Standing beside the awestruck Wan San, Wang Cang Hai spoke in his usual calm and measured tone, seemingly unaffected by the striking allure of the wounded Crown Prince Ji Mu depicted in the mural before them. “I’ve already read the epitaph here. It records that this brutal battle took place over three thousand years ago, right here in this desert. The Zhou Kingdom triumphed over the rebellious northern Shuoyi tribes. But, as the saying goes, ‘One general’s success is built upon a thousand bones.’ Crown Prince Ji Mu won the war, but he was severely wounded and found himself lost and alone amidst the unending sands. Exhausted and on the brink of collapse, he finally succumbed to the elements. It was then that a beautiful maiden suddenly appeared and saved him.”
“What a cliché,” Wan San commented, his eyes still glued to Ji Mu’s image. “So, of course, the Crown Prince falls in love with the maiden who saved him. How predictable.”
“No matter how extraordinary a tale may seem, it always begins with something mundane and ordinary,” Wang Cang Hai replied. “At that time, Ji Mu was only eighteen—young, inexperienced, and burning with the passion of first love, unable to control himself…” Wang Cang Hai paused mid-sentence, his gaze lowering slightly, the shadows of his lashes casting delicate shapes over his eyes.
Wan San, sensing something unusual in his friend’s demeanor, turned to look at him. To his surprise, he found a rare expression of melancholy on Wang Cang Hai’s face.
With a soft sigh, Wan San said, “You’re thinking of him again, aren’t you? I remember when we first met by the Eastern Sea—you were only sixteen.”
“He wasn’t him,” Wang Cang Hai corrected quietly, his head bowed, obscuring his face. His voice, however, softened with an unmistakable tenderness. “He wasn’t just a man. He was my little deity—my savior.”
“Cang Hai, that night, my merchant ship was sailing its usual route, which never passed through the Sea of Forgetting. That area is notorious as the meeting point of warm and cold currents, with towering waves and treacherous undercurrents. But that night, the storm was so strange that my ship drifted off course and entered those waters. It was there, on a piece of driftwood, that I found you unconscious.” Wan San hesitated before continuing, knowing his words might hurt. “But with my years of seafaring experience—no, with the centuries of knowledge accumulated by the Wan family—I can confidently say this: you showed no signs of having drowned. That part of the sea, for over a hundred nautical miles, has no islands or reefs. It’s impossible for someone to be swimming alone in those waters and conveniently stumble upon you. You drank too much that night and fell overboard. What you experienced was just a dream while you were unconscious…”
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