The Shortened Song

On the first day after Coral lost her voice, she learned to write.

To be precise, she was forced to learn.

She could no longer pour out everything in her heart the moment she opened her mouth like before—all the questions she wanted to ask, the laughter she wanted to share, the arguments she wanted to make—all clogged in her throat like little fish washed ashore with no way back to the sea. Jiang Yue gave her a pencil and an old ship's logbook and told her to write whatever she wanted to say.

Coral wrote very slowly.

She wrote "Lu Wenchao" as "Lu Wenhu," and drew "sugar" as a circle with three lines. Lu Wenchao corrected her, but she refused to accept it. On the paper, she drew an even bigger piece of candy and wrote crookedly beneath it: This one is sweeter.

Xiaoman laughed so hard she slumped over the table. "She has her own writing system!"

Jiang Yue shook her head as she watched. "One dares to teach, the other dares to learn."

Lu Wenchao wasn't laughing.

He listened to the recording three times over, until Lu Qi's voice grew hoarse in the room. Each time he listened, his expression darkened further. The ten-year-old tape was like a dull blade, slowly cutting open everything he had once believed.

Ten years ago, the Hunter Guild discovered that mermaid songs could open the Tide Rift. Inside the Tide Rift lay a power that could reverse aging, but also a black tide that could swallow the entire town. Lu Qi refused to participate, instead cooperating with the mermaid tide keepers to seal the gate. From then on, the Guild erased him, labeling him as "a hunter killed by mermaids."

When Lu Wenchao reached the fourth listen, he pressed stop on the recorder.

The only sound left in the room was the bubbling of seaweed soup.

Coral wrote on the paper: Your father was a good man.

Lu Wenchao stared at the crooked characters for a long time before finally saying, "I spent ten years hating the wrong person."

Coral gripped the pencil, not knowing how to comfort him. She wanted to write "don't be sad," but the character for "sad" was too hard. After struggling for a while, she raised her paper: Condol-fish.

Lu Wenchao froze.

Xiaoman leaned in. "She meant 'condolences.'"

Coral nodded earnestly.

Lu Wenchao finally smiled—a brief smile, but it lightened the bitterness in the room a little.

For the rest of that day, Coral practiced writing. She wrote "sea" as a single wave; she wrote "home" as a sketch of a coral cave; she wrote "Lady White" by first drawing a pearl, then adding many spines around it. When Jiang Yue saw it, she said the characters weren't standard, but the essence was there.

Lu Wenchao wrote standard characters for her to copy.

She traced them carefully. When she reached the word "go home," her pencil tip paused for a long time.

Slowly, another sentence appeared on the paper: Can I still go home?

Lu Wenchao saw it and felt something catch in his throat.

"You can."

Coral looked up, her eyes asking if he was just comforting her again.

"I said you can, so you can." His voice was firm.

She lowered her head and wrote: When you humans say it doesn't hurt, it hurts. When you say there's nothing, there is. And when you say you can...?

Lu Wenchao was stumped.

Xiaoman muttered from the side, "That logic loop just closed."

Jiang Yue tapped the table with her pipe. "Everyone quiet. She can't exert herself right now."

By evening, Lu Wenchao placed his hunter's dagger on the table. The handle bore the old Guild emblem, and the blade was polished bright.

"Tomorrow is the third high tide before the full moon. Lady White will definitely set up the ceremony in advance."

Jiang Yue frowned. "She already has the scale and tried the remnant song. The next step is to connect the town's lantern array with the invitations."

Xiaoman hugged her comic book. "Invitations? She's going to invite people to watch her open the gate?"

"She wants everyone to think it's a celebration," Lu Wenchao said. "The more people, the more chaos. The more chaos, the easier it is for her to hide the ritual inside the performance."

Coral wrote: I'm going.

"No." Lu Wenchao didn't even think about it.

She wrote again: My song.

"That's exactly why it's your song."

Coral stared at him, her eyes slowly reddening. She couldn't speak—her anger was so quiet it was heartbreaking. Finally, she wrote: I'm not one of your goldfish in a bucket.

Lu Wenchao froze.

Xiaoman covered her mouth, not daring to interrupt.

Coral pushed the paper toward him and continued writing: I want to save you too.

Lu Wenchao looked at that line and remembered her hugging a bucket of goldfish on the cargo ship, saying the fish farthest from the sea were the most pitiful. He'd thought it was absurd back then. Now he realized she wasn't just naive. She truly kept every trapped thing in her heart.

"Saving someone doesn't mean throwing yourself in," he said.

Coral wrote: You too.

The room fell silent.

Jiang Yue sighed. "Stop arguing. If she doesn't go, the pearl earrings won't come out. If she does go, you might not be able to protect her. Both options are lousy."

Xiaoman weakly raised her hand. "Is there a third option? Like, what if I draw a perfect infiltration plan?"

No one laughed.

Outside the window, fireworks suddenly rose from White Whale Town.

When the first firework exploded, Coral thought a blue coral bloomed in the sky. But the blue light didn't scatter—it condensed in the air, forming an invitation. The second, third, fourth—the entire night sky floated with the same blue script.

The invitation drifted down, one copy sticking to the lighthouse window.

The handwriting was elegant.

Full Moon Night: Mermaid Legend Celebration.

Coral walked to the window, her fingers touching the words through the glass. The invitation carried the scent of the remnant song—faint, painful, beautifully decorated.

She turned back to look at Lu Wenchao and wrote on the paper: They're crying.

Lu Wenchao picked up his dagger.

"Then we'll make sure she can't go through with it."

Coral lowered her head and wrote another line.

This time, she wrote very slowly, very deliberately.

I am not a goldfish, and I am not an exhibit.

Lu Wenchao looked at her, then folded the paper neatly and tucked it into his chest pocket.

"Got it," he said.

Outside, the fireworks continued to rise. The blue light made White Whale Town look like a beautiful glass cabinet.