The river ran the color of mud, choked with snapped branches and bloated carcasses. The residents of Millenniu…
The river ran the color of mud, choked with snapped branches and bloated carcasses. The residents of Millennium Crossing crowded the higher grounds, watching as the flood swallowed the houses below, one roof at a time.
Fear gnawed straight through Yang Yishen. He was afraid that things would end very badly for him this time, and cursed himself for ever coming here.
Only when the waters had receded for half a day did he dare climb back down, legs shaking.
That was when he saw them... the fish. They were hurled inland by the flood and thrashed in shallow hollows. Their gills flared and collapsed as they struggled desperately to breathe.
They looked just like him. Exactly like him.
Every breath tasted of rot and death, yet they still struggle to survive.
The thought struck him with terrifying clarity: this was the Goddess's message!
When the flood came, even long-legged beasts couldn't flee, and neither could people. Only fish endured.
It could only be by the grace of the Goddess.
If people ate fish, surely some fragment of that blessing would cling to them as well and allow them to survive in the water!
Yang Yishen steeled himself. From that day on, he set up a small fish stall once more. This one, he told himself, is a gift returned by the Goddess.
Believing this made it easier. Easier to tell himself that when his little daughter slipped and fell, when he hesitated for just a heartbeat and let the flood take her... It wasn't abandonment. It was so that today, he could hand fish to someone else, and keep more people alive.