Gu Baiqing whipped his head around—only to see Junhua squinting at him slightly, saying, “Quite nice to look at, actually.”
Gu Baiqing was so startled he nearly swallowed his breath and choked on it.
“What nonsense are you talking about… I was just trying to confirm if it was Xuanli! I just woke up and was a bit dazed—wait, hold on… what do you mean by that? You looked at…” Gu Baiqing pointed at Junhua, then at Mo Xuanli lying inside.
Could it be that this woman had seen everything while his disciple was unconscious—and even stripped him bare?!
Junhua stepped forward and flicked Gu Baiqing’s forehead. “We may be different from humans, but we still have the same sense of propriety and decency, all right? The one who undressed him was the merfolk who was treating his wounds.”
Junhua pointed behind her. A refined-looking man approached with a gentle expression, carrying a tray. On it lay Mo Xuanli’s neatly folded clothes. “Greetings, young master. Your garments were soaked and stuck to your wounds. To apply medicine properly, we had to remove them. The treatment needs some time to dry as well. The clothes have just been cleaned and are ready now. Don’t worry—it’s warm here, he won’t catch cold. I’ll dress him right away.”
Seeing the male merfolk about to go behind the screen, Gu Baiqing’s brain short-circuited. He quickly said, “No need to trouble yourself!”
The merfolk paused and looked to Junhua.
Junhua said, “His brother’s awake—of course he’d want to take care of him himself. Just set it down and go.”
“Yes, Second Princess.” The merfolk bowed respectfully and withdrew after putting the tray down.
Only then did Gu Baiqing realize he’d just made a fool of himself again. He definitely didn’t want to get that close to the male lead.
“Don’t worry,” Junhua said. “Mo Xuanli’s fine—he’ll wake up in a bit. Why are you still standing there? Go dress your brother. I’ll wait.” She sat down at the shell-shaped table in the middle of the room and began making tea.
Gu Baiqing’s lips twitched. Hearing that Mo Xuanli was all right, he relaxed and followed Junhua instead.
Junhua gave him a puzzled look.
Gu Baiqing said matter-of-factly, “He won’t catch cold, and I don’t want to pull on his wounds. Better to wait until he wakes and dresses himself.”
Junhua rolled her eyes. “What a bother. If you didn’t want to help, why stop the other guy?”
“I just had a question… that merfolk—he doesn’t, uh, like men, does he?”
Junhua froze for several seconds before replying, “What are you thinking? He’s married.”
Gu Baiqing immediately let out a breath of relief. “You can’t blame me for wondering! Normally, when treating someone, you wouldn’t strip them completely naked—you’d at least leave on underclothes. And then he went and said something about how good his body looked, that’s just…” In this world so full of suspicious bromance energy, he couldn’t help but worry for his disciple’s virtue.
“Wouldn’t strip them?” Junhua tilted her head. “When we’re injured, we just swim in the water a bit and the medicine’s minimal, so we don’t pay attention to that kind of thing. As for the comment about his body—that was to me. He didn’t just say Mo Xuanli had a good figure; he said he was especially impressive down there, and whoever ends up with him in the future will have quite the enjoyable time in the bridal chamber.”
Gu Baiqing’s face went blank. Wait—what did he just hear? He covered his ears. Was he hallucinating?
Junhua went on cheerfully, “Ah, but he had his reasons. Since I brought you two back, I had to give you identities. Ordinary people aren’t allowed to live in the Coral Reefs. Just saving some merfolk wasn’t enough justification—anti-human sentiment runs high here, and they wouldn’t let you stay long. So I told them you two brothers were my future husbands—my main and secondary consorts. That makes you half-merfolk, more or less. That merfolk grew up in the palace and looks after me, so naturally he was concerned—and wanted to check if you were suitable.”
Gu Baiqing’s expression went even more blank.
Junhua teased with a smirk, “Speaking of which, your brother’s quite impressive. How about you?”
Gu Baiqing stammered, “Actually, we can leave right away—really, there’s no need for this title.”
“That won’t do,” Junhua said. “You probably can’t leave for now anyway.”
Gu Baiqing instantly guessed why, but still asked cooperatively, “Why not?”
“Mo Xuanli’s body is fine, but he seems to be advancing in cultivation. The pressure of our Weak Water disrupted his spiritual energy flow. When he was transferring energy to you earlier, he was already at a critical point. By the time we found you both, he’d fainted.”
Gu Baiqing immediately checked his disciple’s cultivation state—it was indeed at 65%, just a little more to reach the late stage. The progress was stable, so the breakthrough should go smoothly.
“Besides,” Junhua added, “he’s injured, and you’re perfectly fine. Do humans always make their younger brothers take care of them?”
Gu Baiqing recalled Mo Xuanli shielding him in the water and looked a bit embarrassed.
“Oh, by the way,” Junhua continued, “how was he able to breathe underwater? He even transferred air to you. I was worried I wouldn’t make it in time to save you. Were you two surviving like that the whole time? You really can’t breathe underwater?”
Gu Baiqing didn’t want to revisit that memory at all. “I don’t know—ask him later. Looks like we’ll have to trouble you for a few days.”
“No trouble at all,” Junhua said. “You’ve done our people a favor—we must repay it. And advancing here, in our territory, actually comes with benefits. I’ll take you somewhere good later.” She smiled mysteriously.
Gu Baiqing couldn’t help saying, “Still, maybe don’t go around saying we’re your future husbands. It could hurt your reputation. Since merfolk are starting to resent humans, aren’t you afraid that’ll shake their loyalty?”
“It won’t,” Junhua replied. “We merfolk distinguish love and hate clearly. Once someone is recognized as family, it doesn’t affect anything. As for my reputation… even if you leave later, it won’t suffer.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve already been rejected for marriage plenty of times,” Junhua said matter-of-factly. “Everyone’s used to it.”
Gu Baiqing couldn’t bear to look directly at her. So much for the legendary devotion of merfolk.
“Besides,” Junhua went on with a teasing grin, “what if you decide to stay? Wouldn’t that make it all come true? I’d be quite happy to marry both my beautiful men into the merfolk tribe. If you agree, I’m truly willing to take you anytime. Or, as you humans say, I could marry into your family instead. But between you and your brother, I do prefer you a little more—so you’d get more of my attention. Think about it—the benefits are many.”
Gu Baiqing coughed lightly, thinking to himself that even among humans, there was no such thing as one woman marrying two husbands. He quickly changed the subject: “The princess can be refused marriage proposals?”
Junhua gave him a look of clear disdain, obviously displeased by his attempt to dodge. Propping her chin with one hand, she said, “Is that so surprising? Love is free — if I like someone but they don’t like me, then of course they’ll reject me. Didn’t you also want to reject me?”
Gu Baiqing looked even more embarrassed.
Then Junhua suddenly asked, “Since you know I’m a princess, why aren’t you surprised at all? You’re so calm about it.”
Gu Baiqing froze. Junhua was indeed sharp. “With everything you’ve done, who would believe you had no status among the merfolk?”
Junhua sighed softly, straightening her posture as she spoke slowly: “Then let me make a proper introduction. My full name is Fu Junhua. Second Princess of the Merfolk.”
“The royal family of the Merfolk carries the surname Fu,” Gu Baiqing nodded. “So the youth you were searching for earlier must have been a prince?”
“Yes. The royal family of our clan has been passed down generation after generation, but now, only he and I remain. His name is Fu Ye. The former royals all perished in the last war between immortals and demons. We once had an elder sister, Fu Qinfan. Many years ago, when she discovered that merfolk were vanishing in numbers beyond the ordinary, she went ashore to investigate. After sending one last message, she never returned. The life pearl that represented her soul turned to dust — she was dead. We never even learned where or why. And to think, she was the strongest among us.”
Gu Baiqing looked at Junhua, who had been teasing him just moments ago, now overcome with grief and solemnity. His chest tightened. He wished she could always stay that cocky, unbothered self — as if nothing in the world could ever trouble her.
As for their elder sister — it wasn’t that Gu Baiqing didn’t want to “spoil” the story for her, but the original record only mentioned that such a sister once existed, that she died, and nothing more. There was nothing he could say to give Junhua any kind of answer.
Junhua soon steadied herself again. “But it’s fine. I’ll just take it that it was done by the people of Beast-Taming Manor. Today’s Three-Thousand Weak waters can count as vengeance for my sister and our innocent clansmen.” Then she turned serious. “Brother Mo, since you and your brother have helped us so much, I don’t want you to keep carrying doubts in your hearts. Would you like to hear our story?”
Gu Baiqing already had a rough idea, but he sensed Junhua truly wanted to unburden herself — to tell outsiders the sorrow of her people. So he nodded. “I’d be honored to listen.”
Junhua began, “Our merfolk are valuable from head to tail, so being coveted by those on land is nothing new. It’s just like your human world — beauties, the wealthy, people with rare physiques or treasures, all draw greed. Cases of kidnapping and capture happen every year; it’s commonplace. Usually, we’d just blame carelessness or lack of strength. After all, we used to maintain close ties with humans. Some merfolk would go ashore to join sects and cultivate. Some even married humans. There was trade, frequent and peaceful. But everything changed after the Immortal–Demon War.”
“During that war, the Merfolk sided with the cultivators, helping them fight against the beast demons. We played a vital role — but our losses were enormous. After all, merfolk aren’t adept at self-preservation on land or in large-scale battles, and our kind are not ones for deceit or cunning.”
“The reason there are now far more female merfolk than male is precisely because, back then, most of the older and younger men went to war — few survived. That left our population severely unbalanced and weakened. To preserve our bloodline, the royals and the priesthood issued a joint decree: from then on, only females were to go out to handle affairs beyond the deep sea. The males were not to leave the ocean depths, and never to stray far from the Weakwaters’ protection.”
“But it was from that point that things began to turn strange.”
“Perhaps because female merfolk were weaker than males, they were less able to escape when danger came. From then on, the disappearances began to increase.”
“At first, no one noticed — our people roam the entire sea, and only children and males are required to remain near Weakwater. So not seeing someone for a long time wasn’t unusual; we didn’t keep a precise count.”
“But the First Princess, Fu Qinfan, noticed subtle changes in our population numbers. She sensed something was wrong and decided to go ashore to investigate. If there truly was an organized effort to hunt merfolk, that would be an entirely different matter.”
“At the time, Fu Ye and I were still young. When we saw our sister going ashore, we were curious — we wanted to go too. For us merfolk, going ashore was never considered dangerous; it was an adventure, full of wonder and novelty. In fact, among merfolk, it’s almost a rite of passage — only adults are allowed to go ashore, so it’s something everyone looks forward to when they come of age.”
“But Sister Qinfan refused. She chose to go alone. She was gone for two years. Her last message said she had discovered small groups attacking merfolk, but that she’d joined forces with Beast-Taming Manor to resolve it. Everything on land was safe now, she said — peaceful coexistence was possible.”
“Not long after that, her life pearl turned to dust. Our sister was dead.”
“The priests began to suspect something was wrong. They sent people to investigate — but nothing came of it. There was no trace of our kind around Beast-Taming Manor either. The priests grew anxious, but with no adult royal left to lead, they could only instruct the rest of us to stay away from land as much as possible.”
“But merfolk are used to freedom — not everyone listened. Curiosity toward the surface, and goodwill toward humans, drove them to keep repeating the same mistakes.”
“Sometimes, they’d even be lured by calls for help from fellow merfolk — only to be captured themselves.”
“At first, just a few disappeared each year. Then dozens. Then scores. Recently, hundreds.”
“And the broken bodies thrown back into the sea told us exactly what they had suffered on land.”
“Through the fragments of information we gathered, we narrowed it down — all signs pointed to Longan Port and Beast-Taming Manor.”
“Maybe the people of Beast-Taming Manor saw on the battlefield the potential threat our kind posed. Or maybe they were simply jealous of our power. Either way — we had to come ashore to find out the truth.”
If Beast-Taming Manor truly was behind it, the merfolk would never let themselves be slaughtered without resistance — they would have to show the world the power of their kind.
Thus, the merfolk sacrificed the lifetime cultivation of three priests to activate the Three Thousand Weak Water. Once a merfolk loses their cultivation, they quickly age and die. Before their deaths, they entrusted the formation to Junhua, sending her ashore to rescue their people and deliver retribution. By that point, the merfolk—long oppressed year after year—had already reached their breaking point.
After coming ashore, Junhua saw with her own eyes the suffering of her people, and upon learning that Beast-Taming Manor was the culprit, she had already resolved to release the Weakwaters. She hadn’t expected, however, to be captured before Gu Baiqing and the others could leave. When her identity was exposed, faced with mortal danger, Junhua had no choice but to fight desperately.
Once the Three Thousand Weak Water were unleashed, survival became nearly impossible for those within Beast-Taming Manor. But the merfolk imprisoned in Longan Port now had a chance to escape — far quicker than if Junhua had tried to find and save them one by one.
Unfortunately, even after that, the number of those who returned was still wrong. The merfolk realized that the countless missing might already have been scattered across the cultivation world.
Perhaps, throughout the entire cultivation realm, they had already been turned into “supplements” for cultivation.
“We knew this act would certainly draw the ire of the cultivation world,” Junhua said. “I never wished to provoke the cultivators. But we can no longer stand by while our people vanish one after another. Even if we are destroyed, we must make the world understand — we are not prey to be slaughtered at will. The ones who still live — I will save them, no matter what it takes!”
Hearing this, Gu Baiqing finally understood why Junhua had been willing to cooperate with the demons.
After all, nothing on a merfolk’s body was of use to demons — in theory, the merfolk should have stood on their side from the start.
But the demons were bloodthirsty and insane by nature. They had always sought to enslave all living beings, sometimes killing merfolk for sport or keeping them as ornamental pets. Since ancient times, the merfolk and demons had been natural enemies.
Yet now, the deeds of humans had pushed the merfolk to the brink of extinction. Unable to tolerate it any longer, yet lacking the strength to stand alone, they could only choose the lesser evil.
It was the cultivators of Beast-Taming Manor and Longan Port who had driven them to this point. Still, at that time, the merfolk had not yet made up their minds — their nature was kind, and they were unwilling, in their hearts, to walk with demons.
However, as recorded in the original story, the merfolk would later suffer another devastating blow. At that time, they would discover that the mighty true dragon had become Mo Xuanli’s contract beast — and that Mo Xuanli himself possessed half-demon blood. Junhua would then lead her people down a third path: to follow a powerful being capable and willing to protect them.
“I hope,” Fu Junhua said softly, “that there are no people from your Zixiao Sect involved…”
“There definitely aren’t,” Gu Baiqing replied.
“You’re not from Zixiao Sect — your younger brother is…” Junhua reminded him.
“If anyone from there were involved, wouldn’t a disciple as outstanding as Xuanli be the first to know? Unless it was some disgraceful, low-ranking disciple secretly doing such vile acts,” Gu Baiqing said.
In truth, Gu Baiqing didn’t believe the missing merfolk could have ended up in any major sect. Cultivators from high-level sects looked down on such depraved methods of improving strength. None of the cultivators who came to Longan Port were from top-tier sects, after all.
Moreover, after the Longan Port incident, the Taixu Hall had ordered all sects to conduct self-investigations. The cultivation world, on the brink of conflict with the demons, wanted to mend relations with the merfolk — they needed to provide an explanation.
But after those investigations, while a few merfolk were found, the numbers didn’t match. And among those few, some had followed willingly.
There was no real answer to give. Junhua, representing the merfolk, didn’t even care to ask for one anymore. Her people would only follow Mo Xuanli.
Naturally, that stirred resentment across the cultivation world.
A race that should have been allied with all cultivators now obeyed only Mo Xuanli — who could stomach that? Who wouldn’t be jealous?
At the time, Mo Xuanli’s true identity had not yet been exposed. With the backing of Zixiao Sect and as Elder Luofeng’s personal disciple, he could still manage the situation. His actions at Beast-Taming Manor were treated as saving the merfolk. But once his identity was revealed, everything changed.
