Shen Zhuxi’s consciousness drifted in the dark — she rose and sank in invisible waves, wrapped gently on all sides, like the feeling of being rocked in her mother’s arms when she was small.

Mother — where had Mother gone?

As that hazy thought surfaced, the soft tide began to recede.

A thread of cold crept up her chest.

And where was Li Wu?

Li Kun, Li Que — and Sui Rui, and the others — where had they all gone?

Why was she the only one left here?

The warm sensation flooding across her face called Shen Zhuxi’s awareness back to herself. Her consciousness gradually rejoined her body; the rising and falling sensation became clearer. The twittering and chirping of birds drifted on a mild breeze, floating past her ears.

Shen Zhuxi opened her eyes in a daze. An endless, dense forest filled her vision. Towering trees grew in all manner of twisted, ancient shapes, their thick branches straining upward toward the blue sky with everything they had.

Shen Zhuxi blinked blankly and looked up at the sky. The bright sun hung high in the vast blue expanse, and a scrap of cottony cloud was being gently carried along by the drifting wind.

Was she dead?

A tear slipped down her face without meaning to — and jarred Shen Zhuxi out of her daze.

Realizing something, she sat up abruptly and looked at what was carrying her forward.

Clear water lapped against her on all sides. Her robes floated on the surface, the sky reflected in the water below. An enormous pale grey creature was carrying her — pushing steadily through the surface, making its way toward the bank. On the shore, a whole herd of elephants, large and small, moved about: some scooping water with their trunks, some ambling slowly, flicking their tails to drive away the hovering insects.

Shen Zhuxi was so startled she went completely still, not daring to move a muscle, until the elephant carrying her gradually emerged from the water and stepped slowly onto the bank — mostly mud and smooth rounded stones.

The long trunk curled upward and gently encircled the alarmed and retreating Shen Zhuxi, setting her down softly on the ground.

This was not Shen Zhuxi’s first time seeing an elephant. Among the tributes once sent from Yunnan, there had been elephants — her father the Emperor had had them housed in the elephant garden, brought out only for grand ceremonial processions, and only then as part of the honor guard at the head of the column. Beyond that, Shen Zhuxi had never seen a wild elephant in her life, let alone sat on an elephant’s back and experienced being cradled in a curling trunk.

She stood rigid on the ground for quite some time. By the time she saw the herd turn and amble unhurriedly back toward the forest, she finally dared to look around — staring in speechless wonder at the strange scene surrounding her.

This was a valley — mountains rising on all sides, a lake as vast as a sea, and on one side, a stretch of forest serving as the only opening.

The forest nearby was lush and dense. Twisting vines in bloom with small yellow and white flowers wrapped in loop after loop around the tree roots that jutted from the earth. The enormous canopy of one tree interlocked with the next; the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the leaves fell in dappled, fish-scale patterns on the ground and the trunks below — shifting and shimmering with the breeze, swaying and sparkling. From deep within the forest came the easy, carefree calls of birds, and a small, bushy-tailed squirrel darted with quick, agile grace from one branch to another and was gone.

Shen Zhuxi found herself staring in spite of herself.

What place was this?

There was no one to answer her question. Only the elephant herd, growing steadily more distant, remained.

“…Wait for me!”

Shen Zhuxi’s anxiety got the better of her, and the words burst out. She lifted her skirts and rushed after the herd.

“Where are you going? Could you take me with you?”

Shen Zhuxi knew full well it could not understand her, but she ran alongside the elephant that had rescued her anyway, craning her neck up at it with urgent appeal.

When the sun set, she had no wish to be alone in a place like this. Who could say whether wolves or bears would come out at night? Since the herd had saved her, they would presumably not curl her up in a trunk and eat her. Going with the elephant herd was not a bad strategy for surviving in the wild.

The elephant that had saved her turned and looked at her, then swung its trunk. Shen Zhuxi’s hopes had just risen when another elephant, walking at the rear of the herd, came forward. It reached into its curled trunk and dropped a round red fruit into Shen Zhuxi’s arms.

“I don’t want fruit… I want to come with you…” Shen Zhuxi held the smooth red fruit and stared at the two elephants in front of her.

But the rescuing elephant pushed her aside with its trunk — the refusal unmistakable.

Shen Zhuxi tried again, and was shoved firmly back five or six paces by the trunk. She tried once more — and nearly got knocked clean off her feet. She did not dare push her luck again. She watched helplessly as the herd gradually disappeared into the dense forest, while she was left standing alone outside the trees, soaked from head to toe, holding nothing but a red fruit of unknown variety.

When the thunder of the elephant herd’s footsteps had faded entirely into the forest, Shen Zhuxi had nothing left to follow. She stared blankly around at the strange, wondrous surroundings — and then a bolt of clarity struck her:

Since she had fallen and survived, perhaps Li Wu had survived too?

They might very well be in the same place right now!

The thought instantly swept away all the unease and fear in Shen Zhuxi’s heart. She plunged into the dense forest, almost buoyant with eagerness.

This had started as a groundless, insubstantial hope — and then what she found just inside the forest’s edge made her whole body tremble with excitement!

Familiar vertical notch marks ran along the trees, leading deeper into the forest!

Li Wu — Li Wu had truly been here! She could not have mistaken them. This was the signal code their three brothers had agreed upon. It was by following Li Kun’s marks of this very kind that Li Wu had once found the brothers who had been taken to Pingshan stronghold!

Li Wu was alive!

A wave of wild joy made Shen Zhuxi’s head swim. She had to grip a tree trunk to steady herself, tears of excitement and disbelief brimming in her eyes as she stared at the mark Li Wu had left behind.

After a moment, she steadied herself and immediately wanted to push deeper into the forest.

She had barely taken a few steps inside when she stopped herself, suddenly cautious. She looked ahead at the forest stretching on without end, thought for a moment, then went back to the bank. At the place where she had come ashore, she arranged a simple duck shape out of small stones. Then she shed her outer robe and loaded it with as many smooth river stones as she could carry.

The stones were heavy. She gritted her teeth and lifted them, then — remembering the way she had seen the laboring women in Yutou Town do it — swung the bundle up onto her shoulder, nearly sending herself off her feet in the process. With great effort, she steadied herself, hoisted the bundle of river stones, and set off into the forest — leaving one stone at each stop as a marker.

Gradually, the bundle on her back grew lighter. Only one stone remained in the cloth.

She held this triangular stone in her hand, and from then on, at intervals, pressed a vertical notch mark of her own into the bark of nearby trees as she walked.

The sun was nearly all the way down, but Shen Zhuxi pressed on with full confidence, not doubting for a moment that she would find the person who had left those marks.

That early groundless certainty began to waver when Shen Zhuxi found herself back beneath a tree that looked strangely familiar.

She refused to accept it and set off once more — but no matter how she walked, she kept ending up back in the same place.

She stood beneath the tree in bafflement, brow knitted, staring in the direction the marks pointed. She knew with certainty that following these marks would only ever bring her back here.

Why was this?

Why would Li Wu leave a misleading set of marks?

Was he guarding against others? But in this hidden land beyond the world, beneath a ten-thousand-foot abyss — who would there be to guard against?

If her suspicion was correct, the vertical marks she had left following Li Wu’s style were no longer safe either. The more complex the mark, the harder it was to copy perfectly. She would need to leave something different next time — nothing this straightforward.

As she turned this over in her mind, her stomach gave a loud, insistent rumble.

During her days in the encampment, she had been too preoccupied to eat much, and had grown noticeably thinner. Today, in the tense run-up to the escape, she had been too anxious to take in a single drop of water or bite of food. The hunger and thirst hitting her now were sudden and sharp. Her thoughts went at once to the red fruit the elephant had given her.

Shen Zhuxi looked at the fruit with uncertainty, then looked at the darkness growing thicker around her, and finally took a tentative bite of the skin.

The skin was faintly astringent — but the next instant, the sweetness and juice of the flesh flooded her mouth. Shen Zhuxi completely forgot her original plan to take only a small bite and observe the effect. Three bites in, more than half the fruit was gone.

Rustle, rustle — a dark shape swung through the night and landed suddenly on the branch where Shen Zhuxi sat.

She startled, reflexively pressed herself against the tree trunk, and went perfectly still, staring at the small shadow ahead.

In the moonlight filtering down through the canopy, she made out what was in front of her: a tiny monkey, no bigger than a cat, sitting cautiously at the far end of the branch, two round black eyes fixed unblinkingly on the red fruit in Shen Zhuxi’s hand.

Shen Zhuxi paused for a moment, then slowly lifted the fruit toward her own mouth, as a test.

The little monkey sat frozen — unmoving, watching her.

“…Do you want some too?” Shen Zhuxi, forgetting the monkey could not understand her, asked as she stretched out her hand, trying to offer it the fruit.

Surprisingly, the little monkey did begin to move — its gaze still locked on the fruit in her hand — edging cautiously closer.

Shen Zhuxi was frightened and instantly pulled the fruit back. The little monkey seemed equally startled and froze again, resuming its fixed stare.

She looked at the fruit in her hand with some indecision, turned it over in her mind for a while, and in the end nudged the fruit along the branch toward the monkey.

The moment she drew her hand back, the little monkey was gone — a flash of lightning that snatched the red fruit and vanished into the dim forest before she even caught a glimpse of its retreating back.

A night breeze moved through the trees. Shen Zhuxi felt her body temperature dropping. She pulled her outer robe back on and tied the sash firmly, then lay back with wide, sleepless eyes and looked up at the patch of star-filled sky visible through the canopy above.

She would find Li Wu. She was certain of it.

In life, they shared the same bed.

In death, they would share the same grave.