I will make Qin Shi Huang immortal in the Great Qin Dynasty.

An elderly local man stood beside the fire, watching the young faces consumed by the flames. He wiped his face hard, turned to an officer beside him, and asked in a hoarse but firm voice, "Sir, could we keep the ashes of those fallen soldiers for our village?"

The officer paused for a moment.

The old man continued, "They all died saving us. The people of our village have discussed it and decided to bury their ashes under the tree at the village entrance. Every year during Qingming Festival, the people of our village will go to burn paper money, offer incense, and present fruits and vegetables to them. We don't know their names, but we know they saved us. As long as there are still people living in our village, we will never let their spirits die out."

The officer's eyes reddened.

He turned his head and blinked hard a few times before his voice regained its composure.

He nodded, his voice a little strained: "Okay. On behalf of the brothers... thank you."

The old man's lips moved, and he nodded heavily.

Several months have passed.

The appearance of Kuaiji Commandery is gradually being restored.

The newly built houses were erected row by row along the hillside, with thick mud walls and dense thatched roofs, making them even sturdier than the old houses.

The fields are now green with rice seedlings again, corn stalks stretch their broad leaves in the sunlight, sweet potato vines climb all over the furrows, and potato flowers are in full bloom.

Those faces that had once been numb with despair in the face of the flood have now regained their color and smiles.

Some people were bending over to weed on the ridges of the fields, some were chopping firewood in the yard, and some were sitting on the newly built threshold, eating from their bowls.

The children chased and played at the village entrance, their laughter crisp and loud, as if they were trying to smash all the heaviness that had accumulated over the past few months into the air.

The Qin soldiers are leaving.

They stayed in Kuaiji County for nearly three months, from rescuing people from the flood to resettling disaster victims, clearing ruins, rebuilding houses, and sowing new crops.

They did the hardest and most tiring work, and the calluses on their hands became thicker than when they were plowing the fields.

They ate and lived with the villagers. Some learned the local dialect and folk songs. In their spare time, they helped the elderly in the village repair their courtyard walls and taught children to read by moonlight at night.

On the day he left, people from all over Kuaiji County flocked out.

The roadside was packed with people, stretching from the village entrance all the way to both sides of the main road.

Some people were carrying children, some were using crutches, and some were pushing carts loaded with baskets of eggs, bags of dry food, and pairs of handmade cloth shoes.

As the army marched past, the people surged forward and blocked the road.

An old woman walked forward shakily and stuffed something wrapped in coarse cloth into the arms of a young soldier.

The soldier looked down and saw a pair of tightly stitched cloth shoes with thick soles, neat stitches, and each stitch was made with great care.

The old woman, her voice trembling, grasped the soldier's hand and said, "Child, take this. Your shoes are worn out; wear them on the road."

The soldier's eyes reddened. He opened his mouth to say thank you, but found himself unable to speak. He could only hug the cloth shoes tightly to his chest and nod vigorously.

More people gathered around.

Some people stuffed dry biscuits into the soldiers' pockets, some put boiled eggs in their hands, and some held their hands and talked to them.

"Be careful on the road." "Will you come again?" "Which battalion are you from? I want my son to join the army when he grows up."

The words were scattered and fragmented, not a single one was polite; they were all words that flowed directly from the heart.

Some people started crying.

First came a few elderly people, then women holding children, and then young people standing by the roadside.

The cries echoed along both sides of the official road, like the sound of waves crashing against the shore at high tide.

"My benefactor..."

"You saved our lives..."

"If it weren't for you, we would have died in the water long ago..."

"You built this house, you dug this land, you provided this food... We will never forget this..."

A young soldier finally couldn't hold back anymore, buried his face in his sleeve, his shoulders shaking as he cried like a child.

His comrade next to him put his arm around his shoulder tightly, his own eyes red.

The queue moved forward slowly.

The people followed along both sides of the official road to see them off. Some people walked for ten miles and still refused to turn back, while others wiped away tears with their sleeves.

The seeds of hatred and estrangement that were once sown on this land have now been covered by the seeds planted in our hearts.

When the floodwaters arrived, hundreds of thousands of people were affected, houses collapsed, fields were destroyed, corpses littered the fields, and survivors trembled in the floodwaters, filled with despair for the future.

When they left, the people had rebuilt their houses and the fields were full of life.

Those who were properly resettled have regained their homes, fields, seeds, and hope for tomorrow.

In the distance, on that land they once thought was beyond saving, a new crop is growing again.

The floods in Kuaiji County destroyed houses and fertile fields, and also disrupted the plans of another group of people.

Those people were hiding in the shadows of Kuaiji County and several surrounding counties, and most of them were descendants and former subordinates of the original Chu nobles.

They wore ordinary clothes and mingled in markets and villages, keeping a low profile like seeds buried by sandstorms, lying dormant deep in the soil, waiting for their own season.

When the flood came, they saw a turning point.

Floods, public resentment, displaced people, and desperate eyes—these are the best fuel. Just a tiny spark can ignite a raging fire.

They began operating in secret, spreading rumors in some of the more severely affected villages.

It is said that this flood was divine punishment brought about by the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty. Ying Zheng's construction of the imperial mausoleum and the Great Wall, which exploited the people, angered the gods. The tyranny of the Qin Dynasty was even more terrible than the flood. Only by restoring the State of Chu and the other six states could the wrath of the heavens be appeased.

Someone was observing the reactions of the disaster victims from the shadows, waiting for those desperate people to be stirred up, waiting for the pent-up resentment to explode into ignitable anger at some point.

They had even prepared several leaders, chosen the location for the uprising, and prepared knives, guns, and flags, just waiting for the moment when the disaster victims' emotions were at their most intense so they could step forward and raise their voices.

Then the Qin army arrived.

Without armor or weapons, carrying food and ropes, they waded through waist-deep floodwaters, carrying disaster victims down from rooftops, treetops, and high ground.

They saw young soldiers being swept away in the flood, sacrificing their own lives to save strangers. They knelt in the mud, holding the rescued children, their eyes crinkling with laughter.

Those hiding in the shadows watched all this in silence.

They hid on a distant hill, behind bushes, and in the corner of a makeshift shed, watching those gray figures darting back and forth in the floodwaters, watching banners proclaiming "When one place is in trouble, help comes from all sides" unfurled in the wind and rain, and watching the disaster victims, after being rescued, first become numb, then shocked, then weep, and then kneel down and kowtow.

He couldn't utter a single one of the inflammatory words he had prepared.

The despair of the disaster victims was gradually soothed, and hope took its place.

Those lurking in the shadows remain, watching everything from the darkness, trying to find the next opportunity.

But they waited day after day, month after month, and still nothing came of it.