Duoduo looked at the rotting fish and shrimp in the riverbed, her heart heavy.
"Flap, flap!"
Suddenly, a very faint sound caught Duoduo's attention.
Duoduo ran toward the direction of the sound.
In a patch of dried-up river sand, a fish was still struggling.
Its eyes had already turned white, but it flopped around unwillingly, trying to jump to a place with water.
Duoduo jumped down into the riverbed and scooped up the fish.
The fish kept opening and closing its mouth at Duoduo, as if saying, "Save me! Save me!"
Duoduo was torn.
These past few days, they had been extremely frugal with their water usage. How could they have extra water to save a fish?
Besides, saving one fish couldn't save thousands of others!
Duoduo suddenly remembered a story Li Jin had once told her.
On a beach, a little girl was throwing stranded fish back into the sea one by one.
Someone asked the little girl, "Who cares if you do this?"
The little girl picked up another fish and said, "This fish cares! And this fish cares too."
Duoduo gritted her teeth and turned her head to give an order.
"Lüdou, go get the water skin!"
Seeing the fish in Duoduo's hands, Lüdou was delighted.
"Princess, this fish actually isn't dead?"
"That's great! Give it to this servant, and later I'll make your favorite sweet and sour fish!"
As Lüdou spoke, she reached out her hand toward Duoduo.
Duoduo shrank both hands back. "Who said I wanted to eat it! I want to save it! Hurry and bring the water!"
Lüdou looked surprised.
"Princess, you want to save... this fish?"
"Princess, even if we gave all our water to this fish, it wouldn't survive."
"That little bit of water would be dried up by the sun in an instant!"
Lüdou felt that Duoduo had lost her mind.
"I can't save it?" Duoduo looked at the fish in her hands. In just a short moment, the fish was already lying motionless.
If not for its gills occasionally fluttering, one would think it was already dead.
"Right, fish can only live in water. Without water, they only have a dead end!"
Lüdou's words made Duoduo fall deep into thought.
Water?
Where was there water?
The clouds in the sky turn into rain, falling down to become water.
And, the water in the great river...
That's it!
She could carry the fish to the great river; the great river definitely hadn't dried up.
But how was she going to take this fish to the great river alive?
Duoduo suddenly remembered that her hand had once "swallowed" fish before!
Duoduo placed the fish in the palm of her hand and silently chanted in her heart, "Come! Come!"
The fish lay motionless in her palm.
Duoduo desperately tried to recall. It seemed she had reached her hand into the water, and then those fish had scrambled over to her.
"Lüdou, hurry and fetch the water skin!"
Duoduo ordered without even turning her head.
Left with no other choice, Lüdou could only run back to the carriage to get the water skin.
Duoduo placed the fish on the riverbed and gently stroked it.
"Hold on a little longer, there will be water soon!"
As Duoduo spoke, she suddenly felt drops of water falling onto her hand.
Surprised, Duoduo stood up all at once.
She raised her hand in front of her face.
Duoduo could clearly see small water droplets continuously bubbling up from the palm of her hand.
Duoduo looked around in a panic.
Because she had been catching the fish, she was a bit far from the others, and since everyone was looking around elsewhere, no one noticed her.
Duoduo squatted back down and placed her hand over the fish.
"Faster! A little more, with more water, I can save these fish."
Right after Duoduo spoke, she felt a coolness in her palm.
She saw that a small puddle of water had actually appeared in the riverbed in front of her.
"Splash!"
The fish, which had already turned belly up, flicked its tail and came back to life.
Duoduo remembered what Lüdou had just said: if there was too little water, it would be dried up by the sun.
She continued to chant silently in her heart, "More, even more! Let the whole riverbed have water!"
"Make it humid enough so the clouds in the sky can turn into rain!"
Duoduo didn't care about anything else; right now she only thought about wanting water! She wanted more water!
As Duoduo silently chanted, the small puddle turned into a large pool, and then, it became a stream.
The stream converged and became a small river, and the small river slowly widened...
"Water! There's water!"
Lüdou, who was running over hugging the water skin, let out an involuntary scream when she saw the bubbling water.
"Water? Where is there water?"
Hearing Lüdou's voice, Xiao Yi and Li Jin immediately looked over.
Duoduo saw the dying fish from moments ago wag its tail at her and clumsily swim in circles in the river water.
Lüdou's voice called everyone over.
"Hey? There really is water!"
The first guard to run over scooped up some water and took a sip.
"Ah, this water is sweet! Everyone, come taste it!" the guard called out to the others.
Traveling these past few days, everyone had only taken tiny sips from their water skins when their mouths were unbearably dry.
Because none of them were sure which day they might completely run out of water.
Without water, people couldn't survive.
Especially in such hot weather!
Now seeing that there was water, who cared whether it was sweet or not? They all cupped their hands and drank to their hearts' content.
Li Jin pushed Xiao Yi's wheelchair over as well.
They curiously looked at the pool of water in front of Duoduo.
In the pool, it looked as if there was a spring, continuously bubbling out water.
And right at the spring, a fish was leisurely swimming in circles.
"Your Highness, try it, this water really is sweet!"
Yunxiao handed a water skin to Xiao Yi. Xiao Yi hesitated for a moment, then took it and took a small sip.
Huh? It really was sweet?
Over there, Li Jin directly scooped some up and drank a mouthful.
"It really is sweet! It seems this is the source of a mountain spring!"
"Princess, how did you find it?"
Duoduo teased the fish in the water with her finger, her face full of innocence.
"I don't know either!"
Li Jin looked at Lüdou; she must have been the first to discover the water.
"Lüdou, how did you find the water?"
Lüdou was also bewildered at this moment.
"This servant doesn't know either." She tried hard to recall what had just happened.
"The Princess saw that this fish was about to die and said she wanted to save it."
"This servant tried to persuade her otherwise, but the Princess insisted on saving it!"
"The Princess told this servant to go get the water skin. This servant went to the carriage, and the Princess Consort originally disagreed too."
"However, Madam Li said that it was rare for the Princess to have such a sincere and kind heart, and that we should support her."
"Then, this servant ran over with the water skin and saw so much water!"
As Lüdou thought back to the water she had just seen, her heart was still greatly shocked.
After hearing this, Li Jin looked at Duoduo with a smile.
"It seems that it must be the Princess's kind heart that caused a spring to suddenly emerge here."
"With this water, the people around here finally won't have to worry about having nothing to drink."
Li Jin watched the water in the spring; it seemed as though it would never run dry, continuously bubbling upward.
The previously dried-up riverbed was already filled with water, murmuring as it flowed downstream.
At this moment, a guard pointed at the sky and shouted loudly once again.
"Dark clouds are rolling in!"
Everyone tilted their heads up and looked toward the sky.
