Chapter 49: God of the Crossing

Nobody drowned anywhere that day. Mei spent the afternoon proving it, asking every boat that came in and every farmer who waded down from the hill road, and each answer brought another name off the list in her head. The Lis' twenty rowers were alive. The magistrate's wife was alive. Little Plum's husband, old Zhang's son, the nuns at Reed Hollow, all alive. Gu the toll-keeper had been found sitting on a floating piece of his own roof, holding on to his chain, and had told the county clerk everything he knew without being asked twice. At Reed Hollow, the flood had lifted three indigo vats out of the Wu dye works and set them on the temple roof. The vats were ruined, the temple was blue, and nobody had drowned. "A hundred and twelve," Mei said. She sat on the landing's bottom step, green weed under her bare feet…