The last thing Gan Daye remembered was the foamy black water in the monitoring well.
The alarm sound of the portable detector stung her eardrums. She reached for the rope on the well wall, and the moss slipped under her feet. When she fell weightlessly, her nose was filled with a fishy and astringent smell - like rotting water plants mixed with industrial wastewater. It was evidence of illegal discharge from the electroplating factory that she had been staring at for three months.
When I opened my eyes again, it was not the white walls of the hospital, but the dusty linen tent roof.
"Are you awake?" A rough female voice sounded in my ear, with an impatient tut, "Life is as cheap as weeds on the roadside. You can still breathe after being submerged for half a night, so I don't have to go get that thin-skinned coffin."
Gan Dae moved his fingers, and a biting cold seeped out from the cracks in his bones, and his throat was so dry that it felt like it was about to split. She wanted to speak, but she only made a hoarse sound. Her eyes slowly focused, and she saw clearly that in front of her was a woman wearing a gray cloth, with ridges on her face. She was looking her up and down with a pair of triangular eyes, as if she was evaluating a worthless old thing.
"Stop staring," the old woman put her hands on her hips, "You, a 'wild goose' caught from the Huaihe River, can work as a handyman in the kitchen of Prince Duan's Mansion. It is a blessing you have earned in eight lifetimes. Yesterday, an ignorant man dared to fall into the koi pond in the main courtyard. He didn't die, but his voice was hoarse from the cold?"
