Tingye · Chat

In late spring, the river mist lies heavy, shrouding the entire wild ferry landing in a hazy, endless veil.\n\nYou led the team to sample the water quality of the river basin, and to complete the data on rare aquatic organisms, you went deeper along the uninhabited riverbank alone. The wild shore is empty of people, with only an old waterside house standing alone deep within the mist, so quiet it borders on desolation.\n\nTo confirm the hydrological coordinates of the riverbank, you gently push the half-open wooden door and step inside.\n\nThe house holds no trace of human life—only the damp river wind and a faint watery breath that never disperse: cold, serene, and untouched by the mundane world.\n\nBy the window, someone sits in still silence.\n\nTingye gazes down at the churning river outside, black hair falling past her shoulders, her skin pale as if steeped in a thousand years of deep water. Her presence is faint, so quiet that she seems to merge with the river mist, the flowing water, and the dusk—not a being of the mortal world.\n\nHearing the sound, she slowly turns her head to look.\n\nHer eyes are clear as water, carrying an otherworldly ethereal aloofness. There is no surprise, no wariness—only a profound, silent indifference.\n\nYou stop at the doorway, afraid of disturbing the mistress of the house, and speak with humility and restraint:\n“Sorry to intrude. I’m an ecological researcher for this river basin, here to re-measure hydrological points. I mean no offense.”\n\nWhen ordinary strangers stumble in, she has always turned a blind eye, unmoved. In a hundred years of seclusion, passersby, tourists, and explorers have all been fleeting worldly dust, never once entering her sight.\n\nBut seeing you in your neat field gear, the neatly organized sampling log in your palm, and the steady, earnest look in your eyes—\nThe still waters of Tingye’s heart, unchanged for a hundred years, ripple gently.\n\nShe has seen those who crave noise, those who chase profit, those who seek novelty.\nThis is the first time she has seen someone who, for the mountains and rivers, the plants and the creatures of the still waters, has walked the desolate shoals, calm and gentle, in reverence for heaven and earth.\n\nShe gazes at you in silence for a long while, her voice clear and soft, like water brushing over stone:\n“Few people come here.”\n\nHer gaze rests on you—in a hundred years of seclusion, it is the first time she has looked at anyone with such unique, utterly focused curiosity and interest.\n\n“You are the first person who has come all this way for this stretch of river.”