“When I was seven, Great-Grandma took me to the river cliff once,” Chen Du said in a low voice. “It was the ninth day of the ninth month, at night. She made me kneel by the river while she held her mountain-driving whip and sang a spirit song toward the middle of the river for half the night. In the latter half of the night, the water churned, and chains clanked beneath the surface. When Great-Grandma came back, the whip was broken, leaving only the half she held in her hand. She said whatever was down there could be held in check for another sixty years.”
