The habitat of the Mermaid Clan was far removed from human habitation, originally located in sparsely populated areas near the coastline.
Later, as malicious people with ulterior motives continually sought out mermaids luring them by exploiting their innate innocence to extract their teardrops, singing voices, and even their dead skeletons—the mermaid population dwindled day by day. With no other choice, the entire Mermaid Clan migrated collectively to an unknown island.
Miraculously, thick mist swirled around the island year-round, making it extremely difficult for sailing ships to discover it. There were even rumors that the island where the mermaids currently resided could shift its position at any moment, thereby preventing greedy evildoers who wanted to track down the mermaids’ whereabouts.
At this moment, the sun was blazing fiercely.
Under the sunlight, the sea sparkled, looking as though light-blue spirits had donned golden gauze, dispelling the morning mist over the ocean and radiating a dazzling golden light. Gentle waves lapped against the reefs on the island’s shore, stirring up faint echoes, accompanied by the sound of creatures swimming near the rocks.
Looking closer, the waters surrounding the island were actually filled with individual mermaids. Some leaned against the shore playing and frolicking, singing melodiously in the sunlight. Others swam gracefully in the sea water, occasionally surging powerfully out of the waves with the strength of their waists and abdomens, their fish tails of various colors flashing brilliant halos under the sun.
Before long, a fish tail leaped out of the water; it was wide and long, colored a deep blue-black.
That fish tail landed upon the shore.
Di You’s long golden hair was still damp, his deep-set azure eyes dark and solemn as he walked toward a remote corner of the island.
Far away from the playful sounds of the mermaids near the coastline, this was the most desolate corner of the entire island.
At this moment, however, a bizarrely dressed figure was already standing there.
The person was draped in a dark gray-black cloak that looked aged yet undamaged. The wide cloak enveloped them completely, with the brim of the hood pulled down low, faintly revealing their chin.
The chin had virtually no flesh on it, being skin and bone, resembling withered and decayed tree bark—it was almost impossible to imagine this belonging to the skin of a living person.
“You’ve finally come.”
As soon as Di You arrived, the figure spoke slowly.
The voice was hoarse and gloomy, forming a sharp contrast with the inherently graceful voices of the Mermaid Clan.
It was difficult to discern the gender from this voice.
In fact, Di You did not even know whether this person was male or female.
The person’s height was unremarkable, possessing a very gender-neutral stature.
Yet he somehow felt more strongly that this person was male.
Di You addressed him: “Wizard.”
The wizard’s hoarse voice rasped slowly, “How are the things I asked you to do coming along? Wen Si and the others have already set out, haven’t they?”
“Mm.” Di You hesitated. “Wen Si has already departed along with the blood hunter team. According to your divination, he indeed brought someone along with him.”
“Oh?” The wizard was evidently very attentive, a smile pulling stiffly at the corners of his mouth beneath the hood, leaking a strange, eerie humor. “Is there anything special about the person he brought?”
This was precisely the point of Di You’s hesitation.
“Wizard, I want to ask if you can truly be certain that Lord Shi Yu has not yet awakened?”
Ever since he went to the castle and saw the young man following the wizard’s instructions, Di You had harbored a lingering sense of unease in his heart lately.
He had begun to doubt the wizard’s judgment.
“Are you doubting me?” the wizard asked gloomily in return, his entire being exuding an intimidating aura.
“The person you hope will awaken is still slumbering; there is no mistake in this.”
“But I saw it with my own eyes. The person Wen Si brought looks very much like Shi Yu, although there are some differences.” Di You frowned. “More importantly, his name is also Shi Yu. Could all of this simply be a coincidence?”
“This is no coincidence.” The wizard’s sinister gaze was concealed beneath his hood as he told Di You, “This is all arranged by God.”
“I used witchcraft to arouse the fury of the Deep Sea Colossus, waking it prematurely. Aside from my own personal objectives, I was actually helping you.”
Di You looked at him in puzzlement.
“According to my divination, the destiny of the person Wen Si brought to the Mermaid Clan is similar to that of the Lord you wish to resurrect. As long as he is sacrificed within my formation, he can become a blank vessel, and by then, your Lord Shi Yu can be resurrected using his body.”
“Though it will be his physical shell, the soul of an ancestral bloodline is immensely powerful. Within a very short time, that body will gradually transform into his original appearance, both in terms of appearance and abilities.”
The wizard’s words were highly alluring; this was indeed the best method to make Shi Yu’s resurrection possible.
When high-ranking vampires suffer fatal injuries, there is a chance they will slip into a state of slumber.
During this slumber state, they are not simply sleeping unconsciously inside a coffin; rather, they exist in this world more in the form of a soul. Most awaken within a mere few hundred years at most, but Shi Yu possessed an ancestral bloodline, and even within vampire circles, it remained unclear how long an ancestral bloodline required to sleep and wake up.
To put it quite pessimistically, the majority believed that Shi Yu would find it extremely difficult to ever wake up.
After all, those who had fallen into slumber previously either woke up very quickly or never woke up at all.
Di You’s tone grew heavier, incredulous: “Yet your method also relies on taking the life of a human as the price.”
The wizard’s hoarse voice laughed for a long time, as if he had heard something immensely comical.
“High Priest of the Mermaid Clan, you should have thought of this right from the very beginning. The Deep Sea Colossus awoke ahead of schedule, and its current strength is far from being as trifling as before.” The wizard asked him with a gloomy sneer, “Do you honestly believe these blood hunters who went can come out unscathed?”
Di You’s pupils constricted. “Weren’t we originally supposed to just find out whether Wen Si was the culprit who caused Shi Yu’s slumber back then?”
The wizard scoffed, an excited light flashing in his eyes. “So you only wanted something to happen to Wen Si?”
“How naive. Back when the Mermaid Clan suffered severe persecution, the island I found and set up formations on allowed you to live in peace. Have you forgotten? How miserable your clansmen were when they were harmed back then.”
The wizard’s tone was hauntingly eerie. “So do not indulge your misplaced benevolence; this world operates on the survival of the fittest.”
“Back in the day, when the wizard was hunted down and killed by the human king, he hadn’t done anything wrong either. Did they deserve to die? In short, for any objective to become reality, sacrifices must be made.”
He said, “You also want to see Shi Yu again as soon as possible, don’t you?”
Di You’s palms clenched unconsciously, exerting so much force that his fingertips turned white.
He remained silent, but his silence at this moment served as the best possible answer.
“Mr. High Priest of the Mermaid Clan, whenever you feel shaken, go back and think of your innocent, victimized fellow clansmen—did they ever forgive the perpetrators who once stripped them to the bone and sucked them dry?”
As those words fell, a black-purple magic formation materialized behind the wizard.
“What do you mean by that?” Di You realized something and pressed further.
“Heh, I thought you might be able to guess.” The wizard’s hoarse voice laughed jarringly as he stated bluntly, “Your Mermaid Clan has since ancient times maintained an agreement with blood hunters regarding courtship-period trials. Before I helped you, you migrated many times, didn’t you?”
“Care to guess why your secluded dwellings were so quickly discovered by people with malicious intentions?”
“So the past victimizations of the Mermaid Clan… were also joined by blood hunters?” Di You’s face turned faintly pale, unable to believe it.
“Mermaid skin, bones, teardrops, and voices all of them are widely traded commodities on the black market.”
“The news of the mermaid island’s whereabouts fetched a quite considerable sum, you know.”
The wizard’s words were seductive and coaxing. The magic array behind him stirred up a gust of wind that scraped and lifted the corner of his cloak, revealing the eyes hidden beneath it.
Those eyes held thick, vicious desires, mixed with a hint of gentle mockery.
In a flash, the wizard vanished into the magic array.
Leaving behind only a nearly shattered-looking Di You, who loosened his tightly whitened palms and stiffly reached out to touch the pendant hanging around his neck.
The chain of the pendant consisted of tiny white beads, and suspended right in the middle was unmistakably a round, sky-blue teardrop.
Mermaid teardrops were entirely formed from spiritual power; they did not cry often.
A tiny teardrop might recover after resting for some time.
Yet the one right in the middle possessed a rare size and luster, making it hard to imagine how it had been formed. It faintly radiated a pure light—though it was an exceptionally gorgeous teardrop, gazing upon that blue for too long made it impossible to stop feeling sorrowful.
Di You’s azure gaze was complex.
“Shi Yu, you always liked my eyes.”
He gazed with tender gentleness at the pendant around his neck.
“This teardrop looks so much like my eyes; would you like it?”
The mermaid island remained bright and sunny, full of vitality everywhere. The mermaids nearing their courtship period gathered together on the shore’s reefs, earnestly weaving the shark-silk garments they would wear during their courtship.
One could faintly hear the mermaids’ beautiful voices, chanting an ancient and unique mermaid holy hymn.
The human marketplace was bustling with life.
Shi Yu had been interested in wandering around properly, but before he had the chance to put it into practice, the next day arrived.
The gathering spot requested by the blood hunters was right at yesterday’s alley entrance.
Today, after waking up, Shi Yu maintained his silence and didn’t speak to Wen Si.
He was afraid of hearing that sentence:
Did you take your medicine today?
To be honest, he felt Wen Si needed to take medicine even more.
Preferably drinking some of the notoriously bitter herbal concoctions from the human kingdom.
Not far away, the blood hunter team was already fully equipped and ready.
Shi Yu and Wen Si arrived on time, yet they were the last ones to get there.
[As expected, roll-kings exist in every industry.]
Lanyin sighed with emotion, checking the time to comfort Shi Yu.
[It’s okay, darling! I checked, your arrival time matches the requested time completely you even arrived a few seconds early!]
Shi Yu: “…”
Mm, that was very good.
It wasn’t until he saw the person who had arrived among the blood hunters that Shi Yu understood why yesterday’s woman had said someone was just like him.
Commonly referred to as a slacker padding the numbers.
The tall, thin young man before him had hair styled with an untamable, rebellious arc at the front; his regular slicked-back bangs were forcibly fixed straight up in an upright posture.
Unlike the silence and calmness of the other blood hunters, he wasn’t idle for a single second.
Shi Yu thought of a very fitting description.
It was just like a school field trip for human children.
Full of excitement and anticipation when setting off in the morning, starting to grow exhausted once they’ve played wildly by noon, and by afternoon eagerly longing to go home and rest.
He couldn’t help curving the corners of his lips into a faint smile.