Chapter 3, Trouble in the River

If there was any benefit to becoming a mermaid, aside from the rise in her spiritual power due to mermaids having a higher quality of soul, it was that they were all extremely beautiful creatures. Even the ugly mermaids would be slightly better than average if seen from a human’s perspective. Although a lot could be said about their behavior towards one another, and their cruelty stemming from their great strength, little could be critiqued about their appearance. The author of the little mermaid could have actually seen a mermaid before writing his story. But while he was admiring its otherworldly beauty, he probably failed to notice the resentful souls of its prey in the waters surrounding.

Thinking of this, Zhao Xiaokui’s mouth began to twitch. If she was in trouble and needed to make a quick buck, she could probably become an artist who specialized in painting mermaids. It was unlikely that anyone in this would be able to capture the true beauty of a mermaid better than her who had been one. With such thoughts flying through her mind, Zhao Xiaokui refreshed the webpage she was on and watched the drawing of a mermaid that triggered her thought  disappear from her screen.

A lot had changed in this world after she left, so while she was following the path set by her navigation system, she browsed through old news articles and the like on her phone in an effort to learn about the current state of the world. Walking forward with her head lowered to her phone in her hand, one would assume she would have hit something or someone by accident, but instead she was easily weaving through the crowd on the road. Like most people her age and younger, Zhao Xiaokui had mastered the art of walking while on her phone. However, her current actions could be said to far exceed that level of control, as without looking up from her phone, she instinctively dodged a distracted school girl who had been messing around with her friends. Continuing to walk through the crowd unperturbed, Zhao Xiaokui came to a stop on a bridge as she had heard yelling and shouting coming from up the river.

“Shit! Does anyone have a life jacket, swim ring, tire, anything that floats? The girl doesn’t look like she can last much longer!”

“Don’t be afraid girl, don’t panic, someone will get you out soon! Relax your body and float!”

“It was an act of evil! The couple were quarreling, and the man then pushed her into the river! It’s attempted murder!”

Listening to the shouts, Zhao Xiaokui could deduce that someone had probably fallen in the water, and a crowd was forming as people watched on or attempted to help her, but was unable to see the accident herself due to the crowd that had stopped and gathered on the bridge to watch the spectacle. Overhearing that someone had already called emergency services, her curiosity quickly dimmed as she turned to continue on her way.

If it had been the eighteen year old Zhao Xiaokui from a few years ago, then she probably would have joined the spectators on the side while on her way home from school, but the twenty-three year old Zhao Xiaokui currently had a lot on her mind and only cared about getting to her house as quick as possible. Passing by behind the onlookers on the bridge, she saw that a gap between the crowd had formed and peeked through it as she was passing by to see what was happening up river. However, instead of turning her head away again, she came to a slow stop as her eyes widened in shock. Changing direction, she throw her glasses into her bag and pushed through the crowd. Passing a man with a blue dragon and white tiger tattoo on each arm, she handed her bag to a girl standing by the side of the bridge.

“Here, hold my bag for me.”

The girl, who had just handed a bag from a stranger next to her, stiffened in shock as she watched Zhao Xiaokui kick off her heels, rest her palm on the railing and vault into the river below. The onlookers around the girl also froze in shock from the scene they saw, before restless and shouting that someone had jumped.

Ignoring the shouts behind her, Zhao Xiaokui quickly reached the surface of the river, and broke through the water, dragged down to the river bed by inertia and gravity. As her feet sank into the soft bed of the river, Zhao Xiaokui quickly judged the river to be around 3 meters deep at most. As she sat on the river floor, she could feel the waves caused by the disturbance up river on her skin, and quickly readjusted her positioning, before kicking off the river floor, and shooting up stream towards the struggling girl, not surfacing again until she arrived by her. The people on the road above, who didn’t see her jump from the bridge further downstream, were surprised by her sudden appearance in the river.

The girl in the water obviously was having trouble staying afloat, barely keeping her head above water as thrashed her limbs every which way, unable to hear the onlookers yelling at her to relax and float in her panic. If that was it, Zhao Xiaokui would not have jumped in, leaving the rescue to one of the people from above who were preparing to jump in themselves. However, what she saw from the bridge, and had forced her into action, was the existence behind the girl, trying to drag her down into the water below. A shuiguai, a water ghost. A specter that Zhao Xiaokui’s grandmother and other grandparents would often use to scare children like her away from playing in the water. As a young girl, she had never believed in such ghost stories. However, during her time as a mermaid, she had seen records of a similar creature within the records of the mermaids.

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Although the shuiguai was called a water ghost, it actually wasn’t a ghost in the truest sense of the word. Instead, it would be better described as a specter created through the lingering resentment of those who had died in the water. Because of how it was formed, this type of a specter typically held no wisdom or intellect. Instead they only held an intense, instinctive hatred for the living, wishing to drag them down into a watery grave. In the other world, it would have taken a few centuries before enough resentment could be built up for a shuiguai to be born. Even then, the records indicated that they were extremely weak, with the simple breath of an adult merman being enough to disperse the newly born specter. Recalling back to the book she read, Zhao Xiaokui remembered that the author had mentioned finding the traces of the shuiguai in many various places across the world, but had only managed to encounter it once, before accidentally killing it. From the perspective of a mermaid, a specter was a weak and vulnerable specter, nothing more than a hindrance at best. However, an existence that wasn’t worth mentioning to a powerful race like the mermen, could instead by an incomprehensibly horrific creature to a human. Now Zhao Xiaokui wouldn’t describe herself as a philanthropist or a saintess by any means, but she also couldn’t sit still and watch as someone was killed by a specter before her eyes, despite having the ability to prevent the murder.

As Zhao Xiaokui approached, the shuiguai began to grow restless as it sensed her presence. Although it didn’t possess any intellect of its own, it still held an innate fear of those that could threaten it, and Zhao Xiaokui made it feel threatened. However, this shuiguai appeared to have resided in this river for a while now, probably already successfully drowning a few unfortunate souls that were passing by, as despite feeling threatened by her presence, it refused to let go of the girl. Arriving next to the girl and grabbing her arm to stabilize her, Zhao Xiaokui blankly looked down at the specter that appeared on the surface of the water, and opened her mouth,

“Scram.” With her simple command, an invisible energy began to spread out from her, enveloping the specter's body. The shuiguai desperately tried to hold onto its victim in an attempt to resist, but despite its best efforts, its body slowly disintegrated, pulled apart and scattered by the river it called home. Watching this, Zhao Xiaokui grew puzzled by what had just happened. Her original intention was to only make the shuiguai temporarily retreat so that she could quickly pull the girl out of the water. But with the ghost having been so easily defeated, Zhao Xiaokui began to wonder if the ghost had been weaker than she had originally thought, or if she had instead become  stronger…

In the other world, the mermaids would rank themselves and other creatures based on how strong they were, both physically and spiritually. The shuiguai, like the one that Zhao Xiaokui just encountered, weren’t strong enough to appear on the rankings. Zhao Xiaokui herself would have barely been at the first rank, in sharp contrast to her peers who were at the second to third rank and above. Why else would Zhao Xiaokui have decided to ascend from the deep to commit suicide, instead of fighting for survival in the coming of age ceremony. Even though she studied harder than the other mermaids, and gained more knowledge, her rank was still only at the first rank.

Being pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of the ambulance and fire department arriving, Zhao Xiaokui dragged the girl back to shore, and without the interference of the shuiguai, she managed to quickly arrive by the river side, and handed the now unconscious girl to the firefighters. Pulling herself out of the water she could see a doctor running over from the ambulance to perform emergency measures on the unconscious girl. As Zhao Xiaokui watched, she felt her vision rapidly darken as a towel was thrown over her head.

“You better dry off quickly, girly, else you might catch a bad cold.” Without waiting for Zhao Xiaokui to respond, the enthusiastic older lady who had thrown the towel over her started waping her down. While being dried off, the people around began to clap and shout in admiration, as she stood there, caught off guard by the sudden commotion. While surrounded by the applause, the girl she had given her bag to on the bridge came running over while carrying her bag and shoes. When the girl got to Zhao Xiaokui, she handed her the bag and shoes while looking at her with sparkling eyes full of admiration. Zhao Xiaokui thanked the girl while she was brushing the still wet hair from her face.

As she was putting on her shoes, Zhao Xiaokui could see in the distance a media crew quickly approaching. Her face paled as she remembered that there was a chance her body had become famous while she was gone. So ignoring the people who were asking her name, she brushed away the towel from the older woman while thanking her, and quickly left the crowd. Putting her glasses back on as she left, her eyes were drawn for a moment to a man standing next to the firetruck who was talking on the phone. She could sense that the man by the truck was a little stronger than the shuiguai, and that sparked some interest in her. But she ultimately ignored him due to a more pressing question that had arisen in her already cluttered mind. So while once again following the path set by the navigation system, she began to reflect on her actions, and the changes happening to her body.

Being able to disperse the shuiguai, while shocked by how easy it was, still made sense to her as that feat mainly depended on the strength of her soul. However, her agility in the water, the speed with which she swam, the fact that she could feel and read the subtle currents of the water. Those were abilities she only had as a mermaid, they shouldn’t have been possible in her current body. Thinking back on it, she came to a realization that when she had been walking among the crowd on her phone earlier, she had also been reading the air currents around her to keep from hitting other people. Realizing this, Zhao Xiaokui began to notice that she could easily feel everything that was happening around her, from the girls quietly talking about their favorite idol across the street from her, to the proprietress in the building behind her trying to convince a hesitant shopper to buy an expensive dress. And although her clothes were wet, a feeling that would make most people uncomfortable, instead the feeling of the wet clothes made her feel comfortable.

Deep in thought, Zhao Xiaokui came to a stop and grabbed the tree standing next to her, her nails digging into its bark as a shooting pain spread throughout her entire body. Her body became drenched in a cold sweat as she wondered what was happening. Feeling something on the road coming to a stop next to her, she looked over to notice a woman had stepped out of a car next to her, and began to slowly approach.

“Are you ok?” Asked the woman in a worried tone. Although her vision had grown blurry, Zhao Xiaokui was able to recognize that this woman was Shen Zhifei who she had just met earlier today at the café. Wondering if she had been followed, Zhao Xiaokui quickly opened her mouth,

“Don’t go to the hospital.” After getting those few words out, Zhao Xiaokui’s vision fell into darkness as she lost consciousness.

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