Two weeks after the decision was made, Li Yuan woke with a quiet awareness: today was the last day before he would leave.
There was nothing dramatic about this conclusion. No sign from the sky or mystical whisper. Just a simple awareness that he had spent enough time in the Port of the Southern Winds—reading all that was available, speaking with everyone who had knowledge, and most importantly, achieving an internal calm about what was to come.
He had become a waterfall ready to fall.
That morning, Li Yuan visited Kira's tavern for the last time.
The woman was sweeping the floor when he entered—a morning ritual she had performed every day for twenty years. She saw Li Yuan and stopped, the broom still in her hand.
"Today," she said—not a question.
"Yes."
Within the ten-meter radius, Li Yuan heard her intention—a mix of sadness at losing a newfound friend, a genuine worry even though she knew Li Yuan wasn't an ordinary human, and underneath it all, a respect for the choice he had made.
Kira put down the broom and went to the back of the tavern. She returned with a small package wrapped in cloth.
"I know you said you don't need food. But this isn't for you to eat on the journey—it's for when you return. If you return."
She handed him the package. "Bread that I baked myself. It will last for months if kept dry. When you come back—and I hope you do—come here. I'll make the best tea I've ever made, and you'll tell me everything."
Li Yuan accepted the package with deep gratitude. Not because he needed the food, but because this gesture meant something bigger—an acknowledgment that he was not just a foreign traveler but someone who had become a part, however brief, of this community.
"I will return," he promised. "And I will tell you everything."
Kira nodded, her eyes a little wet but her smile sincere. "Go, then. The sea is waiting for you. And your waterfall."
The second visit was to the library.
Eldric was reading at his usual table, surrounded by old books and worn maps. He saw Li Yuan and closed his book slowly.
"The day of departure," he said as he stood. "I have prepared something for you."
He led Li Yuan to the back of the library and took out a book that was still empty—a thick, good-quality leather cover, pages that were white and waiting to be filled.
"This is a journal," Eldric explained. "I know you don't need to write to remember—I've already figured out you're different. But when you return, I want you to write your story here. Not for me—for those who come after."
"For future generations who will wonder what is in the south. For young sailors who dream of exploration. For scholars who seek knowledge."
He handed the journal to Li Yuan. "Be a voice for those who never came back. Be the story they couldn't tell."
Within the ten-meter radius, Li Yuan heard Eldric's intention—not just about knowledge but about a legacy, about ensuring that all those who were lost in the south did not die in vain.
"I will write," Li Yuan promised. "Every detail. Every understanding. Every lesson the ice teaches."
Eldric smiled with deep satisfaction. "That is all I ask."
They stood together for a moment, two scholars different in age and race but alike in their love for knowledge.
"A safe journey, Li Yuan. And if you find something extraordinary there—something that changes the way we understand the world—bring it back. Let it be your last gift to humanity."
At midday, Li Yuan walked to the southern edge of the city for the last time before leaving.
This rocky beach had been his meditation spot for two weeks—the place where he looked south and felt the ice waiting.
Today, the sky was clear in a way that was rare for this region. And in the distance—clearer than ever before—he could see white on the horizon. Not just faint but distinct. The wall of ice that Captain Margot wrote about in her journal fifty years ago.
Li Yuan took off his gray hanfu and folded it carefully. Inside, he placed the black shell from Shell Island, the map from Eldric, the package of bread from Kira, and the empty journal.
He wrapped it all in the red cloth he usually used to tie his hair, creating a waterproof package in a way that only someone with a deep Water Comprehension could do—making the water itself refuse to enter.
The package would float. He would push it in front as he swam, or let it follow with a subtle spiritual connection.
Then he stood at the water's edge—naked except for the existence of his awareness body that had become his physical form for thousands of years.
Within five centimeters around his body, he felt the water—in the air, in the sea spray from the waves, in the humidity that carried traces of ice.
And for the first time since making the decision, he released a little more of the wrapping on his Water Comprehension—not fully, not enough to hear the entire world, but enough to feel the path he was about to take.
The current that flowed south. The temperature that dropped gradually then drastically. The ice that began to appear on the surface about three days' swim away. And then—the land of ice itself, vast and silent and holding a memory older than anything he had ever touched.
Ten days, he estimated. Maybe twelve if I take the time to truly listen to the water along the way.
Then... what awaits there?
Not knowledge I can get by releasing my Wenjing from here. But an understanding that only comes by standing in the middle of it, by letting the cold in—or at least trying to—by listening to the silence that reflects everything.
Li Yuan stepped into the water.
The cold—even for his awareness body, there was a sensation of cold though it was not painful. It was as if this body was remembering what it meant to be human, what it should feel even if it didn't have to feel it.
He walked deeper until the water reached his waist, then his chest, then his neck.
Then he dove.
Below the surface, the world changed.
The sounds of the wind and waves disappeared, replaced by an imperfect silence—the pulse of the sea itself, the movement of creatures swimming, the vibrations that were too low for human ears but which Li Yuan could feel through his Water Comprehension.
He swam south with an efficient movement—not a rush but a steady pace, like water flowing with gravity.
His awareness body didn't get tired. It didn't need to breathe. It didn't feel the pain of overworked muscles.
He just swam, kept swimming, carrying the package that floated in front of him with a subtle spiritual connection.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.
Li Yuan swam without stopping—not because he was in a hurry but with a steady rhythm like a river flow that never stops. His awareness body didn't get tired, didn't need rest, didn't feel the monotony that would drive a normal human insane.
He just swam, and on that journey, he learned.
The first month brought him through a transition zone—where the warm water from the north slowly mixed with the cold currents from the south. Here, he saw marine life in an astonishing variety: schools of migrating fish, whales that sang with a voice that echoed for thousands of kilometers, bioluminescent creatures that made the depths glow like a starry sky.
He was not in a hurry. Sometimes he stopped—not to rest but to listen. To feel the stories carried by every current. To understand how water moved in this zone, how it carried warmth from the equator and cold from the pole, how the two danced in a dynamic balance.
The second month, the temperature dropped faster. The colorful tropical fish disappeared, replaced by larger species with thicker skin. The water changed from bright blue to dark blue, almost black in the depths.
And Li Yuan began to feel a more fundamental change in the water itself. Not just temperature but density, viscosity, the way the molecules moved. It was as if this water was preparing for a transformation—from liquid to solid, from flow to stasis.
The third month brought the first ice.
Not large—just small crystals suspended in the water, too small to be seen with the eye but which Li Yuan could feel through his Water Comprehension. Water that was beginning to freeze at temperatures where it should still be liquid—a phenomenon that happened because of pressure, because of salinity, because of the unique conditions in this sea.
He went to the surface and saw: the horizon was still empty, but the air was so cold that his breath—if he breathed—would freeze in an instant. The sky was different here, a paler color, the sun was lower even at midday.
The fourth month, fifth, sixth—the seasons were changing above him. In the Port of the Southern Winds, winter would be ending and spring would begin. But here, in the far south, there was no spring. Only a deepening cold.
Floating ice began to appear—first as small fragments, then as larger blocks. In the seventh month, he had to navigate through a labyrinth of floating ice, some as big as small islands.
And here, for the first time, he heard something that made him stop.
An echo.
Not a story carried by liquid water but a resonance reflected from the ice—a sound that hit the crystalline surface and returned with a changed quality.
The ice speaks, he mused, stopping his swimming for the first time in seven months. Not with words but in the way it reflects resonance. Like an acoustic mirror that changes what comes to it and sends it back with added information.
He touched a large block of ice—a smooth, hard surface, a cold so intense that even his awareness body felt something. And through that touch, he heard.
A memory. Not like the stories that liquid water carried—which flowed, which changed, which were dynamic—but a memory stored in the crystal structure. A frozen moment when the water changed phase, an event encoded in a molecular pattern that hadn't changed for thousands of years.
This is what I was looking for, he realized. Not just to reach the land of ice, but to understand this process. The transition from flow to stasis. From dynamic to static. From carrying stories to storing memories.
The eighth month, ninth, tenth—Li Yuan no longer swam at full speed. He moved slowly, listening to every block of ice he passed, learning to read the patterns stored within them.
Ice from a hundred years ago. From a thousand years. From ten thousand years—water that froze when the world was still different, when humans had not yet built great cities, when the sea was still pure from the touch of civilization.
In the eleventh month, he saw it: the white wall on the horizon. Not faint anymore but clear and massive.
And at the end of the twelfth month—after a full year of swimming, listening, learning—Li Yuan finally stopped.
He went to the surface and looked at the wall of ice that stretched as far as the eye could see—left and right with no visible end, hundreds of meters high, sparkling under the low sun with a light that was almost painful to the eyes.
This was the continent of ice.
A land that no living human had ever seen.
The place from which everyone who tried to go before had never returned.
And Li Yuan, with his hand holding the package containing the black shell, the map, the bread, and the empty journal, swam closer.
To the wall.
To the ice.
To a source that was not a spring, but a silence that reflects everything.
The journey had just begun.
And the waterfall had finally reached its base—not with violence but with a quiet awareness that its fall had brought him exactly where he needed to be.