Li Mutian woke at the fourth watch, staring at his own leaky roof. A faint glow seeped through the crack he had not had time to fix — three days now without proper sleep. Beside him, his wife slept like the dead.
*Women never understand the weight of things,* he thought. In the past weeks, immortals had gone mad in the Dalishan mountains, soaring overhead, hunting as if they meant to dig the earth three feet deep. Every beam of light made the villagers drop to their knees. The small settlements at the foot of the range had always lived easy. Now everyone slept with one eye open.
The mountains were far from any court, and no one wanted the court's attention anyway. But when immortals fight, a single spell can wipe a village off the map — dogs, chickens, and all.
Li Mutian turned over, found sleep impossible, and rose to look at the night.
*The boy grows bigger every day, eats more every day.* Tomorrow he would send him to Meichi River for fish and crab. *If he dies to a stray spell, that's fate. The Li family has farmed this land for two hundred years. His mother can't move, his father won't.*
He pulled on his coat and stepped out. The yellow dog slept on, oblivious. Li Mutian walked through the morning mist, listening to the village wake: roosters, dogs, the first threads of cooking smoke.
"Xiangping — !" he bellowed at the house.
A clatter answered. The door flew open and a half-grown boy burst out, eyes bright and cunning, chin tilted up at his father.
"Dad!"
"No work today," Li Mutian said, waving him off. "Go down to Meichi River and fetch something fresh for your mother. Fish, crab, whatever bites."
"Great!" Li Xiangping grabbed a rope basket and a long fork and shot off before the words finished leaving his father's mouth.
Li Mutian laughed twice and headed for the fields.
---
Meichi River ran wide and shallow, lined with mudflats and reeds. The village geese and ducks — raised in their hundreds — needed no feeding. Released at dawn, they drifted to the water; at dusk a single call brought them waddling home.
Li Xiangping arrived before the birds. The river lay empty. Two small rafts knocked against the bank. He rolled up his trousers and sleeves, dropped to his knees in the mud, and peered into the water.
A flash of green.
*A good one.*
He pushed down hard, held his breath, and plunged. His right hand closed on a gill and hauled a fat fish into the air.
"Ha!" He tossed it into the basket and laughed. Fish this stupid didn't grow in Meichi River — this one must have washed down from upstream. Beginner's luck, but he'd take it.
He looked down at his feet. Something under the mud was strange: too smooth, faintly silver, catching the light where nothing should.
He was about to dive again and investigate when a voice rang from the bank:
"Xiangping!"