, and murmured to herself, somewhat playfully and willfully, about certain things.

I simply won’t marry…

…

After finishing his morning class and eating, Ning Yi went down to the Qinhuai riverside, where Kang Xian was already waiting for him. Kang Xian was, in fact, rather interested in whatever Ning Yi tended to bring out, though he certainly hadn’t expected something like this particular manuscript.

Poetry, some novel and interesting but rather heterodox ideas, chalk, century eggs, and so on — for both Qin Siyuan and Kang Xian, though these things had all been interesting, they were still, in the end, minor sideshows. Most of the time they simply thought Ning Yi rather talented, and figured that if he were ever truly put in charge of something, he wouldn’t disappoint — but that had always remained mere speculation, never truly put to the test. Once this document was brought out, though, that view began to shift.

The Wu dynasty already had similar provisions for disaster relief and epidemic prevention, but they differed considerably from what Ning Yi had written, being mostly oriented toward stability above all — should trouble arise, the army would forcibly suppress it, or the refugees would simply be left to fend for themselves, and so on; in short, the priority was avoiding damage to the fundamentals. The group had originally still been chatting and laughing, but upon opening the little booklet and seeing the title, they grew serious, their expressions turning grave. By the time they finished reading, they sat in silence for a long while, until Kang Xian finally had Lu A’Gui go fetch the Wu dynasty’s own disaster relief provisions to compare point by point, then began asking about the hygiene-related sections, with Ning Yi explaining beside the go board.

“Epidemics of this sort tend to spread first through unsanitary, filthy conditions, so the first priority should be addressing that as much as possible… In terms of the resources at hand, there’s usually never enough management personnel — an entire region full of refugees is bound to be chaotic. Have the officials at every level delegate authority downward, select one or two tiers of managers from among the refugees themselves, and quickly tell them what needs doing…”

“It’s still summer for now, so find open, well-ventilated ground and quickly put up shelters to block sun and rain, keeping things as orderly as possible. Dig latrine pits and drainage ditches at suitable spots around the perimeter, and get whatever quicklime can be found shipped to the disaster area as fast as possible, sprinkling it both inside and around the gathering points for disinfection. Assign people specifically to spread the word — dead rats, dead fish and shrimp, these must never be eaten! Any dead rat found should be burned and buried at once…”

“Also designate a separate area — anyone showing signs of illness, headache, fever, coughing with phlegm, diarrhea, whatever it may be, send them there immediately, separated into severe and mild cases, with strict isolation. I know supplies will fall short in many places, so I’ve listed a priority order for what needs to be secured. As long as cloth can be found, physicians must wear face coverings; clean water sources matter a great deal; dead fish, shrimp, and rats absolutely cannot be allowed…”

“As long as order can be maintained, then arrange for officials to be selected level by level — it’s purely a matter of manpower at that point. Someone needs to spread word of the dangers of rotting things, the dangers of rats, the dangers of overly filthy conditions — a bit of dirt can’t entirely be avoided, just try to make sure nothing goes into people’s mouths. As long as a clean water source can be found, washing hands should always be possible. Have people spread word of the court’s relief measures — how much grain and funds are on the way, and so on… Of course, all of this depends on them at least receiving a baseline ration — in most parts of our realm, that standard probably hasn’t even been reached yet…”

Ning Yi went on for a while, and Kang Xian nodded along. “Most places still have some reserve of relief grain — squeeze hard enough and something can usually be found.”

“Then that’ll do. As long as they’re not starving, and can get a bowl or two of congee each day, they won’t riot, and won’t resort to eating rats or dead animals either. If that first step goes without a hitch, everything after can be managed. If a major disaster combines with an epidemic, though, it becomes uncontrollable — essentially left to fend for itself, and nothing can stop it at that point…”

“So the later stages involve personnel management and how relief grain and funds are allocated and distributed — simple recordkeeping methods, finding people who can read and do sums, strictly enforcing these procedures, ranking things by tier… The labor involved shouldn’t be too great, and with this data in hand, any later investigation becomes simple. Of course, settling scores afterward is one part of it, but the most important thing is achieving the most efficient distribution possible right from the very start.”

“If the officials above are thoroughly corrupt, down to the point where someone like Brother Shaohe can’t even get a single grain through, then there’s nothing to be done — no one can conjure grain out of thin air. But as long as there’s some quantity of grain available, everything else can be managed. If you can’t guarantee things at the top, you have to guarantee them at the bottom — make examples of a few, kill them to warn the rest! Killing a few extra doesn’t hurt. Using this recordkeeping method, arrange for trusted people to audit the books every day or every few days — I’ve written out a few key points to check in the back — and whoever’s found at fault at these points, depending on severity, gets executed. In the short term, few people should be able to find loopholes in this method, and even if a few slip through, it shouldn’t matter much. We must guarantee the highest possible efficiency of use…”

Through the afternoon, with a light breeze drifting along the Qinhuai riverside, Ning Yi spoke fluently and at ease, picking up go stones to use as illustrations, tapping them down one after another to demonstrate. In front of him, old Qin, old Kang, and Lu A’Gui among others all watched in silence, absorbing it, thinking it over, no one speaking, the atmosphere taking on a rather unusual weight. At the tea stall nearby, the stall owner and his daughter murmured to each other, occasionally craning their necks to peek over, unable to make out what these people were even discussing…

Watching young master Ning arrange the stones so fluidly, it must be some new kind of game, the tea stall owner thought to himself.

A leisurely afternoon, the world as ordinary as ever.