If I don't have money to go to college, I can only go to slay the dragon.

Yuan Zhisheng had heard his father tell him a story.

It was a long time ago, so long ago that he was not wearing this suit lined with flashy gold and silver, and so long ago that he still lived in the mountain town built around the 800-year-old Kadori Shrine.

He could no longer remember the specific content of the story, so he could only give a general idea.

But in that story, everything started with a white dam, which stood on the mountain, white and magnificent. At the foot of the mountain, there was a town that prospered thanks to the dam, where a group of hardworking and grateful people lived.

The white dam accumulated rainwater and lake water and transported it to each household through various pipelines, bringing sweet and delicious water to each household and sufficient and clean nourishment to the farm gardens. The water flowing from the dam is like breast milk, providing a steady stream of nutrients for the entire town, allowing them to thrive in this world.

No one knows when the dam was built. It seems to have existed before the town appeared. The craftsmanship is amazing and magnificent, and the white walls are like a temple that is awe-inspiring.

So people in the town always go up the mountain to pray for the dam, so there is a bright red torii and shrine on the road leading to the dam. People always put some of the money they earn in a year into the donation box to provide for the regular annual repair of the dam.

But as time goes by, the times progress, and various new and fancy cultures impact the pastoral life of the town, people are no longer pious to the dam, the mountain road is covered with weeds, the red paint of the torii is peeling and mottled, and the shrine maiden in the shrine died of old age in her bedroom without successors until her body stinks and no one knows.

In any case, the dam always stands there, providing a steady supply of water for the town below the mountain. No one has ever doubted that the dam will dry up one day. It seems to have become a natural phenomenon, a thing that merges with the mountain and stays there.

People gradually forgot about the dam, and while enjoying the nourishment of the dam, they forgot the source of everything.

After an unknown period of time, a group of adventurous children in the town heard the old man talking about the story that the dam once brought prosperity to the town, and they felt the desire to explore. They went together to split the weeds on the mountain road, passed through the ancient torii, and came to the white city wall.

They looked up at the city wall and exclaimed, and then laughed and climbed to the top of the dam through the safety ladder, overlooking the pool like a deep lake, running and chasing on the wall of the dam, throwing huge stones into the calm water, and discussing whether there was a monster bigger than the Loch Ness monster hidden in the pool.

However, among the chirping children, there was a child who was not good at speaking but did not participate in the game. He stayed under the white city wall and was alone.

The lonely child also grew up listening to the story of the dam, but he himself was not interested in the dam itself, and never cared about the prosperity of the town. He was an outlier among the children, so everyone hated him.

His only interest was to observe ants, those tiny creatures that never attracted attention. These little things often crawled in the dark in unknown corners and lived thrivingly.

The lonely child continued to look for ants as usual, walking along the white dam-like wall, because he knew that the things he was interested in would not grow on the dam.

While walking along the white wall to find the ant nest, he suddenly heard the sound of water flow, which was very small but very clear.

The sound of the water flow was like a guide, making him look for it involuntarily.

In the corner of the dam where the sun could not reach, he found a tiny crack on the white wall, and a small column of water slowly flowed out of the crack.

Even though the water column was so weak that it was difficult to wash hands, it was a huge flood for the ant nest built along the wall below.

Under the gaze of the lonely child, the slow water flow destroyed the ant nest, and countless drowned ants floated on the water, densely packed.

At this point, the old man's story ended, without a beginning or an end.

He had forgotten why his father told him that story.

He was always impetuous and forgetful at that age. Now that he thought about it, the story itself had a moral meaning. It was probably because he had done something wrong at that time and was taught a lesson by using the story as an analogy.

Unlike those alcoholic stepfathers who advocated stick education, his father was always very patient with him. He brought him many new stories and experiences when his world in the mountains was limited to shrines and schools at that time, and also made all preparations for him to step into the flashy world of swords and swords later.

Raindrops wear away stones.

His father always said this to him. This is a Japanese proverb, which means similar to the Chinese saying that water drips through stones. After years and months, raindrops can also make holes in stones. Even if it is a small effort, as long as you persevere, you will definitely have great results.

This was originally a very inspiring sentence, but if it was said by his father after that story without a beginning or an end, it would always make Yuan Zhisheng shudder from the bottom of his heart.

Maybe he scared himself, or maybe it was the occasional subconsciousness.

After that, that scene would always appear in his nightmares.

No matter where he went, he could see the white city wall on the mountain when he looked back, and he could always hear the subtle sound of water flowing out of the crack described in his father's story.

Unable to bear it, he walked up the weedy mountain road like the child in the story, passed through the mottled torii, came to the white city wall, and slowly searched for the place where the sound of water came from along the corner.

He was anxious to block the crack, so the sound of water would end, and the ant nest washed away by the water would be rebuilt one day, right? This nightmare could finally come to an end.

But it was a nightmare after all, and the rule of nightmares was that you could never find what you wanted.

So in his dreams he could never find the crack on the dam, and could only hear the sound of water lingering in his ears.

This nightmare seemed to symbolize the depression and anxiety caused by his childhood growth environment. After leaving the small mountain town where he used to live, the nightmare stopped and no longer bothered him.

But for some reason, the sound of water that troubled his childhood in the dream came back recently.

But this time, the nightmare that had been away for a long time had some changes.

In the dream, Yuan Zhisheng finally found the white crack, but when he really found it, it was too late. The crack had already crawled along the seemingly boundless directions and occupied the entire pale wall.

Through those cracks, Yuan Zhisheng could vaguely see that the reservoir behind it was as blue as the deep sea, and the water flow was so gentle, but there was a strange turbulence in the gentleness, as if there was something huge in the blue that was stirring, oppressing the water flow, and accumulating earth-shaking power.

He looked back at the foot of the mountain and saw the steel jungle that had become isolated islands. It was the flooded Tokyo city, and people were floating on the water like ants, densely packed.

Behind the white city wall behind him, the thing in the deep water laughed at him in a low voice, cold and piercing.