Chapter 76
“Are there any NPCs in the room?” Luo Jia Bai looked up. “There’s only a single grand piano here.”
Mirella crouched down, reaching out to touch the floor, tilting her head to listen to the sound of the piano.
After a moment, she said, “There’s no one in the room.”
The walls on all four sides were pitch black.
There was no door either.
How were they supposed to clear this stage?
Lu Li checked his Item progress. “Each card grants 0.2 progress. We still need 0.4, so there must be at least one more card in this room.”
Luo Jia Bai was surprised. “You’ve already found three?”
Lu Li nodded, taking out two cards from his Wristband for them to see, then pulled out the third card he had just acquired.
This card was longer than the previous two.
On the front was a painting again.
This time, it showed a massive mirror.
In the mirror, the long-haired man had turned around – he was finally facing forward, no longer just his back but his full face.
His features were handsome, his eyes deep, and his long hair, a deep ocean blue, cascaded down like a waterfall, each strand rendered in striking detail.
This painting looked even more like a true work of art.
What kind of deep emotion did the artist hold for the Sea Demon, to paint so carefully, stroke by stroke?
Inside the mirror, the Sea Demon leaned forward, holding out an open shell with both hands to someone outside the painting. A Pearl Ring lay quietly in the shell.
On the inside of the shell’s lid, a line of unfamiliar text was carved with a stone.
The artist had drawn an arrow from this line to a blank space and added a simple note:
Sea Demon Language: “Please become my lover.”
Luo Jia Bai and Mirella looked at the paintings on the first two cards and praised appreciatively. “The artwork is beautiful – and a composer too. The card’s owner is a natural-born artist.”
Mirella gazed at the cards through her blindfold.
Suddenly, she reached out, trailing her fingers across the two paintings, and fell into deep thought. “This feels so familiar. I think I’ve touched similar artwork somewhere before.”
Where had she touched it?
Since entering the Instance, where else had paintings appeared?
Lu Li flipped the third card over; it was longer because there was more writing on the back:
We began meeting more and more often. It’s hard to describe the feeling – I think I see him as more than a friend. I begged my Adoptive Father to buy me a Small Mirror so I could carry it with me. Before every meeting, I would check my reflection: Is my hair messy today? Do my clothes look nice? The villagers and my Adoptive Father always say I look good, but compared to him, I feel like I’m not even a tenth as attractive.
With his Coming-of-Age Ceremony approaching, he became busier. Sometimes I had to wait by the sea for a long time to see him. I’d lean against the rock where we first met and watch the Moon. I don’t remember how long I waited each time, only that the waiting felt long.
But because I knew he would come, I started to like the feeling of waiting.
Today, I attended his Coming-of-Age Ceremony. The ceremony was simple, just us and the Moon. Afterward, he shed a thin, transparent, shimmering layer from his body, like a piece of clothing. I hadn’t even seen it clearly before he hid it shyly, telling me it was the skin they shed when a young Sea Demon becomes an adult.
He gave me another shell and asked me to open it in front of him.
Inside was a ring.
He proposed to me. Should I accept? Is this just a fleeting whim?
Does he love me because I can play these pieces? After all, that’s how we met in the first place.
When it comes to marriage, I don’t think I’m ready yet. Love should come first, then marriage. But do I love you?
How can I know how much I love you? If only there were a way to measure love.
Luo Jia Bai finished reading, and after a moment of silence, said, “It mentions the Adoptive Father… Maybe the card’s owner is the Hunter’s child? Mrs. Qiao said before that she had taken in a Hunter and the child he adopted.”
“Yes.” Lu Li put away all the cards and looked toward the piano. “The story of the human and the Sea Demon still isn’t complete.”
He circled the piano, then started climbing up from the piano bench. “There’s a small bump between the keys – there’s a card inside. Come up here.”
The three of them stood on the piano bench and finally got a clear look at the enormous piano.
The keys moved on their own, pressing down and rebounding.
Sure enough, a card was wedged between two white keys in the middle.
Lu Li pulled out the card.
On the front were countless sketches of Sea Demons – half-bodies, faces, heads from every angle, with many mysterious little dots scattered across the paper.
“What does this dot mean?”
Lu Li used one finger to mimic a pen, pausing on the card. “When you draw and think at the same time, the tip of the pen might linger on the paper for a long time, and sometimes a dot like this appears.”
The writing on the back had been altered, with the last line changed the most.
[My home is very small. I don’t have my own room, nor did I hide the shells and the ring well; my Adoptive Father found them.]
[He held a notice he picked up from the Rich District beyond the high wall, loudly proclaiming the value of this Pearl. He hugged me excitedly, wanting to pry the Pearl off the ring, saying he would take me away from this impoverished village and make us rich.]
[I knelt and begged him to return the ring, but he wouldn’t listen. I tried to snatch it back, but he was too strong, beating me like a madman and locking me in the garden at night to reflect. I wanted to climb the fence and go to the sea to meet the Sea Demon, but I fell and hurt my leg.]
[My Adoptive Father took the Pearl and forced me into the Rich District. Because of my injured leg, I missed a meeting with the Sea Demon, but fortunately, there was also a sea in the Rich District, and I could still go to the shore. This time, the Sea Demon waited for me. I felt guilty and anxious. I didn’t dare tell him that the precious ring had become a ticket to wealth.]
[A wealthy couple took in me and my Adoptive Father. Everything in the Rich District overturned my eighteen years of understanding of the world: mattresses could be as soft as cotton, gold coins could fill an entire house, and leftover food could simply be thrown away. My Adoptive Father changed too; he wore expensive suits and wouldn’t touch his food until the Maid had picked out every fish bone.]
[I could never fall asleep. More than once, I regretted not hiding the ring better; if I had, things wouldn’t be like this now. I don’t like life here. I want to leave.]
Lu Li brought the card closer, carefully deciphering the words that had been crossed out. They were:
[I don’t have that ring anymore. Am I still qualified to marry him?]
[I didn’t tell him the ring would never come back. Am I deceiving him?]
[I am a human. If I abandon everything and live with the Sea Demon, what will the future be like?]
[If the Sea Demon leaves the sea and lives with me in human society, will my Adoptive Father and those around us accept us?]
All four sentences were crossed out, leaving only one:
[I accepted the Sea Demon’s proposal.]
The piano keys were played rapidly, the sound growing louder, and from outside the room came Mrs. Qiao’s hysterical scream:
“Playing the piano again! I said it’s driving me crazy!”
“Damn it! This child is too beautiful. Always playing the piano at dusk-are you trying to seduce my husband? Whenever he hears the piano, Qiao’s eyes stop looking at me. He’s told me more than once how young and lovely that child is!”
“My own child is about to be born. I won’t allow anyone to ruin my perfect marriage!”
“Her voice is so shrill.” Luo Jia Bai frowned, covering his ears, suddenly feeling a layer of dust settle on the back of his hand.
He looked down and saw a thick layer of wall dust. Looking up at the ceiling, he exclaimed in shock, “The wall is cracking. Is the room about to collapse?”
Two beams of Moonlight shone through the cracks, landing directly on two piano keys.
A booklet sat on the music stand. As the Moonlight swept over it, its pages fluttered open to a certain page.
The piano music stopped.
Lu Li leaned on the keys to look at the booklet on the stand.
There were only two pages left.
The piece hadn’t been finished, but it was about to end.
“Bang, bang, bang-!”
Outside the wall, besides Mrs. Qiao’s cursing, the sound of approaching high heels grew louder.
Mrs. Qiao said, “I’m coming to deal with you!”
“Why did the piano stop?” Luo Jia Bai anxiously searched around. “The exit, where’s the exit?”
Suddenly, a crisp piano note sounded behind them.
Mirella looked up at Lu Li.
She saw Lu Li’s hand pressing exactly on the key illuminated by Moonlight. As the note rang out, the Moonlight shifted, lighting up another key that had been in darkness.
Mirella asked, “Do we have to play it ourselves?”
Lu Li glanced at his hand, pondering. “The piano is too long. Let’s stand apart and finish this piece together.”
Mrs. Qiao’s footsteps drew closer and closer. The roof split with a thunderous roar, bricks began to fall, and the floor started to shake.
The three of them ran back and forth along the piano keys, barely keeping up with the shifting Moonlight.
Luo Jia Bai was gasping for breath. He wiped away the sweat that had trickled into his eyes, carefully watching every shifting beam of Moonlight. Whenever his strength failed and he wanted to stop and rest, he would glance at Lu Li and Mirella out of the corner of his eye.
He forced himself not to get distracted, bracing himself against the piano and kept running.
Faster.
He had to go faster.
“Finally climbed up here! Where’s the Maid? Can’t she come help me up!” The more exhausted Mrs. Qiao became, the louder her voice grew, as if she were shouting right in their ears.
Mirella pressed a piano key.
The Moonlight changed from two beams to one.
Lu Li pressed another key.
The last beam of Moonlight vanished.
The booklet flipped to the next page.
The piece was finally finished.
The fracturing of the room stopped, and Mrs. Qiao’s voice disappeared.
Time rewound to before everything was destroyed.
Luo Jia Bai knelt on the ground, panting, “It’s over. Finally…”
With a resounding bang, the piano lid slammed shut.
The booklet on the music stand was knocked down.
It flipped to the next page again.
Revealing four square-shaped slots.
Two were short, two were long.
“Four? They look like the shapes of the four Item cards we got before.” Luo Jia Bai stood up, supporting himself on the piano, and suddenly felt something sticky. He looked at his palm, shocked. “This piano… is bleeding!”
Blood was flowing out from the gaps in the piano, staining the open booklet.
Lu Li immediately took out the four cards and placed them into the slots in order.
Each card fit perfectly.
The moment the slots were filled, the booklet, already at its end, flipped to one last page.
On this page, a single card was embedded.
The card gleamed brilliantly.
The red glow from the image reflected on the three faces.
The picture showed not only a vast expanse of Red Coral.
The Red Coral was even arranged into the shape of a beautiful house.
Lu Li reached out, took the card from the booklet, and turned it over to read the words on the back.
[I grew up by the sea, but I have never entered the ocean. Only now do I realize there are so many beautiful Fish Swarms, so many plants and shells underwater. Even Sea Demons need a home. He brought me into the sea to show me the Red Coral house he built. The color of the Red Coral is so passionate, like flames burning in the blue ocean.]
[I held his hand, and I could even understand what the passing Fish Swarm was saying. They said: The deeper the Sea Demon’s love, the redder the coral becomes.]
[His love now had a standard by which to be measured.]
[The seawater flowing past him became clearer and deeper blue; the Pearls he touched glowed in the water; the passing jellyfish bowed to him. It turned out he was the Sea Demon Prince.]
[After staying among the wealthy for so long, I almost forgot that I once lived in the Poor Village.]
[He broke off a corner of the Coral house and gave it to me. I wanted to refuse, but he said this home belonged to me too. When he sent me away from the sea, he told me he would be busy for a while, preparing for our wedding. When the next full Moon comes, we will hold our wedding under the witness of the Moon.]
[I took the Red Coral back to my home in the Rich District. The wealthy couple were obsessed with cleanliness, especially the Female Host, who was fanatical. She made the Maids clean the house endlessly and discovered the Red Coral. My Adoptive Father was ecstatic when he found me. He asked where I got these treasures, saying that a single piece of Red Coral could let us leave the Rich District and enter the Noble District, and that this large piece could make us Nobles among Nobles.]
[The Female Host of this house was unable to bear children. She went mad, believing I had seduced her husband and caused her miscarriage. She crushed my hand with the piano lid.]
[I could never again play the music he loved. Without a ring, without my hand, what do I have left?]
[My Adoptive Father refused to spend money to treat me. He turned my room upside down, only wanting to know where I got the Red Coral. In his eyes, I saw only gold flowing out.]
[When the next full Moon came, I did not go.]
[I’m sorry. I broke my promise.]
“I remember now,” Mirella said, studying the card. Suddenly, she spoke, “It’s the mural on the wall in the Prison of the Poor Village. The Fish Swarm covering the wall is painted in the same style as on this card.”