"Company, attention! Count off!"

The sounds of "1, 2, 3, 4..." rang out. A moment later, the captain ran to He Rui and reported loudly, "Report to the Governor. The City Government team planned attendance 109, actual attendance 109. Report complete!"

He Rui ordered loudly, "Return to ranks!" Then he took a few steps forward to the front of the formation. Tong Bokang saw that He Rui was dressed no differently from a laborer, yet his confident temperament was unaffected by his clothes. His gestures were like a commander leading thousands of troops and horses; Tong Bokang couldn't help but be amazed.

"Comrades, the water shortage problem in Siping is already very serious. And Siping is still developing. Whether it's water for citizens' daily life, or for industry and agriculture, the water needed every day will only increase. This is the first large-scale water conservancy project we are doing in Siping. Do you comrades have the confidence to complete the work!"

"We have confidence!" over a hundred people answered in unison. The unison shout made Tong Bokang's heart beat faster, and for a moment, he was even puzzled. *Are these people not ordinary citizens or government staff, but an army?*

"Company, right face! March!" With He Rui's order, the team of over a hundred people formed a neat column of four abreast, turned right, and marched forward.

On the street, the people of Siping made way one after another upon seeing the team approaching. Not only were they not unhappy, but they looked quite joyful.

Soon, other teams joined the ranks leaving the city. Several teams even carried flags: 'Siping Tax Bureau Water Conservancy Shock Brigade,' 'Siping Rural Cadre Study Class Water Conservancy Shock Brigade,' 'Siping Worker Study Class Water Conservancy Shock Brigade.' The teams were all four abreast, heading southeast of Siping like a long dragon.

Tong Bokang regretted not bringing a camera. As he hesitated and slowed his pace, He Rui laughed beside him. "No rush; there are plenty of opportunities to take photos. Journalist Tong, experience our work, and you will know what kind of work we staff members have undertaken. With practical experience, you will definitely be able to write excellent news reports."

Along the way, several more teams joined, dressed the same as those in the column. Beside a tea stall set up by the road, the team stopped to drink water and rest. Tong Bokang gulped down two mouthfuls of hot tea before asking, "How long is this water canal?"

"About 40 *li* [20 km]."

Whether it was fatigue from the march or shock at this number, Tong Bokang felt his mouth go dry again. Shanghai, known as the "Ten-Mile Foreign Concessions," was an extremely prosperous place. The remote Siping county town was building a 40-*li* water canal; how big must the reservoir be to provide enough water for a canal of this length?

It was already dark when they reached their destination. Tong Bokang could only see vague mountain outlines in the night. Walking 40 *li* in a day really exhausted him. In a villager's home, inside a woodshed, sorghum and corn stalks were spread on the ground with bedding on top. Several people squeezed onto it, covering themselves with a quilt to sleep. Even in such conditions, Tong Bokang felt a bit like he was in a Shanghai hotel bed and fell fast asleep in moments.

When Tong Bokang woke up, there was no one beside him. After thinking groggily for a moment, he suddenly remembered yesterday's experience. He hurriedly climbed up and lifted the bedding, seeing the imported backpack he bought for ten silver dollars in Shanghai still in the position where his head had rested. Opening it to check, the imported gold fountain pen worth five silver dollars was securely inserted in the pen loop. The notebook and ink were also there.

Only then did Tong Bokang relax. He hurried out a few *li* to the construction site. He saw mountains surrounding them on all sides, peaks upon peaks. The busy crowd was concentrated in a col. The ground was overgrown with weeds and quite damp, looking completely like a barren mountain. As for lake water or the like, there was no sign at all.

He found He Rui with great difficulty. Because he had overslept, he stepped forward somewhat embarrassedly. He saw He Rui talking over a blueprint with a man wearing a red armband. Seeing Tong Bokang arrive, He Rui just greeted him simply and continued discussing the blueprint with the red armband.

On the blueprint, the exit of the open space surrounded by mountains on three sides was cut off by a dam at the narrowest point. The red armband said in a Beijing accent with a southern flavor, "Governor, this is the current amount of earthwork. I really didn't expect the Governor to be able to mobilize nearly ten thousand people. This year's work should be completed on schedule."

"Rest assured, the cement factory will definitely start production next year. At that time, coordinating with the quarry, we will finish the slopes on both sides of the dam."

Hearing the red armband use quite professional terms, Tong Bokang waited for the two to finish discussing work, then stepped forward. "I am *Shen Bao* journalist Tong Bokang. May I ask how to address this brother?"

"So you are Journalist Tong. I am Lu Daoming, Deputy Director of the Siping Water Conservancy Bureau." The red armband shook hands with Tong Bokang as he spoke.

"Director Lu... could you be Mr. Lu Daoming who graduated from Tsinghua University and studied at MIT in the United States? I heard Mo Yang mention you." Tong Bokang said excitedly.

Lu Daoming answered elegantly, "That is me."

Tong Bokang didn't know what to say next for a moment. He could only look Lu Daoming up and down. He saw Lu Daoming's hands were rough, his face tanned dark, wearing clothes no different from a laborer, and his leather boots covered in mud, so dirty the original color couldn't be seen. Yet he looked as spirited as those Siping government officials, seemingly enjoying his current treatment.

Seeing Tong Bokang silent, Lu Daoming said, "Brother He, I'm going to the other engineering teams. We'll chat tonight if there's anything."

Tong Bokang watched Lu Daoming leave, thinking about how to interview this Deputy Director of the Siping Water Conservancy Bureau tonight. However, after dinner, Tong Bokang felt exhausted to the extreme. He collapsed onto the bunk with the others and fell fast asleep. When he woke up again, it was broad daylight.

Tong Bokang had no understanding of building water conservancy. He was almost thirty years old this year. Since he could remember, he hadn't heard of water conservancy projects being built in China, let alone a project like building a reservoir.

He originally thought building a dam was highly technical work. Tong Bokang worked in He Rui's group, and the work consisted of four items: digging earth, transporting earth, filling earth, and tamping earth.

Although ten thousand people participated in the project, the sound of whistles on the site, shouts allocating routes, and chants directing the lifting of tamping logs to smash the ground rose one after another, making the whole site seem to boil. Tong Bokang's hand, accustomed to holding a pen, had long been blistered. Every muscle and joint in his body ached. He could only do the work of pulling the rope in front of the small cart transporting earth.

Four days later, the engineering team finally rested for a day. Tong Bokang, holding his fountain pen with still-swollen fingers, began the interview in a sheltered spot high on the site.

"May I ask Director Lu, how large is the scale of this reservoir?"

"According to the plan, the reservoir capacity can reach more than 22 million cubic meters. If the water level accumulates to the target, it can supply 7 million cubic meters of water annually."

Tong Bokang's hand stopped. Units of tens of millions and millions were completely beyond Tong Bokang's imagination. Turning to look down the hillside, a rammed earth embankment nearly two *li* long, dozens of meters wide, and nearly three meters high had taken shape. On the side of the embankment closer to the reservoir area, a small dam over a meter high and a few meters wide had also been completed.

Turning back, Tong Bokang suppressed the impulse to question and chose more elegant wording. "Did Director Lu measure this reservoir capacity personally?"

"Yes."

"Director Lu, you graduated from MIT. Why come to a place like Siping to do such hard work?"

Looking at Tong Bokang's expression, Lu Daoming smiled. "I studied hydraulic engineering. When I entered school, my advisor told me that hydraulic engineering involves such hard work. After I returned to China, apart from Siping, no other place had any water conservancy construction work. Where else could I go but here? Otherwise, wouldn't my years of university be in vain?"

After interviewing Lu Daoming, Tong Bokang's interest was piqued. He interviewed several ordinary villagers in succession. The villagers' descriptions of themselves and their villages varied. When asked how they came here, the answer was that the Village Head and Militia Captain selected everyone to come participate in building the dam.

When asked about their views on the dam, the villagers' answers were surprisingly identical to what Water Conservancy Director Lu Daoming said. After the dam was built, it could solve the water shortage problem in the Siping area, and all villages and towns the water canal passed through could obtain a large amount of clean drinking water.

The Chief Engineer and the working laborers actually had the same understanding of the purpose of the same project. Tong Bokang was even more curious. He couldn't help using the Western interview techniques he learned at St. John's University on the villagers: "If you didn't come to participate, would you not be assigned water?"

The villager didn't understand at first. When Tong Bokang changed his phrasing to something the villager could understand and asked again, the burly man from outside the pass instantly changed his expression. One of them stood up abruptly, pressed close to Tong Bokang, and said angrily, "What do you mean by that?"

Although the accent outside the pass was vastly different from Shanghai, the demeanor and actions made Tong Bokang fully understand that the other party might get violent. Just as he didn't know how to resolve it, a staff member with a red armband nearby stopped the big man and smiled in a Tianjin accent. "Southerners speak differently from us Northerners. He didn't mean that."

"Then what did he mean?" The big man asked relentlessly.

"He wants to know if everyone was forced to come build the dam."

The big man's face looked a little better then, but he still shouted with lingering anger, "The Governor distributed fields and land to us, and is building a dam to distribute water to the village. Wanting a share of water without doing anything—do you want face or not?"

Tong Bokang hurriedly smiled apologetically. "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding!" He then left with the cadre.

After walking far away, the cadre suddenly stopped, kept a straight face, and said to Tong Bokang, "Journalist Tong, stop copying foreign journalists, okay? Do you think asking like that is very clever?"

The amount of information contained in these words shocked Tong Bokang more than being threatened by the burly man from outside the pass face-to-face. He sized up this young man in tattered work clothes. He seemed to be less than twenty years old, yet in his resolute expression, there was a sharpness peculiar to scholars. Tong Bokang asked, "This brother, may I ask your great name and which school you graduated from?"

"My name is Zhu Guangyou. Graduated from Tianjin St. Stephen's Church School, Higher Primary."

Tong Bokang was truly shaken in his heart. Even an unknown cadre had such an educational background, let alone the core figures around He Rui. Such a group of people engaging in such hard work together with rural villagers, indistinguishable from one another except for an armband—such a thing was truly unprecedented.