Minli and Dragon travel for several days. At night, Minli gets homesick, but she feels determined to complete her mission for the sake of her family. She continues to follow the compass west toward the City of Bright Moonlight. There, she’ll ask the Guardian of the City for the “borrowed line,” something the goldfish told her to ask for, but something she doesn’t yet understand. As they cross a body of water, Dragon and Minli meet an orange goldfish with a black fin who mistakes them for his long-lost Aunt Jin. The fish tells them a story he claims every fish knows.

The Dragon Gate exists at the top of a waterfall and is an “entryway to the sky” (92). If a fish were ever to swim to the top of the waterfall and pass through the gate, the dragon statues on the roof would turn the fish into a dragon. The orange fish’s Aunt Jin struck out to find the elusive Dragon Gate, and he’s missed her ever since.

The orange fish directs Minli toward the City of Bright Moonlight, which is visible and striking in the distance.