The waters west of Liuxian Island lay utterly calm, the terrifying massive whirlpool having long since vanished. Yet beneath that peaceful surface lay an entirely different scene!
Just as Ziqing and the others had guessed, the Fusang wood boat had never truly been sailing atop the ocean at all—it only needed to hold its passengers. At this very moment, they found themselves within an enormous water vortex, being carried slowly, ring by ring, ever deeper toward the ocean floor.
Compared to the whirlpool they’d encountered earlier at the surface, this undersea vortex bore a much closer resemblance to the one they’d once witnessed in the boundless deep sea beneath the Innocent Ravine.
Only this time, the speed was nowhere near as gentle. Ziqing and the others, seated in the boat, didn’t even need to hold hands or steady one another—they could sit perfectly stable all the same.
What’s more, though the surrounding seawater pressed in remarkably close on both sides, not a single drop touched them, as though the dugout canoe had carved out its own private passage through the water. They didn’t even need to hold their breath underwater—they could breathe and speak just as easily as if they were on dry land.
Though things had settled into a stable rhythm, all five of them remained in the same positions as before—Ziqing and the other three seated at the stern, with Xinyun sitting alone at the bow.
Even without any deliberate intent, the distance between them remained clearly noticeable, an isolation impossible to ignore.
A complicated look flickered in Xinyun’s eyes. She knew perfectly well, of course, that this group didn’t truly trust her—but she didn’t particularly mind. Now that they’d felled the Fusang sacred tree and entered the death whirlpool, there was no turning back regardless. Even if she revealed her true colors now, she wasn’t afraid of them in the slightest!
Of course, at this particular moment, she had no intention of showing her true colors just yet—she still wanted to keep playing along with them a while longer, especially with that scholar.
“We’re not headed for the boundless deep sea, are we?” Ziqing murmured under her breath.
Baili Weisheng had been studying his surroundings intently this entire time. To Ziqing and the others, everything around them looked the same—nothing but water, dim and undifferentiated on all sides. But to Baili Weisheng, it was entirely different—as one of the merfolk, he naturally possessed a special sensitivity to distinguishing between different bodies of water!
After a long moment, Baili Weisheng finally said quietly, “This is the exact same whirlpool I entered earlier—identical to the death whirlpool in the boundless deep sea. It’s just that the speed and force of the current here are noticeably weaker.”
“Then why did we even need the Fusang wood?” Jun Beiyue asked, puzzled. Without the Fusang wood, with Baili Weisheng along, they could surely have overcome the water’s pressure just as easily on their own!
This whirlpool had been stirred up by the Fusang sacred tree—its existence must serve some purpose!
Baili Weisheng said nothing further, continuing to study his surroundings, a flicker of suspicion hidden in his eyes. He fell silent once more. In the quiet, Xinyun released her barrier and cautiously made her way toward Baili Weisheng.
Baili Weisheng, deep in his own thoughts, gazing at the surrounding seawater, didn’t notice Xinyun’s approach at all. Behind him, Ziqing, Jun Beiyue, and Xuanyuan Lige wore three distinctly different expressions—especially Ziqing and Jun Beiyue, whose faces clearly showed a touch of malicious amusement, anticipating an entertaining show.
Xinyun settled down cautiously not far from Baili Weisheng. Seeing that he was ignoring her, she said, “Young Master Baili, about earlier… thank you.”
There was no way Baili Weisheng hadn’t noticed Xinyun approaching. He hadn’t planned on acknowledging her at all, but hearing this, he suddenly felt an odd sense of discomfort, feeling as though he had to say something in response, yet not knowing quite what to say!
Thank him?
What was there to thank him for?
“If you hadn’t come up with such a clever solution, I wouldn’t have known how to get on the boat at all!” Xinyun said with a faint smile.
Er…
Only then did Baili Weisheng understand what she meant, and he immediately looked up at the sky in exasperation. Was this woman for real? Playing dumb was one thing, but talking like some naive, sweet little thing on top of it was just too much.
He’d practically thrown her bodily into the boat—and that counted as a “clever solution”?
Baili Weisheng felt utterly defeated, genuinely at a loss for how to respond to this woman, managing only an awkward chuckle before turning his head back to study the surrounding water.
Sitting at the very stern of the boat, right behind Jun Beiyue, Ziqing stifled a laugh, thinking to herself: serves Baili Weisheng right—let a woman this exasperating give him a taste of his own medicine, and see if he dares flirt with other women so casually after this!
The dugout canoe glided smoothly through the vortex, the rings of the whirlpool gradually growing smaller, and everything around them on the ocean floor grew increasingly clear. What should have been complete darkness was instead dimly lit by countless lantern fish scattered throughout the waters, and in that soft glow, schools of fish swam past in shimmering, dazzling colors, breathtakingly beautiful.
For a moment, everyone’s attention was completely captivated!
“How beautiful!” Xinyun sighed softly, reaching out to touch a school of fish drifting past. The moment her fingers extended, the startled fish scattered in every direction, and in the dim ocean depths, it looked exactly like some divine being in the night sky shattering a crystal lantern, scattering countless fragments across the heavens like stars—breathtakingly, achingly beautiful!
Not just Xinyun, but Ziqing too found herself lost in the beauty of it all. And yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this dreamlike, paradise-like scene was beautiful in a way that felt strangely illusory. As she pondered this, it suddenly struck her—wasn’t everything around them, in fact, illusory to begin with?
Here, aside from herself, Beiyue, and Baili Weisheng, everything else was nothing but illusion—even Ali himself was, after all, nothing more than a wandering spirit of uncertain fate.
At this thought, a wave of sorrow unconsciously washed over Ziqing’s heart. But at that very moment, the lantern fish swimming all around them began, one by one, going dark, extinguishing in quick succession. In an instant, the dazzling array of colors and shimmering light vanished entirely, replaced by an ever-deepening darkness, growing more and more like their very first night arriving on Liuxian Island, until they could barely see a hand in front of their faces!
At once, everyone tensed and grew alert. Jun Beiyue’s first instinct was to pull Ziqing close against him. But to everyone’s surprise, Xinyun let out a terrified scream. “Ahh…!”
This woman—surely not!
Just days ago, she’d been playing ghost in the dead of night to terrify them, and now here she was, afraid of the dark herself? Wasn’t this just openly insulting their intelligence?
“Ahh… this is terrifying!”
As Xinyun screamed, she suddenly lunged straight toward Baili Weisheng. But he seemed to have already anticipated this, and in a flash, he dodged behind Xuanyuan Lige instead, using him as a human shield!
A flicker of displeasure crossed Xuanyuan Lige’s eyes. Just as Xinyun was about to crash into him, he suddenly said, unexpectedly, “Miss Xinyun, could it be that you’ve fallen for Young Master Baili?”
At these words, not only the three troublemaking friends behind Xuanyuan Lige, but even Xinyun herself—who had been putting on this whole act to toy with them—froze in shock.
No one had expected that Xuanyuan Lige, who appeared so refined and ethereal, so detached from the mortal world, would say something so blunt at a moment like this!
Just who was toying with whom here, exactly?
Xuanyuan Lige, asking something like that—how was the poor woman supposed to keep her act going now? And how was Baili Weisheng supposed to handle this either?
Xinyun froze, thoroughly flustered by this unexpected turn of events. She coughed awkwardly a few times. “No… no…”
After several moments of stammering denial, she finally recovered enough to snap angrily, “Young Master Xuanyuan, what exactly do you mean by that? Is that any way to talk?”
Facing Xinyun’s outrage, Xuanyuan Lige remained utterly unmoved. But what he said next nearly made Xinyun choke on her own fury.