In the second year of Zhihe in the Northern Song, seven years have passed since the Yellow River burst its banks at Shanghu Weir. The river has changed course and flowed north, drowning fields and destroying cities. The court plans to open the Liuta River and block the breach at Shanghu, using human labor to redraw the river for the realm.
Li Hengzhou, a junior proofreader at the Institute for the Advancement of Literature, discovers a river chart on a page absent from the catalog of a rain-damaged old copy of Commentary on the Water Classic. On its reverse, his late father has left eight words: “A river cannot be restrained; a map must not deceive.” At the same time, a river worker responsible for the water gauges dies at Bian Pass with the same kind of ancient paper clutched in his fingers. A set of river-defense charts and records, capable of determining the livelihoods of tens of thousands, is being quietly rewritten inside the capital, Dongjing.
To clear his father’s name, Li Hengzhou and the bookbinder Kan Qingxiu investigate scraps of paper, ink, and printing-block gutters. They follow the Bianhe River out of the capital, venturing along the old course at Shanghu, the Liuta construction site, and the Song-Liao frontier. They search ancient books for old rivers and correct ancient books among the mountains and rivers, gradually realizing that a thick line of ink on a map becomes villages, grain routes, and countless lives in the real world.
When river management becomes a shortcut to power, who is still willing to tell the truth on behalf of a river that refuses to obey?
