As land reclamation swallowed their homes, they used love as a shield. As power and capital closed in, they stood side by side and fought back. From secret allies on an inspection team to partners restoring the shoreline, Chen Yan and Su Mei’s eleven-year struggle was also a love story: the quiet understanding of gathering evidence late at night, the bond forged in life-or-death trials, and the souls who found each other beneath the mangroves. The Judgment of That Sea brings ecological justice and an unflinching romance together in a story that will leave readers cheering for both!
In 2013, Chen Yan, a former official with the National Development and Reform Commission, entered a coastal land-reclamation project in the south, dreaming of building an “eco-city.” As soon as he received the environmental impact assessment, he noticed that the mangrove survival rate on page seventeen had been altered: a warning that thirty percent would die had become “five percent, within acceptable limits.” Late one night, Zhao Tianxiong’s secretary offered him an agreement for a seaside apartment. In Gao Zhiyuan’s office, a note reading “expedite the project” sat on top of a petition from local fishermen. Only then did Chen Yan realize he had stumbled into a power-and-capital trap.
On the night seawater flooded the village, Chen Yan slipped evidence to the fishermen, only to have his doorway splashed with red paint. The day after his divorce, the brakes on his car suddenly failed as he crossed a bridge by the river. Just when all seemed lost, Su Mei of the State Oceanic Administration arrived with the original monitoring records, marked “confidential.” “If we’re going to bring them down, we need hard evidence.”
From losing the first trial in maritime court when a key witness recanted, to playing a recording of Gao Zhiyuan taking bribes in the provincial high court, to Zhao Tianxiong submitting records of overseas transactions at a Supreme People’s Procuratorate hearing, this lawsuit against the government was a step-by-step march along the edge of life and death. But even after Gao Zhiyuan was placed under investigation and Zhao Tianxiong was jailed, Chen Yan saw that the newly planted mangroves had turned yellow overnight. Beneath the tidal flats lay the torn-up pages of the environmental assessment from years ago.
Only when the setting sun turned the sea gold and schools of fish circled the reefs did he understand: that sea had never needed to be “conquered.” It needed someone brave enough to tear through the lies in the dark and plant the light back in the tidal zone.
