This is the century-old running account of Hewan.
It started with my great-great-grandfather standing in front of the breach holding a river pebble, to my grandma carving the river song into the bamboo slips, to my grandpa measuring the years with half a heart tablet, and finally to Shui Sheng and Qing He, who took over the oar soaked in the warmth of three generations in the shallows where the whitebait swam.
There are no magnificent legends, only the concerns hidden in the reeds, the tenacity held in the cracks of the rocks, and the whispers about "keeping" and "passing on" blown by the river wind over and over again.
Every drop of water here remembers something: remembering the pain of the sand dredging boat, remembering the warmth of the return of the whitebait, and remembering the "goodbye" that sounded as soft as a sigh when the children put the fallen leaves into the river.
In the final analysis, it is just a bay of clear water, a group of people guarding the water, and a period of time that is repeatedly touched by the river wind and remains fresh forever.
