Ye Yang had absolutely no idea what to do now.
After leaving the waters where he grew up, he’d planned to sneak onto a passing ship. But he hadn’t noticed the fishing net trailing behind the stern—and carelessly swam right into it.
Before he even realized he’d walked straight into a trap, the tough, resilient net cords tightened around him. The rough, coarse knots snagged his newly formed limbs, which he still wasn’t quite used to using.
Then came a dizzying spin. With a loud splash, Ye Yang was yanked out of the water, flung through the air, and slammed onto the hard deck with a heavy thud.
An ordinary person might have gotten scraped or sprained an ankle after all that. Someone frail could have even broken a bone.
Ye Yang looked delicate, but he was actually quite sturdy. He wasn’t injured—just a little disoriented from the spinning. It took him a moment to adjust to the harsh, blinding white light. Finally, he could see clearly: there was a person standing right in front of him!
It was his first time actually seeing a human. His instinct was to hide. But he’d forgotten he was still tangled in the fishing net. The moment he moved, he lost control again, rolling twice across the deck. His thigh gently bumped against the person’s feet with a soft pat.
Away from the direct glare of the light, Ye Yang’s vision became clearer. Feeling anxious and at a total loss, he blinked away the droplets clinging to his eyelashes—and couldn’t help but look at the human again.
Huh? This human didn’t quite match the blurry image of humans passed down in his inherited memories. Why was his clothing… Wait!
Ye Yang’s heart jolted. He suddenly realized—he’d forgotten to include clothes when he transformed. Oh no. Was he about to get exposed now?!
Just as Ye Yang was frantically trying to figure out what to do, the human suddenly turned around and stumbled away, running off in a panic.
Ye Yang was so startled he froze in place, not daring to move. The only thing he could hear was the human shouting something in a language he didn’t understand: “…Old Ye! OLD YE! I just pulled a person out of the water!”
…
As for how he ended up in this situation—that story starts more than a day earlier.
—
Ye Yang drifted lazily through the sea, but his mind was razor-sharp.
A tiny leaf sheep sea slug—not resting on a rock at the bottom of the sea or near an anemone, but floating a few meters above the seabed.
The tender, leaf-like cerata on his back swayed gently in the water. Their tips were tinged with a soft pink, making the tiny creature look utterly delicate and fragile.
Unlike his kin, who would eat anything, Ye Yang had become picky since awakening. He only ate the prettiest algae. As a result, the “leaves” on his back were even more vibrant—slightly translucent, more like gems than actual leaves.
His fully degenerate shell was a thin, translucent layer draped over his body, shimmering with a pearly luster. The fluffy pair of antennae on his head looked like a lamb’s little ears, twitching faintly with the ocean’s pulse.
Unlike a normal leaf sheep, which measures only five millimeters, Ye Yang was a full three centimeters long—roughly the size of a baby dwarf rabbit. Still not exactly huge… but compared to his kin, he was practically a god!
Suddenly, the giant leaf sheep sea slug vanished. In its place was a figure hundreds of thousands of times larger.
If any human diver had been there, they would’ve been struck speechless.
A boy with delicate, refined features appeared in the water. His fluffy short hair swayed with the current, slowly shifting from translucent pale green to deep black. His bright, dark eyes held a faint glimmer of green that quickly faded. His build was well-proportioned, but his face still had noticeable baby fat, and his plump cheeks were tinged pink against his fair skin.
This was the human form Ye Yang had cultivated, based on the hazy images in his inherited memories.
Leaf sheep sea slugs are hermaphrodites. Ye Yang had no real concept of gender himself—he’d simply unconsciously imitated that tall, majestic figure from his memories. Unfortunately, his talent had its limits. His transformation wasn’t tall or mighty at all—it was actually a bit small and slight.
And since he’d never seen that figure’s face, he had nothing to go on—he just let it happen naturally.
“I did it! I finally succeeded in transforming!”
Ye Yang celebrated quietly in his heart. This time, he had successfully and stably transformed into human form—no antennae popping out, no loss of control over his limbs. He could feel it: he had truly mastered the skill of transformation.
Completely naked, with no need to breathe, he stood unscientifically upright in the seawater, as if some invisible force were holding him up.
Though he wasn’t entirely satisfied with his size, Ye Yang wasn’t greedy. He rubbed his cheeks, familiarized himself with his limbs, and looked down.
Aside from Ye Yang, there were no other human-shaped beings here. The sea creatures below had never seen this strange creature before, but they recognized his scent. They knew he wouldn’t hurt them, so they showed no signs of panic and simply carried on with their usual rhythms.
Through the fairly clear seawater, sunlight streamed down in quiet rays.
It was the first time Ye Yang had ever observed his former home from this angle.
This was a stretch of seafloor that wasn’t particularly deep—about a hundred meters down. On sunny days, everything around was quite clear.
A clownfish, seemingly sick and unable to secrete mucus properly, caught the attention of a nearby carpet anemone. The anemone’s digestive tract shot out like an airbag and engulfed the clownfish in one swift gulp. After a while, that gray, rag-like creature spat out a fish skeleton.
Ye Yang quietly observed all of this. A complex feeling slowly welled up inside him, and his thoughts drifted far away.
Leaf sheep sea slugs are lowly creatures. Of course, Ye Yang hadn’t always known that.
He used to be just like the clownfish down there, just like the carpet anemone, just like his fellow sea slugs—unaware, devoid of complex thoughts, driven from birth purely by instinct to find food and eat. There was nothing else in his life.
When food was scarce, he’d struggle toward sunny spots and rely on the chloroplasts he’d stolen from algae to photosynthesize. That situation was rare, though—the ocean had always been abundant with food.
Then, one day, without any warning, a massive, mysterious dark shadow loomed over the entire sea.
With a roaring thunder, the shadow sank. The seabed trembled. Every creature in the water was swept up by the turbulent currents, pushed helplessly along—pushed so far they didn’t know how to get back.
After things finally calmed down, the agile fish scattered in all directions. But the place where Ye Yang used to find food had vanished completely.
No algae. No sunlight. Ye Yang had no choice but to struggle farther away—away from that dark shadow.
An instinctive, nameless fear drove him to move in the opposite direction of the shadow.
Leaf sheep are solitary creatures. Outside of mating season, they don’t move together. But this sudden disaster forced them to advance and retreat as one.
Ye Yang didn’t know where to go. He just kept moving forward with the others, and forward, and forward.
No one knew how much time had passed. Countless of his kin had fallen behind, unable to find food. Then the water surged again, and the shadow that had covered everything suddenly disappeared.
Before it vanished, a single drop of golden liquid drifted slowly downward.
Ye Yang struggled desperately to dodge it, but the droplet landed directly on him, impossible to refuse—as if it were fate itself.
What felt like an eternity to Ye Yang was nothing more than an ordinary passage, an ordinary rest, for that mysterious dark shadow.
But the golden droplet left behind by that shadow completely changed Ye Yang’s destiny.
The golden liquid enveloped Ye Yang as if it were alive. An invisible, overwhelming power transformed him completely. His body swelled several times over in an instant. From that moment on, Ye Yang was no longer an ordinary leaf sheep sea slug.
Or rather—aside from a similar appearance and a few leftover traits, he and the leaf sheep sea slug species no longer had anything in common.
Along with power came a flood of inherited knowledge. Ye Yang was washed over by this mysterious power and knowledge, his body swelling many times larger once again. The intense energy radiating from him drew the attention of every creature nearby.
By now, Ye Yang could no longer call himself a leaf sheep sea slug. He had gained far too many things a sea slug should never possess.
From that day on, his destiny had changed completely.
After an unknown stretch of time, Ye Yang cast one last glance at the seafloor. Then he left without looking back, heading straight upward.
The inherited knowledge urged him forward. Now that he had fully achieved transformation, it was time to leave. There was something he had to do.
…
Ye Yang didn’t paddle with his limbs. He simply tilted his head back, stretched his body, and let the seawater surge as if it were alive, pushing him upward at a steady, unhurried pace.
Just over half a minute later, the calm sea surface suddenly broke with a splash. A drenched, naked boy emerged, most of his face above the water. His wet black hair clung tightly to his cheeks. His large, bright, dark eyes darted around—innocent and lost, gentle and pitiful.
Torn between reluctance to leave his birthplace, hope for the future, and both awe and uncertainty toward the magnificent world in his inherited memories, Ye Yang surfaced for the first time in hundreds of years.
But the moment he emerged, the moment he made contact with the air, he froze completely.
Water. Water in every direction. No sign of this so-called “land” at all. Where on earth was he supposed to go?!
Cultivation is difficult for demonkind. For Ye Yang to achieve transformation after just over three hundred years of training was already remarkable. But compared to human cultivators, he was only at the Qi Condensation stage—his spiritual sense was still very weak, and his intuition worked only sporadically.
Ye Yang knew he had to find that shadow from his memories—the one that had left him the golden droplet. He had a faint sense that the shadow must have been a powerful great demon. The knowledge, history, and memories brought by the golden liquid were vast and chaotic. The memories especially all came in fragments—some blurry, some clear—and they often left Ye Yang feeling very confused.
He didn’t truly know what he was supposed to do now. He was simply driven by an invisible force, guided by instinct.
But now that he had actually left the ocean floor, he had absolutely no idea where to go.
·
Under the bright sun, the fishing and transport vessel Fishery Transport No. 6-33 sailed along its scheduled route.
Captain Old Ye had felt uneasy all day but couldn’t figure out why.
Those who make their living on the sea tend to be a little superstitious. Unable to ignore this premonition—whether good or bad—Old Ye meticulously double-checked their course, the weather, and the surrounding conditions.
His veteran crew member, Chen Ping, was the complete opposite.
Chen Ping had already finished all his work for the day. The sun was about to set, and with nothing left to do, he stationed himself at the stern, lowered a small fishing net into the water, and waited leisurely to haul it back up and add something to dinner.
Just as he was daydreaming about what he might catch, something strange happened. Without any warning from the radar—and with the ship sailing normally along its designated route—the entire vessel came to an unnatural halt for a moment. Everyone lurched forward.
It lasted only an instant, but it was deeply abnormal. Chen Ping quickly started reeling in his net, planning to go find the captain right after.
“Hiss… why is it so heavy? What luck—did I catch a big fish in no time?”
He braced one foot against the gunwale and gave a hard yank. Thud! The net, along with whatever was inside, landed on the deck.
Chen Ping stopped breathing. His mind went completely blank. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes over and over again. He swallowed hard.
But no matter how many times he blinked, the sight before him didn’t change: The sturdy net cords were soaked with seawater. Under the harsh white deck lights, the already dark blue rope looked almost black in the night, making the pale, delicate skin inside the net stand out all the more.
Thick knots on the net were tangled with seaweed and debris. Chen Ping had never paid them any attention before, but now he suddenly felt the net was filthy. Oddly, a strange sense of guilt even rose from the bottom of his heart.
But these stray thoughts vanished in a flash. After a few frozen seconds, his toes were gently bumped. As if scalded by boiling water, he suddenly spun around and sprinted toward the captain’s cabin.
He was so panicked that he stumbled—falling several times in just a few steps—but he finally managed to find his voice again after that bizarre scene. He shouted at the top of his lungs: “…Old Ye! OLD YE! I just pulled a person out of the water!”
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