The light boat with its short oar drifts across the beauty of Dongting Lake.Green waters winding,Fragrant grasses lining the long embankment,Faint melodies of flutes and songs echo everywhere.

  With no wind, the water's surface glistens like smooth gss.The boat glides on unnoticed.Gently stirring ripples,Startling the sandbirds into flight along the shore.

  The ke's jade-green waves ripple ever so slightly...

  I sat down beside him, leaning against him as I admired the serene beauty of the ke, watching the sun slowly dip below the horizon. I felt completely at ease. Even if we didn't speak a single word from beginning to end, there wasn't the slightest sense of boredom.

  The boats that had bustled across the ke during the day were now quietly moored along the shore, empty and still.

  "Miss, are you crazy?! The ke is so deep—how could you possibly retrieve such a tiny earring?"

  A heated argument broke the silence from a nearby boat that was just about to dock.

  He tilted his head slightly, gncing in the direction of the voices.

  At the bow of the boat, a petite young woman in a blue robe was anxiously holding onto another woman in white, who was leaning over the side, desperately searching the water below. Her worried voice grew louder with each passing moment.

  "Let's go over and take a look. Once they leave, we can act."

  He was right. Scanning the vast expanse of the ke, I noticed that the once lively waters had now fallen into complete silence. The crowds of ke-goers had long since departed—only these two women remained.

  Following him, we moved to the closest point near the boat. A faint, elusive fragrance drifted through the air—like the orchids that grew in the secluded valleys of Mount Fulong, a scent that vanished with the slightest breeze, only to return when one least expected it.

  The young woman in the blue robe stood sideways, her round face framed by the simplest of maidservant buns, chattering nonstop. My gaze, however, remained fixed on the woman in white, who stood with her back to us—still, silent, unmoving.

  "Have the two young dies run into some trouble?" He raised his voice slightly.

  The blue-robed girl turned around and froze on the spot. I understood perfectly why she was momentarily dazed.

  But in the very next second, I found myself in the exact same state.

  The woman in white turned to face us, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

  I had no words to describe someone so breathtakingly captivating.

  If she could enchant the world without even smiling… what kind of beauty would she unveil if she did?

  As I stood there in a daze, a strange feeling crept into my heart—something about her features reminded me of my own.

  Yes, just a resembnce, nothing more.

  I had seen my reflection countless times in clear waters, trying to memorize my face, because it was a face given to me by him. I had once believed myself to be beautiful.

  But after seeing her, that belief wavered ever so slightly.

  We were simir, and yet—I was not her.

  My gaze drifted inadvertently toward Zi Miao's eyes, and my heart suddenly thudded heavily in my chest.

  He was looking at her. His expression was calm, as composed as ever, as if he were merely gncing at an unimportant passerby.

  But just as he could always see through my thoughts, after all this time by his side, I had also learned to catch the things in his gaze that others could not.

  A flicker of light—no more than a fraction of a second, so fleeting it left no trace.

  A moment of surprise that did not belong to him.

  He never hesitated to give me warm gnces and smiles, but the radiance in his eyes now—I had never seen it before. Was it that it had never existed, or… had he simply never shown it to me?

  "Ah..." The woman in the green robe finally regained her senses and hastily expined, "It's like this—my dy's earring accidentally fell into the ke, and she wanted to retrieve it herself, but this is simply—"

  "Heh, it's a trivial matter." He cut off the chatter with a smile and said, "Leave it to me. You two dies should return to shore first."

  The beauty was momentarily stunned before lowering her gaze with a gentle smile. Then, she looked up at him and said, "This earring was left to me by my mother. I acted impulsively in my distress and made a scene. I must have made a fool of myself in your eyes."

  With that, she gracefully extended her right hand toward his palm.

  He once told me that in the mortal world, there is a saying: 'Men and women should maintain propriety and avoid physical contact.' But why, then, could this woman so openly and naturally pce her hand in the hand of a man she had just met?

  Of course, I paid no attention to that at all.

  What I cared about was that the warm hand that had only ever held mine was now about to hold someone else's…

  For a fleeting moment, discomfort pricked at me like a grain of sand in my eye—painless, yet unbearable.

  Just as their hands were about to touch, the once-calm ke beneath the boat suddenly churned violently.

  A massive whirlpool formed in an instant, effortlessly overturning the small boat. The beauty's hand had been mere inches from his palm—so close—...yet, eventually, she never got to touch him.

  With a startled cry, the mistress and her maid plunged into the ke, where wisps of white steam had already begun to rise.

  "Ah! The water is scalding! Help!"

  The maid filed wildly, screaming at the top of her lungs like a duck thrown into a pot of boiling water.

  The beauty, however, merely furrowed her brows, her hands desperately slicing through the water. Her delicate lips were pressed into a tight line—silent, unwavering, not a single cry escaping her mouth.

  Before I could utter a word, he had already leaped into the ke.

  His movement was hurried, even carrying a hint of panic.

  The women who had fallen into the water weren't far from us—just a short distance away. And yet, a sudden thought arose in my mind—

  With this leap, the space between us, though mere inches, had stretched into an unbridgeable chasm.

  With a thunderous crash, a patch of soil on the shore colpsed without warning. The ground beneath my feet gave way, and amidst the violent tremors—like an earthquake shaking the earth—I plunged into the ke, swept away along with the rushing mud.

  Wood floats upon water; it is the w of nature. I had no fear of drowning. But the heat—the unbearable, scalding heat—burned through me, searing my breath away.

  "Help! Zi Miao, save… save me!"

  Though the heat was agonizing, it wasn't unbearable. Yet, I screamed at the top of my lungs, calling his name as if I were on the verge of drowning, as if the next moment would be my end.

  On the other side, he had just cast a spell to shield them from the increasingly boiling waters. Holding the beauty by the waist, he was about to lift her onto the shore.

  Hearing my cry, he snapped his head around—yet his arms did not loosen their hold on her.

  For a fleeting moment, hesitation flickered in his eyes. He frowned slightly, then, still cradling the woman in his arms, leaped out of the water and headed toward the shore.

  I was stunned.

  All this time, even as danger closed in around us, I had been so certain—so unwaveringly convinced—that he would put me first, that he would do whatever it took to keep me safe.

  The churning waves choked me, and through my water-blurred vision, I cast an unwilling gaze toward the shore.

  He set the beauty down—then turned and rushed toward the maid, leaving me alone, struggling in the water.

  I tried to swim toward the shore, but something beneath the surface—vines, perhaps—had wrapped around my ankles. No matter how I struggled, I could do nothing but rise and sink in pce, unable to move in any direction.

  Just then, a terrifying force surged from the depths of the ke, sending a shockwave rippling across nearly half the water's surface. Countless bubbles, each the size of a bowl, burst violently to the surface, filling the air with an endless, ominous gurgling.

  The moment he pulled the half-drowned maid from the water, the entire Dongting Lake exploded apart. Towering waves shot into the sky, scattering in all directions.

  From the shattered waters, a massive, inky-purple shadow tore its way out—its presence so violent, so overwhelming, it felt as though it could overturn the very heavens.

  “Cursed—” I gasped. But before I could finish the word dragon, the waves crashed into me, flooding my mouth with the thick, metallic taste of blood.

  In my panic, a sudden, searing pain shot through my shoulder—sharp, piercing, as if something had embedded itself deep into my flesh.

  I turned my head.

  A grotesque, scale-covered cw had seized me in its iron grip.

  And at that moment—true, unshakable fear finally took hold of me.

  Before I could even blink, my entire body was wrenched from the water and flung into the air. The searing pain tearing through my shoulder was unbearable, forcing a sharp cry from my lips.

  Thick, dark purple mist seeped out from nowhere, swallowing my vision and muffling my voice. A streak of piercing light sshed across my sight like lightning, and a deafening rumble echoed in my ears.

  Agonizing pain surged from my shoulder straight to my heart, consuming what little strength I had left. My consciousness blurred, slipping away bit by bit.

  Just as everything faded to bck, I thought I heard it—that voice I had longed to hear, filled with anguish and desperation—

  "Sha Luo…"