"Shuyi! Do you know Heaven? One moment is called 'stillness,' one word is called 'fixity'—unchanged through all eternity, unmoved through ten thousand ages."
"Shuyi! Do you know the Long River?"
"Long ago, when Cangjie created writing, he saw 'mountain' in Buzhou, and formed 'river' from the Long River. Thus it was said: mountain as spine, river as blood; through the ages, they became a song. And so there came to be the 'human world,' sometimes expounded as 'mountains and rivers.'"
"Shuyi, do not merely look at this line—The Long River has churned across the Divine Continent for ages untold; the mudflats have forever piled up resentful souls. It nourishes me and kills me with the same heart. The affairs of the human world—so it turns out Heaven does not ask!"
"The human heart is like water, ever rippling with waves. The Long River follows its will, its joys and rages forever fickle. Thus it is said: governing water is like governing the heart."
"Draw out dragon veins as cords of sinew, to bind the Long River. Raise the Emperor's Crown as Buzhou, to brace the river's spine. Xi Hun was without the Way, and thus there came river channels. Xi Hun lost righteousness, and so river dikes gathered."
"Now govern the river, make it like the Heavenly Sea. Eternally fixed, and all things may live."
—Idle Talks of the Nine Garrisons
Narrated by: Human Emperor Lieshan.
Recorded by: Ao Shuyi.
When Human Emperor Lieshan was young, he had personally lived through a time when the Long River flooded. He saw both banks reduced to mudflats, the people living near the water devoured by it.
He entered the water alone. History records—
"Driven back by the floodwaters time and again," "fainting repeatedly," "vomiting blood without cease."
His grief and fury