Cold Dependence - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

According to the older generation, this vast sea connecting sky and earth was not originally called “Lanhai Sea” but was feared by all as the “Man-Eating Sea.”

Legend has it that many years ago, Liantan City was not the bustling port metropolis it is now. Back then, it was just a poor village, untraceable on any map, where people survived solely by fishing.

But living off the sea’s bounty didn’t seem to work here.

The sea was home to many carnivorous marine creatures, the most notorious being sharks, ferocious and highly adaptable.

For a long time, fishermen who went out to sea kept disappearing one after another. When the tide receded, people would find fragments of villagers’ clothing and other mangled body parts washed ashore mercilessly.

Only then did they realize this sea offered no hope for survival but was filled with deadly calamity.

Some young residents were forced to leave the homes they were born and raised in.

But poverty and weakness didn’t allow everyone to migrate away. In the end, people could only pin their hopes on divine intervention, praying and worshipping daily, hoping the gods would take pity on their homeland and grant them a way to survive.

Perhaps their devout prayers truly moved the heavens. One calm night, an old woman, nearly starved to death, suddenly saw a golden light shining from the sea, a light that seemed divine.

People only knew that after that day, no fisherman was ever attacked by sharks again.

Many rumors circulated about the origin of that golden light.

The most common tale passed down by ancestors was that it came from the eyes of an ancient god sleeping beneath the endless deep sea.

It was said to have a whale-like form, its body massive beyond measure.

Its surface was covered with hard, eerie black scales, the lord of this deep abyss, the guardian deity of Liantan City.

Of course, all of this was just legend.

Passed down through generations, it became even more mythical.

Sometimes, adding a touch of mythology to a region could bring rich tourism resources and fantastical culture.

Even the coastal architecture of Liantan City bore emblems of a black, whale-like creature, paying homage to the legendary sleeping deity of this bay.

“Please… save me.”

Several ferocious large sharks circled silently around a human sinking into the sea, their greedy hunter’s gaze fixed on the rapidly spreading scent of bl00d in the water.

One vicious shark, drawn by the surge of dark water, swiftly approached the injured, dying woman, its razor-sharp teeth ready to tear her body into pieces.

Qi Wenxi could feel the approach of these massive creatures, but she was powerless, the poison having already ravaged her entire nervous system…

She closed her eyes, awaiting death’s arrival.

How tragic.

With a tremendous, deep roar surging in, followed by the crunching sound of flesh being torn apart, a thick, pungent smell of bl00d spread instantly through the dark seawater.

In a flash, the other predatory creatures circling the woman were reduced to shattered food scraps, their midsections swallowed into an even darker, more sinister void.

As a massive undercurrent surged, what appeared before Qi Wenxi was a gigantic eye, as large as her entire body.

A single eye!

Round, golden, terrifying… the eye stared right at her.

It was impossible to imagine the size of this beast, brimming with unnatural, terrifying power, lurking silently in the darkness.

It scrutinized this human, its golden eye tilting at eerie angles, occasionally blinking its wrinkled, translucent eyelids.

It observed this tiny thing that had fallen into its private domain from different angles.

Hmm, a little thing about to die.

The next moment, this immeasurably massive deep-sea beast slowly opened a mouth large enough to swallow an entire cargo ship, revealing white, pillar-like teeth before Qi Wenxi.

Shark fin tissue still hung from those sharp, enormous teeth…

What posture does a person assume in a state of extreme fear?

In her 34 years, Qi Wenxi experienced for the first time what it felt like to tremble all over with a mind frozen in terror, a fear a hundred times worse than death itself.

Her pupils dilated, her eyes fixed in horror on the bloodied, massive teeth and the abyss-like mouth.

This was a suffocating despair a hundred times worse than being bitten to death by sharks.

Every cell in her body screamed: the end of the world.

Then, her vision went black, and the world fell into dead silence.

***

Lanhai Sea Bay

For the past few days, no one was allowed to set foot here. When asked why, the staff gave a perfunctory reply: Suirong Avenue, leading to Lanhai Sea Bay, was under emergency repairs, and entering would only delay the process.

As the last ray of light on the coastline sank into the sea, the once pitch-black surface slowly returned to its peaceful blue.

It was as if none of the eerie, terrifying events had ever happened.

However, the seagulls that usually circled above Lanhai Sea Bay at this time were nowhere to be seen.

These sentient seabirds seemed to sense something, refusing to land here. All the flocks flew in the opposite direction, as if deliberately avoiding something in this sea, letting out shrill cries.

About five minutes later, the calmed sea surface began to whip up with biting, chaotic winds.

Then, a human head suddenly emerged from the sea, followed by half a body—a woman’s body—moving toward the shore.

Her face was obscured by long, curling black hair. In the twilight, her skin, pale as white stone, seemed to shimmer with a strange, crystalline glow, faintly revealing black markings on her bare abdomen.

Her figure was tall and slender, stepping toward the shore.

Until the eerie seawater, like a worshipper, pushed her onto the shore and silently receded, everything returned to calm.

The black-haired, fully nude woman stepped onto the shore, dragging a person in one hand.

A human woman, pale and barely breathing.

The black-haired woman’s golden-brown eyes looked down at the frail human in her hand without a flicker of emotion, then decisively let go. The human woman dropped heavily to the ground.

The fall didn’t wake her. She had inhaled too much seawater, her brain starved of oxygen, her lungs filled with water, and the wounds from the sea vine had festered under the sea’s soaking. The poison had already consumed her entire nervous system. She would die soon.

“…”

Jing Lian stared unblinkingly at the dying human woman on the beach, her golden-brown eyes showing no trace of emotion.

“Jing Lian”

That was probably her name, given long ago by the humans who lived here.

Having slumbered in this sea for countless years, even she had lost track of time. Today was the first day she awoke, only to be disturbed by this reckless human.

How long had it been since she last saw such a two-legged creature?

She vaguely recalled seeing a similar two-legged creature long ago, before these strange, rainbow-colored contraptions appeared on the beach (various fashionable billboards).

Back then, a scrawny two-legged creature revered her as a deity, claiming she was the guardian god of their village, protecting fishermen from being eaten by sharks or some such nonsense.

It was then that those frail, barely toothsome two-legged creatures enshrined her as “Jing Lian” in their temple.

She was utterly confused. She wasn’t some so-called deity but an ancient calamity that slumbered in the sea’s depths, existing for reasons even she didn’t understand.

Was this two-legged creature a descendant of those skeletal beings?

With this question in mind, Jing Lian slowly crouched down, extending a cold, water-slicked hand to grasp the wrist of the human woman before her, lifting it to weigh it.

So light, truly so light.

Indeed, a descendant of those two-legged creatures, still so frail and fragile.

Jing Lian raised an eyebrow slightly, observing the purplish scars forming on the other’s skin. The sea vine’s poison had already spread through this little thing’s body.

She truly had no desire to meddle in the life or death of any creature.

But

“Please… save me.”

She had indeed heard this two-legged creature’s plea for help in the deep sea. To encounter such a thing on the first day of waking after so long was truly a “good omen.”

She had only meant to toss this two-legged creature onto the shore and be done with it. But considering how those humans once revered her as a deity, and given the pile of useless trinkets still amassed in her seabed, well, fine.

She decided to see this good deed through.

Let her live.

At the very least, it was better than being pecked to nothing by vultures.

With this thought, Jing Lian, with her ice-cold, damp hand, reached through the woman’s hair, cradling the back of her neck. Her shimmering eyes gazed deeply at the face of this human woman.

The face of the first human woman she had ever chosen to help.

Then slowly, she gripped the human woman’s jaw, lowered her head, and pressed her lips to hers.