The Law of the Land

The girl Zhinv was lifted from her couch and carried back to her father's hut. The father, who had not moved since they took her, stumbled out into the road and took her in his arms, and for the first time that day, he wept. The neighbors stood around them, awkward and silent, not knowing whether to rejoice or to fear what the river might do now.

That night, when the village had gone home, Ximen Bao sat in his hall and wrote out his orders. He abolished the tribute. He forbade the temple to choose girls again, on pain of death. He ordered the lands that the old witch and the three elders had seized through their collections to be returned to the families from whom they had been taken.

Then he did what no magistrate before him had thought to do. He called the farmers together and asked them why the river flooded at all. They shrugged and said it was the will of the River God. He said no, it was the fault of men. The river had no proper channels; its waters, when they rose, spread where they wished, because no one had ever thought to lead them.