Gu Sheng receives a call from Aunt Tao at the urban customer service center, learning that the eastern embankment of the lotus pond left by her great-aunt has collapsed and half the water has leaked. She asks for leave to return to Ouhuadu, where she joins her elder sister Gu Ou and Aunt Tao in plugging the breach, clearing silt, dismantling the stove for bricks, and deepening the drainage ditch. Relying on the blueprint from the insert page of the old ledger and the signatures of neighbors, she applies to the village committee to preserve the lotus pond. After the meeting, the pond is preserved and the road is moved three meters south, on the condition that the water storage is repaired before winter. Gu Sheng refuses to return to the customer service center, plants lotus sprouts, and finally writes in the old ledger: “The pond remains. The planting remains.”