They flew south along the coastline for a while, the night wind streaming past them, carrying the moisture evaporating from the moonlit sea. Liu Qingyan pointed to a faint cluster of fishing lights and said it looked like the fishing village they had passed through before, so the two descended onto the beach at the village entrance. Sure enough, they saw the old man who had once recognized Shen Xiu. He was squatting beside the pier, mending an old fishing net. When he saw them emerge from the night, he narrowed his eyes and studied them for a while, then broke into a grin. His smile, missing one front tooth, looked especially warm in the moonlight. He set down the net and got to his feet without asking a thing, merely pointing toward his home and saying there was still fish soup warming on the stove. Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan rested in the village for the night. When they took their leave at dawn the next day, the old man stood on a reef at the village entrance and waved. The sea breeze tousled his grizzled hair, and he shouted something, most of it swallowed by the waves. But Shen Xiu heard it—a heavily accented, "Take care on the road."
After leaving the fishing village, they made a detour westward and passed over Cold River City. The enormous rift that had once split the icefield was now almost impossible to make out. After the ice had closed over it, only a shallow depression remained, like an old crease in the earth that had been smoothed away. The soldiers on watch atop the city walls recognized them and waved from afar. Smoke from cooking fires curled up through the morning light, and scattered morning-market stalls had already opened along the