On New Year's Day, sometime after the third watch, Zhang Xing had a dream in Fangcheng's gate tower-a very strange dream.
There were no particular people or events in it, only all manner of scenery.
Though the ground outside was covered in solid ice and hard-packed snow, he still saw the black earth beneath, the moisture in that earth, even its warmth, and within that warmth, the breathing of insects, snakes, frogs, and ants, and the stirrings of all kinds of seeds.
Looking up, though it was the first day of the lunar month, he could actually see the twin moons, round as wheels.
Not only that: the white moon was like jade, clearly radiant, its interwoven light and dark as distinct as an array; the red moon was like blood and flame, neither light nor substance, its depths unfathomable.
Across the night sky and throughout the surrounding reaches, the stars were like seals, every one in exactly the same position as in his original world, but some were wrapped in dense Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, while others were merely pinpricks of light.
Farther up, the void was like a wall, or a shell; he could advance not another inch.
Turning downward, he saw vast plains, mountains like wrinkles, and rivers gleaming brilliantly... especially the Han River, into which a slain dragon had supposedly been laid, dazzling like the starry river in the heavens.
Even the bank of mist beside the Huai River and the surging of the Great River, frozen as it now was, seemed to be reflected in his perception. Looking farther out, he could still sense something, but it was beyond the reach of his sight.
So he came back down, returning to the vicinity of the Nanyang Basin. Within a small area at the basin's