Seal Released (Please Recommend and Bookmark)

Seal Released (Please Recommend and Bookmark)

In the end, Lin Wen got his wish and secured the task of guarding the Changpai Village Levee. He went back overjoyed.

Commandery Chief Zhao had even specially returned the twelve staff members who had been transferred away from him early on, but Lin Wen showed no reaction whatsoever.

After the flood-control meeting ended, the officials from every village and town had left. Only Long Mountain Commandery's commandery chief, Zhao Anping, and his secretary, Little Zhang, remained in the conference room.

Under the dim light, Commandery Chief Zhao silently drank tea without speaking. The conference room was deathly quiet.

After a long while, Secretary Little Zhang could not help saying, "Commandery Chief, it's getting late. We should head back."

Commandery Chief Zhao nodded but did not move.

After another while, he finally set down his teacup and slowly said, "Little Zhang, do you remember how Lin Wen became the mayor of Changle Town?"

Little Zhang thought for a moment. "I remember that Little Lin's father died heroically while fighting human traffickers to the death to rescue kidnapped children. He was later awarded the First-Class Medal of Valor. His mother was swept away by enormous waves while piloting a barge to rescue people trapped in the floods. The subsequent tally showed that she alone had saved more than twelve hundred lives, and she was awarded the First-Class Women's Merit Medal. Later, following the Governor-General's Office's recommendation, Lin Wen, as a descendant of Imperial heroes, was directly promoted from town clerk to town mayor. He skipped four ranks in one leap!"

Commandery Chief Zhao stared at his teacup as though his soul had wandered beyond the clouds. "Mm. That was three years ago. I remember Little Lin was too young at the time, and it stirred up quite a bit of controversy."

Little Zhang nodded. "Yeah, but who could presume to point fingers at the Governor-General's Office's authority? Hahaha!"

Commandery Chief Zhao ignored Little Zhang's teasing and continued, "He has been doing this for three years now. Though Little Lin has little talent for officialdom, he has always been diligent and never bent the law for personal gain. I hear he has become even more diligent lately, and the people of Changle Town cannot praise him enough."

Little Zhang bent down and whispered, "Commandery Chief, what exactly are you trying to say?"

Zhao Anping said blandly, "Do you think Little Lin has noticed this round of appointment plans?"

Little Zhang laughed. "That's impossible. The drafted documents are still in your safe. Aside from you and a few people at the Commandery Administrative Office, no one else knows anything."

Zhao Anping gave a cold laugh but did not pursue the matter. Instead, he asked, "What do you think Little Lin is after, being so eager to defend the most dangerous stretch?"

"Isn't he just trying to rake in some merit?" Little Zhang yawned. "Don't be fooled by how nicely he talks. At most, he'll patch things up and do some preparatory work. If the flood really comes, he definitely won't go up on the levee."

Zhao Anping said nothing more. He sat quietly beneath the dim lights for a moment before rising. "Let's go."

"Great, we can finally go home." Little Zhang beamed at once, grabbed his briefcase, and shot out in a single stride.

Zhao Anping looked back at where Lin Wen had been sitting, then silently left as well.

After Lin Wen returned to town, he finished reading through the flood-control materials he had brought back that very night.

The next day, he directly led people onto the levee.

Though the Changpai Village Levee was called a major levee, it was actually only a short stretch of dry embankment, linking upstream Clear Breeze Mountain with downstream Craggy Ridge.

It lay west of Changle Town, quite a distance away. But Lin Wen would rather die than ride that wreck of a vehicle again, so he walked over with the ten clerks who had just been reassigned to him.

The other two were left behind with Little Li to hold down the rear.

If not for the fact that he truly could not split himself in two, Lin Wen would not have wanted a single person. He would have done everything himself.

The moment they climbed onto the levee, they saw the surging river rolling in from the horizon. Its waves churned violently, terrifyingly. The river was at least two thousand meters wide, stretching as far as the eye could see. On the opposite bank stood towering, sheer cliffs, blue-gray rock walls shooting straight from the riverbed into the clouds, enough to make anyone quail at the sight.

People were so tiny here, like ants beside a colossal beast of heaven and earth.

Yet all that stood against such mighty waters was an old, neglected earthen levee. Water seeped from every part of its sloping bank, proving that hidden holes riddled the ground below. Several sections had already collapsed, and river water had infiltrated the levee's foundation.

The ten accompanying clerks all went pale as earth, trembling from head to toe.

Lin Wen was delighted inside. Perfect, he had an excuse. With a grand wave of his hand, he said, "The levee is dangerous. All of you go down. Prepare earth fill and tie it up in woven bags. Also prepare bamboo cages filled with rocks, some anchor piles, and tools for reinforcement. Put everything below the levee. I'll fetch it myself. You don't need to worry about the rest."

The ten clerks exchanged glances. One of them stammered, "Mayor Lin, isn't this inappropriate...?"

"Enough!" Lin Wen pulled a stern face. "If the mayor doesn't do dangerous work, who will? Is the mayor's salary collected for nothing? When great, difficult, and bitter tasks arise, if the mayor does not charge at the front and sacrifice himself for righteousness, what use is he as mayor?"

With things put that way, none of them had wanted to stay on the levee even a moment longer. Terrified by the crashing waves against the shore, they fled down the levee as if escaping for their lives.

Lin Wen alone remained beneath the yellow-gray sky and amid the roaring torrent. Spreading his arms wide, he laughed. "Here I come! Immortals, gods, tremble!"

Perhaps out of some inexplicable gratitude, the ten men transported over two hundred bags of earth fill, more than fifty bamboo cages filled with rocks, around twenty anchor piles, and a huge heap of tools in a single day.

And Mayor Lin did not leave the levee for the entire day. Alone, he carried earth fill and used shovels and tools to reinforce the embankment.

The Changpai Village stretch of levee was over two hundred meters long. By all reason, one person's workload could hardly complete its repairs and reinforcement. But by evening, they no longer dared say that, because Mayor Lin had already carried over a hundred bags of earth fill up. He held a shovel in each hand and moved across the wet, muddy levee as swiftly as a mountaineer, as though the load on his back were a sack of cotton. In only moments, he could carry a bag of earth fill from below the levee to the top.

At this rate, he might really finish repairing the levee before flood season arrived.

"This is possible?" One clerk could scarcely believe his eyes. "Is this something a human can do?"

"Is he made of iron?"

"Should we go up and help him?" a tiny voice asked.

"If you want to go, go."

"I can't stand looking at that river. It's like some man-eating monster."

"But there was never anything like this before."

"Stop talking! These are Mayor Lin's orders! He assigned us this work. If we don't transport the earth fill, is Mayor Lin supposed to run to the village, dig the dirt himself, and carry it over?"

"Right, right, this is work Mayor Lin assigned us! We must obey the arrangement. We can't slack off!"

"Transport some more?"

"Let's go!"

By nine that night, dark clouds had piled overhead. Before long, heavy rain began to fall. Transporting earth fill in the rain was too difficult, so the ten men decided to return and rest first.

As one man was leaving, he looked back. The levee was black as ink, and nothing could be seen. He muttered to himself, "Mayor Lin must have gone back long ago."

A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the river. The waters surged as if crazed, making one wonder whether that thin, paper-like levee could possibly withstand such horrifying force before a river two thousand meters wide.

Yet atop the levee, in the pouring rain and beneath the lightning's glare, there was clearly still a figure carrying something toward the sloping bank.

The lightning vanished in an instant, and everything returned to darkness.

Overwhelming terror flooded the man's heart. He fell to the ground and screamed, "Th-there's someone... on the levee!"

Everyone turned back. "What did you say?"

"Are you blind? It's pitch-black. What ghost could there be?"

"Hurry back and take a hot bath. I'm dead tired!"

The man was still badly shaken and began to wonder if his eyes had deceived him. Mayor Lin could not possibly still be on the levee at this hour. Even if he were Superman, he would at least need to light a lamp, right? How could anyone work in such utter darkness?

Though reason kept denying it, the scene illuminated by that flash of lightning remained branded in his mind, impossible to dispel.

Unlike what they thought, Lin Wen really was still on the levee. He did not feel the slightest fatigue or hardship. Facing the terrifying might of nature amid the storm, he felt no fear or cowardice whatsoever. Instead, it made him feel as though he had arrived in a world of immortal cultivation ahead of schedule. That thrill and trembling excitement were utterly beyond anyone else's understanding, and Lin Wen was completely intoxicated by it.

Of course, this was not some spiritual victory.

During the first few hours, Lin Wen had truly been exhausted to the point of vomiting blood. The paths atop the levee were all mud. Stepping in was soft, pulling his feet out was exhausting, and everything was wet and slippery. Each bag of earth fill weighed over a hundred kilograms, like carrying a mountain on his back. Without faith to support him, he would have collapsed long ago.

The first bag of earth fill took over half an hour to carry onto the levee, and finding a hidden hole took another half hour. Fortunately, Lin Wen's memory was still good enough. He had firmly memorized the methods for finding and plugging hidden holes from the flood-control materials.

To avoid being swept away, Lin Wen deliberately chose a spot where the current was relatively gentle. This hidden hole was also very small. One bag of earth fill was enough to pack it shut, so it should only have been a minor breach.

The instant Lin Wen finished reinforcing it with his shovel, he gained 1 point of Good Karma.

Lin Wen was stunned. Before, he could work himself to death for an entire day without getting even 1 point of Good Karma. Yet after only a little over an hour, 1 point had landed in his account?

He had long guessed that repairing the levee was a great virtue and should earn quite a bit of Good Karma, but he had never expected this much.

"Calm down! Calm down! There might not be this much every time. I worked for so long before without gaining any Good Karma. Maybe I was just short by a tiny bit, and this happened to make up the difference?"

The way to verify it was simple. He just had to try again.

Though powerful motivation drove him on, his physical limits remained. Lin Wen still spent over thirty minutes carrying another bag of earth fill up.

Then he spent nearly an hour finding another especially small hidden hole. The moment he plugged it, another 1 point of Good Karma entered his account!

"Holy shit!"

Lin Wen stomped his feet and beat his chest, regretting that he had not discovered this road to wealth sooner. He had wasted so much time for nothing.

Just as he wanted to seize the moment and press on, he turned and fell onto the levee. Only then did Lin Wen realize that both his shoulders had gone numb, his arms were trembling uncontrollably, his legs were as weak as cotton, and enormous soreness ran through his entire body.

"No way, how can this work?"

Good Karma was right before his eyes, yet he could not pluck it. Lin Wen was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

"Get up, get up! These damn legs, get the hell up!"

Just as he was fretting himself into a rage, white mist flashed before his eyes and the immortal cultivation panel appeared again. The biggest change from before was that the number after the two golden, radiant words Good Karma had become 10.

These were the 10 points of Good Karma Lin Wen had earned after many days of accumulation and tireless effort.

"What am I looking at this for now? What am I thinking..."

He abruptly stopped halfway through his sentence, because Lin Wen suddenly noticed that the seal icon behind the [Spells] section below had vanished.