Escape Practice

Coral's first lesson in learning to walk was not to trust her own feet.

They looked perfectly fine attached to her body, fair and clean, each toe wiggling individually like five newly hatched baby fish. But when it came to actually using them, they were more troublesome than a sea urchin. The left foot wanted to go east, the right insisted on going west, and her knees were like two temporary jellyfish—soft, with no backbone whatsoever.

Lu Wenchao supported her as they walked through the maintenance corridor. The third time she stepped on his shoe, she finally looked down and said seriously to her feet, "If you bite people again, I'll put you back in the sea."

A vein pulsed on Lu Wenchao's forehead. "Feet don't bite."

"Yes they do." Coral pointed at his shoe. "It just bit me."

"That's a shoe."

"Why does the shoe wrap around the foot?"

"Protection."

"If it's protection, why does it hurt so much?"

Lu Wenchao gave her a look.

The maintenance corridor was narrow, the walls damp, and cold water occasionally dripped from the pipes overhead. In the distance came the footsteps of night patrol hunters and the crackling static of a walkie-talkie. Lu Wenchao could have brushed her off casually, but the words "why does it hurt so much" landed in his ears and struck a little too close to a question he had asked himself ten years ago.

After his father left, the Guild said protecting White Whale Town needed hunters. Madam Bai said inheriting his father's debts was also protecting the family name. Qin Yan said the sharper a hunter's hook, the safer the people around them.

Every word sounded like protection.

Every word hurt.

"A lot of protection hurts," Lu Wenchao said.

Coral didn't understand, but she remembered the words.

They didn't leave the Aquarium immediately. Outside were surveillance cameras, night patrol hunters, and Madam Bai's people. In her current state, Coral would be caught and dragged back to the underground pool before she even reached the back door. So escape became practice: wearing shoes, climbing stairs, dodging cameras, crouching at the sound of footsteps, and shutting up at the mention of "Madam Bai."

Coral studied very seriously.

Except that whenever she crouched down, she instinctively pressed her legs together like tucking in a tail, curling herself into a damp little clam.

Lu Wenchao watched her huddled in the shadow of the pipes, saying nothing for a long while.

Coral looked up. "Doesn't this look human?"

"It looks like a clam that got stolen."

"Is being a clam bad?"

"Clams don't run away on their own."

"I'm not very good at it yet either."

Lu Wenchao took a deep breath.

That was when Xiaoman squeezed in from the other side of the maintenance door. She was carrying a huge canvas bag, her hair a mess as if she'd just fought a mop. The moment she saw Coral, she first covered her mouth, her eyes lighting up brilliantly.

"Legs!"

Coral immediately looked down. "You know legfish too?"

Lu Wenchao said, "Don't teach her random words."

"That one wasn't me!" Xiaoman put down the canvas bag and pulled out an oversized hoodie, a long skirt, a pair of soft-soled shoes, and a bucket hat. "Emergency disguise kit. Now you'll look like an ordinary girl."

Coral touched the clothes. "Ordinary girls don't have tails?"

"At least not on the street."

"Then what do they use to splash water when they're happy?"

Xiaoman was stumped and looked at Lu Wenchao.

Lu Wenchao said flatly, "They clap their hands."

Coral immediately clapped twice. Slap, slap. The sound was crisp. She looked at her palms in delight. "Human tails are so short."

Xiaoman laughed so hard she nearly rolled into the toolbox.

Lu Wenchao tossed the clothes to her. "Change."

Coral held the skirt, hesitating as she looked at him.

"What?"

"When you humans change your scales, do you let others watch?"

Xiaoman immediately covered Lu Wenchao's eyes. "Brother Lu, turn around! Hurry up, be a proper pure-love男主!"

"Stop reading so many comics," Lu Wenchao said coldly, but he turned around anyway.

With Xiaoman's help, Coral changed into the clothes. The long skirt covered the faint shell-like scale marks at her ankles, and the hoodie pressed her silver-blue hair into the cap. She looked down at herself and felt like she'd been stuffed into a soft land-shell.

"Now I don't look like a mermaid?"

Xiaoman gave a thumbs up. "Nope. You look like a female lead who just transmigrated out of a comic and is about to elope with a cold-faced hunter."

Coral asked, "What's elope?"

Lu Wenchao said, "Running away."

Xiaoman added, "Running away with feelings."

Lu Wenchao looked at her.

Xiaoman quickly corrected herself, "No feelings, none at all, purely strategic withdrawal."

The practice continued.

Lu Wenchao placed an empty bucket at the end of the corridor and had Coral walk from one end to the other and back. She walked very slowly, each step like negotiating with the floor. Right foot down, left foot follows, body swaying, arms flailing wildly. On the fifth step, she nearly stumbled into Lu Wenchao's arms, but he stopped her with a single finger pressed to her forehead.

"Watch the road."

"The road is moving."

"That's you wobbling."

"Why won't the floor hold me?"

"The floor isn't responsible for that."

She thought about it seriously. "Then the floor is very rude."

Xiaoman was filming on the side, struggling not to laugh.

Lu Wenchao turned his head. "Delete it."

"Data record!"

"Delete."

"Fine." Xiaoman deleted the video, then turned around and drew a little mermaid falling down in her comic sketchbook.

After Coral learned to take about a dozen steps, she started learning to avoid surveillance. Every corridor in the Aquarium had cameras. When the red light was on, Lu Wenchao told her to hug the wall. When the red light turned away, she should hide in the shadows.

Coral succeeded on her first try.

On the second try, she saw the camera rotating and earnestly waved at it.

Lu Wenchao grabbed her hand down. "What are you doing?"

"It was looking at me."

"So you can't let it look."

"Will it be sad?"

"It has no heart."

"Humans make a lot of things without hearts."

Lu Wenchao was momentarily stunned.

The words came out of Coral's mouth innocently enough, but they touched something soft. Even Xiaoman's smile paused for a moment.

Coral didn't know she'd said anything wrong. She just saw those cold cameras turning, saw the signs on the white walls reading "Please Do Not Tap the Glass," and saw the fish in the tanks swimming slowly, but no one ever asked them if they were tired. She thought the land was very clever—able to make lights that turned on by themselves, doors that opened by themselves, eyes that watched on their own—but the land was also very foolish, making so many things yet forgetting to give them a heart that could hear the sound of water.

"There are heartless things in the sea too," she added quietly. "Like sea urchins. They just sting people."

Xiaoman couldn't help laughing. "Does Brother Lu look like a sea urchin?"

Coral looked at Lu Wenchao, comparing carefully. "No."

Lu Wenchao had already prepared to put on a cold face, but at this he paused.

"What's he like?" Xiaoman pressed.

Coral said, "Like a reef. Looks hard on the outside, but underneath little fish can take shelter from the rain."

Xiaoman's smile slowly faded, her expression turning a little complicated.

Lu Wenchao lowered his head to check the gap in the door, his voice still cold. "If you two keep chatting, neither of you will avoid the night patrol."

But Coral took this as a compliment and whispered to Xiaoman, "See? The reef is letting the little fish take shelter from the rain again."

Xiaoman covered her mouth, barely holding back tears.

The footsteps of the night patrol hunters drew closer.

Lu Wenchao lowered his voice. "Crouch down."

Coral immediately crouched, curling into a clam.

"Not like that."

"But clams are safe."

"Clams don't get named by hunters."

"Then I'll be a clam without a name."

Lu Wenchao had no time to correct her. He pulled her into the janitor's closet, Xiaoman squeezed in too, and the three of them hid among mops and buckets of disinfectant. Two hunters walked past outside.

"Brother Qin said there's something wrong with the surveillance."

"Lu Wenchao's side?"

"Who knows. He's been acting strange tonight. Even Madam Bai couldn't hold him down."

"A live mermaid—who wouldn't act strange? I heard one scale is worth half a street."

Coral heard "scale" and instinctively touched her ankle. She had always thought scales were just part of her body, like her hair, like her voice. She never knew that in the human world, they could become a street.

Xiaoman bit her lip.

Lu Wenchao's hand pressed against the door, his gaze cold enough to pierce through it.

After the footsteps faded, Coral whispered, "Do they want to buy my feet?"

Lu Wenchao didn't answer.

"They can't buy them," she said seriously. "My feet haven't learned to walk yet, so they wouldn't be useful even if bought."

Xiaoman's eyes were a little red, but Coral's words also made her want to laugh.

Lu Wenchao opened the door. "Keep going."

In the dead of night, Coral finally managed to walk to the end of the corridor while holding the wall. Lu Wenchao stood there, holding a scarf.

"Come here."

Coral lifted her foot.

The first step held steady.

The second step held steady too.

On the third step, she got too cocky, tripped on her hem, and fell with a thud to her knees.

Lu Wenchao closed his eyes.

"I think the floor likes me," Coral explained, looking up. "It keeps hugging me."

"You keep falling."

"Is falling also a human rule?"

"No."

"Then why don't you fall?"

Lu Wenchao walked over and pulled her up. "Because I learned how."

"Who taught you?"

The question made him pause mid-motion.

"My father."

Coral held onto his arm and slowly steadied herself. She imagined Lu Qi standing on the shore, teaching a little Lu Wenchao how to walk. Did that little Lu Wenchao fall too? Did he also say the floor liked him?

"Then he taught well," she said. "You walk like a seabird that can't be knocked over by waves."

Lu Wenchao tried to pull his hand away, but found she was holding on tight. Not out of dependence—more like she was afraid he might be swept away by some invisible current.

His throat moved. "Don't hold so tight."

"You had black tide on your face just now."

"What?"

"When you talked about your father." Coral pointed at her own eyes. "Here."

Lu Wenchao looked away. "You're seeing things."

Suddenly, Xiaoman's urgent voice came through the walkie-talkie. "Brother Lu! Qin Yan is pulling up the deleted footage. He recovered one frame of you carrying the mermaid!"

Lu Wenchao's expression changed. "How long?"

"Five minutes at most. He's already checking the back door surveillance!"

Coral immediately raised her hand. "I can run."

Lu Wenchao looked at her wobbly legs. "You can't even walk."

"Then you can put me in a bottle."

"Shut up."

He wrapped the scarf around her neck, pulled up her hood, and half-supported, half-carried her toward the maintenance door. Xiaoman swiped the card at the door, her hand shaking so much she had to try twice before it opened.

"Brother Lu, there's a delivery truck in the back alley leaving in three minutes."

"What about you?"

"I'll stay and stall." Xiaoman forced a smile. "I'll say I was sleepwalking and wiping the cameras in the middle of the night."

"They won't believe that."

"Then I'll cry." Xiaoman took a deep breath. "I'm very convincing when I cry."

Coral looked at her. "Is crying a human weapon?"

Xiaoman nodded. "Sometimes."

She said it lightly, but her hands were shaking. Coral saw this, so she pulled out the straw from her sleeve—the one Xiaoman had given her earlier, which Coral had treasured like a flute.

Xiaoman was stunned. "Giving this to me?"

"When you're scared, you can blow it," Coral said. "Even if the sound is very small, it's still a song."

Xiaoman's nose stung, and she nearly really cried. "You know this was mine to begin with, right?"

"I know."

"Then why are you giving it back?"

"When a friend is left behind, they should carry something that makes a sound." Coral was very serious. "That way, the sea knows she's still there."

Xiaoman gripped the straw, her eyes rimmed red. She suddenly reached out and hugged Coral—quickly, then let go as if afraid to waste time.

"You have to get out."

Coral nodded. "I'll learn to run."

Lu Wenchao watched them, not rushing. Only when the red light at the other end of the corridor blinked again did he lower his voice. "Let's go."

Lu Wenchao didn't say anything more. He led Coral out through the maintenance door.

Outside was the Aquarium's back alley. The night wind carried the scent of the sea—cold and free. Coral's eyes lit up. She almost forgot she had legs and lunged toward the wind.

Lu Wenchao grabbed her. "Stay close to me."

She nodded. "I'll stay close."

She struggled to keep up. The soles of her shoes hit the concrete—hard, each step numbing the bottom of her feet. But she didn't complain about the pain. She remembered Lu Wenchao saying that a lot of protection hurts. Maybe escape was also a kind of protection, so a little pain was normal.

Just as they turned out of the alley, the light in the surveillance room on the third floor came on.

Qin Yan sat in front of the screen.

The frame froze on the moment Lu Wenchao bent down to catch Coral. The girl's silver-blue hair spilled over his arm, her tail scales flashing for an instant. It wasn't the posture of moving goods, nor the posture of a hunter subduing prey. Lu Wenchao held her too steadily, too practiced—as if afraid she'd get hurt falling.Qin Yan took off his glasses and slowly wiped them clean.

"Old friend," he said softly, "you really do hold your prey too steadily."

In the lower right corner of the screen, a location prompt popped up.

The target was leaving the building.

Qin Yan pressed the intercom: "Seal off Back Lane."

The dawn had not yet broken over White Whale Town, and the first capture net had already been spread outside the Aquarium.