The people below him were deathly silent.
Zhou Zhengyang was furious. "It's been this long, and we still don't have a solid plan. What have you all been doing?"
Someone mumbled, "It's not that we can't finalize one. We've already submitted several drafts."
"A plan that doesn't solve the problem? A plan that gets sent back again and again? Can you even call that a plan? At the rate of your previous proposals, by the time you finish dredging, the great flood will have come and gone years ago!"
"There might not even be a great flood," someone muttered.
"'Might not?' The entire world is bracing for the worst, and you're telling me it 'might not' happen? If the great flood does come, can *you* take responsibility for that?"
"Do you know why they call it the 'Suspended River'? It's not suspended in the air—it's a guillotine hanging over the heads of the three hundred million people in Huabei!"
Everyone fell silent. You could hear a pin drop in the conference room.
