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Yet the god within the rain curtain heard it. He lowered his gaze at the ugly black fish and gave it a cold, utterly unsympathetic look.

As he looked down, atop distant mountain ranges, within the deep lake at the river's source, another sleeping god suddenly... opened his eyes beneath the ice-blue waters.

They were sapphire-blue eyes, like gemstones, seeming to carry the shimmering light of stars.

Then towering waves rose, and endless rain and snow fell.

Amid those colossal waves and rain-snow, a pale-blue figure soared into the sky, walking upon the waves as he followed the winding river eastward.

Wherever he passed, moisture filled the air, rivers surged, the grass and trees along the banks swayed in celebration, and the creatures within the water swam and leaped with delight, as though welcoming the grandest of festivals.

Within the waves and rain, the two gods in the sky "saw" one another.

Azure eyes met pale gray ones—the former icy and indifferent, the latter cold and wicked.

They parted at a touch.

Amid the downpour, the god in the sky lowered his head again to look at the black, dying ugly fish. His pale gray eyes gazed into the distance along the dried-up riverbed.

At last, he seemed to recognize and remember something. A strange glint flashed in his eyes, and after a moment of silence, a low, deep voice rang out with a hint of mockery.

"...Rippling blue waves, winds rising over the Clear Ripple River... drifting like clouds flowing through the ninth heaven, tinkling like jade pearls falling upon a tray..."

"River's Clear Ripple... to think you had fallen so low."

As he spoke, he walked down step by step. When his feet touched the ground, he became a man.

Yet the raging wind and rain still could not fall upon him. Though heaven and earth were shrouded in gloom, the man seemed to be the ruler of this rain curtain, untouched by the slightest disturbance.

Then he pulled a brand-new phone from his excessively expensive black suit. With long fingers tapping the screen in obvious schadenfreude, he posted on Weibo late at night.

Shui Wuyuan V: [Passing by the Qinglan River late at night. Fallen so low, tsk tsk. #Photo of garbage in the riverbed# #Photo of the dried-up river# #Photo of a black fish with dead eyes#]

The moment this late-night Weibo post went live, it drew countless gossip-hungry night owls. Before long, more than a hundred comments had exploded beneath Shui Wuyuan's post.

[First!!]

[First!! Rich Daddy, look at me! Please give me a seafood gift pack red envelope!]

[Tsk, I was too slow. Trash-Talk King posted again. Let me see who he's roasting this time? Why is it a river?]

[Watch your mouth upstairs! Trash-Talk King is my rich Rain God husband! Sure enough, his character setting of making it rain wherever he goes remains intact today! So, Rain God hubby, did you specifically come to Bicheng to make it rain because you couldn't stand the river drying up?]

[Boss Water's Rain God character setting remains intact +1, Trash-Talk King +1, crazy men and women claiming him as their husband every day +1. Three daily bows to Boss Water √.]

[As a Bicheng local, I can say the rain is even heavier than in the photos—it's like the sky has sprung a leak. But speaking of the Qinglan River, has that river really dried up completely? Even so... I heard from my grandmother that when she was little, the Qinglan River was still beautiful. Boats could sail and row on it.]

[Time is a blade that dries up rivers! Thousands of years ago, the Qinglan River was still the birthplace of Clear Ripple culture, a "mighty river that blessed all directions."

Our professor said that back then, the Qinglan River was no worse than our present Mother River. Many ancient poems wrote about it, praising the Qinglan River as Huazhou's most beautiful river. There's even a piece called "Rhapsody of the Clear Ripples River God" in high school elective textbooks. Its wording is incredibly beautiful.]

["Rhapsody of the Clear Ripples River God"! Fuck, I just memorized that before. The river god in it was practically described like an immortal! That beautiful god's river is the one in the photo?! I'm shattered.]

[Shattered +1. I saw photos my great-grandfather took of the Qinglan River a hundred years ago. It was gorgeous! I simply can't imagine it had become like this.]

[When it comes down to it, the Qinglan River becoming like this has little to do with time. Isn't the biggest problem humanity itself? Just along the Qinglan River, I know of three factories discharging wastewater and four trash dumping sites that somehow came into being. I've heard people living by the river have privately dug channels to divert water, and in the early days, people even crazily dug up river mud and destroyed the ecological balance...]

[Tsk, so is Rain God roasting all of humanity for polluting the environment this time? Does he have absolutely no reservations when he starts mocking people now?]

[What a joke. When have you ever seen Rain God show any reservations while trash-talking? Remember that hit-and-run driver Rain God grabbed by the collar and called an idiot? One heavy rain made him fall straight into a sewer. He couldn't even run away. Laughing-crying.jpg.]

[But Rain God's mockery is spot-on this time. It really is heartbreaking that the Qinglan River has fallen so low.]

[Environmental protection starts with me! I'm going to pick up trash at the Qinglan River tomorrow! Anyone want to come?]

[Save it upstairs. What the fuck can one person picking up trash do? @Jade City Municipal Government @Jade City Environmental Protection Bureau, why not see what the hell they've been doing!]

A wave of "late-night environmental protection" discussions erupted on Weibo because of a single post from seafood tycoon Shui Wuyuan. The discussion ranged from the Qinglan River drying up to all kinds of environmental issues, such as global desertification, global warming, and melting glaciers. It even made the top ten trending searches for several hours.

This showed just how well-known and influential "Shui Wuyuan" was on information platforms. He truly deserved to be called the number one top influencer outside the entertainment circle.

And even at midnight, countless idle people were still staying up late.

Yet compared to the lively discussions online, the banks of the dried-up Qinglan River were exceptionally quiet.

Though all of Bicheng was being battered by torrential rain, with wind, rain, and thunder mixing into a deafening roar, within the section of the Qinglan River flowing through Bicheng, the violent wind and rain seemed to fear something and held back their force. They did not smash viciously into the ground or rage wildly, but merely sank obediently into the soil and flowed into the river.

The fine rain and gentle breeze carefully circled around the god who had come walking on the waves, afraid to touch even the slightest part of him.

The Qinglan River, which had already dried up, began to flow again with this god's arrival. But after being dry for so long, the current was thin and trickling, barely holding on.

Perhaps the water containing the power of its origin had brought life. After the black ugly fish that had remained motionless all this time was washed by the current, its snow-white belly actually began to rise and fall again.