The Undersea Adventures of the Little Jellyfish (JELLYFISH)
Only after Shen Jixiao finished viewing the pearl did he understand why Tang You had called it strange.
The memories within the pearl were brief. At first, there was only darkness and silence, until the faint sound of waves finally emerged.
Then—lightning and thunder.
"Little jellyfish, are you okay?" An unfamiliar voice, filled with urgency. "You're hurt—oh no, did you go into the storm...?"
"It's fine, it's fine..."
The little jellyfish's voice.
But unlike its usual soft and steady tone, the voice in the memory sounded exhausted, as if even speaking a single word took great effort.
Shen Jixiao suddenly understood why this pearl's memory was so short and kept cutting to black. When it was recorded, the little jellyfish's mental energy had already been severely depleted.
"No, you're clearly not fine." The image began to clear, revealing a moray eel coiled on a rock. It seemed desperate to approach but was afraid of hurting the jellyfish further, so it could only writhe anxiously. "Little jellyfish, your head is cracked open!"
"Ah..."
The little jellyfish sounded surprised, as if unaware of its injury.
"I ran into a storm," it said. "Probably hit some broken pieces of a ship."
"Come inside and rest for a while."
"Mm."
"With such a severe injury... can you still heal?"
"I don't know..."
The memory ended.
Shen Jixiao looked at the little jellyfish. The little jellyfish looked back at him.
"Looking at me won't help," the jellyfish stretched out a tentacle, scratching its head—or where a head would be. "I really don't remember. See? My head is perfectly fine now."
A brand-new, transparent little dome without a single scar.
Over a decade had passed—any wound would have long since faded. But the merman still wondered: Did jellyfish have such strong regenerative abilities? Or were there unknown healing methods in the depths of the ocean? He knew almost nothing about the sea. Maybe the little jellyfish had its own way.
"You were injured by ship debris. A storm, nearby..." Shen Jixiao frowned. "Were you near the Tarlik when it sank?"
The little jellyfish swayed its 98%-water, utterly empty head. "Don't remember."
Another dead end.
Shen Jixiao opened his mouth to say something—for a moment, he even suspected the jellyfish was deliberately lying to him. But then an ocean current swept by, and he abruptly fell silent.
The pearl in his hand floated slightly due to the lingering magic. Shen Jixiao stared at it quietly, realizing he had been too harsh.
After all, the little jellyfish had been helping him selflessly all this time. Yet now, driven by the first real lead in nearly two decades, he had let his desperation push him to pressure the jellyfish. Any small clue was a stroke of luck—he shouldn’t keep burdening it. Besides, the jellyfish wasn’t his subordinate, nor his enemy. It was... perhaps even a friend. He shouldn’t doubt such an innocent, kind little creature.
"Little jellyfish, you look so pitiful like this."
The merman stiffened, his eyes widening slightly.
The voice came from the pearl. He hadn’t stopped channeling magic into it, and after a long stretch of darkness, there was still a tiny fragment of memory at the end.
Tang You also spoke up. "I didn’t see this part earlier."
The little jellyfish infused a bit of its own energy, and they watched in silence.
"It’s not so bad. I won’t die." The weakened jellyfish from eighteen years ago spoke, its reflection shimmering on a smooth seashell. Its head was indeed cracked open, revealing a glimpse of pink insides—a pitiful sight. "But over there... such a huge ship sank. I don’t know how many people died."
"Why do you care about humans? They only see us as food," the moray eel snarled, baring its teeth.
"But I saw someone fall out of the ship’s cabin, covered in blood. It was so pitiful. Drowning must be so painful."
"You’re just too soft-hearted. Focus on healing yourself."
"Mmm."
Some time passed.
"Little jellyfish, where are you going?"
"I need... to find a place to rest..." The jellyfish’s voice grew weaker. The wound on its head hadn’t healed—instead, it had grown larger.
"Can’t you stay here?"
"No... I need to swim to deeper waters to recover. I’ll leave you a pearl, so I’ll know the way back. I promise I’ll come find you again."
"Ah..." The moray eel sighed. "You were doing fine—why did you have to go near humans?"
The last memory was the sinking of Tarlik at the ocean’s depths. The ship groaned as it cracked apart, surrounded by countless fragments and bubbles. Violent currents whipped everything into chaos, turning even wood into deadly blades.
It sank slowly.
Just as everything became irreparable, the memory in the pearl froze.
"Wait," Shen Jixiao frowned. "At the end..."
Though the perspective was distant and blurry, he thought he glimpsed something.
He replayed the memory, focusing intently on the final moments. "There’s a human figure here."
Tang You looked. It was an incredibly tiny silhouette—barely distinguishable from a piece of driftwood. "Are you sure that’s a person?"
"I’m certain."
Shen Jixiao clenched the pearl.
He was absolutely sure. Though the angle shifted, that person... was probably him.
When he fell into the sea, the little jellyfish had seen him—and recorded it in the pearl. Eighteen years later, he had somehow encountered this same jellyfish again and witnessed this memory. What kind of coincidence was this?
His mind reeled.
"Actually, I..." The merman was so nervous he began to stammer. "I think that’s me... I was there at the time..."
The jellyfish had already done its best to magnify the pearl’s recording. In the blurry image, the figure was unmistakably a human child—smaller than the wooden planks nearby. The child reached toward the surface, but they were too weak to fight the storm’s fury, unable to even grasp the nearest lifebuoy.
"But he’s a human," the jellyfish said. "Merman, you’re getting too worked up. Maybe you were somewhere else."
The merman looked as if he was suffering from PTSD as his tail trembled slightly. The jellyfish gently soothed him with its psychic touch. "It’s okay. Everything’s in the past now."
The merman fell silent.
"Watching it again, that human still seems so pitiful." The jellyfish grew sad. It hated seeing lives lost to disaster, whether on land or in the sea. "I remember a little more now."
"I saw the tragedy and wanted to do something—anything I could. So I swam upward. I saw people sinking with their blood staining the water red. I used my psychic power to push one of them back up. I wanted to check if there were others inside the ship, but the storm was too strong. A wooden plank must have hit me—after that, my memories fade."
Tang You's voice grew quiet: "I wonder if the human I saved survived. The waves were so strong—even if I managed to push them up, it would have been hard for them to live."
"No," Shen Jixiao thought of himself.
So there were others in this world as fortunate as him, blessed enough to encounter a divine jellyfish that extended a helping hand in times of peril. His voice was unusually firm as he looked at the little jellyfish. "They must still be alive, and I’m certain they’re grateful to you."
"Just like... how I’m grateful to the one who saved me."
The mermaid poked the little jellyfish’s head. "You’re the best jellyfish I’ve ever met."
"Thank you, mermaid." The little jellyfish brightened. "We really are fated, aren’t we?"
"Mhm."
Shen Jixiao silently thought to himself: Once he reached the shore, he would definitely search for the survivor from back then—to see who had been lucky enough to be saved by this little jellyfish.
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