Li Chijun spent three days' worth of meal money to rent a stretch of bridge shadow on the Bian River.
He wanted to prove in half a quarter of an hour that the river hadn't lost those two inches of water.
Twenty-seven grain ships were stuck east of the bridge. Some people were waiting to deliver grain, some were waiting to collect their wages, and some were waiting to buy medicine for their wives. The official measuring rod at the bridge said the water was shallow, so the brokers on the bank urged everyone to pay an additional unloading fee.
He boarded a ship with his measuring rod, only to be stumped in front of everyone: What are you using as your standard?
To find the answer to that question, he has to save an old measuring rod that's about to be burned, investigate an old ledger with freshly replaced pages, and work with Cheng Jianghe, the manager of a printing shop, to uncover a route for diverting the accounts around the warehouse, following a half-erased ink mark on the back of a grain receipt.
Stone bags lie hidden on the riverbed, while grain moves across the page. Some people really are short of supplies, some really have suffered disasters, and some always manage to turn other people's hardship into another source of income.
The Dream Pool Essays would later record how to measure water and how to print words. Li Chijun also wants to preserve the names of those who stood by the water, moved stone bags, and steadied the measuring rod.
A measuring rod may not be enough to measure all of life's complexities. But if he borrows one, he has to return it with the truth laid bare.
