The reason a whirlpool tide was regarded as a cardinal taboo at sea by the boatfolk was not merely because it could shred ships and float-communes.
After the continent submerged, the ocean was no longer a complete world that could be measured solely with a sea chart like in the old era.
The surface of the sea was boundless, without a true seabed, and held countless mysteries.
An old navigational log had recorded a strange occurrence.
A ship had been swallowed by a whirlpool in the southern sea area.
The next day, its snapped mast surfaced in another far-off sea ten thousand li away.
No one knew where that ship had passed during the night it vanished.
An Youyu did not know either.
If the whirlpool that swept him away had once connected to deep black currents, then those who saved him suspecting Blackwater Sickness was not entirely without reason.
...
"Where is this?"
A low cabin ceiling...
A rusted bed end...
An old medicine chest in the corner of the wall...
Slanted above the end of the bed hung a mirror board directly facing the mattress.
An Youyu looked into the mirror.
In the mirror was his original face.
His entire body had grown back as well!
Body-Abandoning Salamander regeneration!
That was the most logical explanation.
Yet the moment the thought surfaced, it felt as though White Eel's bone fin pierced the back of his head once more.
He could never misremember that shattering sound when his fish aperture was pierced.
The fish aperture was the root of the Fish Aspect.
Once destroyed, the power the Body-Abandoning Salamander relied on for regeneration would be severed; how could a complete body possibly grow back?
Unless...
White Eel's strike had failed to thoroughly destroy his fish aperture!
An Youyu wanted to raise his hand to touch the back of his neck.
The moment his right hand left the mattress, his entire arm suddenly lost all power, lurching sharply to the side and catching on the bed rail.
The instant his skin touched the rusted iron, a voice suddenly drilled into his mind.
"Brother, take me with you next time you head out to sea."
An Youyu froze.
The voice sounded so close, as if someone were sitting right beside the bed.
Yet there was clearly no one before his eyes.
Auditory hallucinations?
After serving as an interrogator for three years, An Youyu would occasionally hear screams that had long ceased whenever he was utterly exhausted.
Those were the remnants left behind by torture-steeping.
But this voice now held no weeping or begging for mercy; instead, it sounded like a young boy nagging his elder brother.
"I'm fourteen already, and besides, I'm already First-Transformation. Just take me with you once."
The boy was still muttering.
An Youyu's forearm suddenly gave out, sliding down along the bed rail.
The moment his skin broke contact with the rusted iron, the voice came to an abrupt halt.
Hm?
An Youyu stared at the bed rail.
The voice just now...
Did it come from this thing?
He wanted to put his hand back on it to test his theory, but his five fingers failed to react.
Soon, he realized it wasn't just his right hand that he had lost control over.
His legs clearly had sensation, yet they felt attached to someone else; no matter how he urged them, they remained completely motionless.
An Youyu was stunned for a moment, then recognized the feeling.
Aperture-breath paralysis!
During the piranha trial that year, his lower body had been almost gnawed away raw; relying on the regeneration ability of his Body-Abandoning Salamander Fish Aspect, although his waist, abdomen, and legs grew back, initially had sensation, and could barely move...
Not long after, they suddenly lost control and became completely paralyzed.
It wasn't until the 【Conjoining Membrane】 grew out from the fish aperture in the back of his head and gradually spread along his nerves and fascia into the newly grown flesh that he bit by bit regained control.
The 【Conjoining Membrane】 was the fish organ with which a Body-Abandoning Salamander reconnected a new body.
Only where the membrane spread could the fish aperture exert control.
Though his present body had grown back fully, the 【Conjoining Membrane】 likely had not kept up.
To confirm this, the most direct method was 【Fish-Peering】.
An Youyu closed his eyes.
In the past, with just a single thought, the fish aperture could mirror the blood vessels, internal organs, and conjoining membrane traversed by aperture breath into his consciousness one by one.
But this time...
There was nothing.
Only a stretch of chaos.
【Fish-Peering】 had no response whatsoever!
It appeared his original fish aperture indeed could no longer function normally.
Yet if the fish aperture was truly completely ruined...
How on earth had this body grown back?
Just then, a wave of dark cold suddenly welled up from deep within his abdominal cavity.
An Youyu looked toward the mirror board at the end of the bed once more.
In the mirror, a small patch of ink-black was slowly surfacing from beneath the skin of his chest, crawling up the side of his neck bit by bit along his collarbone.
Blackwater Sickness.
During the maritime pestilence class at the fish-transformation camp, the instructor had forced them to recognize it countless times.
"Ink spots beneath the skin, internal organs cold and gloomy! The plague of Blackwater!!"
The person who saved him was not mistaken.
This was indeed Blackwater Sickness!!
Although An Youyu had considered this possibility before, there had still been a buffer of "not necessarily."
Now that the black spot was truly surfacing from beneath his skin, his last bit of hope was shattered.
Having once returned alive from among a pile of water ghosts and witnessed with his own eyes infected squad members bit by bit lose their sanity, he naturally knew what this black spot signified.
If his fish aperture could still function, he could at least circulate his aperture breath, using his fish-transformed heart, lungs, and flesh to force the invading black substance out of his body bit by bit.
But now.
He could not even perform 【Fish-Peering】, and he could not feel the slightest trace of aperture breath inside his body.
According to the verdict taught in the fish-transformation camp's maritime pestilence class: once spots break out on one without an aperture, it is already a fatal condition!
Black-Suppressing Saline could at most make the black spots spread a little slower.
He had only just reclaimed his name.
Was he going to die once more?
Right at that moment, another drop of medicinal liquid seeped into his veins along the tube.
A bitter, salty chill drilled upward along his arm.
In the mirror, the ink-black patch spreading toward the side of his neck finally ground to a halt.
Yet before An Youyu could breathe a sigh of relief, a sudden burst of severe pain exploded deep in the back of his head!
Boom!
His consciousness felt as though it were violently grabbed by something and dragged into darkness in a single instant.
What was happening?!
Even though he could not feel a trace of aperture breath and could not activate 【Fish-Peering】 at all, the sight inside the back of his head mirrored itself into his consciousness of its own accord.
He saw that his originally intact, sealed fish aperture had been thoroughly pierced through; its walls were collapsed, and its aperture channels severed inch by inch.
Not a sliver of aperture breath circulated.
White Eel had not missed.
This fish aperture was indeed dead.
Completely and thoroughly.
Yet in the deepest depths of the collapsed aperture walls, there were surprisingly two faint motes of light.
One black, one white.
They were slowly revolving around the hollow center of the ruined aperture.
An Youyu was stunned.
Inside the dead aperture...
There was actually something alive?!
Before he could examine them closely, the two black-and-white flowing lights suddenly whirled!
A suction force surged from the depths of the ruined aperture.
The dark cold lurking within his internal organs shuddered violently.
Immediately after, a strand of black substance was forcibly yanked out of his flesh, surging backward along his blood vessels straight into the back of his neck and sinking into the dead aperture.
Then a second strand.
A third strand.
More and more black substance peeled away from his internal organs and flesh, continuously converging toward the back of his head along major and minor blood vessels, entirely swallowed up by those two black-and-white flowing lights!
Yet with every strand of black substance swallowed, the depths of the dead aperture felt as though they were torn open anew.
Agony!
Each time more violent than the last!
The black substance kept pouring unceasingly into the dead aperture.
Yet those two black-and-white flowing lights grew dimmer and dimmer.
Until the last few strands of black substance deep within his flesh were pulled out and dragged into the dead aperture.
The two flowing lights were already so faint as to be virtually invisible.
An Youyu could hold on no longer.
His consciousness completely cut off.
...
When the black spot broke out, Ning Cang happened to push open the door and enter.
When bringing the person back from the sea, he had promised in front of the old commune chief that if black spots really broke out, he would deal with him personally and never let a single water ghost step out of this cabin.
But the ink-black had only crawled past the collarbone...
It hadn't even climbed onto his face yet; how could anyone conclude he was beyond saving?
In the end, Ning Cang did not call anyone.
He locked the cabin door behind him, put on thick fish-skin gloves, drew his ship knife, and stood guard by the bed.
The Black-Suppressing Saline in the medicine bag continued to drop down one drop at a time.
The black spot stayed pinned at the side of his neck.
A quarter of an hour.
Two quarters of an hour.
It never moved further upward.
After another while passed.
The edge of the ink-black unexpectedly began to fade bit by bit.
Ning Cang's grip on the ship knife finally loosened somewhat.
It seemed the medicine had taken effect.
This vigil lasted an entire night.
Until daylight filtered in through the gap in the door.
The final trace of ink-black finally vanished from beneath the skin.
Ning Cang stretched his stiff fingers, and only then sheathed his ship knife—which he had held all night—back into its scabbard.
...
Rate on N.U.
