Silence hung over the circular platform for a moment.
The children who had followed to look at the monument were the first to widen their eyes.
“He's fish-transformed too?”
“Doesn't our float-commune only have Chief Grandpa left?”
Ning Cang still did not make a sound, but his eyes swept all the way from An Youyu's nape to his fingertips, as if trying to discern any trace of fish-transformation left on this body that seemed no different from an ordinary person's.
Zheng Azhu finally snapped back to reality as well.
“No wonder...”
“No wonder you broke out in black spots and still managed to drag yourself back from it.”
It was not that the fish-transformed were immune to Blackwater Sickness, but they always had a slightly better chance of survival than ordinary people.
An Youyu's sickness had completely cleared overnight, leaving behind not even the lingering water addiction that usually followed the illness. Now, it finally made sense.
One of the children, however, was only concerned about another matter.
“What does a Clown Salamander look like?”
“Is it similar to that big head in the middle of our commune?”
An Youyu glanced in the direction the child was pointing, looking at the clown head.
“Pretty much.”
The children burst into laughter all at once.
Lu Guizhou, however, did not join in their laughter.
Odd and bizarre fish aspects were legion across the sea, so it was not strange that he had never heard of a “Clown Salamander.”
What he truly wanted to know was where An Youyu had fixed his aspect.
There was no need to let the children listen to such matters.
“Alright.”
Lu Guizhou waved a hand at them.
“All of you go gather fish at the public warehouse.”
The children were still reluctant to leave, but Zheng Azhu had already shooed them off the circular platform one by one.
Once the footsteps faded into the distance, Lu Guizhou asked again, “Green Awning Float-Commune had a remnant Salamander Swim register.”
“Did you fix this fish aspect of yours from that register?”
An Youyu's heart stirred slightly.
There was no mention of this in the bandit's confession.
Nodding along with Lu Guizhou's assumption would actually be dangerous.
What was written in the remnant register, where it was obtained, what fish materials were used—a few more questions would easily expose him.
Rather than weaving another layer of lies, it was better to tell a partial truth.
“No.”
“When Green Awning sank, I hadn't fixed an aspect yet.”
“Later, while working odd jobs on rogue boats, I happened upon a Fish Roe Stone.”
Lu Guizhou's brows twitched slightly.
“A Fish Roe Stone?”
“Mm.”
“The first aspect-fixing recipe was deciphered from its shedding recall.”
This explanation actually quieted Lu Guizhou.
Fish Roe Stones were rare, but the sea was vast—there were always people who stumbled upon opportunities others might never encounter in a lifetime.
“A how-many-Transformations embryo?”
“I don't know.”
An Youyu shook his head.
“So far, I've only deciphered the first recipe. As for whether there are more after it, I can't say for sure.”
“A wild embryo.”
Lu Guizhou immediately understood.
An unclear origin, no old records to compare against, and no way to know how many fish-transformations were hidden inside.
Across the sea, such Fish Roe Stones were collectively called 【wild embryos】.
He quickly asked again, “Is there a method?”
An Youyu knew what he was asking about.
A Fish Roe Stone could yield a fish recipe, but it would not out of nowhere provide a matching fish-swimming method.
This was precisely the hardest hurdle for unaffiliated cultivators.
He could hardly say the 《Tide-Calming Salamander Swimming Method》.
“I have a wild method I pieced together myself.”
Lu Guizhou reached a hand out toward him.
“Give me your shoulder.”
An Youyu did not dodge.
A rough palm pressed onto his shoulder.
The back of Lu Guizhou's hand quickly flushed with a layer of grayish-blue, thin membranes spreading between his fingers as his entire forearm turned broad and flat.
Floating Spring Breath surged down through his palm.
It was very light at first.
Then it grew heavier bit by bit.
Ten Pressure.
Fifty Pressure.
Eighty Pressure.
The Salamander Force scattered in An Youyu's flesh and blood automatically surged toward his shoulders and back, holding up that weight.
It was not until An Youyu's legs sank slightly that Lu Guizhou pulled his hand back.
His broad, flat forearm returned to its original form.
“Around One Hundred Pressure.”
Yet Lu Guizhou gripped An Youyu's wrist bone again, feeling it for a moment.
“Your force is still scattered.”
“It hasn't Formed a Current.”
He looked up.
“At what age did you fix your aspect?”
An Youyu hesitated briefly.
The time at age thirteen counted as fixing an aspect.
Yet last night, he had fixed it all over again.
If forced to calculate it properly, he could not explain it clearly himself.
Lu Guizhou had already gauged a general idea from his bone frame.
“Around thirteen?”
“Right.”
“Seventeen this year?”
“Mm.”
Lu Guizhou slowly let go.
Nearly four years.
And still only One Hundred Pressure with scattered force.
There was a saying at sea: “If you open an aperture and fail to Form a Current in three years, it will be hard to Form a Current thereafter.”
It was not that one truly could never cultivate it after three years passed.
Rather, the longer it dragged on, the harder it became to correct the flawed breath flow and aperture channels—to say nothing of the fact that An Youyu was practicing a wild method he had pieced together himself.
With the foundation and resources of an unaffiliated cultivator, the road ahead would be extremely difficult to walk.
An Youyu understood the old chief's meaning, but had no intention of explaining.
No one could have guessed that this One Hundred Pressure Salamander Force had not been honed over four years, but was recovered last night through a few rounds of dry swimming.
Silence settled on the circular platform for a moment.
Ning Cang suddenly spoke up: “What's wrong with One Hundred Pressure?”
He clapped a hand onto An Youyu's shoulder.
“One Hundred Pressure is still First-Transformation.”
“In the entire Clown Float-Commune right now, besides Chief, is there anyone else who can dive a hundred meters bare-bodied?”
Lu Guizhou glanced at him.
That was true enough.
One Hundred Pressure without having Formed a Current was nothing special in a large anchorage.
Yet Clown Float-Commune had fewer than a hundred households. Since Lu Guizhou's generation, in all these decades, A'Man was the only youth who had opened a fish aperture.
After A'Man went missing, only Lu Guizhou was left.
Now, there was An Youyu as well.
Even if it was only One Hundred Pressure, he was still a true fish-transformed.
Yet precisely because of this, certain things had to be stated upfront.
Lu Guizhou met An Youyu's gaze and laid it out plainly right away:
“When I had you registered earlier, I didn't know you were already First-Transformation. Now that I know, I must ask this question again.”
“Have you truly thought it through? Do you really want to stay in Clown Float-Commune?”
“Once the black flag is pulled down, as long as you spread word, there won't be any shortage of float-communes outside willing to take you in. Food, medicine, or even fish registers for the Salamander Swim path—someone somewhere can produce them.”
“Clown can't give you any of that.”
“The commune registry hasn't been sent to the Maritime Affairs Office yet. If you change your mind now, it's not too late.”
An Youyu looked down and touched the commune token at his waist.
“When I broke out in black spots, you didn't throw me past the ring wall.”
“Now that I'm cured and can enter the water, should I switch to a place with better conditions instead?”
“That makes no sense.”
The corners of Ning Cang's mouth split into a wide grin.
Lu Guizhou, however, kept staring at him.
“Registration is registration, but Clown doesn't lock people down with commune tokens.”
“Whether you want to go out to sea or head to a city anchorage in the future, you make your own call.”
“However, as long as you hold this token, when you go outside and others ask, you are An Youyu of Clown Float-Commune.”
“If you cause trouble, Clown bears it with you; if Clown gets bullied, you can't pretend not to see it.”
“Now that you've thought it through, do you still claim this token?”
Meeting Lu Guizhou's eyes, An Youyu slowly rubbed his thumb across the smiling clown face on the commune token.
“I do.”
The final trace of scrutiny in the depths of Lu Guizhou's eyes finally faded.
He reached out, clasped An Youyu's forearm, and squeezed firmly.
“Good.”
“Welcome to Clown Float-Commune.”
...
Welcome to Clown Float-Commune
Rate on N.U.
