For the next three months, Qingsheng Tangxue lived between the raft of my bed and the warm tide of my mother’s arms, because my body was a reed in winter. Even crawling felt like a snail dragging a wet shell. After eating Dreamsound’s cooking once, I never dared touch her food again, like a cat who learned fire by singe. Every day I could only… forget by force, like sweeping fog from a mirror after each meal. Under the sea, most food is fish, a silver forest swaying in brine. Yet Dreamsound couldn’t chase off the fishy smell, like incense burned wrong. On land, fish costs more than the finest beef, a jewel on a poor plate, and even I’d barely tasted it before. Here it’s cabbage on the roadside, a leaf in the guttering current.

For those three months, Dreamsound cared for me to the last grain of sand, from feeding to bathing to lulling me to sleep, patient as a moon over the tides. At first I refused the bathing, a cat arching against rain. But what use was it… I waved a token sword, then set it down. What I saw most was her smile, clear as spring water, doting as sunlight on a courtyard stone.

After a few days asleep, my throat got better, like frost thawing to dew. I could make sounds, but our words didn’t meet, like two boats passing in mist. Without Qingxue to translate, we could only talk one-way, an oar in one hand. She seemed to know I was the original Ling Yehan, and she never cared, as if the river simply chose a new bed. I asked if my rebirth was her doing, casting a hook into deep water. She dodged with the net of language, but she promised: once I learned the Merfolk tongue and the Ocean Common, she would tell me. Ocean Common is the current all sentient sea-creatures share.

So for three months I studied like a tide chewing the shore, steady and stubborn. Now I can handle basic exchanges, small shells of meaning passed palm to palm. There was nothing else to do, so I learned words and watched her ruin ingredients and blow up the kitchen, smoke like stormclouds. Honestly, sometimes I wanted to smack her with a spatula, like swatting a naughty carp. Even with me coaching at her elbow, she doubled every spice, dunes poured into a teacup. I even suspect she has no sense of taste, a bell with no ring.

I still don’t get where she got all those seasonings, jars like little deserts. Most of that stuff needs land, needs market stalls beneath wind-battered banners.

She tried to tell me once, words like fish slipping the net, but the sound snagged, and she gave up.

…

Two more months passed like gulls across a gray sky, and I finally learned to crawl properly. Yes, crawl—like a seal on shingle. My lower half is soft, jelly against stone, and without water I can’t swim like a fish.

Oh right, I asked her why she can tuck her tail away, and she still hasn’t told me, like a moon hiding behind cloud. Hmph, it makes my chest steam like a kettle. She uses “language issues” to dodge every key question, a reed-raft skirting rocks. When she gets back, I’m going to confront her face to face, like knocking on a closed gate.

Soon, Dreamsound returned, not by the door but through the window, a swan arrowing through blue. Outside, the water was transparent as crystal, yet separated by something unseen, a pane of silence. Dreamsound said it was a substance called Soulwater.

Or the soul of water, a ghost of rain given form. She called it soul-water too. She said extracting Soulwater is a thorny reef, and even in decades she’d gathered only a little, a bottle of snow.

Soulwater is strange; it lives in your sensing like a shadow on snow. If you reject it, it rejects you, two magnets turned wrong. If you relax and accept it, it’s air around your skin, a breeze in summer. It doesn’t mingle with seawater, like oil and a moonlit pool.

This house sits wrapped in Soulwater, a pearl in a glass oyster. Last time she made me float using it, a hand without fingers. With a strong spirit, a little practice turns Soulwater into invisible hands. Once you grasp the trick, you can swim as if outside, a swallow cutting sky.

Dreamsound slipped in through the opened window like a ribbon of light. Her legs unfurled back into the fishtail I first saw, scales like midnight almonds.

“Shengsheng, look, Mommy brought you a present!” Her voice was bells over water.

“…Dream… how do you… swim with Soulwater?” My words were pebbles dropped one by one.

“Mmm-hmm, this nightdress took ages to get,” she sang, like a skylark. “Before this, I already…”

“How… to control… Soulwater…” My patience was a taut string.

“Ugh, that shopkeeper, really! Said they were out of stock, dragged me along for days…” Her complaint fluttered like sparrows.

“…#!” I reached out and took the nightdress from her hand, fabric like mist.

“Huh? Shengsheng’s that eager? Don’t worry about the size,” she teased, eyes crescents. “Mommy knows your figure very well!”

I pulled the dress down over her head. Super headbutt—bonk, a bell struck.

“Uu—ow, that hurt. You… listen to me first!” Her protest fizzed like a damp fuse.

“Honestly, you little rascal,” she scolded, a finger tapping my brow. “How many times have I said no headbutting? What if you turn silly later?” Her voice was sugar with thorns.

If I knew this language better, I’d argue in the open square and show you what it means to break a wild horse.

“That’s… my business,” I huffed, a coal under ash. “Tell me… how to use… Soulwater… I don’t want… to crawl.”

“Eh? Soulwater?” She softened, spring after frost. “Just focus, and it’ll listen. Come, close your eyes. Mommy will teach you.” Dreamsound held my head in both palms, lids closing like swan wings, and pressed her forehead to mine. Her perfect face filled my vision, moonlight on jade, and heat climbed my cheeks. I shut my eyes fast, afraid I wouldn’t stop if I kept looking.

“Feel the ripples around you, light as willow tips,” she whispered, breath like tea steam. “Imagine the Soulwater is truly there. Then, like you’d move seawater—slowly let it lift you up, a tide under a leaf…”

“Mmm, quick learner,” Dreamsound murmured, pinching my cheek, a plum-soft tug. “Most people train to endure the heavy pressure inside Soulwater, a mountain in the deep. Only those with high water affinity find floating with it tricky, a fish trying to climb a tree. From this, Shengsheng’s affinity for water isn’t a drop less than mine.”

“So… like this… hngh… ow—my head again…” Stars burst like thrown salt. With so many bumps, will I really turn stupid someday?

“You,” she sighed, rain on tiles. “First time facing Soulwater’s push, don’t swim so fast. Does it hurt? No tears, no tears. Pain, fly away—hoo—” Dreamsound stroked my head, palm a warm wave.

…Didn’t feel soothing at all, like wind on a bruise.

I leaned into her, a bird into a branch.

“…Dream… that market… you mentioned… what is it?” My voice was a thread.

“The market?” she chimed. “It’s where I buy daily stuff, our pots and quilts, little shells and jars.”

“Not that. The Merfolk… extinct… you said last time…” My doubt was a stone in my shoe.

“First, the Merfolk aren’t extinct,” she said, gaze steady as deep water. “Just one in ten remain, a faded school. And right now the ocean has no nations, only currents and clans. As for that market, I bought things up north, in the Extreme North, not far by gate.”

At the far north of this world lies a white land, a sheet of snow without borders. No countries there, only villages gathered into large small towns, hearths stitched by frost.

“…Liar. The Extreme North… is far,” I muttered, brows two strokes.

“Silly,” she laughed, wind-chimes in winter. “There’s a teleport gate near home to the Extreme North. If you’re that curious, we can go sometime and play. Lots of our household goods come from there, including this dress. It looks simple, but it’s warm, like fire under silk.”

The Extreme North… Honestly, I’ve never been, a map corner left blank. When there’s time, I’ll go look.

“…I want to go… see. And… stop pinching… my cheeks.”

“Then we’ll go once Shengsheng can switch freely between legs and tail,” she said, a promise tied with ribbon.

“I—” My word was a wave cut short.

“You’re too young now,” she cut in, crisp as a snapped twig. “At least six to learn.”

“…” You’re snatching my lines now, like stealing a fish from my net.