'He Sheng—' He Sheng leaps from the earthen slope, turning his head wildly. He rises in a hurry and his thread spool falls into the water, leaving his paper kite cut in the shape of a fowlbeast's tail to become nothing but a tiny dot in the pale blue sky in the blink of an eye, disappearing before his eyes as it follows the river's current. He Sheng himself was brought to Dahuang by this very river. Were it not for the strong wind that guided him to the shore's embrace, were it not for the sharp, attentive eyes of the farmer hauling sandbags, a babe of not even two years would surely have met with disaster. The Tianshis and the farmers had discussed arrangements for him throughout the night, sent for instructions from the Ministry of Revenue, and even dispatched a Messenger to head directly upstream. However, that year the north had suffered floods after a great drought, while the south was buffeted by a vicious Catastrophe, and so the search for his parents had borne no fruit. Since then, he was known as He Sheng, and he was considered born in Dahuang. He grew up atop the crop ridges. He grew up by the water pumps. He grew up on top of the mobile greenhouse frames. He grew up in the Tianshi dormitories and the farmers' courtyards. He grew up in the service channels between the artificial canals. He remembered Tianshi Shu giving palm readings to the children his age, then dabbing a drop of wine onto their foreheads. He remembered sitting atop the backs of stockbeasts alongside Grain Buds, surveying the container ships reminiscent of small mountains slowly entering the waterways, leaving for distant Baizao, Shangshu, or perhaps Danyan to the north. He also remembered one time that an experimental field of high-sugar crops spontaneously combusted, and Dahuang was filled with the inescapable sickly-sweet scent of boiling syrup for a month. He Sheng rubs his eyes and spots the old farmers he's known since childhood rushing towards him. 'You've passed your exams,' they shout along with his name, joy plastered across their faces. 'You've passed your exams, and Tianshi Shu said she'd take you on as an apprentice!' Behind them, a small stockbeast languidly chews on the fresh grass, a brand-new metal ruler tied to its back alongside a silver kite. A strong wind pushes him towards the crowd, while little bells jingled and jangled amidst the hubbub that had swallowed up heaven and earth. He jumps down from the slope, running beside the Yiwei plate's canal, pulling a silver wind behind him.