The Sea Won't Let Her Go Home

Coral sat in the intertidal zone, for the first time not swimming toward the sea.

The sea was right in front of her.

The waves reached out again and again, only to pull back each time, like someone at her doorstep who saw her but closed the door. The wet sand clung to her shoes, their uppers softened by sewage from the hidden drain, no longer biting her feet. But she wished they still bit. When shoes bite your feet, at least it means you're still on the shore. The sea refusing to let her go home—it wouldn't even give her pain in a direction she knew.

She held the black shell button and sat for a long time.

Lu Wen-Chao stood behind her, not urging her on.

The mist over the intertidal zone slowly lifted. A few red lamps in the distant light array were still burning. Qin Yan's people hadn't chased them yet—maybe after the eighth lamp was destroyed, they needed to regroup. Or maybe they were deliberately slowing down, waiting for Madam Bai's next order.

Lu Wen-Chao leaned toward the latter.

He looked at Coral's wet hair tips, wanting to say go, wanting to say it's not safe here. But she was looking down, like a little fish refused at its own door, and his harsh command stuck in his throat, eventually turning into silence.

"Auntie Lan is just angry," Coral said softly. "When she's not angry anymore, I'll go back."

Lu Wen-Chao draped his jacket over her shoulders. "She's afraid of me."

"You're not scary."

"I'm a Hunter."

"But you give me candy."

The reason was too light—too light for Lu Wen-Chao to find words.

He wanted to tell her that giving a piece of candy couldn't cancel out a net, that tying her shoelaces couldn't erase the fact that he had once stood on the Hunter Guild's side. But Coral saw things differently from humans. She didn't keep a ledger to tally good and evil; she only remembered who loosened the net when it hurt, who hid sweetness in their pocket, who said they would take her home.

That made Lu Wen-Chao feel even worse.

"Your people are right," he said quietly.

Coral looked up.

"I carry the Hunter's scent." Lu Wen-Chao gazed at the sea. "If something happens to you because of it when you go back, they'll hate you—and they'll hate me too."

"Then can't you just wash it off?"

Lu Wen-Chao paused.

Coral looked at him seriously. "In our sea, when little seals roll in the mud, they wash themselves before going home. Is the Hunter's scent that hard to wash off?"

"Not that kind of scent."

"Then what kind?"

He didn't answer.

It was the blood pact, the silver hook, the names in the Guild archives that could never be burned clean, the ten years he had believed that "merfolk are dangerous." That kind of scent couldn't be washed away by seawater.

Coral seemed to understand a little, and yet didn't. She pressed the shell button to her ear.

From inside the button came a chaotic tide sound. It wasn't Auntie Lan's voice, nor the familiar Sea Song of Tide Bay—but fragmented, very distant murmurs, like someone trying to push a few words through a door and water.

"Wen-Chao... don't enter the Rift Tide..."

Lu Wen-Chao snatched the shell button. "Father?"

The voice vanished.

The shell button went silent, like an ordinary stone.

Lu Wen-Chao held it too tightly, his knuckles turning white. Coral looked at his hand and said softly, "He's still in a very deep place."

"How do we get there?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. There's a black tide there, and doors, and many eyes that never close."

"Eyes?"

"Like fish eyes, but there are no fish." Coral frowned. "They watch the doors, and they watch the songs. Lu Qi is behind the door—sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. When he's awake, he knocks on the door. When he's asleep, he talks in his dreams."

Lu Wen-Chao's face darkened.

He had always thought his father's disappearance was just a tale told over and over in White Whale Town: a fine Hunter chasing merfolk, buried at sea. Then the recording, the pocket watch, Coral's words—piece by piece, they tore that story apart. Now the "Wen-Chao" from the shell button was like a hand reaching out from the crack, grabbing the hem of his clothes that he hadn't been able to let go of since he was a boy.

Coral wanted to comfort him.

She remembered that humans needed a pat on the shoulder when they were sad, so she stood on tiptoe and patted him on the head.

Lu Wen-Chao: "What are you doing?"

"Comforting."

"Pat the shoulder, not the head."

"Your shoulders are too high."

He fell silent, then let out a low laugh.

The laugh was very brief, almost carried away by the sea breeze. But Coral heard it. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat, like a little fish bumping inside. She lowered her head and touched her chest, not quite understanding why the tide was rising there.

"You laughed," she said.

"No, I didn't."

"When you humans say no, it means yes."

Lu Wen-Chao glanced at her but didn't argue.

They walked along the intertidal zone toward the abandoned pier. The light array was not an option to return to, and the old hotel might already be compromised. They could only look for the second hideout Jiang Yue had left behind. Coral walked slowly, turning back to look at the sea every now and then. Every time the waves chased after her, she would pause, as if waiting for the sea to change its mind.

The sea didn't.

Lu Wen-Chao said, "Stop looking."

"It wasn't like this before."

"People don't stay the same either."

"The sea isn't a person."

"The sea can be afraid too."

Coral was stunned.

Lu Wen-Chao looked ahead. "Your people are afraid of me. The Sea Gate is afraid that a Hunter will bring disaster back with him. When it's afraid, it closes the door."

Coral looked down and kicked a small shell with her shoe. She bent down, picked it up, and put it in her pocket.

"Then I'll wait until it's not afraid."

"You can't afford to wait."

"I know," she said very softly.

In the distance, the sound of a vehicle suddenly approached.

It wasn't an ordinary fishing truck. The engine was low, the wheels grinding over gravel with a trained uniformity. Lu Wen-Chao immediately pulled Coral into the shadow of an abandoned boat.

His old phone vibrated.

A message from Xiao Man popped up on the screen: They found me. Don't go back to the hotel.

The next second, another message came in.

It was a photo.

Xiao Man was tied up in a warehouse at the Abandoned Dock, tape over her mouth, tears streaming. Behind her, the wall was covered with seat charts, like sketches for some kind of auction setup. Madam Bai stood beside her, her Pearl Earring glowing blue. In the corner of the photo, a silver hook was visible, its tip pressing against Xiao Man's shoulder.

The caption was just one line: Trade me the merfolk.

Coral stood up.

Lu Wen-Chao held her back. "It's a trap."

"She gave me a straw."

"What?"

"She's a friend." Coral looked at him. "When a friend is caught in a net, you go and untangle it."

Lu Wen-Chao knew he couldn't stop her.

Besides, he wasn't really going to try. Xiao Man had been dragged into this because of them. She had stayed behind at the hotel to delay their pursuers, allowing them to escape to the seawall. If they abandoned her now, Lu Wen-Chao would be more like the Hunter he despised than ever.

"Follow my lead," he said.

Coral nodded. "I'll listen."

"Don't charge in on your own."

"I'll listen."

"Don't sing."

Coral hesitated. "What if the lights are too blinding?"

"Still don't sing."

"What if you get caught in a net?"

Lu Wen-Chao looked at her.

She looked back at him, her eyes clear and bright, so earnest it gave him a headache.

"Save Xiao Man first," he said.

Coral finally nodded.

The sea breeze lifted her faded hair tips. In the distance, the lights of the Abandoned Dock flickered on one by one, like another net waiting for her.

Lu Wen-Chao tucked the shell button into his chest. The pocket watch in the same spot let out a soft sound.

Click.

Like the person behind the door also knew—they had no way back.