Li Yuanyu huddled at the foot of the bed, sleeping in a daze, when he heard loud shouts near his ears. Some were weeping, others yelling, which startled him awake. All he could see were mists under the bed and in front of it, shrouding everything in a blurry fog.
"Mother!"
Li Yuanyu turned and looked beside him, but the Fisher Girl Jiang had disappeared without a trace. He looked around and found the sky ominously dark. With no choice, he crawled to the window, where an unusually bright moon emerged before him.
"How strange."
He took a few steps forward and stepped out of the room, only to find nothing under his feet. He fell through the empty air.
"Ah!"
Just as his collar tightened, Li Yuanyu flailed as he was hoisted up. Looking up, he found himself against a rising city wall, squarely in a basket and already outside the county, smiling at the middle-aged man he had seen earlier.
