After the night of Fish Selection, Lin Yuanxi’s situation in the Floating City quietly began to change.
She could feel it. Whenever she walked along the corridors, people’s eyes lingered on her for a few extra seconds. Whenever she passed certain courtyards, the girls who had been chatting animatedly would suddenly lower their voices, only continuing their conversation after she had gone. No one openly discussed anything, but that vague feeling of being watched and talked about was like a thin layer of water mist that had settled around her. It would neither disperse nor let itself be grasped.
A-Zhu, on the other hand, had no such reservations. She still clung to Lin Yuanxi as naturally as before, except now she also carried that silver-white little fish in her arms, keeping it in a transparent glass bowl and never letting it out of her sight.
“You’re a celebrity in the Floating City now.” A-Zhu grinned as she changed the water for the little fish in her arms. “A First Voice Bond hasn’t appeared in many years. Everyone’s guessing what kind of past you and Jiang Yingze actually share.”
“I’d like to know too.” Lin Yuanxi gave a bitter smile. “Too bad I can’t remember anything.”
“You’ll remember.” A-Zhu sounded relaxed, as if she were stating an obvious fact. “The water in the Floating City has the best memory. Sooner or later, you’ll remember. It’s only a matter of time.”
Lin Yuanxi said nothing else. She only watched the little fish swimming leisurely in A-Zhu’s arms, while her thoughts turned to something else—if water really remembered everything, then how long would it take for that hazy memory she had repeatedly tried and failed to grasp these past few days to finally rise to the surface?
That afternoon, they were assigned as usual to different ponds to do the cleaning. This time, Lin Yuanxi was sent near Orchid Pond. Although she was not allowed to approach that forbidden place itself, she was responsible for clearing the moss and fallen leaves that had accumulated on the low stone railing around its outer edge. As she worked, she kept an eye on Orchid Pond’s deep, ink-green surface. She could not shake the feeling that beneath those waters lay secrets deeper and more unfathomable than those of the other ponds.
“What are you staring at Orchid Pond for?” A-Zhu came over and asked in a lowered voice. “Don’t tell me you want to see what they keep in there.”
“You know what they keep in there?” Lin Yuanxi immediately pressed.
A-Zhu glanced left and right. Only after confirming that no one was nearby did she whisper, “I heard… they keep a very, very old fish in there. So old that it doesn’t even remember who it’s waiting for anymore. It’s not like the other fish. It’s been waiting too long—so long that it’s almost forgotten why it started waiting in the first place.”
Lin Yuanxi’s heart jolted.
“What will happen to it?”
“No one knows.” A-Zhu shrugged, a rare gravity showing in her expression. “Everyone in the Floating City tries to avoid Orchid Pond. No one wants to anger an existence like that. Sister Zhiqing goes to check on it every few days, probably because she’s afraid it might truly forget everything. If that happens…”
She did not finish. She only shook her head, signaling that Lin Yuanxi should not ask any more questions.
“Can’t you find a way to help it?” Lin Yuanxi could not help asking. “If it’s really about to forget, is there truly nothing that can be done?”
A-Zhu was silent for a moment before answering in a low voice. “I heard the only way is to find the person it was waiting for back then. But the Floating City has existed for so long that no one can say for sure who that person was. Or maybe… that person has been dead for years.”
The words sent a chill through Lin Yuanxi. She lowered her head and looked at the muddy rag in her hand, suddenly feeling that beneath this beautiful, almost dreamlike Floating City lay such a heavy and desolate story. It was like a wound no one dared touch beneath a gorgeous outer shell.
Lin Yuanxi lowered her head and continued scrubbing the moss from the stone railing, but her movements slowed. An indescribable ache welled up inside her. She thought of Liu Zhiqing standing beside Orchid Pond that night, speaking softly to the water, and suddenly understood that behind her focus and solemnity might be a feeling akin to guardianship.
If even waiting could be forgotten, then what about Jiang Yingze? He had waited for twelve years. Would there come a day when even who he was waiting for, and why he was waiting, would gradually grow blurred?
The thought made her chest tighten. She could not help speeding up her work, as if she could drive away that inexplicable unease by keeping herself busy.
After the night of Fish Selection, her living arrangements had been changed. She no longer shared a crowded dormitory with the other newly arrived girls. Instead, she was given a small private cottage near Liu Zhiqing’s residence. It was not large—just a bed, a table, and a small pond directly outside the window that she had never seen before. Its surface was always unusually still, and a few sparse sweet-flag plants grew in it. Almost none of the other girls ever passed by.
“This is to give you some peace and quiet,” Liu Zhiqing explained on moving day. “Girls with a First Voice Bond are usually placed somewhere relatively quiet, so they won’t be disturbed too much, and so…” She paused. “So you and he can have more time alone together.”
A faint heat rose to Lin Yuanxi’s cheeks, and she did not respond.
But in fact, she had not seen Jiang Yingze even once since that night.
While cleaning Willow Bank Pond, she had deliberately lingered by the water for a long time, staring at the surface and hoping that familiar black silhouette might appear again. But nothing happened. Even the ripples beneath the water were unnaturally calm. She had also summoned the courage to ask A-Zhu whether the fish connected to a First Voice Bond needed some time before appearing again. A-Zhu had only shaken her head, saying she had never seen anything like this and had no idea what to make of it.
“He probably needs some time too.” Liu Zhiqing said this once while helping Lin Yuanxi arrange her new home. There was a faint, difficult-to-detect complexity in her voice. “Shapeshifting comes at a cost. Especially for someone like him, who broke the rules and shapeshifted of his own accord before being officially chosen—that cost is probably much heavier than what the others pay.”
“A cost?” Lin Yuanxi’s heart clenched. “What kind of cost?”
Liu Zhiqing’s hands paused, as if she were hesitating over whether she should continue.
“Every instance of shapeshifting in the Floating City borrows power from the waters,” she said slowly, choosing her words more carefully than usual. “The more you borrow, the more you have to repay. Under normal circumstances, a fish shapeshifts at the moment it is awakened and chosen, and the girl who chooses it shares part of the burden. But if it shapeshifts on its own without being awakened… then it has to bear the entire weight alone.”
Lin Yuanxi’s heart sank.
“Will something happen to him?”
“Probably not.” Liu Zhiqing’s voice held a note of reassurance. “The fish in the Floating City—especially fish capable of shapeshifting on their own—have cultivated deep spiritual power. Bearing a cost like this isn’t too difficult for them. He simply needs time to recover. Don’t worry too much. He’ll appear again soon.”
Even though Liu Zhiqing said that, the faint unease in Lin Yuanxi’s heart never truly faded.
During those days, she often found herself unable to sleep late at night. She would simply throw on a robe and walk to the window, staring blankly at the quiet little pond outside. The sweet-flag leaves swayed gently in the night breeze, and now and then the cry of a night bird came from far away, slicing through the Floating City’s usual silence. Again and again, she replayed the scene from the night of Fish Selection in her mind—the emotions roiling in Jiang Yingze’s golden eyes as he looked at her, and the words he had forcibly swallowed back: “I’ve always…”
She kept wondering what the rest of that sentence had been.
“I’ve always been waiting for you”? “I’ve always remembered you”? Or something even heavier, something she could never have anticipated?
Once, she even dreamed of that hazy scene—a downpour, a muddy ditch, and a pair of tiny hands awkwardly lifting something up, struggling to return the small, dying thing to the water. The dream was broken and indistinct. She could not see what her face had looked like then, nor could she make out the appearance of whatever she had rescued. She only remembered that those little hands were cold and trembling, yet strangely determined.
When she jolted awake from the dream, the sky outside was still the same unchanging deep blue, and she could not tell how much time had passed. She sat on the edge of the bed for a long while, unable to calm down, then reached up and touched her chest. That warmth had faintly returned.
Over the next few days, life in the Floating City gradually returned to its usual rhythm. The only difference was that Lin Yuanxi now carried a layer of silent observation and speculation she had never experienced before. Liu Zhiqing also seemed to deliberately spend more time with her. The two of them often walked through the courtyards together, doing their daily cleaning as they spoke in bits and pieces about more of the Floating City’s rules.
“The Floating City doesn’t stay in one place forever.” One afternoon, Liu Zhiqing casually said this while dusting bamboo leaves at Bamboo Shadow Pond. “After every full moon, the Floating City slowly moves, passing through different waters and drawing near different clusters of ponds. It absorbs fresh spiritual energy before welcoming the next full moon. That’s why the Fish Selection opportunities aren’t the same every time. There may be golden-tailed fish in Lotus Pond to the south this month, but that doesn’t mean they’ll still be there next month.”
“Could the Floating City pass by the place where I used to live someday?” Lin Yuanxi asked curiously.
Liu Zhiqing thought about it, then shook her head. “The paths the Floating City takes have no direct connection to the geography of your world. The places it goes seem more like they’re being guided by some kind of fate. Sometimes it’s because the spiritual energy in a pond is about to run dry and needs replenishing. Other times, it’s because a certain bond is nearing the moment when it should reach its conclusion.”
“So the Floating City came here because…” Lin Yuanxi’s heart stirred.
“Because of you.” Liu Zhiqing looked at her, her tone calm but certain. “At least, that’s what I believe.”
The words stirred up a considerable commotion in Lin Yuanxi’s heart. For a moment, she did not know how to respond. She could only lower her head and continue working, letting those words echo through her mind again and again.
“Then…” Lin Yuanxi thought of the question she had kept hidden for so long. “If I ever want to leave the Floating City and return to my original world, can I?”
Liu Zhiqing’s movements paused. She looked up at Lin Yuanxi, and an emotion so fleeting that Lin Yuanxi could not understand it flashed through her eyes.
“Yes.” Liu Zhiqing’s answer was very calm. “The Floating City will never force anyone to stay. But… leaving the Floating City and leaving behind the bond you formed here are two different things.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your body can return to your original world,” Liu Zhiqing said softly. “But the bond that has already begun between you and Jiang Yingze will not disappear just because you leave. He will wait. He will keep waiting, whether it’s inside the Floating City or beyond it.”
Lin Yuanxi stared at her in a daze.
“Then what if…” she asked with difficulty. “What if I never return to choose him, and never uncover the secret behind the ‘First Voice’? What will happen?”
Liu Zhiqing was silent for a long time—so long that Lin Yuanxi thought she would not answer.
“Then he will keep waiting.” Liu Zhiqing finally spoke, her voice carrying an indescribable weight. “Just as he has for the past twelve years.”
“Twelve years.” Lin Yuanxi repeated the words, her heart contracting sharply. “How do you know it’s been twelve years?”
Liu Zhiqing’s expression stiffened slightly in that instant, as if she had let slip something she should not have said.
“I…” She lowered her eyes, avoiding Lin Yuanxi’s questioning gaze. “I know more about what happens in the Floating City. That’s all.”
Lin Yuanxi stared at her, her mind filling with countless questions. But Liu Zhiqing’s expression had already returned to its usual unconcerned calm, clearly showing that she did not intend to say anything more. Lin Yuanxi sighed and swallowed the questions on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she lowered her head and continued working, silently linking the number “twelve years” to that vague memory retaining only the scent of rainwater and mud.
As night deepened, the two of them finished the day’s work and walked back along the corridor. When they passed Willow Bank Pond, Lin Yuanxi unconsciously slowed her steps and looked toward the quiet surface, silently praying that familiar black silhouette would appear again.
But the water remained perfectly still. Only moonlight spilled across it, breaking into a field of shimmering ripples, as if silently telling her that some waits required more time before they could truly receive an answer.
After returning to the quiet little cottage, Lin Yuanxi did not lie down to rest right away. She sat by the window, gazing at the small pond planted with sweet flag outside, while every sentence she had heard that day circled through her mind—the old fish in Orchid Pond that was on the verge of forgetting who it was waiting for, the claim that the Floating City changed its route because of a certain bond, and Liu Zhiqing’s meaningful words: “Because of you.”
She suddenly realized that without noticing, she had begun taking this unfamiliar Floating City—and everything that happened here—far more seriously than she had ever imagined.
Moonlight quietly spilled in through the window, and the sweet-flag leaves swayed gently in the breeze. Lin Yuanxi raised a hand to her chest. That familiar warmth surfaced once again. This time, she did not try to drive it away. Instead, she quietly let the feeling spread through her heart bit by bit, as if waiting for an answer that would arrive one day, and as if waiting until she was finally ready to face the long-forgotten past.