Shuga undergoes and recovers from depression. Determined to learn more about the drought sign, he meets Tanda, who enlightens him about how the drought is probably STILL coming.

Shuga visits the second queen, who does not blame him for the death of Chagum. Mainly because she does not believe that Chagum is dead. She does not believe Balsa is a person who would die before fulfilling her promise. If there’s anything Shuga can do, that is to help confirm that Chagum is indeed alive.

Some kids arrive at Balsa’s water mill as customers, much to Balsa’s and Chagum’s surprise.

At the capital, Sagum is proposing to his father with regards to a new department of metal to regulate the quality. Winning approval, he talks about Chagum’s possessions, and how they are to be burnt to get rid of the curse of the water spirit. He then offers to do the task, as not many people can be trusted. The emperor finally agrees, and is privately happy that Sagum is no longer dwelling on Chagum but progressing fine indeed.

Shuga goes back to his daily activities, with nobody to tutor, but recieves some barbs about not doing enough. Later, he finds Gakai searching through his room for possessions belonging to Chagum. Shuga ends up challenging him and knocking him down.

This causes Shuga to be placed on probation.

Sagum hears about this and summons him. Sagum tells a tale of together with Chagum, they once saw a rare bird that swop food out of the sky. For fun, they started throwing rocks in the air, which the bird duly swallowed. This continued until the stones grew too heavy for the bird to fly.

Seeing this, Chagum was filled with regret, and brought the bird back to get help for it. But the emperor scolds him as the feathers were bad for Sagum’s health. Shuga had then stepped in saying that the emperor was overprotective, and that when they discovered things of nature by themselves, it would allow them to learn how to deal with people.

Sagum then gets his servants to bring out Chagum’s possessions taken from Shuga’s room. It seems that the prince had agreed to burn Chagum’s stuff, but was actually protecting them.  Hearing this, Shuga is very much ashamed for accusing the prince in the first place. Sagum then indicates that he would very much love to see Chagum being the emperor, with shuga as his advisor. Shuga snaps out of his depression, determined to learn more about the sign of the drought.

Back to Chagum, Balsa encourages him to make friends with the rest of the kids. His first attempt doesn’t go too well, even as the kids laugh at him for being unable to fold a leaf boat.

Tanda returns and banters with Balsa whether it’s alright to let him be this way, and won’t chagum be bullied. Balsa ponders about whether it’s harder for her to bring up a boy, or harder for a guy to bring up a little girl. Tanda jokes back that when he had met her, she was already quite like a guy already.

Seeing jumping frogs, the bunch of kids start to smack them down. Chagum is horrified and rushes over to stop them, saying that the frogs are just trying to get food. The big kid starts to challenge him, but seeing that the other kids had already listened to chagum, backs down as well.

At Shuga’s side, he’s off looking for signs that there won’t be a drought. The fishes caught are big and plentiful, the animals are eating well, and the harvest are normal.

However, he ends up meeting Tanda, who is harvesting a rare plants. Tanda ends up taking interests in Shuga’s instruments, and on finding out that Shuga’s researching the amount of rainfall, starts to offer some ideas of his own.

There’s a folklore about the eggs of the praying mantis. They seem to be laid low, indicating that the rainfall will be low in the coming season. The animals and plants might be thriving in preparation for the harsh times ahead.  Shuga is stunned to hear this, and decides that there might be a drought after all, and he should start researching from the start all over again.

Thoughts

I most loved the light heartedness inserted here and there, like the conversation between tanda and balsa. The pace might have been slow so far, but I don’t mind. Seems like all the major characters are now meeting one another already. Each of them all make for interesting characters.