"All right, all right. Let's give it a try," the Village Chief said. "But Xiao Hong, if you don't succeed, I'll notify someone else. Don't blame me when that happens."
Xu Gao and Xu Xiaohong knew the Village Chief had agreed, and they bowed repeatedly in gratitude.
Xu Gao hoisted Xu Xiaocai onto his back, and the Village Chief led Xu Xiaohong as they all headed out together.
Shao Lan and Qin Ning emerged from their hiding place.
"Come on," Shao Lan said. "Let's follow them and see."
Qin Ning paused. "I'm here to find Song Liru."
Shao Lan fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, "That's exactly who we're going to find."
Qin Ning froze for a moment. Then she understood.
Waiting for eyes...
For one person to gain eyes, another person had to lose theirs.
The two followed at a distance and arrived at the shore.
The two adults, the Village Chief and Xu Gao, stopped over a hundred meters from the sea. Xu Gao lowered Xu Xiaocai onto a small handcart.
Xu Xiaohong pulled the handcart toward the sea, with his older sister lying on it.
Xu Xiaocai wasn't heavy, but Xu Xiaohong was only six or seven years old, and he was malnourished, so he moved very slowly.
Still, little by little, he made it to the shore.
Hearing the waves close ahead, Xu Xiaohong felt around and began moving the wooden board off the cart.
It took an enormous effort. Watching from a distance, the two adults could only fret and shout instructions to him.
Xu Xiaohong finally got the board down. He laid his older sister on it, then pushed it into the sea.
He pushed forward step by step as the water grew deeper, rising past his calves, his thighs, his waist, all the way to his chest.
The board finally drifted away with the waves, and the two adults on shore cheered excitedly.
Xu Xiaohong breathed a sigh of relief and tried to head back.
But the next second, a wave struck, and Xu Xiaohong lost his balance.
"Xiao Hong!!!" Xu Gao screamed at the top of his lungs.
Xu Xiaohong struggled in the waves. He lifted his head to breathe, but another wave came crashing down.
Even someone with normal vision could easily lose their bearings in a situation like this, let alone a blind child like Xu Xiaohong.
He didn't even know which way to swim to reach the shore.
Xu Gao sank to his knees in despair, the sea wind tearing at his voice. "Xiao Hong! Xiao Hong!"
Within a single minute, he had gone from the overwhelming joy of his daughter gaining a chance to live to the crushing grief of losing his son. He was on the verge of breaking down.
In a flash, Qin Ning jumped into the water.
She swam swiftly toward Xu Xiaohong, grabbed him from behind, then turned and swam back toward shore.
It all happened so quickly that Shao Lan hadn't even had time to stop her.
The waves grew larger. The tide was coming in.
"A life ring!" Shao Lan turned and shouted at the two men. "Hurry! If you don't have one, a piece of wood will do!"
They hurriedly found an empty wooden barrel. Shao Lan tied a rope around it and threw it toward Qin Ning.
Qin Ning caught the barrel, and Shao Lan held the rope, slowly pulling her and Xu Xiaohong back.
"Xiao Cai! Xiao Cai's coming back!" Xu Gao suddenly shouted.
Far away, where the sea met the sky, a wooden board appeared. Xu Xiaocai sat on it, weakly paddling back with a long pole.
She could see!
But Xu Xiaocai was still extremely weak, and the wooden pole she was using as an oar barely made any difference against the waves.
With Xu Xiaohong in tow, Qin Ning had no strength left to rescue Xu Xiaocai.
In a flash, Shao Lan tossed the rope to Xu Gao and the Village Chief and dashed into the sea.
He quickly swam to Xu Xiaocai. The board couldn't support the weight of two people, so Shao Lan stayed in the water, pushing it as he swam back.
Qin Ning and Xu Xiaohong had already been pulled ashore. Qin Ning turned and threw the barrel, with the rope still tied to it, to Shao Lan.
Shao Lan climbed onto the barrel and held the board with one hand as the people on shore worked together to haul them back.
The sun gradually sank, its lingering light turning the sea gold. Xu Xiaocai turned her head and stared blankly at the rolling golden waves.
"So this is what the sea looks like..." She reached out to stroke the water and murmured absently, "This is the last time I'll ever touch the sea, isn't it?"
Shao Lan heard Xu Xiaocai's words and turned, wanting to ask her a few questions.
But something out in the distant water immediately caught his attention.
Black seaweed floated on the surface, shifting with the waves.
No... that wasn't seaweed.
It was a woman's hair!
Without drawing attention, Shao Lan slipped off the barrel and submerged his head.
He looked toward the floating black hair.
In that instant, despite having braced himself, Shao Lan was utterly stunned by the sight before him.
The person in the water was Song Liru-or rather, Song Liru's corpse.
Yet he couldn't quite call it Song Liru's corpse. If it was, then it was far too strange.
An ordinary corpse left soaking in the sea for this long would definitely have swollen.
But Song Liru's body looked normal, almost the same as it had on land.
What wasn't normal was the color of her skin.
Her skin had turned a luminous silvery white, and where her eyes had once been, there were now two calcified bulges.
Shao Lan had seen calcified bulges like these before. A long, long time ago, during a visit to an aquarium, he had seen fish with eyes like that.
"These are called blind fish." The guide's voice echoed in his ears. "Because there's no light in the deep sea, their eyes gradually degenerate until they look like this."
Song Liru now looked very much like a blind fish.
She couldn't see, and she didn't seem quite accustomed to swimming in the sea, but she still slowly followed Xu Xiaocai's board.
"Shao Lan!"
Shao Lan surfaced and swiftly climbed onto the barrel. Qin Ning pulled them back.
Xu Xiaohong had already regained consciousness. Xu Gao pulled him along as he rushed over and hugged Xu Xiaocai excitedly.
Shao Lan and Qin Ning stood together, wringing the water out of their clothes.
"I didn't take you for someone who'd save an NPC," Shao Lan said quietly.
"I don't save every NPC," Qin Ning said flatly. "Besides, didn't you save one too?"
"That's completely different."
Shao Lan had dared to go into the water to save Xu Xiaocai precisely because he had seen that Qin Ning was fine.
That meant this sea was off-limits to Xu Gao and the Village Chief, but safe for players like him and Qin Ning.
As they spoke, Xu Gao approached them.
"Thank you both. Thank you so much..." Tear tracks marked Xu Gao's weather-beaten face. He kept his head lowered, not daring to look them in the eye.
The Village Chief came over as well.
"Mr. Shao, Miss Qin, where did you go this afternoon? I arranged a song-and-dance performance for you all, but since you weren't here, I had to cancel it for the time being. How about moving it to tonight?"
"It's too dark at night. It won't look as good," Shao Lan said. "Why don't we leave it until tomorrow?"
The Village Chief frowned, looking rather reluctant. "There are other activities tomorrow..."
"Village Chief," Xu Gao said quietly, rubbing his hands together, "why don't we make it tomorrow? There's no need to rush."
The Village Chief glanced at Xu Gao and sighed. "Very well. It's just that you've come all this way for a visit, and I feel bad leaving you sitting around with nothing to do, without arranging any interesting activities."
"Who says there aren't any interesting activities?" Shao Lan pointed to the fishing boat moored nearby. "I've never tried sea fishing. Why don't we give it a go tonight?"
Both Xu Gao's and the Village Chief's expressions changed slightly.
Before you continue