The Hunter's Scarf

When Coral closed her eyes, she half-expected the broken lamp to take a bite out of her. She had only wanted to make the light less harsh, but the lamp on land had such a bad temper—as soon as it heard her song, it cracked on the spot, without even a moment for negotiation.

Darkness crashed down.

The basement fell into chaos.

Someone knocked over a metal rack, and the record board slapped against the floor. Someone cursed under their breath, their boot soles crunching over broken glass with a fine, grating sound. The water tank tilted, spilling silvery-gray algae threads that flowed out with the water like a school of thin snakes crawling toward the underground pool.

"Backup power!"

For the first time, Lady White's voice lost its sugary coating, sharp as a pearl being forcibly shattered.

Coral opened her eyes and saw only pitch black. She heard the silver algae water sliding across the floor, and she heard Lu Wenchao approaching through the water. In the darkness, he caught her wrist and pressed her back down into the pool.

"Don't touch that water."

His voice was very close, low, separate from the chaos around them—like the one fixed reef in a violent storm.

Coral started to nod, then remembered he couldn't see her, and whispered, "Okay."

"And don't sing."

"I already stopped."

"Keep your mouth shut too."

She immediately pinched her lips together with two fingers.

When the backup lights came on, the basement turned an ugly grayish white. Broken glass covered the floor, the overturned transparent water tank lay on its side, and the silver algae had been washed toward the drain, still writhing unnaturally. Xiao Man crouched by the wall, clutching her record board, her eyes wide open, clearly trying to decide whether she should scream, run away, or continue fulfilling her part-time job duties.

Lu Wenchao was already standing in front of the underground pool.

His back was to Coral, blocking Lady White and the hunters from view. Glass shards rested on his shoulders. A cut had opened on the back of his left hand, blood dripping down his knuckles, making tiny red spots on the white tiles.

Coral stared at those tiny red spots, her tail tip twitching uneasily.

"You're leaking red water."

Lu Wenchao didn't turn around. "Shut up."

"Should I push it back in?"

Xiao Man had been huddled against the wall trembling. Hearing this, she almost laughed, then forcibly covered her mouth. Her shoulders shook twice, like a frightened quail that still wanted to make a sarcastic comment.

Lady White stood among the broken glass.

The hem of her pearl-colored dress was wet, and a shattered lamp tube lay by the tip of her shoe. She looked down at her gloves, then slowly pulled off the right one. Beneath the glove, there was a small patch of old scar on her fingertip—unremarkable, except it was emitting a faint blue glow in the lingering remnants of Coral's song.

Coral saw that light, and her heart inexplicably tightened.

It didn't look like an ordinary wound.

It looked more like a burn mark from a mermaid's scale.

Lady White put her glove back on, moving very slowly. When she lifted her head, her face was once again adorned with that elegant smile—only the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"That's enough for tonight," she said.

The two hunters visibly relaxed.

But Lu Wenchao's hand didn't leave his silver hook.

Lady White looked at his back. "Wenchao, keep an eye on her. Tomorrow I want a complete record. Scale reactions, song frequency, out-of-water state, and the full process of her seeing Lu Qi's phantom."

Lu Wenchao looked up. "You saw it too?"

"I saw it in the reflection of the water tank." Lady White smiled. "Quite interesting, isn't it? A person who disappeared ten years ago, actually sung into view by a newly captured mermaid."

"That wasn't a phantom," Coral couldn't help saying.

Lady White finally turned her gaze to her. "Oh?"

"He's not a shadow. He's just sleeping very deeply."

The basement fell silent for a moment.

Lu Wenchao turned his face sideways, his eyes warning her to shut up.

But Coral had already finished speaking. She didn't quite understand why everyone had become so quiet. There were plenty of people sleeping in the sea. Sea turtles slept, whales slept, even the bad-tempered octopus would hide in a cave and sleep. Sleeping a little longer didn't mean you didn't exist.

Lady White stared at her, a flicker passing quickly through her eyes.

It wasn't surprise.

It was greed.

"How cute," she said softly. "Can't even tell a lie."

Coral wrinkled her nose. "I'm not casting any nets."

Xiao Man almost laughed again.

Lady White paid her no further attention. Her pearl earrings swayed gently under the light, and deep within the pendants there was a faint blue glow, like trapped droplets of water. Coral stared at them, feeling as though something inside was knocking against the glass.

Lady White turned and left.

As she passed Lu Wenchao, she paused.

"Don't forget, my dear," her voice returned to its softness. "The debt your father left behind is still on the Guild's books."

Lu Wenchao said nothing.

The door closed.

Only when the sound of high heels had completely faded did Xiao Man let out a long breath, her whole body collapsing against the wall like her bones had been removed.

"I thought I was going to get fired just now."

Coral turned to look at her. "Are you a squid?"

Xiao Man: "...No."

"Then why would you be fried?"

"It's a figure of speech." Xiao Man thought for a moment, then added, "It means I might lose my job."

Coral was even more confused. "Jobs can be fried too?"

Xiao Man looked at Lu Wenchao. "Brother Lu, can I teach her a basic human常识 class? For free, really. I'm afraid she'll be scared to death by a menu one day."

Lu Wenchao kicked the broken water tank aside, bent down to pick up the silver algae with iron tongs, and tossed it into a sealed bucket.

"Clean the floor first."

"Got it." Xiao Man dragged over a mop, wiping the floor while lowering her voice. "But she really doesn't understand anything, does she? She just asked me if straws were flutes."

"The less she knows, the faster she'll die," Lu Wenchao said.

He said it flatly, like he was just stating a weather forecast.

But Coral heard it.

She hugged her tail and thought hard for a while. She really didn't understand a lot of things. She didn't understand why "welcome" came with a net, why fake grass couldn't be a gift in return, or why when Lady White said "my dear," it felt more uncomfortable than a cold current in the deep sea.

She looked up at Lu Wenchao.

"Then can you teach me?"

Lu Wenchao turned back.

"Teach me which things will make me die slower," Coral said. "Like how lamps can explode, how seaweed can fake things, how 'fried squid' isn't actually fried squid, and why when Lady White says 'welcome,' it doesn't feel like welcome."

Xiao Man's mop stopped mid-air.

Lu Wenchao was silent for a long time.

His gaze rested on Coral's face. She wasn't being cute, and she wasn't pretending to be pitiful. She genuinely treated every sentence as knowledge that could help her survive. Her silver-blue hair was damp, plastered to her shoulders, and the red marks left by the silver net on her tail scales hadn't fully faded, yet her eyes were disproportionately bright—as if no matter where she was locked up, she would earnestly learn the rules of the place.

"First, learn not to sing recklessly," he said.

Coral nodded. "I've learned that. The lamp doesn't like it."

"It's not that the lamp doesn't like it."

"Then who doesn't like it?"

Lu Wenchao glanced toward the door.

"If you want to live a little longer, don't let others know what you can sing out."

Coral didn't fully understand. She wanted to say that songs were meant to be sung for other people, but the look on Lu Wenchao's face wasn't one suitable for arguing. So she tucked this new rule into her heart, alongside "eyes can't talk but still have to be covered" and "welcome mat isn't a welcome mat."

In the dead of night, only Coral and Lu Wenchao remained in the basement.

After Xiao Man finished cleaning the floor, Lu Wenchao sent her to the monitoring room to fill out records. Before leaving, she secretly slipped Coral a brightly wrapped candy and whispered, "Don't tell Brother Lu."

Coral held the candy like it was a little sun from the land.

She didn't know how to eat it, so she temporarily hid it under the plastic seaweed.

The water temperature in the underground pool kept dropping. The aquarium's circulation system had probably malfunctioned when the lamp exploded, and the incoming water hadn't been heated—it was as cold as the crevices between rocks after low tide in deep winter. Coral didn't want to admit she was cold. She had just learned that "the less you know, the faster you die," and she felt she should now appear smarter. And a smart mermaid shouldn't be shivering from a little pool of cold water.

So she piled all the plastic seaweed on top of herself, trying to pretend it was a warm current.

The plastic leaves tickled her face.

She held out for a while, then couldn't help it—she sneezed.

A string of bubbles rose from the water's surface.

Lu Wenchao sat by the door wiping his silver hook. Most of the bulbs had shattered, leaving only two backup lights in the basement. The light fell on his profile, carving his brows and eyes into something cold. Hearing the sneeze, he looked up.

"Cold?"

Coral immediately shook her head. The plastic seaweed slid off her head and plopped into the water.

Lu Wenchao stared at her.

She stared back at him, trying hard to look like she wasn't cold at all. But the tip of her tail curled uncontrollably, and her shoulders were hunched beneath the water.

"I'm not cold," she insisted.

"Your lips are white."

Coral touched her mouth. "They turned white on their own."

Lu Wenchao put away his silver hook, stood up, and left.

When the door closed, the underground pool suddenly felt even smaller. Coral floated in the water, watching the sliver of light under the door disappear. She thought he had given up on her. Which was normal, really. Hunters didn't need to care whether their cargo was cold or not—cargo just had to be alive and worth the price.

She buried her face in the water and tried humming a little warm-current song.

The moment she opened her mouth, the door opened again.

A dark gray scarf fell onto her head.

Coral couldn't see anything under the scarf. She floundered for a moment before poking her face out through the gaps in the knitting. The scarf carried a hint of the scent of a rain-soaked coat, along with the faint medicinal smell that lingered on Lu Wenchao.

Her eyes lit up. "What's this?"

"A scarf."

"What's it for?"

"To keep warm."

Coral touched the soft wool, her expression gradually turning serious.

Lu Wenchao looked at her warily. "What are you thinking now?"

"Where I come from," Coral said very seriously, "when a male seahorse gives seaweed to a female, it means he wants to hatch eggs together."

Lu Wenchao stopped wiping his hands.

From outside the door came an extremely faint gasp.

Clearly, Xiao Man hadn't gone far.

Coral looked up, her tone earnest. "Do you also want to hatch eggs?"

Lu Wenchao: "..."

The backup light buzzed.

Outside the door, Xiao Man seemed to have clamped her hand over her mouth, holding back laughter so hard that the door panel trembled slightly.

Lu Wenchao's temple twitched. "This is human clothing."

"It's not courtship seaweed?"

"No."

"Then why is your face red?"

"The light is broken. It's hot."

The basement was cold enough to freeze a fish tail.

Coral looked at him, then at the scarf, and suddenly smiled. When she smiled, her eyes curved like two lines left on the sand after the tide receded.

Lu Wenchao looked away.

"Tomorrow I'm taking you out."

"Out?" Coral hugged the scarf, forgetting the cold. "Back to the sea?"

"No."

Her eyes dimmed a little.

Lu Wenchao saw it, but he didn't offer comfort. He wasn't the type to comfort people, and any words that reached his lips came out as nothing but stiff explanations.

"Looking for someone. She might know about Lu Qi."

"Your father?"

Lu Wenchao neither confirmed nor denied it.

Coral wrapped the scarf around her shoulders, and like a human making a solemn vow, she nodded. "Then I'll be very well-behaved."

"You'd better be."

"Can I bring little fish?"

"No."

"Plastic seaweed?"

"No."

"What about the little sun?"

Lu Wenchao frowned. "What little sun?"

Coral realized she had exposed herself and immediately looked away.

Following her gaze, Lu Wenchao lifted the plastic seaweed and saw the brightly wrapped candy. Outside the door, Xiao Man took a very quiet step back.

"Xiao Man," Lu Wenchao said coldly.

From outside came Xiao Man's weak voice. "I didn't do anything."

"You don't have to come in tomorrow."

"Brother Lu! She's never even eaten candy! This is humanitarian关怀!"

Coral hugged the scarf tightly. "Is she going to be fried squid?"

Lu Wenchao: "Yes."

Xiao Man: "No! Lady White isn't you!"

The basement was briefly filled with noise. Coral listened to their argument through the door and suddenly felt that this place without the sound of tides wasn't completely dead either. At least here, someone would secretly give her a little sun, and someone would give her a scarf, even if he was harsh with his words.

She looked down at the scarf. It was too long, and one end hung into the water, quickly becoming soaked.

Lu Wenchao frowned and reached to fish it out.

Coral reached too.

Their fingers touched on the water's surface.

Very cold.

Lu Wenchao pulled his hand back as if burned.

But Coral lifted the finger that had touched him, pressed it to her ear, and listened.

"Your hands have the sound of the tide."

Lu Wenchao frowned. "Don't talk nonsense."

"Really," she said. "Very far, very deep, and someone is knocking."

His expression changed.Coral wanted to listen more closely, but suddenly the door was pushed open. Xiaoman rushed in, all trace of a smile gone from her face, holding a monitoring tablet in her hand.

"Brother Lu." She handed the screen over, her voice tight. "Right before the lights exploded, a segment of the surveillance footage was deleted. It wasn't me. I tried to recover it, but I only managed to get a few frames back."

Lu Wenchao took the tablet.

The screen showed surveillance footage of the underground pool. The quality was terrible, the light before the explosion distorted into a sheet of white. Coral stood in the pool singing, and in the reflection of the water tank, a blurry man appeared.

That man was wearing the old uniform of a hunter from ten years ago. Half his face looked waterlogged, but his eyes were startlingly clear. He stood behind Coral, and his lips moved once.

The tablet had no sound.

But Lu Wenchao seemed to hear it.

His expression darkened bit by bit. His fingers pressed against the edge of the screen, nearly cracking the tablet.

Xiaoman's voice trembled: "Who is that?"

Coral leaned in to look and immediately pointed at the screen. "It's him. Lu Qi."

Lu Wenchao looked up. "Are you sure?"

"He's a little clearer than when he was at the bottom of the sea," Coral said. "But still very blurry."

Xiaoman swallowed hard. "Brother Lu, isn't your father..."

She didn't dare finish.

The screen suddenly went black.

The three of them looked up at the same time.

A surveillance camera in the corner of the basement rotated slightly, its red light flickering like an eye that had just opened.

At the same time, in the third-floor surveillance room of the aquarium, Qin Yan took off his headphones.

He sat in front of a row of screens, his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting cold light. The screen was frozen on the last recovered frame: Lu Wenchao standing before the underground pool, Coral pointing at the tablet and saying Lu Qi's name.

Qin Yan reached out and slowly wiped a trace of fog from his lens.

"So you've been hiding such a big trouble, old friend."

He clicked the save button.

A notification popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen: Backup successful.

In the basement, Coral still didn't know that another pair of eyes was already watching her. She just wrapped her wet scarf a little tighter around her shoulders and quietly asked Lu Wenchao: "When we go out tomorrow, can I bring this?"

Lu Wenchao looked at the blackened screen and didn't answer.

The pocket watch on his chest let out a soft sound.

Click.

Like someone behind the door had finally grown tired of waiting.