Li Yin started regularly visiting the Celestial Pool to feed the fish. While she was at it, she gathered plenty of information from Xia Erruo and filled in some knowledge gaps.
The merfolk in the Celestial Pool was nearly three hundred years old, with high cultivation at the body integration stage. He could even be respectfully called Minor Dao Venerable.
But he was a merfolk who hadn’t transformed yet, which meant he was still a juvenile and acted with the willfulness of youth.
This young merfolk had a bad temper and hated human cultivators. The sect disciples who went to the water’s edge to feed the fish often couldn’t spot him at all before massive waves slapped the shore and drove them away.
The fact that Li Yin had successfully fed the fish meant he had gone easy on her. He hadn’t stirred up waves from the Celestial Pool to force her away.
He would occasionally poke his head out from behind the rocks and splash water at her with his fish tail, as if trying to drive her off with this completely harmless method.
Aside from him, the other fish in the Celestial Pool were quite fond of the human cultivator who brought them food.
As soon as Li Yin stood by the water’s edge, the fish would enthusiastically swarm over, swimming back and forth in front of her as they waited to be fed.
During one such feeding session, Li Yin accidentally caught a glimpse of his lower body.
The fish tail that broke the surface was slender and lively, its silver-blue scales scattered with what looked like flecks of starlight, sparkling brilliantly.
She only managed to glance at it once before the tail swiftly withdrew, hiding underwater.
The beautiful young merfolk flushed red with anger and got serious this time, whipping up massive waves.
Li Yin had no choice but to leave the Celestial Pool. Feeding time had failed.
Merfolk hearts were needles at the sea bottom.
She couldn’t make heads or tails of it and had no idea why he had suddenly gotten so angry.
She recalled the scene from moments ago. That gorgeous fish tail was utterly captivating, yet he hid it away as if it were something shameful.
Suddenly, Li Yin frowned as a certain detail came to mind.
In her appreciation of the tail’s beauty earlier, she hadn’t noticed it at first. But now she realized that the slender tail bore some discordant lines.
Scars.
Several ugly scars cut straight across the gorgeous, sparkling scales. She wasn’t sure if they were from knife wounds, but the unhealed injuries had prevented the surrounding scales from growing back together, like cracks in porcelain.
His fish tail was just so stunning that Li Yin hadn’t spotted them on her first look.
This was easy to fix.
The experienced player quickly devised a plan.
First, she bought some scar-removing spiritual herb. Then she applied a special technique from the Jade Ecstasy Palace.
It just so happened that scar removal was one of the Jade Ecstasy Palace’s specialties. As for whether that specialty had been honed on cauldron vessels, Li Yin had no way of knowing and didn’t dare dwell on it.
After some busy work, the player successfully produced the scar-removing ointment.
She took the ointment and accepted the fish-feeding task again.
When Li Yin arrived at the Celestial Pool, the fish that liked her were swimming over, only to be blocked by a silver-blue fish tail.
The tail swatted away the little fish heading toward her, churning up a splash of water.
Several days without seeing him, and the merfolk still hadn’t cooled off.
She noticed the disturbance underwater and took out the item from her robes. “I brought some scar-removing ointment. I didn’t mean any offense. I just wanted to help you.”
Underwater, the shimmering silver-blue fish tail immediately sank. The merfolk didn’t show himself. Instead, waves grew increasingly fierce, crashing onto the shore and splashing strings of water droplets at Li Yin’s feet.
This show of empty bluster naturally couldn’t drive her away.
Moments later, the merfolk finally reappeared, hiding behind the rocks as usual. He stared at her with clear displeasure on his face.
Humans are so hypocritical…
His long lashes trembled slightly. He wasn’t happy as he gazed at her intently, then parted his lips with a cold snort. “You came up with this after all your fussing these past few days? Who knows what scheme you’re plotting.”
He suspected she had ulterior motives for giving him the ointment.
Li Yin looked earnest. “Of course it’s not free. What are you thinking? As if there’s such a good deal.”
The merfolk choked at that and glared at the annoying human cultivator. His fish tail slapped the water surface pa pa. “Then what do you want?”
Li Yin thought for a moment. “I want to know about the Outer Sea.”
In response, the merfolk let out a light scoff. “Doesn’t the Myriad Beasts Sect have a Scripture Pavilion?”
“That’s not the same at all,” Li Yin retorted. “I read in a book that the Outer Sea has dragons that summon wind and rain. They’re the Outer Sea Lords, right? White dragons, black dragons—all kinds of dragons?”
She seemed merely curious, but her fingers clenched tight in unmistakable tension as she brought up the topic.
The merfolk behind the rocks wasn’t pleased.
“Dragons aren’t as good-looking as merfolk…”
He muttered under his breath in annoyance. Li Yin didn’t catch it and took the initiative to propose the exchange. “Tell me about the Outer Sea, and I’ll give you this ointment.”
The merfolk’s fan-like tail fin gently patted the water surface, sending out ripples. But his expression showed clear disdain, as if he couldn’t care less.
Li Yin pondered. “Your tail is already so beautiful. Removing the scars will make it even prettier.”
After a few breaths of silence, the merfolk huffed. “Give it to me.”
Li Yin hesitated briefly before tossing the ointment over. This time, she didn’t aim for his pretty face.
Though the merfolk caught it, he still shot her a glare to express his dissatisfaction.
What a difficult guy to deal with, Li Yin thought.
He set the jade jar containing the ointment on the rock but didn’t inspect it right away. Instead, he began sharing what he knew about the Outer Sea Dragon Clan.
“The Outer Sea is indeed the Dragon Clan’s territory. When I left, the current Dragon Clan Patriarch was a white dragon…”
Li Yin’s heart leaped into her throat.
One of her exes was a white dragon.
In one save file, the player had picked up a stranded little white dragon. The little white dragon had an extraordinary background as the Dragon Clan Young Lord.
The player seized the opportunity, offered timely aid like sending charcoal in the snow, went through hardships together, leveled up and fought monsters side by side, and finally returned with the capture target to the Dragon Clan’s territory.
Of course, that save file hadn’t ended in success either.
The player had finally endured until the Dragon King returned, with favorability reaching 99. But at the final step, she faced opposition from the Dragon Clan elders.
The Dragon Clan forbade romance between humans and yao. The Dragon Clan Young Lord shut himself away and refused to see her, while the player suddenly suffered a relapse of an old ailment.
The random outcome was “high mortality rate from old ailment relapse.” And so the player abruptly passed away, leaving with regrets…
Thinking of something unpleasant, Li Yin clenched her fist and silently cursed inwardly.
Unaware of the player’s resentment, the merfolk continued. “The Dragon Clan is arrogant by nature. I heard that a few hundred years ago, the current Patriarch had some involvement with a human cultivator, which naturally drew opposition from the Dragon Clan elders…”
But then he changed tack. “Hmph. Sure enough, that human cultivator later lived up to expectations and ran off with treasures without a word.”
At those words, Li Yin felt puzzled.
Ran off with treasures? Without a word?
Her?
What the merfolk described didn’t match what she knew.
After all, the player hadn’t run off without a word. The player had simply died.
Li Yin couldn’t quite figure it out but held her questions and listened as the merfolk went on.
What he said next only confused her more.
“After the new Dragon Clan Patriarch took the throne, he even issued a wanted order to capture the heartbreaker. Unfortunately, according to the elders in my clan, that person vanished without a trace. The wanted order was withdrawn after just a century.”
Her intel-gathering had instead confirmed her as an expired wanted criminal. Li Yin opted to stay silent.
Then she recalled some details.
The Dragon Clan elders had indeed opposed the player forming a marriage contract with the Young Lord. One elder had even privately approached the player with the classic “five million to leave my Young Lord” drama.
Faced with the humiliation, the player, of course…!
Accepted the “five million” with stars in her eyes. They could really read people.
Suspecting she had found the reason, Li Yin fell quiet out of guilt.
Her silence was clearly misunderstood by the merfolk.
The beautiful exotic youth gave her a sidelong glance and curled his lips, ruthlessly shattering the Myriad Beasts Sect disciple’s fantasies. “I’d advise you to give up on that idea. The Dragon Clan won’t form contracts with humans.”
He thought she wanted to contract a dragon—a common dream for Myriad Beasts Sect disciples.
Li Yin didn’t care about his assumptions right then. She kept feeling like something was off about the information she’d just heard.
The player’s cause of death had been a relapse of her old ailment, dying on the spot. No living person in sight, but surely a corpse would be?
Why did the outside world think the player had run off without a word? And “vanished without a trace” was even stranger. Did the player’s corpse just disappear after death?
In this world, a cultivator’s body would gradually dissipate into spiritual energy and return to heaven and earth after falling.
But that process took time. It wasn’t like the body vanished instantly upon death.
Li Yin racked her brain trying to recall if there were other clues, but the merfolk lost patience during her contemplation.
Seeing her silent, the beautiful exotic youth bit his lip. A touch of uneasy color bloomed on his pale lips.
Did she like the Outer Sea Dragon Clan that much?
He got annoyed. His fish tail lashed out forcefully, the tail fin slapping the water and sending up a spray.
The player, lost in thought, couldn’t dodge in time. Droplets of icy Celestial Pool water splashed onto her face, making her shiver and snapping her out of it.
Li Yin wiped her cheek and looked up to glare at the troublemaking merfolk.
But she suddenly froze. The reason was simple—
The merfolk who had always hidden behind the rocks had come out. He exposed his imperfect body and sat on the rock.
His hands pressed back against the rock to support himself. His slender fish tail was bent up like human knees, elegant and beautiful.
A thin layer of pale blue gauze veil draped his upper body, revealing the clear, handsome, and delicate build of a youth without reservation.
Through the sheer fabric, scars crisscrossed his skin, which was even more delicate than snow, casting faint red shadows—like a damaged yet heartbreaking work of art.
The restless tail fin flicked up strings of glistening water droplets, causing his body to tremble faintly.
He let out a quiet breath to steady his nerves before lifting his gaze to the human cultivator on the shore.
She seemed to be staring without blinking.
“What are you looking at?!” His cheeks flushed slightly, but he glared at her irritably anyway.
Then his tail slapped the water, and the beautiful merfolk bolstered his momentum as he commanded, “Come over and help me apply the medicine!”