Notes of Huanlong

Before his death, his grandfather gave Dong Yan a yellowed hemp paper notebook with the words "The 173rd generation descendant of the Huanlong family" written on the cover. It records in detail the secret techniques for identifying dragon traces, preparing bait, and treating scale diseases. At first he didn't believe it, but when he threw the scented bait into the dry waste river north of the village, there was a response from the depths of the water - a silver-gray shadow slowly floated up from the mud. Dragons are not extinct. The ones who disappeared were those who knew how to raise dragons. Dong Yan quit his job in the city and returned to the countryside, repairing the old pond left by his ancestors and unblocking the water veins that had been cut off by cement dams for forty years. As the water returned, grass seeds, water chestnut seeds, and even dragon molted eggs buried at the bottom of the dry river bed woke up one by one. But when the water came alive, trouble also came: the town's development plan was to pave the river beach into a walking trail, and the cultural company wanted to make "standardized reproduction" of his ancestral crafts into courses. In the face of interests and drawings, a piece of living water and a few silver shadows were insignificant. But there are more and more people squatting on the shore looking at the water day by day - old He who keeps bees, Old Mrs Sun who teaches, Old Wu who is an electrician, a round-faced boy holding a pencil, and a girl with a ponytail writing an observation report. They were unorganized and no one called for them. They just found a place on the river beach and squatted down, waiting for things under the water to surface. If someone comes to guard it, the water will not stop; if the water does not stop, the things in the mud will keep waking up. A dragon cannot learn to guard a river alone, but when in groups, it learns to line up in a row across the water to block hands that should not reach out. Inheritance is not about holding something in your hands and not letting go. It is to raise it up, send it out, and let it go to warm other places on its own.