Over the next few days, An Youyu woke up several more times.
Each time was very brief.
Most of the time, he could not even open his eyes.
He could only hear someone prying open his mouth, trickling water and fish soup inside bit by bit.
Yet his throat seemed to have forgotten how to swallow.
Most of what was fed to him was choked right back out.
Someone rolled him to his side, patted his back, and wiped away the grime from his nose and mouth.
“Slow down, let him swallow first.”
“Where's the medicine bag? How much is left?”
“Half a bag. At most, it'll last through tonight.”
“Go find Old Knobby and have him brew another bag.”
“The shipping route is sealed off and the supply ship can't get in. The commune's medicinal ingredients ran dry long ago, and Old Knobby's already stopped brewing.”
“He still has some ingredients left. Pawn our house's trawl net to him and get him to brew one more bag.”
“Ning Cang, if we pawn that net, what will we use to go into the water later? Besides, everyone in the commune says he's past saving. Why won't you believe them?”
“Just let him pull through tonight.”
“You said the exact same thing last night.”
Despite her complaints, Zheng Azhu quickly left the cabin.
Amidst these drifting, distant voices, An Youyu gradually remembered the couple caring for him: Ning Cang and his wife.
Once, while Zheng Azhu was feeding him water, seeing his eyes open, she asked what his name was.
He gathered his strength for a long while and managed to give only three words.
“An Youyu.”
Then he fell back into unconsciousness.
...
Grumble—
A rumble from his stomach roused An Youyu from his deep sleep.
It had been over a month since he was hauled back to Clown Float-Commune.
During this time, he had woken intermittently many times, but he had never been as clear-headed as tonight.
Fierce winds wrapped in freezing rain battered the cabin walls, making the entire room sway gently with the wind and waves.
Cold drafts seeped continuously through the seams of the steel plates.
An Youyu pulled his old blanket tighter around himself.
Grumble—
His stomach rumbled again, louder than before.
It had been a very long time since he had felt hunger this clearly.
His hands and feet were also far more obedient than a few days ago.
From next door came the sudden sound of a cupboard door opening, followed by the clinking of dishes.
“What are you trying to do now?”
“This past month, you let him stay in A'Man's cabin, gave him medicine, and brought him food. When did I ever stop you?”
“But we still have two children!”
“There are only these few pieces of algae cake left in the cabinet from the last distribution. If you send more over there, what will the kids eat tomorrow?”
Black algae cakes were usually fishy and bitter, so few on the float-commune cared for them.
However, the Wither Tide had arrived early this year, and a cold wave blocked the shipping routes, preventing the supply ships from entering. The commune granary had already cut rations twice in a row.
Now, even stuff like this had to be eaten by counting every piece.
The room next door fell quiet for a while.
Ning Cang said, “The wind's eased up a bit. At daybreak, I'll take the haul boat out.”
“The black flag is still hanging on the perimeter wall. What are you going out for?”
“Not far. Just cast two nets near the float-commune. I'm bound to haul something back.”
“Ning Cang!”
Zheng Azhu's voice suddenly rose.
“A'Man is never coming back. Do you want our two children to lose their father, too?”
...
An Youyu knew who A'Man was.
He also knew that the bed beneath him had originally belonged to Ning Cang's younger brother.
Trapped within the iron bed frame remained the voice of A'Man begging his older brother to take him out to sea.
In the old fish-skin coat on the cabin wall was Zheng Azhu telling him to pull down his sleeves, alongside A'Man arguing that the sleeves got in his way.
In the chipped wooden bowl by the bed, every time before a sound occurred, two light taps of knuckles against the rim would ring out first.
These sounds were all very brief.
Just a sentence or two.
Sometimes accompanied by footsteps, laughter, or the rustle of clothes.
Over the course of a month, An Youyu had worked out the underlying pattern.
Only when his body touched an old object would the sound appear.
The moment his hand let go, it vanished immediately.
Touching the same object again would yield the exact same few sentences.
Clearly, those were not sounds happening in real time.
They were more like things from long ago, left behind inside the old objects.
As for why he could hear them, An Youyu did not know yet.
Perhaps three years of torture-steeping had altered something.
Or perhaps there was another reason.
For now, the only thing certain was the sounds themselves.
Relying on these fragments of words inside object after object, combined with the conversations he overheard while half-asleep, An Youyu slowly pieced together A'Man's past.
Ning Cang's parents had died early.
A'Man had been raised almost entirely by Ning Cang.
When he was fourteen years old, he completed his first fish-transformation, becoming the youngest First-Transformation in Clown Float-Commune.
Two years ago, also during the Wither Tide...
That year, the commune granary had likewise hit rock bottom, and the black flag hung from the perimeter wall for three days straight.
On the morning of the third day, the wind slackened slightly.
Ning Cang and several boatfolk untied a haul boat, intending to cast two nets near the float-commune.
A'Man followed along.
That was his first time going out to sea.
The first net hauled back very little.
Just as the second net was half-retrieved, a sudden turbulence flared on the sea.
Ning Cang was pulling in the net when he was caught unprepared, thrown bodily into the sea.
He possessed no Fish Aspect, so after falling into the water, before he could even struggle, he was dragged toward the bottom of the ship by underwater turbulence.
A'Man jumped in immediately.
He found his unconscious brother and dragged him all the way back to the haul boat.
The people on board worked together to pull Ning Cang up.
A'Man grabbed hold of the rope ladder, too.
But right at that moment, an undercurrent running along the seabed swept beneath the ship.
His whole body plunged downward abruptly; his hands slipped off the rope ladder, and in the blink of an eye, he was swept into the deep water.
He never surfaced again.
The people on the boat tried several times to turn around and search, but the turbulence pushed the haul boat away time after time.
If they stayed any longer, the entire boat might capsize.
They could only retreat to the float-commune first.
It was not until days later when the black flag was taken down that Ning Cang went out with the boat again.
This search lasted seven days.
In the end, they only salvaged one of A'Man's water-flotation boots.
...
An Youyu placed his hand back onto the bed rail.
As his fingertips touched the rusted iron, that line from the boy, which he had heard many times before, rang out from within it once more.
“Brother, take me with you next time you head out to sea.”
“I'm fourteen already.”
“Just take me with you once.”
“Fine then. We won't go far, just cast two nets near the float-commune.”
Ning Cang's line from just now was identical to the one from two years ago.
...
Rate on N.U.
