A Fish That Endures Death (Worth Reading)

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A Fish That Endured to Stay Alive (Worth Reading) Edit: Share on WeChat: There was a Dugong lungfish named “Hei Ma” that unfortunately encountered such a situation: after a farmer drained all the water from its body, he abandoned it on the riverbank. Unprotected Black Ma was scorched by the sun until it was oozing oil and in critical condition. Fortunately, it kept jumping and hopping desperately, and in the end it managed to jump back into the mud where it was before, thus saving its life once again. 　　But unfortunately, the misfortunes did not stop there. Soon, another farmer needed to build a mud house, so he began to collect a large amount of silt from the riverbed to use in making mud bricks. Unfortunately, Black Ma was right in that pile of silt. So, it was once again embedded in the mud brick by this farmer without his knowledge. After the mud bricks were dried, the farmer used them to build walls; Hei Ma naturally became part of those walls, completely buried within them, with no one knowing that there was a fish inside the wall. 　　At this point, the black pearl inside the wall has completely left the water, and with no food available, it must rely on the little water it still has to enter a state of complete dormancy as quickly as possible. 　　After waiting in the darkness for half a year, Hei Ma finally saw the long-awaited brief rainy season arrive; the rain lightly wetted the clay body surrounding Hei Ma, and some moisture began to seep into the interior of that clay body. 　　The moisture quickly awakened Hei Ma from its deep sleep. Weak and exhausted, with almost no water left in its body, Hei Ma began to suck desperately day and night, trying to draw in all the moisture and nutrients that had just entered the mud mass, slowly filling its lung sacs with them—this was Hei Ma’s only way of saving itself. 　　When there is no more water vapor or nutrients to absorb, Black Ma enters another period of dormancy. 　　Soon, the first year after the new house was built passed, and the mud bricks enclosing Heima remained as solid as rock; Heima was like a \"living fossil\" embedded within them, unable to move at all. Hei Ma knew that any further struggle was pointless at this point; all that remained was to wait quietly. 　　The following year, due to natural changes and Earth’s gravity, the clay pieces were no longer as tightly bonded to each other as before; they began to loosen up. Hei Ma felt that an opportunity had arisen; it stopped being in a dormant state and began to rub against the clay pieces day and night with its entire body. The hard clay caused Hei Ma pain, but it never gave up. Thanks to its persistence, some of the clay pieces began to turn into powder and fall apart. 　　Due to Hei Ma’s constant nudging day and night, by the third year the space around it had grown significantly, enough for it to roll around and turn over. 　　However, at this point, Hei Ma was still unable to escape, as there was one final layer of solid barrier outside the clay core. 　　The turning point that changed fate came in the fourth year: a rare violent storm, accompanied by raindrops as big as rice grains, finally arrived one night. Even better, since the house’s owner had left it more than a year earlier, the house had been in poor condition; under the impact of the heavy rain and strong winds, the mud walls began to loosen and slide, until they eventually collapsed completely. At that moment, Hei Ma used up every last bit of her strength, combining it with the forces of the storm to break through the ground! 　　Following the stream of water flowing across the road, Black Ma, who had seen the light of day again, quickly swam to a river not far away, where it found all the food and nutrients it had been waiting for for 4 years—the lungfish Black Ma finally overcame death and was reborn! This is Duz, a miracle of life in the entire Sahara Desert. 　　And the name of this miracle is perseverance and patience! (Excerpt from Yi Lin, by Xu Lixin)