"—and then Montgomery was all—" 

"Professor Montgomery," Jiang Cheng corrects, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling. They're all smiling.

"Yeah, whatever. Anyway so he was like, stop that immediately cadet, this isn't funny, which, it absolutely was—"

Despite her worries, Yanli quickly finds herself laughing, harder than she's laughed in months. Sitting here, with her two favourite people in the world, she feels like she's fully alive for the first time in far too long.

A-Cheng has food on his face, and Yanli, still laughing, gets up to go over fix it, because A-Ying is far too busy making fun of him to help. 

—ah, no, she got up too fast again. The blood rushes out of her head, and she wobbles as she stands.

She's too close to the edge of the pool. 

Her foot slips.

It feels simultaneously like it happens in slow motion, and far too fast for him to react. 

He dives in after A-jie barely a second after she hits the water. Wei Ying is right behind him.

All three of them are strong swimmers. They're not underwater for very long. And the pool isn't connected to any other bodies of water; there's no way they could have left it without getting out and walking. 

But, when they emerge, they're...somewhere else. 

The deep patch of lake they've surfaced in is clear of plants, but thick bands of lotus line every bank and form false islands of green in patches throughout the placid water.  The air - still hot, far more humid than Arizona - is suffused with their scent.  There are traces of wood smoke but no gasoline fumes, and the distant sounds have become the calls of unfamiliar birds and insects.

Fine buildings in a classical Chinese style can be seen peeking over the tops of the lotus in every direction.  Docks stretch out through the flowers towards them.  There are no people on the nearest docks, and thus the three new guests remain undetected.