What had happened…
Suddenly, time seemed to pause for a brief moment. This embrace didn’t last long. Soon, he pushed me away, turned around, and said coldly, “I won’t mind if your life is short. But if you become a water demon, no matter how long you live, I won’t bother with you.”
Having known Master for nearly forty years, this was the first time I’d heard him speak like this. Indeed, I had done something wrong again. By all rights, I had passed the most mischievous age and shouldn’t make him angry anymore. Yet lately, I kept being unreasonable, making him displeased and guilty, then doing even more foolish things, making him displeased again, feeling guilty again…
What I feared most was being disliked by him, but I always had a talent for making a mess of things.
That night, the moon was bright in deep winter, the cold wind rustled, fine snow fell like ash-colored brocade, and gazing at the vast sea, several water demons cleansed their scales.
I even forgot to wipe my tears, letting them freeze into ice, when I heard him say, “I have just one question: Do you want to return to Tianshi City with me? If you do, I’ll act as if nothing happened. If not, our master-disciple bond ends here, and we’ll sever all ties.”
I looked up at him, struggled for a long time, and finally nodded, “This disciple will never dare again.”
“Good.”
I looked toward where the sky met the sea, “But Master, today is already the sixth day of my demon transformation. I’m afraid it might be too late now…”
He turned his head, smiling faintly, “Under heaven, what matter could stump your Master?”
Then, he cupped a ball of light in his hands and threw it toward me. I felt almost no pain as my body returned to its original form. Even so, because the demon body had consumed too much energy, I felt utterly exhausted. Yinze said, “How much better this is. Why did you have crooked thoughts about becoming a demon?”
Before I could answer, a white shadow swam over from the seaweed thicket and took human form. The snow snake stood between us both, saying, “Greetings to Divine Lord Yinze. I have something to say.”
This snow snake’s action was no different from swatting flies on a lion’s head—extraordinarily bold. Yinze had probably never seen such a demon before. He glanced at him indifferently but didn’t respond.
The snow snake seemed somewhat afraid and moved closer to me, saying quietly, “So, after I helped Miss Luowei so much, Miss Luowei is going back on her word like this?”
I said apologetically, “I’m sorry. I still don’t want to become a demon.”
The snow snake said, “No matter. If the young lady truly doesn’t wish it, I won’t force her. However, according to our snake clan’s rules, if one party cannot keep their promise, the other party should complete one task for them.”
“Since I owe you a favor, I’ll naturally follow your rules,” I thought for a moment, “Just don’t make it too difficult—my abilities are limited.”
“Very good, straightforward.” The snow snake waved his fan with a completely carefree attitude, “I want to eat a cold nine-colored clam as a drinking accompaniment.”
“Cold nine-colored clam? Why have I never heard of such a dish…”
The snow snake said, “Miss Luowei is from the upper realm, so naturally you haven’t heard of this Eastern Sea delicacy.”
Yinze said, “Simple. I’ll have the Eastern Sea Dragon King send someone to deliver one.”
The snow snake said urgently, “No, no, no, we mustn’t alarm the Eastern Sea Dragon King! I don’t want to offend the Dragon King over such a small matter. Even if he swallows his anger today for the Divine Lord’s sake, he’ll come looking for trouble with our snow snake clan later. Besides, the clams in the Dragon King’s palace aren’t authentic either.”
Yinze sneered, “You even pick at the Dragon King’s palace food—what a noble mouth you have.”
The snow snake smacked his lips, “Not only that, I haven’t finished yet. For drinking, it must be Flowing Cloud Fine Brew, otherwise this clam won’t taste comfortable.”
“I see you’re tired of living.”
“Wow, how scary.” The snow snake hid behind me, acting coquettish, “Miss Luowei, you’re a person who keeps her word, but your Master wants to kill me. What should we do…”
I said, “Ma-Master…”
Yinze frowned, “Where must we go to get this dish? Speak quickly and don’t waste time.”
This snow snake was a difficult creature to serve. It was one thing to like seafood, but he had to like such troublesome seafood.
Colorful clams were an Eastern Sea specialty, extremely rare, with tender and juicy meat, and the more colors they had, the more superior they were. Originally, seven-colored clams were already the rarest type; only dragon palace nobles had the fortune to taste them daily. Until a hundred years ago, when merpeople discovered a cavern in a small Eastern Sea town. Its geographical location was peculiar and mysterious, with seven-colored light bands penetrating the seabed all year round. They also found nine-colored clams there. Since then, nine-colored clams replaced seven-colored clams as the most luxurious dragon palace delicacy. Because they had only appeared within the past hundred years, even Yinze didn’t know much about them.
The snow snake only gave us a worn map, pointing to a small dot on it, saying it was a small island in the sea with a mermaid cook who was the most skilled at making this dish in the entire Eastern Sea. She was the person we needed to find.
At times like this, we still followed our usual practice: I grabbed Master’s sash and flew with him to the island indicated on the map. The island was only a few dozen meters across, completely deserted except for a kitchen built of red coral.
When we approached, we saw two lines of text. The first read: “To cook nine-colored clams, first bring the ingredients. Without nine-colored clams, what nine-colored dish can be made?”
The second line read: “This old lady only appears at midnight.”
We had made a wasted trip. I was feeling lost when Yinze decisively made a decision: “First, let’s find the nine-colored clams.”
“Does Master know where the nine-colored clams are?”
“No.”
I said dejectedly, “The Eastern Sea is so vast, where are we supposed to look…”
“Follow me to the seabed first. I have a method.”
“The seabed?” I stretched out both hands and slapped my face. “Master, you should have changed me back later. Now I can’t move around on the seabed…”
Not being able to go underwater was indeed quite troublesome. But I had forgotten what Master said—nothing under heaven could stump my Master, and this was an iron rule. I saw him wave his sleeve lightly. Though nothing changed about me, I no longer felt cold, and after entering the water, I could breathe on the seabed like a water demon.
On the seabed, we found a palace covering hundreds of miles. He threw some glowing shells to the giant crab guarding the entrance and swam inside with me.
It turned out to be a library. The books on the seabed were completely different from ours—the pages were strung together with huge, thin scallop shells, and the covers were inlaid with pearls, with book titles and authors’ names carved on them. He stopped in front of a cabinet marked “Cooking,” extended his right hand, and with a light hook of his jade-ringed index finger, all the books on the top shelf flew out and floated in front of him in a row.
He tilted his index finger to the right, and the pages began flipping rapidly. In the blink of an eye, he finished one book, which flew back to the cabinet by itself, followed by the second book… I was watching with my tongue hanging out when he finished the first shelf and hooked over the second shelf to form a long queue. At this moment, in the vast library, there was only the crisp sound of shell pages turning.
Not until he reached the fourth shelf did he find the recipe for cold nine-colored clam and where to source the ingredients. He put all the books back in the cabinet, then swam to the cabinet marked “Geography,” scanning from the top shelf down, pulling out one book, flipping through it rapidly to a certain page, pausing briefly, then putting the book back: “Let’s go.”
“Oh, okay, okay.” Indeed, gods were worlds apart from us…
Half an hour later, we arrived at a small underwater town. In front of the town was a winding path with a stone tablet reading “Mianman Town.” The path was lined with sea anemones of various colors—crimson, purple-red, iris purple, peony pink, wisteria purple, and so on. When we passed by, these anemones would bloom and sway their waists in the water like catkins.
But we weren’t the only ones coming here. There were mermaid couples dressed in silk clothes, coming in pairs from all directions toward the town. I stood in place watching for a while, then suddenly tugged at Yinze’s sleeve: “Master, it seems they’re celebrating a festival.”
“So it appears.” Yinze walked ahead first and asked a mermaid couple.
“Today is our Intimate Joy Festival. Mianman Town has always been the celebration site—only lovers can enter hand in hand,” the mermaid man smiled. “Other races can participate too, but your clothes probably won’t do. Look, over there are people from your upper realm.”