Mu Dai choked on a mouthful of water, the salty bitterness making her want to tear her scalp off along with her hair.

She reminded herself: don’t panic, don’t panic.

Her master had taught her that panic and chaos always went hand in hand. Once you panicked, you naturally became chaotic, and once chaotic, even salvageable situations would be ruined.

She held her breath, closed her eyes, and tried to relax her body. Suddenly, her ankle hooked onto something.

The small boat! The overturned small boat!

Mu Dai’s spirits lifted. She flexed her foot to hook onto the boat, refusing to let go. With both hands, she paddled forcefully, trying to get her body closer to the boat. When one side of her body finally touched the boat’s edge, it felt like grasping a lifesaving straw. She grabbed the edge, leveraged herself, and climbed onto the boat.

With a splash, she surfaced, finally getting air into her lungs. She was so happy she almost cried.

Opening her eyes, she saw that the boat had capsized, with the bottom facing up. She was now sprawled on the boat’s underside. Yan Hongsha was a few meters away, already floating, her head bobbing in and out of the water.

She appeared to know how to swim. Mu Dai sighed in relief and reached out to feel along the boat’s edge. She remembered there was rope tied to the boat’s rim. She wanted to pull it up and tie herself to the boat—if the boat didn’t sink, she wouldn’t die. If even the boat sank, at least she, as a landlubber, would have tried her best to survive.

As she searched, she looked into the water. Below, a blurry black shadow drifted away.

What… was that?

Mu Dai’s hair stood on end. After falling into the water, she had been so panicked about survival that she’d forgotten the boat had been overturned by something from underwater.

A sea monster? A crocodile? A great white shark?

Horror movie scenes she had once watched flooded her mind. She clung to the boat like an octopus, not daring to move, only able to use expressions and lip movements to signal Yan Hongsha: Quick! Quick!

There were no small islands nearby. The only thing they could rely on was this small boat. Although even the boat wasn’t absolutely safe, it was still more reassuring than being in the water.

Yan Hongsha was also a bit frightened. She paddled toward the boat, making Mu Dai very nervous. In her heart, she silently chanted encouragement: Come over, come over, make less noise…

Just as she was about to reach the boat’s edge, Yan Hongsha’s face suddenly turned deathly pale, and she stood still in the water.

She was truly standing, her previously paddling arms slowly raising, looking at first glance like she was surrendering.

But strangely, she didn’t sink.

Had she already stepped on land? That was impossible.

Mu Dai’s face paled along with hers, asking tremblingly: “What… happened to you?”

Yan Hongsha shuddered, her lips bloodless, and whispered: “I’m being clamped.”

The water rippled, so quiet, but often such silence is the precursor to an explosion.

The next second, Yan Hongsha suddenly couldn’t hold back and screamed shrilly: “I’m being clamped, Mu Dai, pull me up!”

She paddled desperately. Mu Dai’s mind exploded, but she couldn’t reach her. In a moment of quick thinking, she suddenly had an idea: “Tilt back into the water! Tilt! Stretch your hand to me!”

From Yan Hongsha’s position, she couldn’t reach it by simply extending her arm. But if she could tilt her body into the water, extending her arm like the hypotenuse of a right triangle—the longest side—then there might be hope.

Yan Hongsha understood. She held her breath and tilted diagonally into the water, her arm stretched straight, only her wrist and above remaining on the surface. On her end, Mu Dai used her leverage to paddle, and once close enough, she grabbed Yan Hongsha’s hand with precision. But no matter how hard she pulled, she couldn’t move her. The reaction force instead drew the small boat closer.

As Mu Dai was becoming increasingly anxious, a powerful force suddenly pulled down from underwater. If she hadn’t been clinging tightly to the boat, she would have gone underwater head-first. This terrified Mu Dai to the core, making her scream desperately.

After that, everything became chaotic. She didn’t know what was beneath the water, only that she had to grip Yan Hongsha’s hand for dear life. Water splashed violently all around. The small boat sometimes bounced like a fighting bull, sometimes was pulled halfway into the water. Mu Dai swallowed several solid mouthfuls of water, but she persisted with a stubborn determination, not letting go of Yan Hongsha’s hand at one end or the boat at the other.

Once or twice, she was also dragged underwater, her legs still clamping tightly on the boat’s gunwale.

When she surfaced again, she wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but in her daze, a boat was approaching from a distance, with the tapping sound of an engine.

Mu Dai used all her strength to shout, only to be dragged underwater again.

This time, she choked on water, and the last thought that flashed through her mind was: Whoever saves me, I’ll give them all twenty thousand yuan. I don’t want to gain experience anymore, just let me go back to waiting tables at the bar.

When she woke up, it was afternoon. The sun shone diagonally on her face, lazily comfortable. She could smell the salty scent of seawater, but her body was stable, as if lying on a bed, yet not quite.

Mu Dai opened her eyes. Hmm, she was lying on the beach, but beneath her body was an inflatable air mattress.

Oh, she wasn’t dead.

The feeling of being alive was wonderful. Mu Dai didn’t want to think about anything. She stared at the clear blue sky and let out a long sigh: “Amitabha.”

Then, she turned her head to look around.

This was also a beach, but not near Five Pearl Village. Not far away was a white-painted fishing boat. Though old, it was larger than ordinary wooden boats. It had a wheelhouse and cabin, with a large engine at the stern. Clothes were hung to dry on the railing around the boat.

Further away was a village, with children running around playing. The braver ones, swinging shell necklaces, came over and asked from a distance: “Want to buy? Want to buy?”

Before Mu Dai could answer, they scattered away with laughter.

If not for the recent encounter in the sea, such a peaceful and tranquil scene would truly give the illusion of worldly security.

Someone walked out of the cabin. Mu Dai suddenly widened her eyes.

Yi Wansan?

She quickly stood up, opened her mouth to call his name, and became greatly alarmed: Where was her voice? Where had it gone?

Yi Wansan saw her and jumped off the boat. Mu Dai pointed to her throat in fear.

“You shouted until your voice broke, don’t you know? Don’t talk.” He then glanced at her sidelong, clicking his tongue. “Your voice was so shrill it could have drilled holes in the boat.”

Mu Dai didn’t bother to roll her eyes at him. She mouthed: “Where’s my friend?”

“She’s alive. Luo Ren took her to the hospital. Her leg, from the calf down, is bruised and swollen. It might need to be amputated…”

Mu Dai turned pale with shock: On her first job as a bodyguard, would her client end up with an amputation?

Yi Wansan leisurely finished the second half of his sentence: “Fortunately, Luo Ren made an incision to release blood first. If the boat had been stocked with medicine, there would have been no need to go to the hospital.”

Five Pearl Village was empty, without even a decent bed. Luo Ren and Yi Wansan had stayed at the ancestral hall for a day or two. Except for occasional unknown birds landing on the ridge to leave droppings, there was nothing particularly special.

The “immortal pointing the way” had indeed pointed them to an empty village, but couldn’t it also give some more information?

Yi Wansan didn’t want to sit idly waiting for results. On this morning when Mu Dai and her companion arrived in Hepu, he had gone to the seaside to inspect the pearl-harvesting boats left in the village, and told Luo Ren that the boats were still usable.

“I brought you back, not just for Pin Ting. My father’s ashes have always been in the sea, which has always been a burden on my heart.”

He gestured to show Luo Ren how, in the past, when the villagers harvested pearls, the collectors would tie long ropes around their waists, with the rope ends tied to the boat’s edge. They would cover their head and neck with tanned leather, wear a tin curved tube over their mouth and nose, and then descend into the water, sometimes reaching depths of one to two hundred meters.

Yi Wansan had gone door to door searching. The curved tubes had no use other than pearl harvesting, so some families should have left them behind.

Indeed, he found a set. It had a strange shape with a cover that functioned like a simple oxygen cylinder. Luo Ren didn’t trust it much: “Anyway, this area is coastal. Oxygen tanks and diving equipment shouldn’t be hard to find. Or we could rent another boat. These small wooden boats of yours…”

The implication was that they would capsize repeatedly and wouldn’t withstand the waves.

By a stroke of luck, at the exact moment Mu Dai and Yan Hongsha were in trouble, Luo Ren and his group had rented a boat and were heading back. Yi Wansan pointed from the wheelhouse, indicating to Luo Ren: The spot where his mother’s boat had capsized wasn’t far from the village, mainly in the sea area near the village edge.

Luo Ren made a sound of acknowledgment and steadily controlled the rudder.

Yi Wansan was puzzled: Why did Luo Ren even know how to operate a boat? Was it related to Mindanao Island? Islands, after all, had plenty of fishing boats and speedboats.

Mu Dai’s call came at this time. Luo Ren couldn’t free his hands, so he asked Yi Wansan to pass the phone. Mu Dai only said two sentences before the call dropped. When they tried calling back, the line was dead.

Of course, by then, her phone had fallen into the water.

Yi Wansan made a far-fetched guess: “We don’t have a sea in Lijiang, what sea? Oh, Lashi Lake, right?”

Lashi Lake was a wetland park and a famous scenic spot in Lijiang. Yi Wansan assumed, “Lashi Lake is never short of tourists year-round. Even if she fell in, she’d be rescued within two seconds…”

Luo Ren pondered for a few seconds, then slowly shook his head: “No, Mu Dai wouldn’t refer to Lashi Lake as at sea.’ Call Uncle Zhang right away.”

While dialing, Luo Ren had already increased the boat’s speed. And when Yi Wansan repeated the words “The little boss lady went to Hepu, Guangxi?” Luo Ren pushed the engine to maximum.

Hearing this, Mu Dai sighed in relief, secretly grateful that she had informed Uncle Zhang of her destination before leaving.

She found a stone and wrote on the sandy ground: “Then what? What about that thing?”

“What thing?”

She continued writing: “The thing that capsized our boat and clamped Hongsha’s leg.”

Yi Wansan stared at those words for a long time, his eyes roiling with strange and fierce emotions.

At that time, they had first seen the area of splashing water, all in chaos, but hadn’t immediately recognized the people. As the boat got closer, they heard Mu Dai’s scream, which he described as “so shrill it could drill holes in the boat.”

Luo Ren left Yi Wansan on the boat for support while he went into the water. He quickly rescued Mu Dai, along with Yan Hongsha, as Mu Dai had a death grip on Yan Hongsha’s wrist. It took Luo Ren quite some effort to pry her hand open.

Mu Dai and Yan Hongsha’s conditions were different. Although Mu Dai had swallowed water, she had essentially drunk it, and after fainting, she was quickly rescued, suffering no serious harm. Yan Hongsha, however, had been choking underwater continuously. Water had entered her lungs, causing respiratory arrest. She had only regained consciousness after emergency treatment and artificial respiration.

Mu Dai wrote: “Did you perform the emergency treatment?”

Yi Wansan pointed to his face: “With my appearance, do I look like someone who knows emergency treatment? I can’t even drive.”

Mu Dai waved her hand dismissively, throwing the stone far away.

After Yan Hongsha regained consciousness, she kept crying and pointing at her leg, likely in unbearable pain. Luo Ren used scissors to cut open her pant leg, only to discover that from her calf down, her leg was completely purple and swollen.

Yan Hongsha couldn’t explain clearly. Luo Ren first performed a bloodletting procedure, then docked the boat where they had parked, instructed Yi Wansan to take care of Mu Dai, and drove Yan Hongsha to the nearest hospital himself.

As for Mu Dai…

Her clothes were wet, so Yi Wansan had a clever idea—he left her on the beach to dry in the sun.

After all, it wasn’t cold here. Let her dry as she sunbathes.

“Luo Ren guessed it was probably an oyster.”

An oyster? Mu Dai suddenly thought of the oyster the size of a small table in the video.

“But it doesn’t quite make sense. First, it clamped her entire lower leg—how big would that oyster have to be? I grew up in Five Pearl Village, and the largest oysters I’ve seen were at most the size of a small basin. Second, oysters don’t swim. From what I remember, oysters move using their axe-shaped foot. Have you ever seen an oyster flapping its two shells like little wings, swimming in the water?”

Mu Dai hadn’t been listening to Yi Wansan. She stood up and looked toward the distant road.

A black Hummer with a row of hunting lights on top—Luo Ren and his group were back.