Prologue
“Swoosh----”
With a breaking sound of air, a sharp-tipped black arrow steadily strikes a bullseye twenty meters away.
YeZheng nods with satisfaction, and reaches for another arrow from the quiver. With her leather gloved left hand, she pushes her bow with force, and slowly pulls the string with her right hands.
Through the aiming hole, her vision is focused on the target, just as she begins to loosen, a loud noise shrieks behind her.
“Amanda[1]! You’ve been here! I’ve been finding you, Ms. Puruida has called us to go to the deck.”
YeZheng wrinkles her eyebrows and stops what she is doing. Annoyed, she throws the arrow back into the quiver and puts her beloved bow away. She cleans “Cold Light Hunter,” the name she had given the bow, and puts it into her sports bag, then looks at the person who just interrupted her, Frank. A big dude with yellow cinnamon hair, leaking a mouth of tidy clear white teeth. “Ariana said you were hiding her playing for sure.” He curiously looks at the sports bag in YeZheng’s hand: “Cool, it’s very pretty”
“Thanks,” says YeZheng as she pulls up the zipper of the sports bag, throws it on her shoulder, and kicks the quiver of arrows beside her.
“Excuse me, can you help me hold this quiver?”
Her long, thin fingers wrap around the straps of the sports bag, tightens it, and walks towards the target, pulling all of the arrows she had previously shot.
“Whoa,” YeZheng hears Frank exclaim, “These arrows seem very sharp, have you used them?”
“What do you mean, wasn’t I just using them?” At the same time pulling off the last arrow and wrapping them into a bunch with a rubber band.
“Oh, no no,” Frank speaks as he shakes his hand, “What I mean is, have you used that sharp head to hunt?”
“Of course I have.”
YeZheng lightly lowers the bundle of arrows into the quiver in one hand, also subtly speaking to Frank, “These work really well against the big carps in the Mississippi river.”
“Wow, cool,” As Frank expresses his admiration, he asks another question, “Can I follow you to learn? I remember we have an archery club in our school...?”
YeZheng grabs the quiver of arrows from Frank, glancing at the huge muscles on his arms: “Aren’t you in the rugby team? If I remember clearly, when we go back, rugby practice begins as well as the season? I believe you don’t have that much time anymore.”
Frank hears the subtle rejection from YeZheng, but he does not despair, he still walks with YeZheng and says with a smile, “I can continue learning after the season ends, you can first tell me about your… ‘Cold Huntsman’….”
“it’s Hunter.” YeZheng corrects him.
“Right, that’s it……”
As they are speaking, they leave the gym. The two of them walk along the long hallway, and step out in sync. Frank stares at the side of YeZheng’s face with enthusiasm. The skin of eastern people shines brightly under the lamps giving a smooth, soft texture. YeZheng is similar to most eastern people, small thin hands and legs, looks small but swift. But Frank did not know that she was a master in the arts of archery, making this discovery very exciting for him.
Although YeZheng has only transferred to their school for a short time of one year, but Frank has chased her for months already. The sad thing is, YeZheng had never agreed to one date with Frank. He has still not given up as he thinks confidently that this trip can pull their relationship closer.
At this moment,the two of them and another fifteen or so other students in the same grade are travelling on the Eastern Caribbean cruise, “Freedom.” Their summer camp had just begun, with the plans of first arriving at the Greater Antilles, then riding to the Bahamas, and finally back to Miami.
When the two of them walk to the deck of the cruise, Frank is too excited and mentions: “We are riding on the internal side of the Bahama islands, I’ve heard that the further side is called the Bermuda. In the sixties there was a helicopter also called ‘Freedom’ that was lost there, our cruise is also called ‘freedom’, haha.”
YeZheng looks at Frank with a confused face. His sentences don’t connect, and she can’t figure out where in that sentence is funny. Unhappily, she tells Frank: “Stop it, we’re on the sea.”
“Oh, sorry.” Frank continues to apologize, he tries to settle the mood: “We will be fine, it’s a huge fancy cruise, it even has a track, we will get back to Miami safely.
Who knew, right when Frank ends his sentence, they hear a piercing scream from the far side of the deck.
“What happened?!” YeZheng asks with panic
At this moment, the plants below her start to shake, the cruise that they are on is known to be as heavy as twenty thousand tons, but it still flips over!
How is this possible? YeZheng grabs on to the pole beside her, with horror she thinks of t.i.tanic b.u.mping on the iceberg and sinks within hours!
There is not even time for her to think, as she does not have the strength to hold on to the pole anymore. YeZheng sees in despair that she has lost grip of the pole, falling straight down…
[1] YeZheng’s English name