Inside a large truck, the driver on the seat gazed toward the north entrance of the market street, seeing only a crowd of people bustling about. He asked the middle-aged man in the passenger seat, “Brother Reed, the masons from the Lü family are competing with us for work in University Town, so why are we still delivering things?”

“Use your brain!” The middle-aged man tapped the driver’s head. “Our Liuwan Village is just south of the Lü family. Now that the Qingzhao River has become an above-ground river, the Lü family’s land is higher—if they open the floodgate, won’t we get flooded?”

The driver thought about it and realized it made sense.

The middle-aged man continued to lecture, “How many daughters-in-law in our village married in from the Lü family? And how many of our girls married into the Lü family?”

“Uh… that’s true.” The driver suddenly understood. “Brother Reed, you really have that… right, the big-picture view.”

The middle-aged man took out a cigarette. “Call me Secretary! Secretary! How many times have I told you? Can you remember?”

The driver quickly said, “I remember, I remember this time.”

The middle-aged man shook his head, not bothering to argue with a fool. He got out and walked to a bright spot on the street to smoke. Just then, David Sullivan happened to walk by.

This person, David Sullivan, looked familiar. After thinking for a moment, he remembered he was a classmate’s parent and greeted him proactively, “Uncle Reed.”

The middle-aged man found David Sullivan’s face familiar but couldn’t recall the name. “You are…?”

David Sullivan smiled and said, “I’m Megan’s classmate. Did Megan do well on the test? Did she score high?”

“What’s the use of being the top scorer? She’ll get married sooner or later.” The middle-aged man, having been frustrated for years, habitually muttered, “I’d rather have a boy who comes in last.”

David Sullivan didn’t know how to respond. He could remember this middle-aged man mainly because of his daughter, that is, his classmate Megan Reed, who was the county’s top scorer in the 1998 college entrance exam.

He vaguely recalled that Megan Reed also had a younger sister.

In the countryside, where the preference for sons over daughters is deeply rooted, the middle-aged man’s frustration was understandable.

“Dongzi!” someone called him.

A man strolled over from the south, with a proper appearance, tall and sturdy, but with slouched shoulders. As he walked, his shoes scraped the ground, making an unpleasant dragging sound.

“Seventh Uncle!” David Sullivan waved. This was from the third grandpa’s branch of the family, full name Ryan Sullivan.

Since childhood, he had followed Uncle Seven to the river, catching fish, digging for loaches, and hunting leeches…

Ryan Sullivan took out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, pulling out another to offer David Sullivan. “Want one?”

David Sullivan rubbed his right eye, declined, and pinched his nose. “Smells strongly of alcohol.”

Ryan Sullivan yawned. “With cigarettes and booze in hand, all worries roll away!” Lighting his cigarette, he motioned for David Sullivan to walk toward the sluice gate, where water was flowing ahead. “If you don’t smoke or drink, you’re not a real man.”

David Sullivan winked his right eye. “A real man doesn’t care about those things.”

Ryan Sullivan looked at him. “What’s wrong with your eye? Got something dirty on you?”

David Sullivan sighed and retorted, “You don’t get it. If your right eye twitches, you’ll get rich. I might find a big wallet today.”

“Bull!” Ryan Sullivan exhaled a big puff of smoke. “Uneducated! If your right eye twitches, it’s bad luck! Don’t you know?”

David Sullivan didn’t back down. “Uncle Seven, you’re a grown man and still believe in superstitions?”

“Me!” Ryan Sullivan choked on his smoke.

David Sullivan sped up. The further they went, the more water there was, and soon they reached the area near the market street sluice gate.

At this section, the river ran exactly east-west, with a bridge spanning north-south, connecting the sluice gates on both sides.

The sluice gate, built in the 1950s, naturally didn’t have a rising and falling gate board. This was originally the road to Majia Village across the bridge. At this point, the river embankment left an opening, with two small dams built from stones. Opposite each other, stone slides were left, and wooden planks of suitable length were slotted in one by one to form the gate board.

The temporary gate boards had gaps and weren’t exactly sturdy. The people of Lüjia Village had stacked four or five rows of sandbags as high as the embankment behind them to block the river water from pouring in.

Still, some water seeped through the gaps between the sandbags, and on the road near the sluice gate, the water covered their ankles.

Brian Sullivan’s eyes were bloodshot as he stood on the small dam, directing people on the embankment to use sticks and bamboo poles to poke around in the water. Occasionally, you could see water hyacinth leaves flying into the air.

“Seventh, where did you drink last night?”

“Careful, Third Uncle will skin you alive!”

There were quite a few people around, and Ryan Sullivan immediately became the center of attention.

“Brother Dong!”

“Brother Dong!”

Two slightly younger boys smiled at David Sullivan a bit nervously.

David Sullivan nodded, didn’t waste words, and climbed straight up the sandbag embankment. The muddy river water had already covered the new bridge to Majia Village. The bridge had chest-high stone railings, blocking a large amount of debris, mainly water hyacinth, with only the topmost layer faintly visible.

The debris looked light but was actually very dangerous. Piled up on and around the bridge, it formed a dam of garbage, severely impeding the flow of water.

Especially when the flood brought heavier objects, the debris could block them, and they might sink and clog the bridge’s arch.

That would be deadly.

Brian Sullivan was directing people to clear the debris.

On the other side of the river, people from Majia Village were doing the same thing.

“Such a big flood,” Ryan Sullivan said nearby, the smell of alcohol and smoke mixed together. “There must be plenty of fish. I forgot my net!”

David Sullivan was speechless. At a time like this, he was still thinking about fishing.

“This won’t do,” someone shouted from the top of the small dam. “Third Uncle, we can only clear up to the bridgehead. It’s not enough.”

How long could a bamboo pole be? It was hard to use force, and only a little could be cleared.

Brian Sullivan didn’t hesitate. “Get a rope, get in the water!” His gaze fell on Ryan Sullivan. “Seventh, you rascal, what were you up to last night?”