The Undersea Adventures of the Little Jellyfish (JELLYFISH)
"Clothes." Shen Jixiao leaned against the stone wall, neither approaching nor able to pull away. "The clothes are wrong."
Tang You lowered his head, but from this angle, all he could see was a haphazardly transformed piece of gauze wrapped around himself. Though he had seen many humans, they were mostly coastal fishermen whose clothing was simple and often just a few pieces of rough cloth. In the end, he didn’t understand the common attire of those on land.
Shen Jixiao had been ashore for so long—he must know a lot about human clothing.
He reached out his hand: “Then teach me.”
Shen Jixiao: “…”
This gesture of reaching out, he had seen it so many times in his dreams and imagined it countless times. But when he actually saw it, he never expected it to be in such a scenario.
Was this acting spoiled? He wondered. Probably not.
Sea creatures seemed to prefer being straightforward—showing kindness directly and asking for help without hesitation. The little jellyfish was just doing something perfectly normal. The only abnormal one here was him.
He couldn’t teach a single thing.
“Change back,” he said, but his gaze remained fixed on the youth the little jellyfish had transformed into, unable to look away.
He noticed that the young man the little jellyfish had conjured was actually somewhat different from what he had imagined. His memories, separated by so many years and distorted by countless dreams, had long become illusory.
The few times he had seen it before were either in illusions or mirror reflections, all tinged with a sense of unreality. The form the little jellyfish had taken now was clearer, more pristine—so much so that he could almost see every delicate eyelash resting on those translucent pink eyes.
His irises were a soft, warm pink, unique, like tiny transparent pebbles polished by the tides countless times until their edges smoothed away, glistening with a hint of moisture.
When he spoke or moved, his expressions were lively and his eyes shifted with his actions, even carrying a faint trace of expectation.
Not here to save him, but hoping he could help solve the clothing problem.
Too real.
He could even see more—the slender, pale nape exposed when he lowered his head and the hollow of his collarbone.
Memories were outdated. As a child, he had thought the youth was tall, forever out of reach. But now, looking at the illusion the little jellyfish had conjured, he realized it wasn’t so unattainable after all—even a little shorter than him.
“Shen Jixiao, stop spacing out.”
Unconsciously, the little jellyfish had already moved right in front of him.
That face grew larger and larger until their noses were almost touching. Only then did the little jellyfish dispel the magic, reverting to its adorable jellyfish form and poking his forehead with a tentacle: “Do you want to try transforming too?”
“Mm.”
Only after answering did Shen Jixiao realize he hadn’t intended to use this spell at all. He had no interest in shapeshifting into a human—he already was one.
His brain had short-circuited just now. Whatever the little jellyfish said, he would have agreed.
But since he’d already promised, it would be awkward to refuse now. Shen Jixiao watched the spell demonstration, studying an advanced magic for the first time with such diligence—though his learning speed was the slowest.
Then, when he tried to cast it, he remembered it required an incantation.
Sangluo had just chanted it, but his mind must have been in outer space—he hadn’t heard a single word.
Shen Jixiao: “I…”
The expectant gazes of the little jellyfish and the black-scaled merman.
“…” His scalp prickled. “Little jellyfish, can you teach me the modified spell you just used?”
“Of course!”
The little jellyfish then demonstrated the mana composition.
Shen Jixiao watched but he still didn’t understand.
The mermaid's eyes were empty, devoid of anything.
Knowledge entered through the left ear and exited through the right, taking with it what little reason remained.
The magic was already profound to begin with, but after the little jellyfish altered it, it became even more challenging.
If the magical circuit for a simple illumination spell required only a few strokes, then the shapeshifting magic needed over seven hundred, and a shapeshifting spell without incantation reached the thousands in complexity.
And all had to be completed within mere seconds.
This was why higher-level mages possessed stronger mental fortitude—without an immense reserve of spiritual power, such intricate magical calculations would be impossible.
To be fair, he thought it was already quite impressive that he could grasp the basics of ordinary shapeshifting magic within ten minutes…
Shen Jixiao gritted his teeth and sang a couple of lines, stumbling through the original version of the shapeshifting spell.
Before the magic was even complete, the little jellyfish and the black-scaled mermaid exchanged a glance, communicating through their private mental link. As if they had reached some unspoken agreement, the moment Shen Jixiao finished transforming, one clapped while the other praised, "Amazing, amazing! You turned into something very human-like too."
"Yes, very impressive. You did better than me."
Shen Jixiao: "…"
If his human form didn’t look human after twenty-some years of living, then his entire existence would have been wasted. But more than that, he was concerned about something else—how had his singing sounded just now?
The little jellyfish had no ears, so it was hard to tell, and Sangluo played along well, but did they really think he couldn’t see the nearby siren covering its ears? Shen Jixiao had already made peace with it.
As a fake mermaid, it was perfectly normal to be bad at magic, weak in spiritual power, a poor swimmer, and a terrible singer.
What wasn’t normal was that the ocean floor was teeming with prodigies of mental power.
"Turning into a human isn’t that interesting," said the only actual human. "Little jellyfish, are you free now?"
…
Shen Jixiao calmed down.
Being around the little jellyfish always had a way of grounding him, one way or another.
Speculating blindly would never yield answers—might as well just ask directly.
"What impression do you have of the person in the mirror?" Though the thought was pleasant, the moment the topic returned, Shen Jixiao's mood grew heavy again.
"I don’t know," the little jellyfish answered honestly. "He seemed kind of familiar, but I don’t have any memory of him."
Shen Jixiao had expected this response. He had interrogated many prisoners before, and it was easy to tell whether the jellyfish was lying.
Every reaction from Tang You proved that he was completely unfamiliar with that person’s appearance.
Speaking of which…
"Why are you called Tang You?"
"It feels like I should have this name," the little jellyfish waved its tentacles. "A memory engraved into my spiritual energy—I don’t remember who gave it to me. You know, I don’t even know how long I’ve lived. Sometimes I only recall things when others mention them."
"That sounds like a human name," Shen Jixiao said. "And it follows the naming style of the southeastern coastal regions."
"Huh?" The little jellyfish genuinely had no knowledge of human customs on land.
"I told you before—the largest kingdom on the continent split into four parts."
"Yeah, I remember."
"It wasn’t an even division. The eastern and southern coasts had more plains and were more prosperous, but also smaller in area." Shen Jixiao drew a rough map on the ground. "The Enqi Kingdom lasted for four hundred years. Four centuries ago, the south eastern region was once its own kingdom, while the north western parts belonged to another. Though Enqi eventually conquered them all, some traditions and noble lineages persisted to this day."
"Like… a friend’s family," Shen Jixiao paused briefly. "They’ve been nobility for generations, with a family tree as thick as a book."
"Oh…" The little jellyfish began to understand. "Families—are they similar to mermaids settlements?"
"Yes. Except families are only bound by blood. See, all mermaids in a settlement share the settlement’s name as their surname, and family members take pride in their own surnames." Shen Jixiao tapped the map he had drawn. "In this regard, the customs differ. The southeast prefers placing the surname before the given name, like ours, while the northwest puts the surname after, like the mermaids."
"The unification only happened in the last four hundred years. Before that, there was little interaction between the two."
The little jellyfish thought for a moment. "We rarely give ourselves names. Even if we do, we don’t have surnames—you know, only a few species maintain family ties. Most of my friends only have given names. Occasionally, some like the mermaids attach their settlement name as a surname, but no one actually calls them by it."
The little jellyfish’s name stood out starkly among all other creatures.
"Maybe someone gave me this name," the jellyfish scratched its head. "But I don’t remember."
So if the name "Tang You" existed four hundred years ago, it must have been connected to humans from the southeastern region. If it appeared after the unification, then its origin was less certain.
"What’s wrong? Why are you suddenly curious about this?"
"The illusion you saw in the mirror," Shen Jixiao exhaled slowly. "That’s the person I’ve been searching for."
"Eh?"
The little jellyfish jolted in surprise. "No wonder… you acted so strangely. Why didn’t you say so earlier?"
Shen Jixiao raised his eyes, then lowered them again.
He couldn't do it—couldn't speak his mind as freely as sea creatures did.
Overthinking and under-speaking were the fate of humans, a habit too deeply ingrained to change overnight.
"But I really have no memory of this," the little jellyfish scratched its head. "I'm a Turritopsis dohrnii. In my past life, I was a jellyfish, and the life before that, I was also a jellyfish. I've been a jellyfish for a very long time."
TL Note: Turritopsis dohrnii, commonly known as the immortal jellyfish, is a small jellyfish species found worldwide in temperate to tropic waters. It is known for its ability to revert to a sexually immature, colonial stage after reaching sexual maturity, a process called transdifferentiation.
"I know…"
This was precisely what tormented Shen Jixiao.
The traces of the little jellyfish's existence were too real. Setting aside the thousand-year spiritual energy Sangluo had mentioned, the records in the mermaid clan's rules and the words of Grandma Clam were enough to prove that the little jellyfish had lived for an exceptionally long time.
"Do you truly have no memories at all?"
"None."
"Have you ever been interested in humans?" Shen Jixiao pressed further.
"Hmm? What kind of interest do you mean?" the little jellyfish replied. "I've always been somewhat interested in humans—or rather, in land animals in general."
Encouraged by the little jellyfish's openness, Shen Jixiao dared to ask bluntly, "Is there any possibility that, eighteen years ago, you became curious about humans and took on a human form? You were near the Tarlik back then, weren't you?"
"No memory of that… Transforming into a human would definitely require magic. The only magic I remember is recording memories. I don't recall anything else—not even the illumination spell, which you had to teach me."
The little jellyfish paused for a moment, then used the newly learned mimicry magic to assume a human form.
It swam over. "Come on, let's go look in the mirror. I'll memorize this face—maybe it'll help you find a clue later."
With its spiritual energy, it grasped Shen Jixiao's wrist—something it had done several times before. But this time, it was controlling an illusion, so in Shen Jixiao's eyes, it appeared as though the other had reached out and taken his hand.
"I'll help you," the young man with pale hair turned his head. His expression was earnest and his beautiful, rounded eyes seemed to hold Shen Jixiao alone in their gaze.
Shen Jixiao abruptly pulled his hand away and was unable to utter a single word for a long moment.
Seeing that face, his heart was in turmoil.
"…"
His heart pounded violently and blood roared in his ears. He could barely control his tail, and his mind raced through every event of his life just to forget the sensation of that fleeting touch.
It wasn't confirmed. He couldn't substitute, couldn't let his thoughts wander.
"…" Lost in thought, he suddenly noticed a detail. "'Past life… the life before that was also a jellyfish'—how can you be sure your past life was a jellyfish?"
Was it just an exaggeration, a joke?
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