Perseverance bears a ladder

Having seen the miniman’s hidden city inside the well, Boundless Forest Samsara realizes she is as trapped in Ordinary Abyss as the minimen are trapped beneath it. She resolves to climb out and find Ren Zu again. The miniman shares her resolve and proposes chopping down the abyss’s trees to build a ladder. Asked why he does not simply fly, he says his wings are too weak to carry him far, and that he left City Well by ladder. As they fell trees, wisdom Gu flies out from one and warns that they know how to use the achievements of predecessors, but each must build and finish a ladder alone or neither can leave. ^{ch. 1276}

Their ladders rise together at first, but hers soon dwarfs his, since a day of her labor moves as much wood as a month of his. Strength Gu emerges from a felled tree and offers her strength for her youth. Unaided, she would need twenty to thirty years to finish, so she accepts the trade to finish in a few years instead. Her ladder then rises far faster, and within a year she stands high enough that the trees below look small while his ladder is less than a hundredth of hers. ^{ch. 1276}

Looking down on his slow progress, she tells the miniman to stop wasting his effort and enjoy his life instead. He refuses, unsatisfied with being ordinary, and means to keep trying anyway. A year later the height brings her a new cost, loneliness and cold at the peak, and she starts resting rather than building, mocking his pace as no threat to her lead. Strength Gu warns her more than once that the miniman never stops working and may someday pass her, but each time she laughs the warning off. ^{ch. 1276}

Years pass this way until the miniman tells her his ladder has reached the abyss’s edge and he will climb out the next day. She takes this for a joke, until she watches him climb and realizes he is close enough to leave. She calls out three times, asking if he feels cold, lonely and afraid, and each time he answers that he does, but still means to finish his ladder and climb out. After the third answer, a bright light forms on his body. It resolves into a new Gu, which names itself perseverance and thanks him for the life he gave it. He climbs free of Ordinary Abyss into the outside world, where the first person he sees is Ren Zu, who sighs that this must be perseverance Gu and that he could have conquered Reverse Flow River had he possessed it himself. Time inside Ordinary Abyss runs at a different rate from the world outside. ^{ch. 1276}