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In my life, I've eaten all I wanted, played all I wanted, and seen all I wanted. But whenever I think of that distant rainy night, that strange woman who fell into the river... I feel I still haven't seen enough. \n\nThat night, I was chiseling jade from the mountain. Suddenly, a violent storm erupted. As I was about to find a cave to take shelter, a thunderbolt crashed, my hanging rope snapped, and I was about to fall to the cliff bottom. \nI clung tightly to the rock. Just then, a second thunderbolt struck. As I searched for a way to survive, I saw her, that strange woman, swept up by the thunderbolt, stumbling into the dark, churning water. \nShe was tall and slender, not petite. But curled up like that, from a distance, she looked like an abandoned baby thrown into the water. \nI don't remember if I heard her sobs, only that she bowed her head in silence for a while, then suddenly lifted her face and shouted fiercely at the dark night sky, "Master Qu Yuan! When you threw yourself into the river, having no way to serve your country, did you also utter such a cry of utter despair?" \n\nOnly wind and rain answered her. \n\nShe seemed deflated, slowly sinking, letting the water surface cover her. Completely cover her. \nBut just when I thought she would vanish beneath the water, suddenly, wind howled all around, phantom shadows flickered, as if countless souls traversed primordial cosmos, emitting long cries. \n\n"Rouge cracks into cold armor light, Jade Gate snow tempers sword-brows crimson!" The wind sounded like human speech, as if urging her to rise. \n"Say not that rosy cheeks are not iron armor, when have heroines ever yielded to men?" Her voice came from underwater, as if in response. \n\nA lightning bolt tore the sky. In an instant, all around became bright as day, a person stood up abruptly from the water, dragging a long dragon tail, amidst the howling wind and long cries. \nI recognized her! She was that Tang princess! \n\nI understand! I fully understand! Those cries that summoned her from the black waters just now must belong to Wang Zhaojun venturing beyond the frontier on a snowy night, Liu Jieyou galloping a thousand miles, Princess Wencheng knocking on Yumen's snow... belong to countless ill-fated noble daughters married far to foreign lands. \n\nWind howled, the heavenly gate opened wide, torrential rain poured down. Sounds swallowed by historians' ink now all became blade-songs piercing the firmament. \nCountless princesses lifted her out of the water; and she led countless princesses, striving to climb the gate to heaven. \n\nCarrying the earnest hopes of a multitude, she leaped, completing this transformation into a dragon. \nAnd as she bowed to face the thunderstorm, they transformed into the hard scales on her back. \nOr was it really her who emerged from the water, or them? \n\nTogether, they walked upward, toward the end of the road, returning to their origin, ascending to the sky. Amidst the torrential rain, they faced the overwhelming thunder. \n\nThey left. \nAmidst such thunder and rain, I could no longer tell what I had seen or heard. \nWhat I felt, was it merely sympathy, pity, or praise for the princesses? \nNo, I felt the blood flowing in my veins, the power surging in my chest. I suddenly regained immense strength, gripping the protruding rocks tightly. I would climb that high cliff. I would survive. \nI would go study, I would write poetry, I would record what I saw, so that you who read this book now may see. \nI do not know when I will die, but in the end, I did not die beneath that day's broken cliff. Nor did she.