On the fourth day, the boat reached the Xiling Gorge. It ended at the site of the large dam, which was overwhelming when it came into view, though it was still under construction. As the boat passed slowly through the long concrete channel, Danny felt like he was suffocating, and he could almost hear the crying of the river itself. Guiyins words began to ring in his ears: Have people indeed asked permission from the land and river? What concern has there been for the environments rights?

Danny wondered: with such large-scale changes to the earth, would nature grant her permission, even if asked? He was certain there would be some impact and consequence after the Three Gorges Dam was finished, though it might not fully manifest for decades. Danny thought of the building of the Aswan Dam in the Nile River in Egypt. Egypt had always experienced annual floods from the Nile River that deposited millions of tons of nutrient-rich sediment in its basin, enabling a rich agriculture production. This process began millions of years before Egyptian civilization, and continued until the first dam at Aswan was built in the late nineteenth century. After that, the height was raised a few more times, and the negative consequences have already occurred. The sediment of the Nile River has begun to fill the reservoir, and farmers downstream have had to use millions of tons of chemical fertilizer as a substitute for the annual supply of rich nutrients from the rivers flood.

If the construction of the Aswan Dam on the upper Nile River changed Egypt so dramatically, Danny thought, what will this dam do to China in decades to come?

The Yangtze River runs from the Tibetan highlands and passes through the entire Chinese continent before finally reaching the Pacific Ocean. It is regarded as the mother river of China. What would the mother river of China be thinking about what is being done to her? Danny wondered. Chief Seattles words came to mind: The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land; the rivers are our brothers, the waters gurgle is the voice of my fathers father. How can one sell the air and the blue sky? He was taken aback to realize how these words fully coincided with Guiyins recounting of the wisdom of Chinese traditional culture.

After the boat passed through the Three Gorges Dam site and then through the smaller Gezhou Dam, the river immediately widened and the water flow slowed down. Danny could begin to see farmhouses and water buffalo off in the distance, but the bucolic scenes did little to quiet his mind. He sat on the upper deck the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. As the sun was setting and the last thread of sunset disappeared into the distant gray cloud, the air became foggy and misty, and the riverbank seemed covered with a white sheen. Like the sun, Danny sank into darkness, unable to shake his sadness, unable to stop questioning his decision to return to Seattle.

Suddenly a little Chinese girl about five or six years old ran over and stopped right in front of him. She looked up at him and stared, an expression of wonder in her beautiful big eyes.