Shui Miaomiao was a twenty-year-old university student. She was beautiful and gentle as water, and she had never lacked admirers from childhood onward.
She wasn't a native of South Island; she had only recently moved there. At this time, she should have been studying at Capital University, but some changes in her had forced her to distance herself from other people.
Though Shui Miaomiao's name contained five instances of the character for "water," she had been timid by nature since childhood and was terrified of it. Even a somewhat deep pool looked as though it might swallow her whole, and she would flee at once.
A month earlier, after class at noon, she had been walking back to her dorm when a rat a foot long suddenly burst out of the bushes and scared her half to death. She screamed and ran blindly, only to fall into a pool.
At that moment, fear and despair engulfed her. She had always been terrified of water, so it was easy to imagine what a horrifying experience falling into a pool was for her. She thrashed wildly, sinking lower with every movement and swallowing more and more water.
At last, her belly bloated from all the water she had swallowed, and she lost consciousness as she sank to the bottom.
When she came to, she discovered that not only was she still alive, she could breathe and move freely underwater, just like a fish. What was more, the water around her felt incredibly familiar. In the water, she felt as if she had returned to her mother's warm embrace. She could even control the flow of the water, as though it were part of her own body.
But rather than making her happy, this terrified her even more. She was afraid of water,