Emperor Yao acted decisively, ordering people to hurriedly carve a flood outlet at the valley entrance. Everyone swung pickaxes and hoes, forcing an opening through the pile of rubble. The long-gathered torrent thundered through it, and the people of Guoxing Village finally escaped a catastrophe that would have drowned them all.
After the flood receded, the Black Water River still raged, cutting off both banks and making travel difficult. Yao ordered a bridge built on the spot, with a deadline of three days. Everyone worked in shifts day and night. During the day, they could labor through the sweat, but once night fell, the darkness was as thick as ink, making it difficult even to tell where to ram the earth or stack the stones. Fairy Maiden happened to witness this.
That night, the construction site was in a state of anxious difficulty when a scarlet cloud suddenly drifted over from the horizon. Soft, harmless red light burned along its edges, illuminating every detail of the entire bridge foundation as brightly as day. Someone looked up and saw Fairy Maiden standing atop the cloud, lightly raising her delicate hand and waving with a smile. It turned out that she had removed her rosy cloak and shaken it open into ten thousand strands of flowing radiance, solely to light the way and aid the mortals.
Three thousand people fought bitterly for three days and nights. At dawn on the fourth day, a magnificent stone bridge stood proudly across the Black Water River. King Yao and the others raised their arms and shouted in unison, their voices shaking the mountain valley. In an instant, the wind and clouds changed. Torrential rain poured down, and colossal waves surged toward the bridge with overwhelming force, their crests crashing against the banks like thunder. In