Perseverance of the Miniman
Flood Extremity calls it impressive that this Gu formation controls Reverse Flow River, but Black Extremity denies control: his formation is like a dug channel the river runs in, so they influence its direction rather than dictate it. Flood Extremity looks ahead to the day Reverse Flow River becomes another secluded domain of heaven and earth for Longevity Heaven. Black Extremity tells him to watch the timing. Collecting the river will destroy the sub formation, so Flood Extremity must open his immortal aperture at the right time and direction and take the river in, where his water path gives him a big advantage. Flood Extremity worries the river might change direction and asks if any Gu worm controls it; Black Extremity says none does, though he is unsure of one more possibility. He cites The Legends of Ren Zu: Ren Zu once wished for an Immortal Gu that could conquer Reverse Flow River. Flood Extremity guesses he means Perseverance and doubts it, since perseverance Immortal Gu has never appeared and he takes the story only as a lesson to persevere. ch. 1276
The legend tells of Ren Zu’s daughter Boundless Forest Samsara, trapped inside Ordinary Abyss. She befriends a miniman, who shows her his home, City Well. She recognizes her own situation in the minimen who look up at a small sky from under the well, and resolves to escape and meet her father again. The miniman, whose wings carry him only a short distance, proposes felling trees to build a ladder, as he once did to leave City Well. Wisdom Gu emerges from the felled trunks and rules that each of them must build and finish an individual ladder alone, or neither will leave. Building apart, Boundless Forest Samsara’s ladder soon outgrows the miniman’s. ch. 1276
More trees give up strength Gu, who says strength too hides in the ordinary. Unlike wisdom Gu, it offers no advice, only a trade: great strength for Boundless Forest Samsara’s youth. She hesitates, and when strength Gu asks how long her own strength would need, she answers twenty to thirty years, so it argues she will lose her youth either way and she agrees. Her building speed leaps forward, and within a year her ladder already dwarfs his, so she mocks him, but he only admires her progress, saying he spends every waking hour on the ladder and still falls short. ch. 1276
Through the second year her ladder soars, and though his grows taller than most trees it stands at less than one thousandth of hers. She tells him to stop wasting effort and enjoy life as one of the few minimen ever to leave City Well. He refuses, since being unsatisfied with the ordinary makes it an abyss to him. By the third year clouds hide her view, and she can barely make out his ladder, now less than one ten-thousandth of hers. She feels cold and lonely at that height, though he answers his ladder is not tall enough to know it. Bored, she builds less, and strength Gu warns that the tireless miniman might one day overtake her, an idea she laughs off. ch. 1276
Years later, the miniman finds her resting under a tree. He tells her his ladder reaches the abyss’s edge, ready to climb out tomorrow. She laughs in disbelief, but he answers that grandness and laughable sit only an inch apart, and he has crossed into the first. As he climbs, she calls after him three times, asking whether he feels the cold, the loneliness, and the fear. Each time he admits he feels it and says he still wants to build his ladder and climb out. After the third answer, a bright light forms on his body into a Gu worm that thanks him for its life and names itself Perseverance. He climbs free of Ordinary Abyss into the outside world, where time runs differently, and meets Ren Zu, who sighs it is a pity: he would have conquered Reverse Flow River had he possessed it. ch. 1276
