The Undersea Adventures of the Little Jellyfish (JELLYFISH)
The mermaid cradled the pearl, turning it over and over in his hands.
Tang You sighed.
At this rate, he was sure the mermaid would memorize every fragment of the pearl’s story.
But he truly didn’t remember such an event happening. Tang You mused.
So his long slumber this time had been caused by being struck by ship debris, compounded by his depleted mental energy, forcing him to find a place to recuperate. His recovery was practically equivalent to deep sleep—who would have thought he’d sleep for eighteen years?
He felt a little wistful.
Suddenly, a shadow loomed over him from behind.
"Um..." The young moray eel bared its sharp teeth, its fierce appearance clashing with its soft, hesitant voice. "My father left one more thing to say."
Tang You nodded. "I understand. Shen Jixiao, I’ll follow the eel for a bit."
Moray eels didn’t have burial customs, and familial bonds were thin—or rather, most sea creatures were like this. Only certain fish, like clownfish, lived in groups and cared for their young. But this young eel had deliberately gathered its father’s bones, piling them in its narrow cave.
"I came too late."
"No... My father would have just been glad you’re alive." The eel said bluntly, "I’ve always found these bones and pearls a nuisance. Now I can finally get rid of them."
Its words were harsh, but over all these years, it had never actually cleared them away.
Tang You brushed away the sand.
"Jellyfish." As he was about to leave, the eel poked its head out, as if hesitating for a long time before mustering the courage to ask, "Have you been alive for twenty years?" Unlike the clueless mermaid, the eel knew that small jellyfish like him usually didn’t live long.
"Yes." The little jellyfish paused. "If what you mean is 'alive,' then twenty years ago, I was alive, and now, I am alive."
The eel didn’t understand.
"Anyway, thank you." The little jellyfish waved a tentacle. "Maybe I’ll come back someday."
Tang You found the mermaid again.
"Mermaid, where do you plan to go next? We’ve already searched all the pearls here." The little jellyfish eagerly promoted the coral reef. "If you don’t want to live in the mermaid settlement, you could stay here in the reef. There’s plenty of food, and it’s lively—though it’s closer to the shallows, so it can get a bit noisy sometimes."
Shen Jixiao had no intention of staying in the ocean long-term. He shook his head. "I haven’t decided yet."
"Then I'll tell you the location of the mermaid settlements." Tang You drew in the sand. "Mermaids have many settlements, each with different customs. If one rejects you, don't be disheartened. When they feel their population is saturated, they rarely take in outsiders."
"Settlements are like villages for mermaids, usually located in deeper, quieter parts of the sea. Ah, mermaids do have royalty, but it's not a forced rule. I heard the royal family is called that because of some special talent. There's only one mermaid palace in the world, located here..."
Shen Jixiao quietly watched for a moment. "What about you?"
"Me?" Tang You used his psychic energy to draw a wavy line, almost tracing an irregular semicircle along the coast. "This is the route I plan to take."
"Why not go straight? Wouldn't a direct line be faster to reach this place?" Shen Jixiao drew a straight line.
"Because you have to ride the ocean currents..." The little jellyfish tapped the mermaid's head. "Silly mermaid, traveling with the currents means more food, faster speed, and warmer waters. The line you drew would go against the current—it'd be exhausting."
"I see."
"I'm almost worried about leaving you alone here." The little jellyfish pondered. "You seem completely clueless about undersea life. What if you can't find a mermaid settlement? Would you starve?"
The mermaid: "...I won't starve."
"Alright then, let me test you—which one is poisonous?" The little jellyfish held up two shells.
A golden conch and a white shell.
Based on land-dwelling experience, the plain and unadorned ones were usually edible. So Shen Jixiao immediately chose the white one.
"It's poisonous. This one can numb your tongue."
Shen Jixiao picked the golden one instead.
"This one will stop your heart."
Both were toxic.
"..."
"Stupid merman."
Tang You was still trying to teach Shen Jixiao how to distinguish edible from inedible when a sudden call came from behind.
"Little jellyfish!" It was the tiny blue shrimp from the earlier shrimp-and-crab duo. "Crabby got tangled in seaweed—can you help?"
The shrimp eyed the merman warily.
"Sure," the little jellyfish agreed before telling the merman to stay put while he went to assist.
But no sooner had he freed the crab from the seaweed than a panicked cry rang out from above:
"There's a human coming down!"
At the pufferfish’s alarm, the creatures near the coral reef scattered in an instant.
"Eeeeeeek!" The coral polyps were the first to react. Timid by nature, they retracted into their holes at the slightest disturbance. The once-fluffy, swaying corals hardened into rigid reefs in the blink of an eye, playing dead with impressive speed.
Next were the shellfish and burrowing fish—some retracted their tentacles to mimic rocks, others fled home for safety. The flatfish simply flopped onto the sand, burying itself so thoroughly that no one could spot it.
"What's going on?" the little jellyfish asked the anemone curled up beside him.
"Humans are here again," the anemone whispered as it peeked out a single tentacle. "You're cute—be careful not to get scooped up."
Humans diving here? This area was close to the shallows, but the depth was already beyond what an ordinary person could handle. Without magic, it was nearly impossible to dive this deep. Could it be a mage?
The little jellyfish strained his memory. Many years ago, no humans had ever visited these waters.
He looked up and, sure enough, spotted a small boat above. Someone had already begun descending.
Contrary to Tang You’s expectations of a dignified, well-groomed mage, the human diving down clung to a large rock.
A thick rope was tied around his waist, and a large pouch hung at his side. His eyes were tightly shut. The person appeared to be male, with his upper body bare.
At a glance, Tang You thought the human looked pitifully thin—no fat to speak of, just lean muscle stretched over bone and his skin sunburned a dark red.
There was no trace of magic, nor any other equipment. He had sunk purely by holding his breath and gripping the rock.
Wouldn’t he drown like this?
The little jellyfish glanced toward the merman’s location, a fair distance from where the human was descending. He didn’t want the human to spot the merman—some humans were all too eager to capture mermaids.
As for himself, his small, translucent body blended in beside the coral. Even if the human searched deliberately, he might not be noticed.
But this human had no protective gear at all. Was he planning to open his eyes underwater?
The little jellyfish waved a tentacle in puzzlement. As a land creature, humans’ eyes usually couldn’t handle the sting of seawater, and their vision underwater was far from clear.
The human had sunk to the seabed. He set down the stone and opened his eyes.
Tang You saw a small silver knife in his hand. Clinging to the coral reef, he deftly pried shells from the crevices into his net—his practiced movements suggested he had done this many times before.
“Does he come often?”
“I don’t know if it’s the same person,” the sea anemone replied.
Just as humans usually couldn’t tell one fish from another, sea anemones couldn’t distinguish between humans either. “Lately, humans have been coming down frequently, probably to gather shells or something.”
“For pearls?”
“Ah, yes, pearls.”
But the little jellyfish remembered Grandma Clam saying that the nearby red-striped scallops had collectively relocated. Those shells were the main producers of pearls—the very reason he had buried so many pearls here in the past. Now, the coral reefs were unlikely to yield many pearl-rich shells.
Pearl divers—apparently a type of fisherman who made their living by the sea on land.
He didn’t know much about the surface world.
A few minutes later, the human seemed to reach his breath-holding limit. He tugged hard on the rope, and the people on the boat began hauling him up. His net held a few shells, some sea urchins, and what looked like two sea cucumbers.
Sea urchins and sea cucumbers were among the most common creatures on the seabed. Few fish had a taste for them, but humans seemed quite fond.
The little jellyfish rested for a moment and was about to move on, when another pearl diver jumped from the boat.
This time, it was just a half-grown boy.
Gaunt and bony.
“I heard there’s a war on land,” came Grandma Clam’s voice. “Many have died. I don’t know what war is, but humans rarely ventured here before. Maybe it’s like a famine?”
Though the sea was bountiful, bad luck or shifting currents could still bring times of scarcity.
Tang You recalled something Shen Jixiao had mentioned—something about war, nobles, and peasants that he hadn’t fully understood. He’d said the daily expenses of nobles equaled a common farmer’s yearly income. Thinking about it, even after a month of pearl diving, one might not find a single good pearl, yet noblewomen’s lavish necklaces were strung with dozens.
The boy was clearly less skilled than the first diver, clumsily scraping shells off the rocks and nearly getting his leg stuck in a crevice. The more he panicked, the less he managed to gather, and soon he was running out of breath, bubbles streaming from his mouth.
Tang You still had some pearls on him.
Not the memory-imbued ones, but the finest pearls from Tarlik.
As the boy frantically tugged his rope, Tang You quietly shifted the rock trapping his leg and discreetly opened his net, releasing the small creatures inside. Finally, as compensation, he slipped in a single pearl—one that should be enough to help the human trade for some necessities.
“Don’t come back to this reef,” he transmitted through telepathy. The mental link could also project images, but he doubted his jellyfish form would be intimidating. Inspiration struck—he took on the guise of a merman.
So the terrified boy suddenly heard a voice and glimpsed a phantom—a blue-scaled merman standing before him, stern as a sea god: “Leave this place.”
“!!!” He nearly fainted from fright.
When the boy was finally hauled onto the boat, he gasped for air as the net overturned on the deck. Panicked, he tugged at the adult's clothes: "Dad!"
"What's wrong? Didn't you catch anything?"
"Huh?" The boy distinctly remembered grabbing a few crabs and abalones. "Never mind that, Dad! The Sea God has appeared! He—He must have let everything in my net go!"
He grabbed the net and shook it out.
A massive pearl rolled onto the deck, and everyone on the boat widened their eyes in shock.
"Leave this place—"
At that moment, everyone heard the voice.
"The Sea God has appeared!"
...
"Little jellyfish, what are you doing?"
Tang You was startled by the mermaid's voice.
"Ahem," the little jellyfish, who had just used the mermaid's image to deceive humans into staying away from the coral reefs, felt a bit guilty. "I was just wondering... what the land is like."
Why is it that among humans, some have to work for others?
Shen Jixiao paused. "You... want to go to the land? If you want to see it, I can help you."
The little jellyfish sized Shen Jixiao up. "Silly mermaid, you can't even take care of yourself underwater. You'd be even worse on land. I don't believe you."
Shen Jixiao opened his mouth but hesitated.
"Mermaid."
The little jellyfish suddenly stopped swimming. Shen Jixiao reached out, and the jellyfish settled into his palm, its cool, tiny tentacles resting against the warmth of his hand. It was so small that the mermaid barely dared to move, afraid of crushing it.
Tang You placed a pearl in the mermaid's palm. "This is a gift for you."
A pearl imbued with magic.
Shen Jixiao instinctively channeled his magic into it and saw a memory stored inside—images of him and the little jellyfish. They swam through the ocean, gazed at the stars by the shore, explored sunken ships in the depths, fled in panic together, rested by the seaweed, and listened to stories beside Grandma Clam in the coral reefs. Finally, there was a pink transparent stone placed next to the little jellyfish—one soft candy, one hard candy.
"I've been preparing this for a long time." Tang You stroked the pearl. The finest pearl he had found on the boat was, of course, meant for his best friend. "Shen Jixiao, do you like it?"
The mermaid's sapphire-blue eyes shimmered with light, like precious gems. After a long pause, he murmured softly, "Mm. I like it very much."
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
The completed novel is now available in my Ko-fi page.
If you appreciate what I do, please consider supporting me on kofi. Thank you!
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•