Water Control

All the human traffickers were arrested, and the children were all found and returned.

Mo Qiong walked out of the police station with a relaxed expression, thinking only of getting back as soon as possible to carry out his plan to go to sea.

Outside, the brothers Qin Zheng and Qin Zhi happily coaxed the child, even though Qin Liang was extremely resistant to them.

Qin Liang no longer had any impression of his family. After all, he had been abducted at the age of two, and to him, the Qin family members were the strangers.

Although his father was holding him tightly at that moment, he gave no response at all.

Whether Qin Zhi offered him water or snacks, he refused to eat.

However, this was within everyone's expectations. Although they were heartbroken by his resistance, no one showed it. Instead, they doted on him even more.

Qin Zheng sighed emotionally, "It's good that the child was found. He's only six, so there's still time to make up for everything."

At six, the child was still young. After what had happened, the Qin family would certainly shower him with even more care.

If they let him feel the warmth of a real home, he would eventually fit into the family.

As an outsider, Mo Qiong had no say in how the Qin family treated or educated the child.

When Qin Ya pulled Mo Qiong toward the car, he declined, "I still have something to do, so I won't go back with you."

Qin Ya was taken aback and hurriedly asked, "What is it? We can wait for you."

Mo Qiong smiled. His equipment was still in the mountains. He had spent a hundred thousand yuan on it, so he couldn't just abandon it.

But he couldn't put it that way, so he casually said, "After subduing that group of traffickers, I came straight here, but I left something behind in Fuzhou."

As he spoke, he took the Longevity Lock from his pocket and smilingly hung it around Qin Liang's neck.

Mo Qiong continued, "You don't need to wait for me. You finally found the child, so you should take him home as soon as possible."

Hearing this, Qin Ya hesitated to speak.

She wanted Mo Qiong to go back with her, but she did not know how to say it. Liang Liang had to be taken home first.

Seeing this, Qin Zheng smiled and said, "In that case, we won't see you off. You must come to our house as a guest after you get back. We have to thank you properly."

Mo Qiong could not refuse any further, so he agreed. After arranging to have a meal at Qin Ya's home, he left.

After he departed, Qin Zheng looked through the rearview mirror at his daughter, who kept staring blankly out the window, and could not help smiling. "Your classmate is quite outstanding."

"You think so too, Dad?" Qin Ya asked.

"Do I even need to think so? On the way here, your second uncle and I listened to you praise this classmate of yours the whole time. You said he was smart, athletic, kind to others, and so on." Qin Zheng smiled.

Qin Ya said seriously, "That's a fact!"

"But none of that is the point. The point is... Xiaoya, you've never eaten fish before. He got you to try, and even accept, something you used to refuse. That's what shows he's truly capable." Qin Zheng smiled.

Qin Ya fell silent and shyly lowered her head.

She could tell her father was teasing her. He was not talking about Mo Qiong's abilities, but hinting that she liked him.

When she said nothing, Qin Zheng asked, "How far has your relationship progressed? Don't worry, I won't interfere. This boy seems quite good. I'm just asking."

Hearing this, Qin Ya suddenly felt a little dejected. She and Mo Qiong had no relationship at all.

"I don't! It's not... Stop asking nonsense!"

Qin Zheng's expression turned strange. How could he believe that Qin Ya and Mo Qiong were merely ordinary classmates? He had no idea that the two of them had only known each other for a few days.

Seeing his daughter react like this and lower her head to avoid the topic, he immediately felt that their relationship had probably progressed extremely far—farther than he had imagined.

"Whew... Well, sweetheart, I won't interfere with anything else, but I have one request."

"You're still too young. You can't live together yet, understand?"

Qin Ya was caught between laughter and tears.

After desperately explaining, she only managed to convince Qin Zheng that she and Mo Qiong had not done anything.

But Qin Zheng still believed that, given how deeply his daughter had fallen, it would probably happen soon.

In the early hours of the next morning, Mo Qiong flew back to Dengzhou alone.

"Plop!"

He continuously used slow, light breaths of gas to decelerate until he glided down into the sea.

Rather than land in some deserted place outside the city and then find a car back to school, he might as well jump into the sea and swim back.

Why was he so eager to venture into the sea? One major reason was the sea's natural concealment.

No matter how he flew through the seawater, no one else would see him.

"Still, having the Landing Point outside the surface of the sea feels pretty strange."

Mo Qiong saw the seawater beside him suddenly swell. Then, streams of seawater rose like water snakes ascending to the heavens, soaring upward and leaving the surface.

Every time he stepped on the water, even the seawater that touched him would float upward and surge into the sky.

The seawater moved slowly, only a few centimeters per second. After drifting to some point in the sky, it suddenly began falling freely, and the wind scattered it into tiny droplets that rained down.

Some of the raindrops returned to the sea, while others fell onto Mo Qiong again.

Mo Qiong shook his hair, sending many droplets flying. They maintained a certain speed and floated toward the sky.

As Mo Qiong remained on the sea longer and longer, more seawater came into contact with him.

The rising seawater continued without end. Before long, it formed a wall of water surrounding him.

The wall of water flowed endlessly, twisting shapelessly beneath the moonlight. The crystalline seawater merged together as it drifted in a hazy, mesmerizing manner, like liquid aurora.

Mo Qiong smiled and looked behind him again.

At once, the seawater around him stopped rising and streaming into the sky.

Instead, some of it formed undercurrents in the sea and surged toward the area behind Mo Qiong.

A small portion clung to the surface, cleaving through the nearby seawater and flowing against the waves.

It was all seawater, yet the water that touched Mo Qiong could travel dozens of meters against the waves before merging back into the sea.

"Liquid is like air. Once the part touching my body separates, it immediately enters the state of Absolute Hit. The sea appears to be tightly connected, but its density can easily be separated into several portions by the force I apply. It won't become a single projectile as a whole."

Mo Qiong had noticed this about water during his everyday face-washing and tooth-brushing. If he did not pay attention, the portion touching his body would also be constantly launched away like air.

The difference was that water was visible. Through it, he could clearly see that he was in an environment containing a medium capable of triggering his ability, and observe what his constantly activated ability looked like.

The seawater around him now was probably what the air around him usually looked like.

The only difference was that without sufficient speed, air produced almost no Tactile Sense.

"My palm..."

Mo Qiong changed the Landing Point again. This time, the seawater obediently flew out of the sea and drifted toward his palm.

After reaching the Landing Point, some water overflowed from his palm and flowed downward, sliding off his hand.

Yet after sliding off, the water curved around and turned back.

As time passed, more and more seawater joined in, forming a cycle that simply refused to return to the sea.

Countless streams of water converged on his palm from every direction, growing thicker and fuller. They circled his palm and formed an expanding, multiring, roughly spherical geometric shape.

Finally, when it stopped growing, the gaps on its surface had been filled. Mo Qiong's entire hand was wrapped in seawater, with countless undercurrents surging inside.

Of course, air currents continued to flow in as well, only to be forced away by the seawater after completing their Landing Points.

This made Mo Qiong feel as if he had plunged his hand into an amorphous mass of water floating in the air and constantly bubbling.

The water mass changed shape on its surface like jelly. Its upper part was sunken, while its lower end was the most distorted, as if dozens of octopus tentacles hung from it.

More seawater rising from beneath his feet joined in, but it no longer remained near his hand. After striking the Landing Point on his palm, the water that had returned to its natural state no longer touched his body, so it sank directly into the sea after sliding away.

"Change hands..."

Mo Qiong shifted the Landing Point to his left hand. At once, the newly rising streams of water in the sea surged toward his left hand, while a small portion of the water ball on his right hand drifted across and transferred over.

He switched the Landing Point back and forth—sometimes to his left hand, sometimes to his right, and sometimes even to the top of his head, or his chest and back.

Finally, the constantly dancing currents of water flowed, spiraled, struck, and surged around him.

As he moved across the sea, the water he forcefully paddled also joined this strange motion.

"Glug..."

Suddenly, Mo Qiong plunged into the seawater and sank completely beneath the surface.

As undercurrents surged around him, a small amount of air flowed in as well.

He exhaled, and watched the air stream strike his palm before forming a bubble that was launched away.

However, the bubble that should have floated to the surface suddenly curved around and struck his palm again.

"As expected, as the medium environment changes, the air is compressed by the water into a bubble. Thus, the entire bubble is considered a projectile when it touches me."

Mo Qiong slapped hard, and the bubble in his palm immediately chased after another fish swimming past.

The fish seemed to sense something strange behind it and suddenly sped away. The bubble also traveled underwater, pursuing it all the way into the distance. Before long, Mo Qiong could no longer see it.