Hot flashes

He crouched down to be at eye level with the two children.

"Is this your father?"

The girl nodded without saying anything.

"How long have you been sick?"

The girl pursed her lips and said in a soft voice, "I got sick when winter came. I coughed up blood. The village doctor said... said he couldn't cure me."

Looking at the man's sallow face and his emaciated body, Zhou Heng felt a tightness in his chest.

He stood up and winked at Chen Shen, who had followed him in. Chen Shen understood, took out a few pieces of silver from his pocket, and handed them to the old woman.

The old woman stared at the silver, stunned. She looked up at Zhou Heng, tears slowly welling up in her cloudy eyes. She knelt down with a thud, her forehead hitting the ground heavily.

Zhou Heng quickly helped her up, feeling a tightness in his chest.

He knew that this little bit of money wouldn't save the family, and that the man might not survive the spring.

But he didn't know that this was just the beginning.

There are a total of 23 households in Qingnigou.

Zhou Heng spent three days visiting every household. Every household was poor, miserable, and had countless tragic stories to tell. But there was one household that he visited three times.

The night he returned for the third time, Zhou Heng locked himself in his room and didn't sleep a wink.

The next morning, he said to Chen Shen, "Bring the village head of Qingnigou here."

The village head, surnamed Sun, was in his fifties, thin and gaunt, with quick-moving eyes. When he saw Zhou Heng, he bowed and scraped, repeatedly asking, "What are your orders, sir?"

Zhou Heng offered him a seat, but he refused. Zhou Heng had tea served, but he didn't drink it. When Zhou Heng asked him about the situation in Qingnigou, he talked on and on, spouting phrases like "the Emperor's boundless grace" and "the people living in peace and prosperity."

Zhou Heng listened without saying a word.

He picked up the teacup, took a slow sip, and then put it down.

"Sun, the village head," he said, "of the twenty-three households in Qingnigou, seven people died last year. Two elderly people died of illness, one able-bodied man fell to his death, and three children—two died of illness, and one starved to death. Is that right?"

Sun Lizheng's smile froze on his face.

Zhou Heng looked at him calmly: "Among those three children, one family is surnamed Zheng. The man in the family borrowed twenty catties of grain seeds from you the year before last. With interest compounding, by last autumn, he owed you eighty catties."

"The Zheng family couldn't pay back their money, so you took away their last laying hen. Of those three children, two were from the Zheng family; the one who starved to death was their youngest daughter, four years old."

Sun Lizheng's expression changed.

Zhou Heng continued, "There's another family surnamed Liu. The man broke his leg last winter and can't work. You've been chasing them for debts three times, and you even took their only cotton quilt."

The man died two weeks ago from an infected wound. His wife and two children now survive by foraging for wild vegetables. The vegetables hadn't even grown yet when the younger one passed away.

Sun Lizheng knelt down with a thud.

Zhou Heng did not let him get up.

He looked down at the person kowtowing repeatedly, feeling no anger, only a profound emptiness.

He knew this would happen before he came. Usury, exploitation, oppression—these have existed in every dynasty, and he couldn't change them. But seeing it with his own eyes and hearing it with his own ears was different.

"Sun Lizheng," he said.

Sun Lizheng lay prostrate on the ground, trembling all over.

"Where are your ledgers?"

Sun Lizheng said in a trembling voice, "At...at home..."

"Chen Shen," Zhou Heng said, "take some men and go with him to retrieve it."

Chen Shen agreed, picked up Sun Lizheng, and started to walk out. Sun Lizheng howled like a pig being slaughtered, but Chen Shen slapped him back down, and he quieted down.

The room fell silent.

Zhou Heng sat there, looking at the blinding sunlight outside the door. A skinny chicken walked past the door, pecking at the grass clippings on the ground.

That night, Zhou Heng went to the Zheng family again.

Inside the thatched hut, a tiny oil lamp burned, its dim light illuminating only a small area.

Zheng Liushi sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), holding the dead child in her arms. She kept her head down, motionless, and murmured something.

The two children were huddled in the corner, the girl hugging her younger brother tightly, her eyes wide open, staring towards the doorway.

Zhou Heng stood at the door but did not go in.

He stared at it for a long time.

Then he turned and walked into the night.

Chen Shen followed and whispered, "Young Master, that child is already... best buried. Should I—"

"No need," Zhou Heng interrupted him. "Let her hold the baby one more night. Tomorrow, find a few people to help her bury the child."

Chen Shen lowered his head: "Yes."

Zhou Heng walked forward for a while, then suddenly stopped.

"Chen Shen".

"exist."

"Could you please summon the best doctor in Jiangling City?"

Chen Shen paused, then said, "Yes. But that man from the Zheng family is already—"

"It's not for him," Zhou Heng said. "It's for those two children. And for the other survivors in Qingnigou."

Chen Shen looked at him, something flashing in his eyes.

"I'll take care of it right away."

He turned to leave, but Zhou Heng called him back.

"And seeds. And farm tools. And—" He paused, "And, tell Li Chong to allocate some money to repair that irrigation canal that's been abandoned for twenty years. Just say it was my idea, and if he has any objections, tell him to come find me."

Chen Shen's lips curved slightly, and he lowered his head: "Yes."

Zhou Heng stood in the night, gazing at the barren land beneath his feet. In the distance, in the Zheng family's thatched hut, the tiny oil lamp still burned, like a star about to go out.

In the distance, the mountain shadows loomed heavy. A spring breeze blew from the mountain valley, carrying the scent of earth and a faint fragrance of grass.

After that night, Zhou Heng stayed in Qingnigou for half a month.

He had every piece of land measured, every household's population registered, and the origins of every debt thoroughly investigated.

Sun Lizheng's account book was reviewed three times, each item checked and crossed off one by one. As for those "debts of hell" that had accumulated with interest, he decided to only repay the principal.

Sun Lizheng was paraded through the village for three days under Chen Shen's control. When he was released, he had lost a lot of weight and trembled whenever he saw Zhou Heng.

Zhou Heng entrusted the two children of the Zheng family to an elderly couple who had no children.

The elderly couple were poor but kind-hearted, and they agreed to raise the children as their own. Zhou Heng left them a sum of money, enough for the two children to live on for three years.

After burying her daughter, Zheng Liu went mad for a few days, but gradually regained her senses.

The first thing she did after regaining consciousness was to kowtow to Zhou Heng. Zhou Heng didn't let her kowtow, but helped her up, looked into her empty eyes, and remained silent for a long time.

He couldn't bring himself to say something like "please accept my condolences."

All he could say was, "Things will get better in the future."

Zheng Liu didn't speak. She just looked at him for a long time, and then nodded.

Two weeks later, Zhou Heng returned to Jiangling City. Li Chong's aide delivered a thick document containing the budget and timeline for the canal repairs. Zhou Heng read it, changed a few figures, and approved it.

After the staff left, Chen Shen came in and handed him a letter.

The envelope contained only one word: Heng.

Xiao Jue's handwriting.

Zhou Heng opened the letter; inside was only a thin piece of paper with the following written on it:

"Three months is too long."

Zhou Heng looked at those words, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved up.

He carefully folded the letter and pressed it to his heart.