The Undersea Adventures of the Little Jellyfish (JELLYFISH)
"Of course, I've always been a jellyfish."
"Silly mermaid, big illiterate," the little jellyfish huffed. "Don't you know that we Turritopsis dohrnii can 'reverse aging' and achieve rebirth? Though it's not true rebirth—just reverting to a polyp state to survive harsh conditions. For me, it's more like deep sleep and recovery."
"I think you mentioned the polyp state before…"
"I remember." Shen Jixiao looked at the little jellyfish hesitantly. "But I don’t quite understand what you just said."
"Hmm?"
"Reversing aging… doesn’t that mean immortality?"
"Pseudo-immortality." Tang You said very seriously, "If I'm injured too severely, I'll die. If I'm left stranded on shore to bake in the sun, I'll die too. But under normal circumstances, I'll try my best to save myself... And each time I use my hydra form to survive difficult periods, the jellyfish that reemerges might not necessarily be the same 'me' as before."
The little jellyfish scratched his head: "Though I feel like I'm still me."
"..." Shen Jixiao was stunned by this marine biology revelation, "Your memories..."
"They're easily lost, so I have many pearls to help me recover them." Tang You smiled, "It's just part of my daily life. I only recently woke up from a long sleep—I've already forgotten when and why I last went dormant. Maybe it was because of a storm."
He spoke of life and death with no particular emotion and still wearing that faint smile.
His smile was too beautiful—the corners of his eyes curved up and his lips slightly dimpled, with a shallow little dimple on his right cheek. Shen Jixiao had never seen this face smile before. After everything that had happened over the past few days, the merman thought he'd become desensitized to this face, but no—his heart still raced at the sight of it.
"Let's go see if we can find something reflective to look at my face. The magic mirror won't do; it seems really unreliable." Tang You pondered seriously as he pulled the merman along to search for polished crystal. "Next time, just say what you mean directly."
"I also want to know why the magic mirror showed a human form."
Shen Jixiao repeated Sangluo's words.
"No idea." The little jellyfish shook his head. "But, merman, since you like him so much, he must have been a very, very good person. In that case, if he saw me badly injured, it's possible he really did save me and gave me his spiritual energy."
Shen Jixiao looked at the little jellyfish.
There was no chance the little jellyfish was deceiving him.
Perhaps the issue lay in those lost memories, but memories weren't something one could just recover on demand.
"I'm tired, merman. Carry me while you swim." Tang You stretched slightly, clinging to the merman's back and murmuring, "My spiritual energy hasn't fully recovered yet. Maintaining this transformation magic is exhausting..."
He did this very naturally—during their adventures over the past two weeks, he'd often rested like this while clinging to the merman. But now, the little jellyfish didn't realize he was in human form.
In the water, everything felt free. With his arms wrapped around the merman's waist and his cheek pressed against the merman's chest, he noticed the merman's odd reaction and lifted his head, his clear eyes filled with slight confusion. "Why did you stop moving?"
Shen Jixiao's tail stiffened—his usually soft and flexible tail was now rigid as a straight wooden rod, every bone tingling from the embrace.
He had once secretly mocked mermaids for being shallow creatures and overly obsessed with useless beauty. But now, seeing Tang You's cheek slightly squished against him, the soft flesh looking irresistibly pinchable, he couldn't help but stare. The little jellyfish still hadn't quite mastered clothing transformations, leaving many areas uncovered. Shen Jixiao could almost see the delicate curve of his shoulder blades as his gaze trailing down the spine to the faintly visible waist and hips.
The little jellyfish's expression was blank yet obedient. After voicing his question, he simply watched the merman's face, quietly waiting for an answer.
He felt as if hooked by a cat—or something equally heart-melting—directly snagging his heart, weaving into a net that tangled tighter and tighter.
Something within Shen Jixiao shattered. Crack, crack—he could almost hear the sound of the illusion breaking.
The figure in his memory was perfect, pure as moonlight, cool as crystal, utterly incapable of such soft, dependent gestures.
The illusion conjured by the little jellyfish was gradually overwriting his memories, yet Shen Jixiao couldn’t decide whether this was good or bad. Because even though he knew the moonlight he had yearned for over countless years was crumbling, he couldn’t tear his eyes away or firmly declare that such an illusion would never unsettle him.
He was despicable.
His heart twisted into knots, his spiritual energy in chaos.
If this continued, he would truly start harboring thoughts he shouldn’t.
Abruptly, Shen Jixiao pinched himself—so hard his arm immediately reddened.
"Ah!" The little jellyfish gasped. "Merman, why are you hurting yourself?"
"I deserve it," Shen Jixiao said, his gaze growing resolute and clear. "Let’s go find the mirror. If the mimicry magic is draining, don’t maintain it. There’s no need."
Tang You continued clinging to the merman with his spiritual energy.
Hitching a ride on the merman was still a joy. Though his form had changed, in reality, he remained a tiny jellyfish, hardly a burden.
Pressed against the merman, he could hear his heartbeat. The merman’s body temperature was constant—cool and soothing, a comfortable warmth.
"I think you want to see," Tang You said. "Every scale on your body says you want to. You’ve searched for this person for so long, waited eighteen years, haven’t you?"
"Yes, I want to see." Shen Jixiao’s gaze was as firm as if taking a sacred vow.
"Then what’s the harm in looking?" The little jellyfish didn’t understand human emotions or stubbornness. "Though it’s tiring, I can sustain the magic. You can look as long as you like. Memories fade—seeing more might strengthen them."
He gave a small yawn, which translated to his human form as narrowed eyes and a relaxed expression as he lazily nestled against the merman’s chest.
"This isn’t good," Shen Jixiao insisted... with great effort.
"What’s not good about it?" Tang You asked drowsily. "...Ah, right. The person I’m mimicking must not be very good. I can’t even conjure clothes. I’ve heard humans on land make all sorts of beautiful garments, sometimes admiring others’ clothes the way mermaids admire each other’s scales. I’ve always thought clothes were magical—scales can’t be changed daily, but clothes can. Pity I’ve never had the chance to learn... I didn’t mimic well enough, did I?"
He lifted his head slightly, lips pursed and cheeks puffing in a childish pout—an expression that would have been a severe breach of character for the figure in Shen Jixiao’s fantasies. Yet, unexpectedly, it wasn’t unpleasant. At the very least, the merman felt no trace of disgust.
"You’re fine," Shen Jixiao said, his resolve crumbling like snow. He surrendered. "It’s me who’s not."
"You’re fine too... What’s not fine about you?"
The merman stammered, "It’s me who’s not."
He was wicked. He deserved to be dried into fish jerky. He had indulged in too many substitutes.
"Very well." The little jellyfish finally couldn't resist reaching out a tentacle to touch Shen Jixiao's forehead. "Sangluo, Sangluo! What's the normal body temperature for you mermaids? I think he might have a fever!"
"..."
...
Shen Jixiao's mermaid joke had ultimately been discovered by Sangluo and the others.
Both the mermaid and the sirens cast him subtle glances.
Adult merman Sangluo: "I knew it... You're so interested in the magic of becoming human—are you trying to follow the legends and go ashore to find your white moonlight? Wake up, man, white moonlight is just a myth!"
Adult siren Sang Li: "Humans? What's so great about them? Their legs split in two, they can't swim, and their singing is awful."
Bro, your taste is weird.jpg
Shen Jixiao: "..."
Only Sang Guo, innocent and naive, nestled between her two older brothers, bared her shark teeth: "Ah..." She wanted to hear mermaid jokes.
Sangluo wiped her face, his gaze tender: "A'Guo, be good. Don’t fall in love or get infatuated in the future—it’ll make you stupid. You’re already a little dummy."
Sang Guo shook her head fiercely: She was only interested in food.
Shen Jixiao: "..."
First of all, his white moonlight had sunk into the sea. He wasn’t trying to go ashore to find them—he had come into the sea to look for them.
Nor did he harbor romantic feelings for his white moonlight. He was just deeply grateful, treating them as a spiritual pillar. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t find them—he had long accepted reality and would absolutely not be heartbroken.
He definitely wouldn’t turn into sea foam.
At worst...
He’d get speared and turned into dried fish.
While the merman and siren took turns lecturing Shen Jixiao, the little jellyfish was busy studying the magic and curses of the siren race.
This crumbling hall was inscribed with countless spells he had never seen before, and with the sirens’ permission, he was now recording them onto pearls.
Even though he knew that after one long sleep, he might forget every spell he had ever learned in this lifetime, the future was the future, and the present was the present.
He loved magic.
He loved the process of learning it, loved seeing its varied structures.
Some of the stone walls bore records beyond just spells. He discovered that sirens weren’t as cruel as he had imagined—they were purely carnivorous and emotionally detached, yet they still formed communities and families, hunting cooperatively.
Tang You wouldn’t oppose hunting.
Occasionally, he would protect a few friends from predators. But predators were living beings too—this was simply the way of the ocean, where big fish ate little fish. He couldn’t let excessive sympathy for one species prevent another from hunting, or he’d only doom the predators’ kind.
He had the power to stop it, so he absolutely must not.
He used to dislike sirens because their hunting clearly violated the principle of survival—they would slaughter en masse and endlessly luring other creatures to their deaths.
That perception lasted until now.
Tang You realized that long ago, the siren race might have been simply carnivorous. But at some point, they could no longer be satisfied by meat alone. Their diet narrowed, requiring them to prey on more "advanced" species with greater spiritual energy. And if they went too long without feeding, they would go mad, even devouring their own kin.
This phenomenon was strange. True, some fish would only eat specific foods, and biological instincts could include suffering if certain actions weren’t taken—like mating. But in the process of food selection, there was rarely a pain penalty, because hunger itself was already suffering enough.
So the sirens’ condition was abnormal, as if they had been cursed.
After reading most of the records in the hall, he grew tired and slowly swam over to where the mermen were.
A semi-transparent strawberry gummy descended onto Shen Jixiao’s head and peacefully settled in.
"I have some magic I want to learn, but I couldn’t find any records on it."
Sangluo: "Tell me, maybe I know."
"A magic that turns one into a human—not just mimicry, but a real structural transformation," said the little jellyfish.
"..." Sangluo gave him a strange look. "You’re not about to become a jellyfish joke, are you?"
"Of course not." Only mermaids could become mermaid jokes. "I want to study the existing magic for turning into humans, see if it jogs my memory. Maybe I’ll remember if I’ve used it before."
"Shen Jixiao, am I not brilliant?"
The little jellyfish perked up while waving its tentacles, transforming into a proud jellyfish candy and bobbing up and down in front of Shen Jixiao. Having seen too much of the sirens' magic, his mind was filled with musical scores, and he unconsciously began humming, "Mermaids are big idiots, big idiots..."
"Hey," the little jellyfish suddenly noticed Shen Jixiao’s gaze shifting slightly, his sapphire eyes full of evasion. "What’s wrong? You didn’t want to look at my human mimicry, and now you won’t even look at me as a jellyfish. I was just singing casually, no charm magic involved..."
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