"Has King Huai returned?" Qian Bingyi put down the brush.
"No," Sinan replied.
"When did he leave?"
"He set off for the East Sea on the sixteenth of last month, arrived in Pingyang on the first of this month, then went to the capital for an official report, and requested a fifteen-day leave from Your Majesty to return to Yellow Sand."
At the River Management Office Headquarters, the piles of documents on the desk corners were exceptionally high.
Qian Bingyi sat high at the table, while Sinan supported a small table beside him. Occasionally, officials came and went, stepping up and down the steps, and sometimes familiar faces from the Huaidong River Station were visible.
Qian Bingyi picked up the Water and Rivers Governor's Seal on the desk, stamped it heavily on the documents, blew them dry, closed them, and moved them from left to right. Then, he calculated with his fingers, his expression turning joyful:
