By the third day, Zheng Wen Te understood something quietly unsettling.
People had stopped solving small matters without first glancing in his direction.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was subtle.
A pause before deciding.
A hesitation mid-argument.
A look across the clearing to see if he was watching.
He was repairing a cracked irrigation gate when Min approached, slower than usual.
"You're busy?" Min asked.
"Yes."
"That's good."
Zheng Wen Te glanced at him. "Is it?"
Min scratched the back of his neck. "Means you're staying."
Zheng Wen Te did not answer that.
Min shifted his weight.
"We're holding a meeting tonight. Under the elm."
"What about?"
"The upper fields."
Zheng Wen Te waited.
Min exhaled. "The water level is lower than expected. If it drops more, the higher terraces won't get enough flow."
"And?"
"And someone has to decide how to ration it."
Zheng Wen Te resumed adjusting the wooden brace.
"Then decide."
Min hesitated.
"That's… why I'm here."
Zheng Wen Te tightened the final knot and stood.
"You have elders."
"They disagree."
"Then you debate."
"We did."
"And?"
Min's jaw tightened. "It goes in circles."
Zheng Wen Te studied him.
"You want me to settle it."
Min didn't deny it.
"Just… guide it," he said. "Like with the stones."
"That was a retrieval."
"This is worse."
"Yes," Zheng Wen Te agreed.
Min's eyes sharpened slightly. "So you'll come?"
Zheng Wen Te looked toward the fields.
The river had indeed retreated a few finger-widths.
Subtle.
But real.
"I will listen," he said.
That evening, the entire village gathered beneath the broad elm tree near the central clearing.
Not because someone ordered them.
Because word spread.
Hao stood to one side with two other elders. Lian stood near the back, arms folded.
The debate began before Zheng Wen Te even sat down.
"The lower fields are closer to the main channel," one man argued. "If we restrict their intake, the upper terraces might hold."
"And starve half the crop below?" another snapped. "Are you insane?"
A woman stepped forward. "We can rotate flow."
"For how long?" someone demanded. "If the river keeps dropping—"
"It won't."
"You don't know that!"
Voices overlapped.
Fear disguised as logic.
Zheng Wen Te listened.
No one addressed him directly.
Yet space had been left near the center.
An unspoken invitation.
After several minutes of circular argument, Hao raised his hand.
"We asked Zheng Wen Te to hear this," he said carefully. "Not to command. To hear."
Several heads turned.
Expectation gathered like static in air.
Zheng Wen Te stood slowly.
"I do not know this river as you do," he began. "I have not farmed this soil."
Murmurs.
"But I understand systems," he continued. "If you protect only the lower fields, the upper ones fail first. If you protect only the upper, the lower starve. Either choice concentrates loss."
Silence began forming.
He walked toward the crude map someone had drawn in dirt.
"Rotate flow," he said. "But not equally."
A few brows furrowed.
"Prioritize the fields with younger seedlings first. Older crops can endure short stress. Younger cannot."
Hao's eyes widened slightly.
"That would mean reducing lower intake for two weeks."
"Yes."
"And if the river drops further?"
"Then you reassess together."
A man near the back frowned. "And if someone ignores rotation?"
Zheng Wen Te looked at him directly.
"Then you confront them."
"That won't be enough."
"Then you decide whether trust matters more than yield."
A quiet tension settled.
No grand declaration.
No raised voice.
Just weight.
Min finally spoke.
"That makes sense," he said slowly. "Younger first. Then shift."
Others began nodding reluctantly.
Not unanimous.
But aligning.
Lian watched Zheng Wen Te carefully.
He felt it.
The pivot.
The moment where suggestion became direction.
Hao cleared his throat.
"We will follow this rotation."
There it was.
Follow.
Not test.
Not attempt.
Follow.
Zheng Wen Te felt something tighten in his chest.
He stepped back immediately.
"You will follow your own agreement," he corrected.
But the words felt thin.
Because the shape had already formed.
After the meeting dispersed, Lian approached him in the dark.
"You stepped in," she said.
"I offered structure."
"They took it."
"Yes."
She studied his face.
"You're not proud."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because if it fails, they will blame themselves."
"And if it succeeds?"
"They will credit me."
She didn't argue.
The next morning, rotation began.
And for two days, it worked.
Water redirected. Channels adjusted. People cooperating.
Relief began spreading quietly.
Until the third morning.
A shout echoed from the lower terraces.
Zheng Wen Te arrived to see Min and another farmer, Jun, standing knee-deep in diverted flow.
Jun's face was flushed with anger.
"You reduced our intake again!"
"It's the schedule," Min insisted.
"My seedlings are already yellowing!"
"They're older!"
"They're not invincible!"
Several villagers gathered.
Voices rising.
Jun pointed at Zheng Wen Te.
"This was your idea!"
Min stiffened. "It was all of ours."
"But he said it!"
The air shifted.
Zheng Wen Te stepped forward calmly.
"Show me the plants," he said.
Jun hesitated, then gestured sharply.
They walked the rows.
Some leaves indeed showed strain.
Not catastrophic.
But visible.
Zheng Wen Te crouched, touching the soil.
Still damp beneath surface.
"These can endure another day," he said.
Jun's jaw clenched.
"And if you're wrong?"
Zheng Wen Te met his gaze.
"Then we adjust."
Jun looked away.
"You speak like mistakes are simple."
"They are not."
"Then why are you so calm?"
Zheng Wen Te stood.
"Because panic accelerates loss."
Jun stared at him for a long moment.
Then turned away abruptly.
The crowd dispersed slowly.
But something had changed.
It was small.
A fracture.
That night, Lian found him sitting alone near the irrigation gate.
"You heard?" she asked.
"Yes."
"He's scared."
"I know."
"And angry."
"Yes."
She sat beside him.
"Are you sure this was right?"
He did not answer immediately.
"No," he said finally.
She looked at him sharply.
"But it was the most balanced path available."
"That's not the same as right."
"No," he agreed.
Wind passed through the fields again.
He thought of Heaven asking him what he sought.
Nothing.
Yet here he was.
Designing survival patterns.
Becoming central.
And someone's crops were already trembling at the edge of loss.
The river had not dropped further.
But tension had.
And tension, unlike water, did not obey channels easily.
Tomorrow would test more than irrigation.
It would test trust.
And trust, once strained, rarely returned unchanged.