The Eldest Daughter Returns with Power

As the torrential rain raged for seven days, Gongsun Ruotang sat at her dressing table, carefully braiding Chenghuan's hair. Her fingers moved nimbly through her daughter's dark hair, every movement filled with a mother's tenderness and love.

A palace maid handed over tiger-head shoes embroidered with gold thread. Gongsun Ruotang gently picked them up and carefully slipped them onto her daughter's delicate feet. The tiger-head shoes were exquisitely embroidered, and the lifelike tiger heads seemed to carry a sense of majesty while also exuding a strong childlike charm, adding a touch of playfulness and cuteness to Chenghuan.

Just then, the shadow guard burst into the hall, soaking wet. Rain dripped from the hem of his clothes, pooling into a puddle on the clean floor.

He knelt on one knee, his voice urgent and tense: "Emergency dispatch from Yangzhou! The dike has breached!" This news was like a thunderclap, instantly shattering the original warmth and tranquility of the hall.

Si Yunchen was focused on reviewing the memorials, his vermilion pen tracing neat lines of characters across the pages. Upon hearing the shadow guard's report, he abruptly stood up, the vermilion pen slipping from his hand and falling to the ground, splattering ink onto the open map of mountains and rivers beside him.

The map, which had once clearly marked the mountains and rivers of various places, was now smeared with ink. A look of shock and anger flashed in Si Yunchen's eyes. He looked at the account book on the table. On the yellowed pages, the words "30,000 cubic meters of bluestone" had been changed to "30,000 bundles of thatch" at some point.

His hands trembled slightly as he gripped the ledgers tightly, a surge of indescribable anger rising within him. "Open the private treasury!" Gongsun Ruotang almost without hesitation ripped off her phoenix crown and tossed it to a nearby palace maid.

The phoenix crown, adorned with countless pearls and gems, shimmered brilliantly in the dimly lit hall, yet she discarded it like worn-out shoes. Barefoot, she swiftly trod across the piles of memorials scattered on the floor, each step firm and powerful.

Her eyes shone with decisiveness as she loudly ordered, "Send a message to Nangong Sheng: all the Ni Chang Pavilions in Jiangnan must set up porridge kitchens within three days." With that, she grabbed the Crown Prince's private seal and pressed it forcefully onto the grain allocation document. The bright red ink instantly stained her fingernails. "Your Highness, I'm going to Yangzhou."

Outside Yangzhou city, the area had become a vast expanse of water. The turbid floodwaters raged like a ferocious beast, destroying houses, submerging fields, and displacing countless people.

Gongsun Ruotang's carriage struggled through the mud and eventually got stuck. She lifted the curtain and looked out, and saw a woman holding a wooden basin floating in the flood.

The baby in the basin was crying loudly, its cries sounding particularly shrill amidst the wind and rain. Upon seeing this, Gongsun Ruotang did not hesitate to kick off her embroidered shoes and leap into the waist-deep water.

Her phoenix robe, woven with gold thread, instantly became soaked with mud and heavy, but she was oblivious to it and swam toward the woman with all her might.

"Your Majesty, this is unacceptable!" The prefect arrived by boat with his soldiers, lotus leaf chicken and Shaoxing wine laid out on the bow, clearly intending to enjoy some food even amidst the chaos.

Gongsun Ruotang shoved the baby into his arms, her wet hair clinging to her pale face, her eyes filled with anger and disappointment: "Lord Zhang, this boat has a shallow draft, why not take a few more people on board?" The prefect trembled at her gaze and words, his face showing embarrassment, and he didn't know how to answer for a moment.

That night, the government office was brightly lit. Gongsun Ruotang, wrapped in a coarse cloth shirt, sat at a table piled high with grain registers, meticulously counting them. Her gaze was focused and resolute, not missing a single detail.

Suddenly, a commotion arose outside the door. She frowned, put down the grain register in her hand, and got up to go out. She saw a barefoot old man being pushed and shoved by the yamen runners, kneeling in the rain. The old man was soaked to the bone, his face full of anxiety and helplessness.

He raised his head and looked at Gongsun Ruotang, his voice trembling slightly: "Sir, I reported half a year ago that there were ant nests on the dike. Prefect Zhang said... said that yellow ants can reinforce the dike..." Gongsun Ruotang listened to the old man's words, and the anger in his heart burned up again.

She turned to look at the prefect, who stood silently with his head bowed, her eyes filled with accusation. A chill ran down her spine. Behind this disaster lay the corruption and dereliction of duty of countless officials. She secretly vowed to give the people an explanation.

The rain poured down, turning the world into chaos. The turbid floodwaters roared like a ferocious beast, relentlessly battering the precarious dikes.

The prefect stood inside the tent, his expression flustered yet trying to appear calm, his eyes frequently glancing at the tent flap that was being battered by the rain. Just then, the tent flap was suddenly flung open with a "whoosh," and a sharp gust of wind carrying rain rushed in.

Si Yunchen was dressed in a black, close-fitting outfit, the edges of which were trimmed with gold, gleaming coldly even in the dim light of the sky. He was agile, and the soles of his boots were still covered with locust blossoms from the capital. The scattered petals seemed out of place yet inexplicably dignified in this chaotic disaster relief site.

"What a fine yellow ant that can hold up a dike!" Si Yunchen's voice boomed like a bell, making everyone in the tent's eardrums ache. Before he finished speaking, a thick account book flew out like a hidden weapon, hitting the prefect's panicked face with a "smack." "You embezzled 800,000 taels of silver, and you've given me a golden anthill!" Si Yunchen's eyes blazed with fury.

Soon, the execution ground was set up at the breached dam. A howling wind whipped the surrounding flags, cheering on this belated justice. Si Yunchen personally wielded the blade, his posture upright, like a towering mountain peak, the long sword in his hand gleaming with a chilling light in the dim light.

At this moment, Gongsun Ruotang was in a makeshift medical tent, gently and attentively feeding medicine to a feverish child. Her eyes were full of concern as she softly coaxed the child, a sight that contrasted sharply with the grim scene outside where an execution was about to take place.

The executioner stood to one side, his rusty dagger seeming to tell tales of time's vicissitudes and bloodshed. The prefect, who had been slumped on the ground, suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, his voice shrill and piercing, carrying far in the wind: "What's the use of killing me? From the Ministry of Works to the prefectural government, who doesn't..." Before he could finish speaking, a flash of cold light appeared, and Si Yunchen's blade fell swiftly and cleanly.

Blood splattered three feet, splashing onto the surging waves beside him, only to be instantly swept away by the flood and vanish without a trace. Si Yunchen flicked the water droplets off his blade, which splashed onto the terrified faces of the surrounding officials. He sneered at the officials, who were limp as mud, his voice seeming to come from the deepest hell: "Who wants to test whether the Imperial Sword is sharp enough?" Just then, a cheer suddenly erupted from the breached dam.

The crowd stared in astonishment as they saw the disaster victims using the nanmu coffins that the prefect had embezzled to plug the breach. Those nanmu coffins were originally prepared by the prefect for his own extravagant funeral, but now they had become life-saving items for thousands of people, revealing the irony of fate.

Seven days later, the continuous torrential rain finally stopped, and the sky cleared. Warm sunshine shone on this land that had suffered so much, bringing a glimmer of hope for rebirth.

Gongsun Ruotang squatted in the mud, busily distributing porridge. Her hair was a little messy, with a few strands sticking to her sweaty cheeks, but her eyes remained firm and gentle.

The painting Chenghuan sent was crumpled, but she carefully placed it aside. In the painting, the little girl depicted her mother as a winged clay bodhisattva, and her childish brushstrokes were full of love and admiration for her mother.

Crown Prince Si Yunchen walked over steadily, carrying the blood-stained account book. He saw Gongsun Ruotang barefoot in the pile of wheat chaff, red marks from leech bites on her insteps, and felt a pang of pain in his heart. "The Ministry of Revenue has sent another three hundred thousand taels," he said, crouching down to gently roll up her trousers, his eyes filled with concern and tenderness. "This time, I personally oversaw the purchase of bluestone."

Upon hearing this, Gongsun Ruotang scooped up a spoonful of hot porridge and handed it to a trembling old farmer. Then she turned to Si Yunchen and smiled, "Let Yuwen Mo escort it. He has a keen sense of smell and can tell whether the bluestone is mixed with thatch or not." Just then, a clear nursery rhyme suddenly came from outside the porridge stall.

The children splashed happily in the water, singing in unison, "The Crown Princess Distributes Divine Porridge." Gongsun Ruotang's gold bracelet shimmered in the afterglow of the setting sun, its clattering sound as it fell into the porridge bucket, a melody of hope playing across the land gradually returning to life.