"Kid, what are you looking at? Pay attention!"
A group of people in work clothes were walking among the boulders, and a bearded uncle at the head of the line shouted to the young man bringing up the rear.
"Captain Wan, what do you suppose that thing out there is?" The young man pointed toward the middle of the river.
"Looks like... a person..."
"It really is! Quick, let's save them!"
The group hurriedly pulled tools from their backpacks and, with some effort, managed to rescue the person from the water...
"Oh dear, I never expected to crash..." The boy scratched his head with a helpless expression. "Oh, right, have any of you seen a small white cat?"
"A cat? No." Captain Wan looked at the boy in astonishment. He had just been pulled from the water and was soaked to the skin, yet he showed not a shred of panic, as if he were completely used to it.
"Ah..."
"Don't worry, a lucky cat has its own natural protection, it'll be fine." The young man threw an arm around the boy's shoulders and said.
"..." The boy pushed the young man's hand away. "She naturally will be fine."
The young man laughed heartily and began to make introductions. The young man's name was Yujie, and the team leader was Wanyan. The others didn't seem important, so the boy didn't bother to remember their names.
"I'm Xi."
"Oh, oh, Brother Xi, want to come along to do something big—ha, let's get your clothes dry first, though."
"Oh... no need."
Yujie was about to say something when he noticed that the boy's clothes were already dry, heaven knows when. Watching Xi's retreating figure, Yujie whispered to the person beside him, asking when on earth his clothes had dried. That person shook his head, indicating he had no idea.
*Sigh...* Hey, wait for me! Yujie picked up his pace and caught up with the group.
"Where are we going?"
Xi and the others wove through the boulders, heading deeper along the river.
"Hehe." Yujie sidled up to him again—he had been like this the whole way. "We're going to search for the truths of nature, of course."
"What?"
"Why make it sound so mystical? We're actually just here to survey data on the Yangtze River," Captain Wan said in a rumbling voice.
"Hey, there's not that much difference. Back in high school, wasn't geography practically metaphysics?" Yujie seemed to recall being dominated by it—though he meant other people being dominated.
"Hey, Xi, do you know about the National Survey Corps? They're all heroes. One day, I'm going to become someone just like them."
"Oh? Good luck with that." Xi looked around, appearing thoroughly distracted.
"That's a pretty perfunctory response. I'll have you know I'm a man who's about to become a member of the National Survey Corps."
"Except you seem to be male."
...
Xi ignored the chatterbox, keeping his gaze fixed entirely on the surrounding environment.
The sky was dim, and the flora and trees all had a grayish cast. Layer upon layer of off-white clouds divided the sky into two distinct sections. No one knew what conditions were like above the cloud layer. Gusts of gloomy wind blew past, emitting mournful sounds as they threaded through the forest.
Xi strained his ears to listen, but the vibrant forest made not a single sound.
"Captain Wan, the data has been gathered," someone said.
After collecting various materials, the squad prepared to make their return journey.
That was it? Xi looked at Yujie with a trace of puzzlement. The latter gave a slick, suave smile: Actually, it wasn't all that difficult. The preparatory work before the surveying was the troublesome part; after the surveying, there was still various data to integrate and process. The actual surveying was the easiest part, since the machines did the measuring themselves.
"How about it, Xi? Want to come back with me?"
"No thanks, no thanks, you're too anno—no, I have other business."
"Huh? Did you just say I was too annoying?" Yujie's eyebrows arched. "Oh well, whatever. Here's my phone number, get in touch if you need anything."
Not long after Xi parted ways with Yujie and his group, it actually started to rain. The young man hurried along through the misty drizzle.
"Here, take this."
Xi stopped in his tracks, looking somewhat hesitant as the young woman before him held out an umbrella.
"It's fine, I'm almost home. Look, that's it right there." The woman pointed to a house up ahead.
Xi took the umbrella from her, and before he even had time to say thank you, she had already run off into the rain.
Walking with the umbrella slowed Xi's pace considerably. Weaving through the bustling traffic, he raised his head to look at the sky. The noisy World seemed to have nothing to do with him, and Xi stood as though in a stationary pocket of time and space.
The sky here was different from everywhere else; the misty drizzle seemed to drape a layer of dark gauze over the entire expanse, yet the firmament was exceptionally clean and stark white. Only the ambient noise was somewhat irritating.
Xi disliked modern transportation, both for its sounds and its smells. No matter how long he spent outside, he always felt his hometown was best!
Xi slipped away from the crowd, came to the lakeside park, and stood by the railing to look out into the distance. That, surely, was the Three Gorges Dam.
The majestic, towering giant wall stood like an impregnable barrier, a single man holding the pass against ten thousand, dividing the waters of the Yangtze River. Xi marveled at this miracle and the ingenuity of mankind.
He stared blankly at the scene, lost in thought.
"Water is both the source of life and a disaster," Xi muttered to himself.