The weather had been terrible for several days. By day and night the air was oppressively hot, as though a fierce heat wave and torrential rain were waiting to break. Even the carefully tended fish were so agitated that they refused to stay in their ponds. One after another they leaped from the water, flopping and struggling along the banks.
Around noon a fine rain began falling outside, beneath a gloomy sky. From somewhere beyond the windows came the faint sound of people arguing.
Dahe put on his clothes, went out, and picked up an old umbrella beside his door.
Several owners of the fish farms stood under umbrellas, talking among themselves. The two young university graduates were with them.
Dahe approached, and the students brightened. “Mr. Chen, come take a look at this!”
“It just jumped out on the reservoir bank. We don’t have fish like this here. Boss Zhang says it’s a cold-water fish that’s come downstream from the upper reaches, a new species. Do you think it can be raised in a pond, Mr. Chen?”
Dahe examined the thrashing fish. It was a species he had often seen in the river before the mountains in childhood; later, as the water quality declined, the fish had gradually become scarce.
The group discussed the unfamiliar fish for a while in the drizzle. When the rain began falling harder, everyone returned to their rooms.
Dahe’s injured leg slowed him down, leaving him last. Suddenly he heard something that sounded almost like distant thunder. He looked back. The leaden sky stretched toward an endless bank of darkness, and somewhere far beyond his sight seemed to come the tremendous echo of a violent upheaval.
He stood listening in silence but heard nothing more. Slowly, with his uneven gait, he made his way back inside.
The night was still stifling. His old leg injury ached unbearably, leaving him tossing and turning.
Dahe groped for the lamp, got up, poured himself a cup of cooled boiled water, and took a sip. When the pain would not ease, he sat at the edge of his bed and drew a crumpled photograph from beneath his pillow.
Its corners were worn and curled from countless touches. In the brilliant sunlight of the photograph, a younger Dahe crouched beside the low mountain god’s shrine, one hand resting shyly on its eaves, amid green mountains and forest.
Narrowing his eyes, he gazed toward the shrine roof. A white patch of reflected light there looked almost like the faint outline of someone reclining on top.
He pressed his lips to that little patch of light and kissed it gently. Feeling somewhat comforted, he held the photograph to his chest and lay down again.
In the middle of the night a crash of thunder woke him. White lightning tore across the sky. Although the doors and windows were tightly shut, a sudden breeze lifted the photograph from his chest and blew it to the floor.
He got slowly out of bed and crouched with difficulty to retrieve it. The wind drove rain against the thin wooden door, like someone desperately pounding on it and calling his name.
Holding the photograph, he stood upright and turned toward the shaking door as though drawn by some unseen force. He remained still for a while. Then, wearing only his thin sleepclothes, he opened it.
Wild wind and rain the size of beans burst inside, striking his face and body and instantly drenching the ground by the doorway.
He pressed the photograph over his heart and limped out into the wind.
The rain was so heavy that the uneven streets, with their poor drainage, had already filled with ankle-deep dirty water after only a day. He followed the dim lights along the fish farms, step by step, toward the reservoir.
At last he reached the place where he released a large fish every day. For several years he had fastened tiny offerings to fish with fine thread and set them free in these waters.
He bent beneath the downpour, slowly lowered himself to his knees, and knelt in the rainwater.
Closing his eyes, he prostrated himself devoutly toward the drowned mountain far away.
Black water surged in the reservoir beside him, flowing into the great river beyond. His bent silhouette stood motionless in the storm, a weathered, steadfast rock among the waves.
It was the posture his ancestors had preserved for hundreds of years: the last son of the mountain who still revered both the gods and the natural world.
Suddenly a faint sound interrupted the patter of the rain. Dahe looked up and saw the dark shape of a fish leap nimbly from the water and land with a splash in the muddy hollow before him.
It was one of the rare cold-water fish from upstream, the same kind he had seen at noon. This one, however, had a dry yellow praying mantis tied to its body with a piece of thread.
Rain struck his face and head with savage force. In the span of a heartbeat, tears blurred his vision.
It was a mantis made from withered rice straw, the one and only straw-woven old mantis he had made for the mountain god twenty years earlier, when he left the mountains to become an apprentice in the county town. That winter snow had buried the entire mountain and the bamboo and trees had withered. He had been able to use only straw.
He crawled forward on his knees and held the fish in his muddy, trembling hands. The lively creature sprang from his grasp, leaving behind the thread and the frail, slender mantis.
He clasped the woven mantis to his chest with both hands and threw his head back. Under the rain that seemed capable of washing a soul clean, he cried out hoarsely toward the heavens, weeping uncontrollably.
A return gift, seven years overdue.
But the warmth of that moment was terrifyingly brief. A strange, violent rumbling answered his cry from far away. The cold-water fish beside his knee thrashed for half a meter in the opposite direction, as though trying to escape some approaching disaster.
A tremendous tremor rose beneath his knees. He could no longer kneel steadily; his joints rattled. He opened his eyes and saw streetlamps swaying like torn plastic sheeting. The road beneath them twisted like a snake. The asphalt shrieked as it split open, and a black chasm widened through the flooded street, water pouring into it.
Clutching the mantis and photograph, Dahe struggled to stand amid the violent shaking. Before he had taken more than a step, a towering black wave rose against the dark sky like a landscape in an ink painting. It slammed into the little fishpond house where he had lived for years. The low building shattered at once, its timber and bricks swallowed in a blink by the black torrent.
He stood stunned. Then a sudden clear realization pierced his muddled mind.
There had been an earthquake. The reservoir had collapsed.
The thread tugged at the mantis in his hand. Dahe looked down in alarm and saw the cold-water fish flapping desperately, trying to return to the water. Suddenly he understood: if something had not guided him to leave his house and wait for this fish, he would already have been buried beneath its ruins.
But now he could not simply turn and run away.
As the earth continued shaking, he seized the thread, bit it through, and threw the little fish back into the water. He tucked the mantis and photograph into his pocket, then limped as fast as he could toward the approaching wave.
“Get out! Earthquake! Flood!” he shouted hoarsely as he ran, pounding as hard as he could on every door he passed.
The alert, quick-thinking neighbors had already rushed out with their families, screaming as they ran toward higher ground. But many more were still half asleep. They stumbled from their homes and stood bewildered in the storm and the shaking streets, frightened and unsure what to do.
Surging water flooded the poorly drained street in an instant. In only a few minutes it had risen to his knees. Dahe struggled through it toward the home of the two university graduates, who had not come out. They lived close to his own hut. A twisted length of steel from a collapsed building had pinned their door shut, and from inside came desperate shouts and pounding.
He forced his way through the waves to the doorway and heaved upward against the steel frame.
“Dahe! Run!” a neighbor who had already reached safety shouted back at him.
Dahe paid no attention. The strain made the veins stand out on his forehead. At last, with a tremendous cry, he lifted the heavy steel away and hurled it aside.
The two young graduates staggered through the warped doorway. Together they fled toward higher ground through water that had already reached their necks.
The wind, rain, and pounding waves roared without pause, like the lament of every spirit under heaven or the fury of nature betrayed. Running as hard as he could, yet growing weaker with every step, Dahe could hear his own harsh breath and violent heartbeat.
Amid the black despair and desperate struggle, he suddenly thought he heard birds calling sweetly from the depths of the old mountain forest. A gentle breeze brushed his childhood face. His feet ran over the fresh-smelling spring mud after rain, and he was carrying a juicy watermelon, grinning so broadly he could not close his mouth, slipping and scrambling all the way up to the summit.
At last his foot slipped. Through distant cries of alarm, he fell into the dark water.
Darkness and cold swallowed him. Floating on his back, he saw a faint light far above the water. Something thin and dark drifted out from his chest and rose toward that distant brightness. It was the only photograph of him and the mountain god together.
He reached toward the drifting shadow. The depths were cold, so terribly cold, just as they had been during those lonely nights when he was very small and his grandfather had stayed out hunting on the mountain until morning. He remembered the god’s words: If you remember me, I will always be here. When one day you leave and no one remembers me anymore, I will cease to exist.
He could not bear to leave. He could not bear to let that equally lonely god sink into the desolate darkness of being forgotten by everyone in the world.
* * *
Several months had passed since the earthquake. Reconstruction of the collapsed reservoir was proceeding in an orderly fashion. One day survivors of that devastating disaster, carrying the grief of those who had died, were gathered by the authorities on an earthen embankment beside the old reservoir site.
Reporters prepared their long camera lenses to capture tear-streaked faces. Officials unfolded thick speeches and instructed everyone to bow their heads for three minutes of silence. Amid the photogenic grief and the solemn, well-dressed ceremony, the faint voices of doubt and anger were completely buried.
The memorial ceremony honored a civilian hero by name. He had risked his life to warn residents during the earthquake and flood, knocking on doors in the storm and saving dozens of people in the fish-farming community, especially the two promising young graduates who had been trapped in their house, before being swept away himself. Now, reporters, turn the cameras toward those two young men as they weep. Get a close-up. Yes, a tighter one! And another of the leader handing them tissues. Good. Xiao Li, get it posted on the social media platform with a great big red candle!
* * *
White light spread in all directions without end.
He strained to open his eyes, but could see nothing and touch nothing. He seemed suspended in a boundless, untouchable dreamscape. All around him was a white void, and there was nothing else he could perceive.
After an unknowable span of time, voices sounded faintly from somewhere beyond the light.
“I have merely been recuperating for half a month. How has the mortal realm fallen into such a state?” asked a voice speaking with an emperor’s authority.
“Reporting to Your Majesty the Heavenly Emperor: mortals have acted shortsightedly and perversely, heedless of the lives of all creatures. For selfish gain in one generation they have brought disaster upon thousands of generations to come, changed the courses of rivers and flooded a hundred li of mountains and rivers, shaking the foundations of the land itself. Heavenly punishment followed, the earth’s veins were disturbed, and yet another calamity took countless lives…”
A deep sigh came from within the endless light.
“Enough. Heaven cherishes life. Though mortals have sinned, all living creatures should not be made to bear their guilt. Since the river’s course has been altered, appoint a new River God. Grant him divine power to guard the new river and restore peace to the creatures living along both its banks.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Concerning the appointment of a new River God, this humble servant has a candidate to recommend.”
“Let us hear.”
“Chen Dahe, formerly a resident of Mount Dahan. His family has lived deep in the mountains for generations and has always revered the gods. He is honest by nature and upright in character. During the catastrophe caused by the disturbed earth veins, he gave his life to rescue dozens of residents and perished in the attempt. The people have erected an online shrine to his memory and offer red candles day and night.”
“Is that so? Such goodness is truly commendable. Then appoint Chen Dahe the River God of the new waterway. Since he came from Mount Dahan, I shall bestow on the river a new name: the Dahan River.”
Elio’s Notes Dahe’s name, 大河, literally means “great river.” The River God appointment brings that meaning full circle.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Suddenly the boundless white light split open. Enlightenment rushed through him; his senses sharpened and his mind became perfectly clear. In the distance, endless halls and pavilions unfolded among the clouds, veiled in thin mist.
* * *
The violent turmoil of several months earlier had long subsided, and the muddy silt stirred up by the catastrophe had settled back onto the riverbed. Fish, shrimp, crabs, and snails that had fled in terror had returned to their homes, playing among the rotting timber and strands of waterweed covering the drowned mountain.
Amid the green weeds stood a small shrine half buried in underwater silt. Bright red coral grew along its tiled red eaves, and a few hermit crabs scurried around the red-veiled statue inside, peeking out and waving their little claws at one another.
The green-robed immortal sat cross-legged inside a huge bubble, holding an unlit cigarette between two fingers and going through the motions of smoking, thoroughly bored.
“You old beast,” he said to a thousand-year-old turtle beneath him, “why did that silly boy send only three cigarettes? Three! How am I supposed to make do? I can’t even bring myself to smoke them! I asked Little Black to send my mantis back, but I don’t know if it reached him. Little Red swam up from downstream and told me Little Black must have done something shameful, because he doesn’t dare come back. Apparently he’s found himself a mate downstream and gone off to lay eggs.”
The old turtle raised its head, blew a world-weary bubble, and tucked its neck back into its shell.
The immortal sighed. “You old beast, you’re no fun at all. I miss that black-furred little troublemaker of mine… That rotten rabbit went off with a spotted little companion. Who knows whether they’ve become immortals or demons by now?”
This time the old turtle did not even bother to stick its head out.
The immortal did not mind. He lay back, still holding the unlit cigarette between his lips, and narrowed his eyes at the faint light above the water. As he stared, he grew sleepy in the boundless silence. His eyelids slowly closed, but he continued murmuring, “Silly boy…”
Then he sighed again. “My cigarettes…”
“If there aren’t any cigarettes left, perhaps you should give up smoking,” a voice suddenly said.
The immortal’s mouth fell open. The cigarette slipped from his lips, only to be snapped neatly up by the old turtle below and tucked into its shell.
The immortal opened his eyes. Standing before him was a man in simple short sleeves, shorts, and even a pair of sandals, dressed as though he had just come back from helping Third Uncle work in the fields. A smile as bright as sunlight illuminated the cold, dark riverbed.
“I’ve come too,” Dahe said with a smile. “So there won’t be anyone left to buy you cigarettes.”
The mountain god stared at him without moving, unable to believe his eyes. Slowly he reached out to touch Dahe’s face.
Dahe caught those cool fingertips and pressed them to his own equally cool cheek. Though both were cold to the touch, they seemed to warm one another, warmth surging through them like a tide.
“You…” the immortal whispered, still dazed. “How did you…”
Dahe only smiled, the same simple, pure, honest smile he had worn for decades. He opened his arms and held his god close. Then, with immense reverence and tenderness, he bowed his head and kissed the sunken, scarred half of the immortal’s face.
The one god in all the world who belonged to him.
“You believe in me, so I am here too. You remember me, so I’ve always been beside you. You’re my god… and I’m yours.”
* * *
And so this was a tale written at the risk of censorship and trouble from the authorities, yet one that managed to reach a happy ending all the same, proving that the author really was a loving mother to her characters after all.
* * *
If you’d like a little more sweetness afterward…
“Silly boy! I want a cigarette!”
“Um… Why not quit? We’re so deep underwater. Where would I buy cigarettes?”
“There are plenty of tourists on the boats overhead. Just send up a wave, steal the cigarettes, and put the people back. Problem solved!”
“Heh heh…”
“Stop laughing and go get me some cigarettes!”
“Why do you have to smoke so badly?”
“If I don’t smoke, my mouth has nothing to do… Mm! Mmm! Stop kissing me! The old turtle is watching…”
“Then don’t smoke a cigarette. Smoke me instead. I’ve got a part of me that’s shaped a little like one, too. You can use that…”
“You… you rotten brat! What exactly did you learn out in the world? Your head’s full of wicked ideas… Mmm! Let… go…”
“Don’t you want to? Really?”
“…First make the old turtle pull its head back in! It’s peeping at us! Silly boy!”