Between the branches of the Chinese toon tree and the shadow wall, a wooden stick as thick as a forearm was tied, with a homemade sandbag sewn from flour sacks hanging from it, faint palm prints visible on its surface.

David Sullivan walked over and punched it with a thud, making the sandbag sway.

When his eldest cousin Ethan Sullivan retired from the army and transferred to the police station, he had taught him military boxing a few times. As a teenager influenced by movies and TV, he set up a sandbag and practiced blindly, but in reality, he didn’t know anything—when it came to fighting, he always relied on wild swings, brute strength, and daring to go all out.

Over the years, he’d gotten into plenty of trouble.

Looking back on the foolish things he’d done, he felt deeply embarrassed.

His mother had gone back to the orchard and wasn’t in the old house. David Sullivan closed the main gate securely and went to the water pump, poured in some priming water, and pumped hard.

The village had long had running water, but it only flowed in the mornings and evenings.

Sometimes, when there were power restrictions, there would be no water in the evening.

The water level rose quickly, and before long, the iron bucket was full.

David Sullivan took off his dirty clothes, tossed them into a large cast aluminum basin, picked up a ladle, and scooped water to wash himself.

Streams of yellowish muddy water flowed along the blue bricks on the ground.

The wounds on his hands no longer hurt; for a kid raised in the countryside, this was nothing.

After washing up, he put on a pair of slippers. David Sullivan first went to the east room where he lived to get dressed, still wearing his summer school uniform and coarse cloth shorts.

The room was simply furnished: a single bed made from two long benches and three planks, a brown-painted table and stool, and a large wardrobe bought when his parents got married.

The double-door wardrobe had a half-length mirror in the middle. After getting dressed, David Sullivan glanced at himself: a tall, strong young man, not bad-looking, but with a center parting that looked rustic and silly, like Liu Kuisheng.

Apparently, he even had the nickname “Kuisheng” at school.

He turned to leave, but noticed the Young and Dangerous poster on the wall. Without hesitation, David Sullivan tore it all down, but couldn’t bring himself to remove the two anime posters.

They featured a righteous red robot and an evil white robot.

David Sullivan withdrew his hand, crumpled the Young and Dangerous poster into waste paper, but left the ones of Zhuzi and Tiange.

Leaving the east room, David Sullivan threw the waste paper into a trash can made from an old paint bucket, tossing away his ignorance as well. Then he entered the main hall, reached for the pull cord, and turned on the light.

The yellowish light filled the whole room. The main hall was also simply furnished: two large chairs with a black Eight Immortals table between them, a round dining table stuffed underneath, and old stools piled against the wall.

On the east and west walls hung several calligraphy and paintings. On the high and low cabinets sat green porcelain jars and white porcelain teacups. Behind the sliding glass doors was a stack of green porcelain plates, all with a touch of antique style.

These weren’t real antiques. The calligraphy and paintings were done by David Sullivan’s late grandfather in the late 1980s, who had once been a middle school teacher.

After hanging on the wall for so long, the paper and mounting had clearly yellowed.

David Sullivan also remembered the porcelain. Around the age of ten, Eric Clark’s cousin had gotten some export ceramics—cheap, beautiful, and sturdy. Many people in nearby villages bought them, but soon they were labeled as profiteering, and that cousin later went south, never to be seen again.

There were no real antiques in this house. Maybe there had been, but during the “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign, everything was smashed and burned.

The wall directly above the Eight Immortals table was different from most homes: instead of a central painting, there was a black-and-white photo frame.

In the photo, the person wore a wide-brimmed hat, with a resolute gaze fixed on the distance.

David Sullivan knelt and bowed his head to the floor, his eyes gradually gathering determination, just like the man in the photo frame.

“I will support this family!” David Sullivan vowed with unprecedented resolve.

The main hall fell silent, the simple furniture highlighting a man’s promise.

David Sullivan turned off the light and left the main hall, went back to the east room, and fell asleep immediately. The exhaustion from a day of hard labor quickly sent him into a deep sleep.

Worried about the water situation, he didn’t sleep long. When David Sullivan got up, the sun was still hanging in the eastern sky.

After a quick wash, David Sullivan locked the door, left the village to the north, and went up to the riverbank.

Heading along the riverbank toward the orchard, the Qingzhao River was still surging. Last night, it was too dark to see clearly, but now, looking out, he saw the yellow torrent carrying large patches of water hyacinth downstream, just a meter below the top of the embankment. The roaring flood was raging right at his feet.

On the opposite bank, people from Ma Family Village were also on duty, facing just as much pressure.

Arriving at the spot where they’d fought the flood last night, Emily Thompson was sitting on a sandbag, staring intently at the riverbank.

“You didn’t sleep?” David Sullivan stopped and asked.

Emily Thompson’s hair hung down as he habitually flicked his head, saying helplessly, “I can’t lift with my hands or carry with my shoulders. Last night, apart from banging the gong to call people, I didn’t do anything. With the village in this state, I have to do my part.”

The two of them had played together naked since they were little, classmates from kindergarten all the way to senior year of high school. He spoke his mind: “You’ve changed.”

David Sullivan rolled his eyes. “I can be reliable too, you know!” He quickly changed the subject: “Any good news?”

“Third Grandpa just came by. He said the higher-ups called—the reservoir won’t open the gates any further,” Emily Thompson said in a low voice. “For now, the flow will stay the same.”

He suddenly laughed. “One more thing: the mayor of our Ningxiu Town came over from the county seat early this morning. His car stalled in the water under the highway bridge, blocking all the cars behind. Uncle Chris took people over there.”

David Sullivan shook his head. Flooding under the highway bridge during rain had long been a major headache for rural travel in Qingzhao County.