The well was warm.
Fuxi sat beside it. She sat here every morning. The stone rim was smooth from years of hands resting on it. Her hands rested on it now.
The water was warm. It had always been warm. She could not remember a time before the warmth. Before her parents' faces. Before her own name. The warm water was the first thing.
She drank from it. She cupped her hands and brought the water to her mouth. It tasted like stone and something else. She did not have a word for the something else.
...
Morning. Mist on the fields.
Tao and Mingzhu walked toward the eastern terraces. He adjusted her shawl. She pushed his hand away. He reached again. She caught his wrist and held it for a moment. Then she let go and walked ahead. He followed.
Desheng was at the boulder again. He had a pile of stones beside him, sorted by size. He picked up the smallest, held it in his right hand, and threw. The stone hit the boulder. He picked up the next stone.
The cultivator woman had shown him something about throwing. Now every stone went further. He threw the same way each time. Arm back, step forward, release. The stones cracked against the boulder surface and left white marks.
Three children played near the well. They counted things. Stones first, then birds. A girl pointed at the sky and counted clouds. "Seven." A boy counted again. "Eight." They argued. They counted together. "Seven and a half." They laughed. The game had no winner. They counted because counting was the game.
...
The cultivators had metal poles around the well. Twelve of them. Humming. The man with the clipboard wrote slowly. He wrote numbers and drew lines between them.
Fuxi watched. The poles hummed at different pitches. When the wind changed, the pitches changed.
The woman called Shu Yan knelt beside the well and held a green stone on a string. She lowered it into the water. She watched it for a long time.
The other cultivators stood nearby. They talked in low voices. Fuxi could hear them but the words were for each other.
The man called Shen Qing came and looked at the green stone. He asked questions. Shu Yan answered. They both looked at the well.
Fuxi looked at the well.
The water moved.
It was small. A ripple that started from the center and spread to the rim. The instruments had activated. Something below the water had shifted.
Nobody else saw it. Shu Yan was looking at her talisman. Shen Qing was looking at Shu Yan. The soldiers were looking at the fields.
Fuxi saw it. The water moved when the instruments hummed. It moved from below.
She did not tell anyone. She did not think about whether to tell anyone. The information arrived and she kept it the way she kept everything. Inside, where the watching happened.
...
Afternoon. Sun through clouds.
Grandmother Liu's house smelled like dried herbs and smoke. Fuxi went there sometimes. Grandmother Liu gave her tea. The tea was bad. Fuxi drank it.
Today Grandmother Liu was not home. The cat sat on the chair and watched Fuxi through the window.
Fuxi walked to the river. She sat on the bank. The river was cold. The well was warm. She did not think about why one was warm and the other cold. She noticed the difference the way she noticed that the sky was blue and the ground was brown.
A bird landed on the water. It floated. Its feet made small patterns in the surface. It stayed for twelve breaths, then flew.
Fuxi watched the place where the bird had been. The water closed over it. The patterns faded. The river kept moving.
She walked back to the well and sat down.
The water was warm.