A sudden trace of drowsiness crept into his mind. He kept feeling as though he were still out on the ocean, enduring its endless tossing and bracing for the storms that might arrive at any moment.
Zhang Ming could hardly believe he had truly returned to his homeland. He worried that everything was only a dream.
"Gourd, do you understand how I feel right now?"
Gourd thought for a moment and said, [I understand. It is like tonight's hazy moonlight, representing the day you suddenly feel a chill in the breeze along the riverbank, affections that came to nothing, the hand you never held, the letter you never sent, the door that closed after youth came to a hasty end.]
[Like waking from a long afternoon nap, getting dressed and washing up to go to school, then searching everywhere for your textbooks and backpack, only to remember in a daze that many years ago, before you were ready, you were pushed into adulthood. A hurried life with no time to wave summer goodbye. In your youth, you too were full of anticipation for everything in the world, only to fall into the Sea of Time in the blink of an eye.]
[What is lost will never return.]
[You are staying in the forest instead of heading to where humans live because you are afraid to see how completely the world has changed. Human, do you think I am right?]
Zhang Ming fell silent for a moment, then smiled. "Those words really cut deep, but you're right. And quite eloquent, too."
He brought his boat out from the moon, planning to sleep here for the night.
The insects in the grass chirped ever more loudly. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
So Zhang Ming simply got up and began catching