Li Jia slumped her shoulders, her eyes dull with disinterest. She found it boring.
"Here, take it."
She was unhappy, and she had worn Hera down until she lost her temper with her no longer. With a flick of her fingertips, a bond petition appeared in Hera's palm.
Li Jia accepted the bond petition with a beaming smile. That was just how she was-she loved gossip. She simply sat down on the beach and read the writing on the petition by moonlight.
The petitioner this time was the witch Elia. She wanted to dissolve the bond between her younger sister, the mermaid Qili, and Dorian, a prince of Kalte.
Li Jia unfolded the bond petition, and the explosive information lodged itself straight in her brain. Before she could subconsciously finish making sense of it, the contents flashed before her eyes. By the time she reacted, she had read every last word on the petition.
Put simply, in this assignment, the witch Elia and the mermaid Qili were stepsisters who shared neither a father nor a mother. Their relationship was firmly established on the same page of the household register, so Elia had the right to submit an application to the Temple of the Goddess of Marriage.
As for how a witch and a mermaid had ended up together... Li Jia found it a little strange, but she was a young person from the twenty-first century, after all, and very accepting of new things.
Men could be with men, and women could be with women. Humans and beasts were probably fine too, as long as they did not threaten social stability.
Elia and Qili's parents had died early. Elia had raised her younger sister Qili. Qili was a mermaid and lived in the sea, so Elia had settled on the shore and grown up alongside her.
In the ancient legends passed down to the present in Kalte, mermaids were known as the "guardians of the tides." They lived in the Deep-Sea Wave Capital and possessed the power to control currents.
One night when she was fifteen, Qili secretly surfaced. Moonlight spilled over the docks of Kalte Imperial City, and she saw a young man painting on a ship's deck. What flowed beneath his brush was not only the waves, but also a certain feeling that made her heart flutter.
She fell in love with this young man. Later, she learned that he was Dorian, Kalte's second prince.
She began appearing frequently at the docks of Kalte Imperial City, and the young man noticed her. They spent a brief spring together at the docks. Dorian confessed his love to Qili and asked whether she would become his princess consort, but she would have to offer up her singing voice as proof of her loyalty.
A mermaid's voice possessed extremely powerful magic. It was both essential to her survival and movement in the ocean and a symbol of her deep connection to the ocean world. It was the most important thing a mermaid possessed.
Choosing Dorian meant abandoning her identity as a mermaid.
Qili yielded for love and agreed to Dorian's demand. She went to Elia and begged her for a witch's potion that would let her grow legs.
Elia knew Dorian was deceiving her sister, but she could not withstand Qili's tears and threats to kill herself.
She gave Qili a witch's potion that could grant her human legs, but every step she took would feel like knives slicing into her, the pain worse than death.
That was not even the worst pain.
Drawing on the blood and tears of their own experiences, the mermaids' ancestors had laid down a law: if a mermaid became human and failed to receive true love's kiss, her soul would turn to foam forever and dissolve among the waves.
Once Qili swallowed the potion, there was no turning back. She decided to stake everything on it. On the moonlit night she and Dorian had agreed upon, she shed her tail, transformed it into legs, and stepped onto land.
The agony of every step reminded her of her sister's warning, but she still ran toward Dorian. Dorian was shocked by this mermaid's devotion, yet did not know that blood stained the ground beneath her feet.
Qili learned human language and emotions. For the first time, she learned the word "love."
Meanwhile, Dorian pretended to pour his love for her into his paintings.
They went to the Temple of the Goddess of Marriage to register their marriage, officially becoming husband and wife.
The turning point came on their wedding day. Dorian recited his vows to Qili but refused to kiss her. He ordered, "Qili, you must make a sacrifice so the queen can smile again."
Many years earlier, Kalte's queen had suffered a misfortune and lost her voice, and a mermaid's singing voice was the finest in the human world.
But mermaids would not readily surrender the voices they valued as their lives. Dorian had set his sights on this innocent, ignorant young mermaid.
She was his bargaining chip in the struggle for the throne.
Without her singing voice, Qili could not use sound to contact Elia. This was something they had arranged beforehand.
As long as Qili sang-sang that song only Elia knew-no matter how far away she was, her sister would surely appear before her.
Through a pentagram board, Elia sensed that Qili had only three days left. If she did not receive true love's kiss, she would turn to foam. Desperate enough to grasp at any remedy, Elia had resorted to this last measure.
They had hidden Qili away, and Elia could not find her. She submitted a bond petition to Hera, requesting the dissolution of Qili and Dorian's marriage.
After reading the bond petition, Li Jia glanced at Hera. "Isn't this just trafficking women and children? Deceiving an innocent mermaid girl for his own mother's sake-this prince of Kalte is such a beast."
Hera put the bond petition away. "But the mermaid and the prince registered their marriage voluntarily. If they truly love each other, I cannot forcibly dissolve their marriage contract. That is why I came to take a look."
Li Jia thought that made sense. Even when judging a case, they had to find the parties involved to get to the bottom of things. "Then, Your Majesty, Qili has lost her voice, and Elia can't find her. Can we find her?"
As Li Jia understood it, a mermaid's voice might work like a GPS positioning system. Once she sang, it would be like opening Amap; they could follow her singing to find her.
But even after something this serious had happened to Qili, she had not contacted her sister. There was only one possibility: Dorian had already taken her voice and placed her under house arrest, leaving her unable to ask Elia for help.
Hera walked over and sat beside her, leaning close to say softly, "There is no one in this world I cannot find. Whether she is hiding in a noisy corner of a bustling city or concealing herself in the quiet of a remote village, my divine sense will find her."
Li Jia's gaze was level with the sea as she asked calmly, "What if you can't?"
The woman's fingers paused as she rubbed the pebbles on the beach. The sea breeze billowed her sleeves, as though they concealed some silent agitation.
She suddenly gave a soft laugh, but her voice was colder than the waves. "There will be no what-ifs, Li Jia. My soul has long since entwined with yours into a single thread. My blood flows within you. Unless I die, every breath you take, every tremor, will stir ripples in my heart."
Li Jia: "..."
She was asking how they could find Qili. What did any of this have to do with her?
But her boss was always so moody that Li Jia could only obediently nod.
When they went to bed that night, Li Jia asked Hera when they would go looking for Qili. Hadn't Elia said that Qili would turn into sea foam in just three days?
A fish's life was at stake. They still needed to put in some overtime to handle the case.
"We'll deal with it tomorrow. Aren't you sleepy now? Don't worry, she won't die."
With her boss's instructions secured, Li Jia fell asleep in seconds. She had eaten too much that evening and had even bought several skewers of little seafood bites in sauce from a vendor during their walk. Now she was completely knocked out by the carbs.
If her boss said Qili would not die, then she would not die. Li Jia should stop worrying about things that were none of her business.
Hera stroked the soft flesh of her arm. She particularly liked touching that spot; it felt wonderful.
Li Jia slept ridiculously well. No matter how Hera fussed with her, she did not wake.
"Eats well and sleeps well. Not bad," Hera murmured to herself with a smile.
With that, she gathered Li Jia into her arms. The night was like ink, thickly staining heaven and earth. Sweet dreams lasted until morning.