Place Where the Dragon Sleeps
Shen Mo's words silenced the crossroads for a moment.
Long Tian stood on the road, the sunlight shining down from the west, casting a short shadow at his feet. He repeated Shen Mo's words, "The Place Where the Dragon Sleeps." Shen Mo nodded, wrapped the reins around his hand, and stood by the saddle. His tone was flatter than usual, as if he were talking about something he had thought about many times before, "I've seen a similar style of writing in that ancient script on an old nautical chart copy. The copy was hidden in a secret compartment behind the file cabinet of the Seventh Squad in the old archives of the Spirit Hall. The ink on that script had faded considerably, but the stroke order was still legible. The grammatical structure of the Sea Clan's sacrificial rites is different from that of the common language of the continent; the subject is placed last, so the direct translation is 'place·dragon·sleep'."
Long Tian stood motionless on the road, the sunlight casting a thin, short shadow on his face from his eyelashes. "The Place Where the Dragon Sleeps," he repeated, tinkling the three words on his tongue, then looked up at Shen Mo. "Besides this line, is there any indication of the location in the copy?"
Shen Mo took out a stack of folded old papers from his pocket. The edges of the papers were yellowed and curled, as if they had been turned many times. He unfolded one of the papers and placed it on the saddle, pointing with his finger to an area in the center of the paper—an area without island markings or shipping routes. He had drawn several light guiding lines along the edges of the surrounding sea with a pencil, and after drawing several guiding lines, all the lines eventually converged to the same point.
Long Tian leaned closer to examine it. The outline of the sea area on the old paper corresponded to the same position extending from the end of the silk map. After mentally aligning the extended line drawn by his fingernail on his silk map with the point on the old paper, the discrepancy between the two maps was eliminated—both pointed to the same area, just using different marking methods and different scaling ratios, forming a clear location through continuous overlap.
Yu Jin walked over from behind, glanced at the old paper on the saddle, then straightened up and stood silently in the sun. Shen Mo folded the paper and put it back in his pocket, untied the reins from his hand, and mounted the horse. He looked down at Long Tian from horseback, his tone as usual. "That area has no shipping lanes, no island names, and doesn't appear on any official nautical charts. If you want to go there, the ship can only navigate using the existing markings on the map. Once nearby, you'll need to rely on the currents and changes in water color to determine the exact anchoring position, moor the ship in shallow water, and then approach by small boat or by swimming."
Long Tian nodded. Shen Mo tugged on the reins, turned the horse around, and rode back the way they had come. The sound of hooves on the dirt road gradually faded into the distance, disappearing behind the bushes on the slope after rounding a bend. Long Tian stood at the fork in the road, watching the direction the hooves had gone. After the dust settled, he turned to Yu Jin: "Go back to the stone house. Overlay the tide records and all the paths that can be overlaid on the map, and check them again."
The two walked along the fork in the road towards the stone house. The evening sunlight slanted down from the west, illuminating the texture of the road surface clearly. They maintained a consistent movement with the light-covered surface as they walked. By the time they returned to the stone house, twilight had already painted the roof with a thin layer of orange-red. Long Tian went inside and laid out the silk map, fish skin paper, Shen Mo's note, and tide records from his leather bag on the table. He then retrieved the details from the old paper from his memory and filled them into the end of the silk map one by one, following the guide lines that Shen Mo had marked on the paper. All the paths converged to the same point, which was about a palm's length outside the original marked area on the silk map—a blank area of sea without any markings.
Long Tieshan walked in from the side of the house, glanced at the things laid out on the table, but didn't touch them. He just stood by the table and looked at them for a while. After looking at them, he didn't ask any questions. He went to the stove, reheated the porridge in the pot, ladled two bowls onto the table, and then sat down by the threshold. Long Tian sat down at the table, put away the folded blueprints, and picked up his porridge bowl. Yu Jin sat down opposite him and also picked up his bowl. The two of them slowly finished their porridge, and the bowls made a short, crisp sound as they were placed on the table.
That evening, Long Tian sat on the hillside behind the house for a while. Dragon Shadow hovered behind him, its wings half-spread, its four eyes slightly lowered, and the vertical line of light on its forehead spreading a small, continuous pale glow across the night sky. He sat on the hillside gazing at the southeastern horizon, finding a corresponding location on the sea. Although the area was obscured by the darkness and distance, its location was already precisely marked on his map. He sat on the hillside for a moment, then stood up and walked back to the stone house. Yu Jin was squatting by the threshold, retying his bootlaces, and looked up at him. "Leaving tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow." Long Tian stepped over the threshold and into the house, placing the silk map, tide record, and the roll of old paper side by side in his leather bag and tightening the ties.
The next morning, before dawn, Long Tian and Yu Jin descended the slope. Morning mist hung low, covering the path with a layer of dew that was broken up by their boots and then gathered again, leaving a thin, transparent film on the grass that gradually evaporated and thinned as the sun rose higher. When they reached Longfish Bay, the sun was already high in the sky. The person at the stern was no longer at the dock; the boat remained moored, the mooring rope tied to an iron stake, and a half-finished old net lay on the deck. Long Tian stood at the dock for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before the person at the stern returned from the direction of the village, carrying an old earthenware pot and a roll of new hemp rope. He put the pot and rope into the cabin, untied the mooring rope, and without asking where they were going, simply said, "The wind is good today; we should be half an hour faster."
As the boat departed from the shore, several seagulls took flight from the stern, circled once, and then landed back on the mudflats. Watching the sails billow in the continuous push of the sea breeze, the boat sailed further and further out to sea, its wake forming a continuously extending white line on the water's surface, gradually narrowing at the stern and eventually merging into the deep blue of the sea.