Volume III Prologue On the River

Downstream

When I was in the wetland, I felt very cold, and there must have been something wrong with the fruit I ate the day before, and I was in a cold sweat, and when the wind blew, I felt cold to the bones

I couldn't steer a good boat at all, I fumbled for a while to get it moving, and then, when I started to vomit, I accidentally lost my long stick, and it fell into the water at once, and by the time I recovered it, it had already left me, and now I could only stay in the boat, and I couldn't do anything

There was a rope on the boat, but beyond that, there was nothing: tools, food, blankets, all of them

I lost my shoes, too, and after yesterday I took them off and knocked them off the ground after they were covered with mud, but when I got up in the morning, I didn't tie them tightly and they must have fallen somewhere on the riverbank

It was in the Valley of the White Pigeon, and Daddy Bianwen made it for me in lambskin, and at that time Daddy said that he would put two colored stones on my shoes, but my grandfather wouldn't let him do that.

"The shoes are too beautiful, and Timmy will be afraid to step on the mud and not want to go to the land, how can he be a lord"

Now my shoes are forever left in the land

After morning, the sun climbed into the sky

The temperature rose little by little, and I was exposed to the sun without any shelter on the boat, and at first, I felt very comfortable because of the cold, but after a while, I felt very uncomfortable, and the sun was so big that I could barely open my eyes

I was very thirsty, and wanted to put my hand out to get water to drink, but this action almost killed me, and the boat tilted to the side, almost overturning, I am not familiar with the water, I was frightened by this sudden change, and I hurriedly lay back in the boat

The sun grew brighter and brighter, and as it was close to noon, when I sat up, I could scarcely see that all the reed leaves shone brightly, a hundred times brighter than the oil lamps of the priests in the church, and these things occupied every space under the sky

It is somewhat ironic that, after I had not intervened in the boat, the boat had drifted far farther than I had been trying for a long time, and I was lying in the boat, hungry and thirsty, and after a while, when I could not bear the cramping pain in my belly, I sat up, and was startled by what I saw: my boat had drifted in a reed in a few moments when I had been lying down, and the reeds were so far away from me that I thought I would not be able to go at all

With a specific reference, my boat has been drifting slowly, the current is flowing in one direction, only in some places there are roundabouts, the boat is very stable most of the time, only when the reeds are inside, occasionally it will be hooked, I don't want the boat to continue walking back into the sun, because the reed leaves are very cool, I try to pull the leaves I can catch, but the boat seems to capsize, I can only watch me being carried back to the sun by the heavy current

After the sun has passed its highest point, the wind begins to blow

At that time I had completely lost my direction, and at that time I did not learn to use the sun to determine the direction, I just felt the world spinning, and there was a wave of nausea in my stomach, I tied the sleeves of my jacket to my wrists, and then threw the clothes into the water, and when I felt my wrists sinking, I lifted the clothes, I twisted the clothes, squeezed the water out, squeezed it into my mouth, I grew my mouth, and I didn't want to let go of every drop of water

It tasted so good, I never thought the water tasted so good, I once saw the farmers working in the fields drinking a whole pot of water in one go, and their throats swelled like a cow, and I thought it was amazing at that time, I never thought that one day I would drink so much water

Although I felt good when I drank the water, after a while, my stomach hurt terribly

I started to have diarrhea, but all I pulled out was water, and I remembered in a trance that I hadn't eaten for a long time, and I had only eaten some suspicious little fruit recently, although my father's teacher assured me that it was a safe fruit, but I had never eaten anything that tasted so strange, and it had made my stomach tumble since yesterday

I put my wet clothes on my body, I felt a little better, the wet clothes against my body made me feel cold, but when the sun and the wind made it very dry, I felt much better, there was no sound around me except for the running water, I began to feel sad or rather fearful, it was spreading from the bottom of my heart, I had never been so afraid: I was alone in an empty place, and I was alone when it was dark

I can't stop shivering when I think about it after dark

I've heard horror stories of undead in the water creeping up onto night boats, slicing the necks of sailors, and taking their souls underwater to serve as their own slaves

When I thought about it, I felt like I was separated by a plank, and just below the water, there were countless undead gliding after me, waiting for it to get dark, and then dragging me into someone's water, so that I didn't even dare to sit up and see where I was drifting to, for I was afraid that as soon as I sat up, I would see countless empty eye sockets on both sides of the plank

The wind began to get stronger, and the boat swayed violently

I felt that the boat was moving much faster than before, and I hadn't seen reeds row past me for a long time, and I guessed I had reached a deep water, and I knew that in the depths of the wetland, in the bottomless water, there were no reeds growing on it

The wind blows the smell of the river, and I can smell it, and everything that has been exposed to the sun does not taste the same, even the creek in the White Pigeon Valley will have a special smell in the summer, and the stones exposed in the river, the moss in the shallow water, and the sand on the bank, all of which together give off a special smell, and the fishermen will be more familiar with this smell than I have heard that there are blind fishermen who find their destination by smelling the smell of the riverbank

When I felt the boat jerk and start to add suddenly, I knew I had to get up and something was wrong

When I sat up, I had just floated into a big river

I remember someone saying that this river is called the Blue Ice River

The boat trembled like a dead leaf in autumn, and even I knew that the boat was dangerous and I needed help, and I wanted a big boat

I looked around, and there was not a single white sail as far as I could see