White Whale Town at Ebb Tide

Madam White stood in the rift-tide light, young as a false dream.

Pearl earrings nestled against her collarbone, remnant songs revolved around her. Each remnant song trailed a thin blue tail, like fish she had tamed. She saw Coral, and a gentleness bordering on greed crept into her eyes.

"My dear, you've finally come."

Coral took half a step back.

Lu Wenchao blocked her path.

Madam White smiled. "You can't stop her. She was born to swim toward the weeping."

Those words sank into Coral's heart like a hook, precise and piercing. She truly could hear too many cries. In White Whale Town, children were crying, schools of fish were fleeing, remnant songs were crashing against glass, and the sea itself was in pain. The tide-hold clan in Tidal Cove were singing too—fear and fury in their voices, along with a call reaching out for her.

She covered her throat.

She no longer had a whole song, yet she was still being torn apart by every sound.

Qin Yan had also been swept into the depths by the black tide. Clutching a reef in desperation, his glasses long gone, the silver hook pin on his sleeve corroded dark by the black tide. He saw that Madam White had even offered up the hunters as sacrifices, and for the first time, fear appeared on his face.

"Madam! We still have a contract!"

Madam White didn't even look back.

"A contract is also a collectible."

Qin Yan froze, then let out a bitter laugh.

He finally understood—he, too, was merely a silver hook in a glass cabinet. Madam White collected the songs of merfolk, and she also collected the loyalty, ambition, and jealousy of hunters. As long as it made her pearls shine brighter, anyone could be tagged and shelved.

One by one, the lights of White Whale Town sank into the black tide.

On the shore, Xiaoman led the crowd running toward the old school. Her voice was hoarse, her hand still clutching the candy Coral had given her. Jiang Yue stood beneath the lighthouse, desperately adjusting the red signal light, trying to cut off the blue ritual lines. But the blue lines only multiplied, nearly stitching the entire town into a net.

At the bottom of the sea, Aunt Lan and the tide-keepers wove a new song-net. Their voices held the side gate of Tidal Cove steady, but they could not block Madam White's pearl light. It bypassed them, heading straight for Coral.

"Don't listen to her," Aunt Lan said sharply.

Madam White laughed. "You all want her to save you, yet you won't let her choose for herself. How is that different from me?"

Aunt Lan's face went pale.

Coral looked at Lu Wenchao.

Lu Wenchao grabbed her hand. "Don't do this alone."

Her eyes reddened, and she forced out words in a rasping whisper: "Not... enough..."

"It is enough." Lu Wenchao sliced open his palm and pressed his blood onto the pocket watch and the black shell button. "The debts the hunters owe shouldn't be paid by the merfolk."

The shell button lit up.

Black patterns crawled from the button onto Lu Wenchao's palm, then wound up his arm to the silver hook. It was a counter-oath. Madam White used the hunters' blood-oath to claim songs; Lu Wenchao used his own blood to reverse the debt.

Madam White's smile finally wavered.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

Lu Wenchao met her gaze. "Burning the ledger."

Lu Qi also raised his hand, his last shred of consciousness turning into a blue light that settled on his son's shoulder.

"Don't be afraid," Lu Qi said. "It's just a little pain."

Lu Wenchao wanted to laugh.

So stubbornness really did run in the family.

The counter-oath activated. Every silver thread at the bottom of the sea snapped taut at once. Madam White's claim on the remnant songs was forcibly reversed—one by one, the trapped songs wrenched themselves free from the pearl light. She let out a shriek, and the pearl at her collarbone cracked with fine lines.

Then Qin Yan moved.

He snatched up his own silver hook and severed the last bundle of silver threads behind Madam White.

"Lu Wenchao!" he shouted, his voice torn ragged by the seawater. "This time, I beat you to it."

Lu Wenchao turned to look at him.

Qin Yan grinned, battered. "I'm the one who betrayed her first."

The silver threads snapped.

Madam White screamed. The rift-tide gate flung open, and the black tide surged toward everyone. The time the counter-oath bought was painfully short—short enough only for Coral to make one choice.

She closed her eyes.

A broken song slowly gathered in her throat.

Lu Wenchao grabbed her. "Coral."

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

This time, she didn't hand him candy, nor did she write anything down. She simply reached out and touched his face, as if to confirm that he was still on the shore—and still in the sea.

Then she began to sing her last song.

The song was incomplete, yet it shone bright. It did not surrender itself entirely to the rift-tide. Instead, it led the trapped remnant songs, one by one, back into the sea. The songs sealed in bottles, the songs locked in pearls, the songs bound in the lamp array—like small fish that had been lost for so long, they finally heard the tide that would carry them home.

White Whale Town began to ebb.

But in the deeper dark, the black tide had already opened its mouth.