“No matter how extraordinary a story may be, it always begins with something ordinary,” Wang Cang Hai replied. “At the time, Ji Mu was just eighteen—young, inexperienced, and consumed by the intensity of first love, like oil meeting fire, impossible to extinguish…” Wang Cang Hai paused for a moment, lowering his gaze. The delicate shadow of his lashes fell across his face like a feathered veil.
Noticing this uncharacteristic behavior, Wan San turned to him and saw a rare expression of wistfulness.
With a soft sigh, Wan San said, “You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you? I remember the first time we met by the Eastern Sea—you were just sixteen.”
“He wasn’t just ‘him,’” Wang Cang Hai replied softly, his head bowed to hide his expression. His tone was unusually gentle. “He wasn’t merely a man. He was my little deity—my savior.”
“Cang Hai, my ship drifted into the Sea of Forgetting that night by sheer accident—a place known for treacherous currents and unseen dangers. We never would have entered it otherwise. Yet, on a piece of driftwood, we found you unconscious. But I’ve always wondered…” Wan San hesitated before continuing, “You showed no signs of drowning, and that stretch of sea is over a hundred nautical miles from any land or reef. It’s impossible for someone to have just been swimming there, especially not to rescue you. You’d had too much to drink and fell overboard, that’s all. The rest was likely just a vivid dream…”
Wang Cang Hai raised his head abruptly, his eyes sharp and resolute. “I may have been drinking, but I wasn’t drunk. That evening, we had just achieved a decisive victory against the pirates in the Eastern Sea. I clearly remember celebrating with my commanders aboard the flagship. Then, in an instant, I was submerged in freezing seawater. There are too many suspicious details about that night.
“Even if, for argument’s sake, I did fall overboard, how did none of the Silver Armored Troops notice? Even if the waves were strong, I should have been able to stay afloat and call for help. And yet, inexplicably, I ended up drifting deeper into the sea, far from the fleet, into the remote Sea of Forgetting.”
Wan San hesitated, but his skepticism remained. “Still… you never actually saw who saved you, did you?”
“But I saw the Qilin,” Wang Cang Hai said firmly, his voice unwavering. “When I sank into the pitch-black depths, entangled in seaweed and on the brink of death, I saw the totem of the Qilin—glowing faintly in the darkness. It was my only source of light, its patterns vividly alive. I reached out toward it, and I touched him.”
Wang Cang Hai’s voice softened as he continued. “His body was strong yet gentle. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel the contours of his arms, the smooth line of his neck, the sharp edge of his collarbone. When I reached out further, he grasped my hand tightly, wrapping his other arm around me and pulling me from the depths.”
Wang Cang Hai fell silent, lost in the memory.
After a moment, he turned to Wan San, his gaze sharp once more. “Brother Wan, until now, I only had suspicions. But now I have proof—‘immortals’ and ‘mortals’ can meet in the real world.”
Wan San followed Wang Cang Hai’s gesture to another mural.
It depicted a stunningly beautiful woman, adorned in elaborate robes that clearly marked her as someone of noble, if not divine, origin. Her posture was graceful, her ribbons flowing as though caught in an ethereal breeze, her figure soaring upward on a cloud as if ascending to the heavens.
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