Empty Hook: Fishing for What-Ifs in the Tide Sea

The tide sea drowned the old world three hundred years ago, and the survivors make their living by salvaging "things that never happened." Others repair tide levels, fish for tide-creatures, and fight over a single fishing license—but Shen Du can't even catch the cheapest tide fish. He's the notorious empty-hook waste of the Seventh Dock, keeping a run-down hook-mending shop and saving money to treat his sister's tide sickness. On the night of the tide collapse, everyone at the dock runs for high ground—only he fights against the crowd and jumps into the water. From a drowned shadow he fishes up the line "if only he'd held his breath one moment longer," and from then on he carries a passive that only works while holding his breath—he cannot sink. Only then does he understand: what he fishes isn't fish, but the unlived lives of others. "If that door hadn't been locked"—knock three times, and any lock will open. "If that ship hadn't sunk"—the ship he steers will never sink. "If she hadn't been forgotten"—anyone he has met will never disappear. For every "if" he accepts, he must fulfill a wish on the original owner's behalf; if he fails, he forgets a piece of his own life. The medicine his sister needs lies in the sunken city, and the Tide Court's wanted notice, the Pei family's black hooks, and the thing opening its eyes at the bottom of the sea are all closing in on him. He only wanted to save his sister, yet step by step he fishes up the truth of how the world sank: if everyone could live inside "if," would you still want this battered reality? — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Empty Hook: Fishing for What-Ifs in the Tide Sea — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠