The trip on the Yangtze River

The dawn mist hung low over the cliffs of Baidi City, turned a deep gold by the rising sun. For the first time in months, the air felt light. Li Bai stepped onto the narrow wooden boat, his movements quick and impatient. Behind him lay the shadow of his past; ahead, the river was a wide, rushing road to the life he thought he had lost.

"Push off," he told the boatman, and the world began to move.

The Yangtze was a living thing that morning, swollen with rain and running fast. The limestone walls of the Three Gorges shot past like flickering ghosts. Any other traveler would have gripped the gunwales in terror at such speed, but Li Bai leaned into the spray. To him, the boat wasn't just moving; it was flying.

From the tangled greenery high above, the gibbons began their chorus. Their long, rhythmic howls echoed off the rock faces, a chaotic symphony that usually signaled a traveler’s loneliness. But to Li Bai, the sound was nothing but a blur of noise, a frantic applause that couldn't keep pace with his heart. He didn't have time for sorrow. By the time one shriek reached his ears, the boat had already rounded the next bend, leaving the sound trapped in the gorge behind them.

The mountains stood like giants, ten thousand layers of jagged stone trying to hem him in. But the river was a silver needle threading through them all. Before the sun had even reached its zenith, the suffocating cliffs suddenly pulled back. The horizon cracked wide open into the shimmering plains of the middle reaches.

He looked back once. Thousands of mountains were already shrinking into a hazy purple line on the horizon. The weight was gone. The water was calm. And by dusk, the gates of Jiangling were already rising to meet him.