Night was already deep, with scattered lights still burning across the float-commune.
Across the water inside the ring wall, the occasional voice of a parent urging a child to sleep could be heard, as well as couples in their cabins calculating tomorrow's fresh water.
Leaning against the outer gallery railing, An Youyu listened to these faint sounds, unable to help remembering Salted Fish Float-Commune from many years ago.
Back then, his parents would also wait until he fell fast asleep before sitting at the foot of the bed, lowering their voices to plan the next day's water, each wanting to spare a bit more from their own share.
Those voices felt as if they were still beside his ears.
Yet right now, the distance between him and his former sea felt as vast as a lifetime apart.
Salted Fish Float-Commune was gone.
Perhaps not a single person who knew An Youyu remained.
If no one in this world remembered this name anymore, what was the point of reclaiming it now?
The moonlight falling on his body suddenly dimmed.
A massive shadow enveloped the float-commune, plunging the surrounding water surface, footbridges, and cabin roofs into darkness all at once.
An Youyu initially thought a cloud had blocked the moon.
Looking up, however—
What blocked the moon was a dark silhouette hidden behind low clouds.
That shadow stretched boundlessly, traveling against the wind together with the cloud layer.
Moonlight fell through gaps in the clouds, illuminating a section of a ventral fin covered in pale silver tide markings.
Just this single section exposed beneath the clouds spanned all the way from the western Tide-Viewing Tower across the clown head and past another tower, casting shade over most of the night sky.
A Cloud Kun was crossing.
Immediately after, a massive tail shadow swept across the moon's disk.
Half the night sky instantly darkened.
Vast swathes of clouds tumbled outward to both sides as that dark silhouette slowly glided above Clown Float-Commune, continuing into the distance.
Only when the final section of the tail shadow merged into the night clouds did moonlight drop back onto the water.
An Youyu continued gazing in the direction the dark shadow had disappeared.
Its swimming posture in the clouds, the pale silver tide markings on its ventral fin...
Those crazy words heard two years ago while interrogating a sea diviner suddenly resurfaced line by line.
That man had claimed he could read the clouds to understand the waves, discern good and bad fortune from scorched, cracked fish bones, and specialized in taking money to pick days for boatfolk to set out to sea.
Only after he led two salvage ships into deadly tides in succession, causing a tragic bloodbath, was he delivered into An Youyu's hands.
Under torture, that man had kept muttering a few mad statements:
“You think what's above your head is the sky?”
“Above is also an ocean.”
“A 【Sky Sea】 covering every layer-sea.”
“The sun, moon, and stars aren't really hanging up there either; they're all just illusions—flowers in a mirror, the moon in water.”
“Cloud Kuns swim within the Sky Sea.”
“It uses waterspouts to swallow fish, and fish clouds hang beneath its belly year-round.”
“When the silver markings face the sea, within a day at most, sky fish will surely fall.”
At the time, An Youyu had merely thought the man was making up such nonsense just to suffer a few fewer cuts.
Yet thinking back now, some things were simply beyond anyone's clear explanation.
After the continent submerged, the mutually isolated layer-seas stacked above and below each other in various orientations—some even inverted relative to one another—yet all could behold the exact same sun and moon.
The scholars who studied the layer-seas had proposed countless explanations as well.
Some said space was folded.
Some said all layer-seas were actually submerged inside one single, larger ocean.
Others believed that after the continent submerged, what truly shattered was not merely the land, but the entire world itself.
There were many theories.
Yet to this day, not a single person had been able to prove whether that thing above the boatfolks' heads was truly "the sky."
And that shadow just now had clearly been swimming among the clouds.
The ventral fin exposed between the cloud layers had indeed been covered in pale silver tide markings.
“【Cloud Kun】...”
“Could that charlatan actually have known something?”
An Youyu kept watching until that cloudy shadow completely vanished into the distance.
Yet not a single fish ever fell from the heavens.
He couldn't very well go knock on Ning Cang's cabin door in the middle of the night over a crazy line heard during an interrogation.
He withdrew his gaze, picked up the wooden basin at his feet, and turned back into the cabin.
Yet the sea diviner's words from years ago had already taken root in his heart.
Was the Sky Sea real or fake?
Were the sun, moon, and stars truly reflections cast from another world?
And how many living beings never recorded in maritime logs inhabited those places hidden behind the clouds year-round?
Besides returning to Zijing Sea to settle old debts, for the first time, another desire took shape in An Youyu's heart.
One day, he too wished to walk along the tide paths through each layer-sea and see with his own eyes just how vast this world truly was.
However, whether for vengeance or a long journey, he first needed sufficient strength.
The exhaustion accumulated from his Nirvana and cultivation quickly surged up.
Not long after An Youyu lay down, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
That line—“within a day at most, sky fish will surely fall”—revolved in his mind a few more times before finally sinking into sleep along with him.
...
The next day, An Youyu was awakened by a clattering of iron buckets.
He looked out through the cabin window.
The black flags still hung atop the towers, but the footbridges that had been empty last night were now crowded with people.
Carrying buckets, every household was rushing toward the water distribution platform.
The mechanical sounds of gears and winches started up again from the distant water drawing platform.
This surge of Floating Spring had come up.
Just as An Youyu was about to withdraw his gaze, he suddenly saw Zheng Azhu walking along the side corridor carrying an empty bucket.
Ning Cang was following behind her.
The two were heading toward the water distribution platform.
An Youyu quickly grabbed the wooden jug beside his bed and chased out the cabin door.
“Ning-ge, Azhu-jie.”
Hearing his voice, the couple turned back together.
At this time yesterday, An Youyu could barely stand steadily, his knees giving out at any moment, and in the end Ning Cang had to help him back to the bed.
Now, however, he had jogged up to catch them while carrying the wooden jug.
When crossing the joint between two side corridors, he had even taken a light leap across.
Ning Cang subconsciously reached out to support him.
His hand was only halfway out when An Youyu came to a steady stop right in front of them.
Without even losing his breath.
The sickly grayness on his face had faded entirely clean.
There was no longer the slightest sign that he had been bedridden for over a month.
Zheng Azhu's gaze shifted back and forth between his face and legs twice.
Only after a long moment did she speak.
“How are you...”
An Youyu handed over the wooden jug.
“Azhu-jie, take this water back. My sickness is cured, so you don't need to save any for me from now on.”
Zheng Azhu took the wooden jug and weighed it in her hand.
The weight hadn't lightened in the slightest.
He hadn't drunk even a single drop of the half-jug of fresh water left behind last night.
“We still have enough water tickets at home. This half-jug was saved specifically for you to drink—why are you trying to spare water for us?”
“I'm truly not thirsty.”
The shock on Zheng Azhu's face grew even deeper.
Once Blackwater Sickness developed spots, the patient would become unnaturally thirsty for water.
Even after the black spots receded, this intense thirst would usually linger for a long time.
Yet An Youyu had stayed beside half a jug of fresh water and hadn't touched a drop the entire night.
Unless...
That bout of Blackwater Sickness had truly cleared up completely, leaving behind not even the hardest post-sickness craving to endure: the "water addiction."
A'Man was really all right.
Zheng Azhu froze for a second.
No.
The person in front of her was named An Youyu.
She quickly set the empty bucket at her feet, leaned over to check the whites of An Youyu's eyes, and unbuttoned his collar and pulled up his sleeves, inspecting every spot on his skin where black spots had previously flared.
The sides of his neck and arms were completely clean.
Not even a trace of faint ink-color could be found.
“Is your chest still cold?”
“Not anymore.”
Zheng Azhu immediately turned to look at Ning Cang.
“Did you hear that?”
“I heard.”
Ning Cang responded, then took hold of An Youyu's arm and led him outward.
“Let's go.”
“First, let Old Knobby verify it clearly.”
“Once he's done checking, Ning-ge will show you around the place.”
...
Rate on N.U.
