Yu Xinglan closed the interface. Based on the forum posts, he would look for the merfolk's homeland first. The sea in front of him seemed the most likely place to find it.
He looked around. The water was several dozen meters away. Reaching it would mean covering quite a distance—without legs.
He tensed his tail, trying to stand on it.
Predictably, he pitched forward onto the sand. The fall itself did not hurt, but trying to support his weight had left the base of his spine throbbing.
After several failed attempts, he gave up on standing. Gauging the distance to the shore, he dug his forearms into the sand and dragged himself forward a little at a time.
He had barely crawled anywhere when a pair of legs blocked his path. Yu Xinglan looked up. The person in front of him had a pair of furry animal ears and a large golden tail covered in black spots swishing behind him. Some sort of leopard, perhaps.
Yu Xinglan went rigid. The game allowed players to hurt one another, and dying carried a thirty-percent chance of dropping items from your inventory.
That thought actually helped him relax. His inventory was empty. At worst, he might drop the beginner's cloth shirt he was wearing.
“Hello. Do you need a hand?”
The beastkin courteously crouched to Yu Xinglan's level, smiling as he looked at the sand-covered merman.
He wore the same beginner's outfit as Yu Xinglan, so he had probably just entered the game and randomly spawned nearby too. His drab gray shirt did nothing to diminish his good looks. His blond hair curled slightly and looked every bit as soft as his tail.
Yu Xinglan wanted to refuse, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.
Seeing his slightly widened eyes and open, silent mouth, the beastkin apparently assumed he was embarrassed. He helped the merman up from the sand, slid one arm under his tail and the other behind his back, and lifted him into his arms.
The sudden feeling of weightlessness made Yu Xinglan grab his shoulder instinctively. He was still reeling from the discovery that he could not speak.
He tried to make a sound again. Nothing. All he could do was open and close his mouth.
A post he had just seen on the forum suddenly came into sharp focus.
[Turns out merfolk can't just dry out if they stay out of the water too long. They can't even talk on land!]
He closed his mouth and awkwardly released the man's shoulder. Fortunately, he did not have to endure the situation for long. Once in the sea, he flicked his tail and tried swimming. To his surprise, swimming as a merman was even easier than it was in real life.
He poked his head above the surface to thank the beastkin, but the man was already nowhere to be seen.
As expected, merfolk could breathe underwater.
“Ah,” he tried. This time, the sound reached him clearly.
Yu Xinglan blinked. Despite being underwater, opening and closing his eyes caused no discomfort. His ears had transformed into something resembling gills, though he could still breathe through his nose and mouth.
The Overheated status had vanished when he entered the sea. Away from the dry air, his tail fins had perked up again. Having confirmed that he was no longer in danger of dying from dehydration, he opened his player panel.
[Character: SystemUserknsjo
Race: Merfolk
Level: 1
HP: 50
Mana: 250
Constitution: 5
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Intelligence: 25
Charisma: 35]
According to the information players had shared on the forum, humans had a hundred HP. None of the other rare races had less than a hundred either.
He stared thoughtfully at the single digits beside Constitution and Strength.
In other words, by normal stat standards, he was currently too weak to hurt a fly. A single hit might kill him.
Staring at the numbers would not change them. Yu Xinglan closed the panel and decided to take things as they came. He swam toward deeper water.
As the surface receded, cold and darkness soon closed in around him. Neither posed a problem for a merman, whose body temperature was naturally low and who could see in the dark.
A few little fish caught Yu Xinglan's attention. It was impossible to miss them: they darted through the sea like fish-shaped light bulbs, then all swam toward him at once. They circled him, and one even nudged his palm with its mouth.
The little fish formed a line and swam off in one direction. A few at the back nipped the hem of his shirt, urging him to follow.
Far ahead, the light of an underwater lighthouse served as a beacon. More and more houses came into view.
By the time a vast structure filled his vision, the little fish had completed their task. They scattered and disappeared among the buildings.
Rows upon rows of stone-brick houses clustered around the castle-like structure. Corals of every color and shape decorated their doorways in varying quantities. Strings of round pearls as wide as the mouths of bowls hung from the rooftops. Seagrass covered the ground beyond the streets, and strange plants he could not name crowded the spaces between houses.
Merfolk wearing gemstone-encrusted ornaments moved along the stone-paved streets.
By nature, they adorned their wrists, necks, and even their tails lavishly. In truth, they simply liked things that sparkled.
That fondness also led them to collect all sorts of useless odds and ends without restraint.
Bones whose souls had not entirely dissipated, for example. They gave off an eerie blue glow and filled merfolk cottages.
As he entered the city, Yu Xinglan watched the ornaments the merfolk wore. A ruby charm on one bracelet bobbed with its wearer's movements, making the entire merman seem to gleam.
Then he looked at himself. He had nothing at all. Sand from the beach still clung to his system-issued beginner's clothes.
He looked like a beggar who had fled some disaster.
When he came out of his thoughts, he found himself surrounded. The merfolk who had been going about their own business had all swum over to him.
Yu Xinglan froze, inwardly cursing his lapse in vigilance. Outwardly, he remained perfectly calm, scanning the crowd for an opening through which to escape.
Here it came!
One merman made the first move. Yu Xinglan whipped his head aside to dodge the attack from behind, caught the man's wrist with a backhanded grab, and confiscated the weapon.
Gasps of amazement rose around him, followed by scattered applause.
Yu Xinglan frowned slightly. He had no idea what was happening, but retreating first could hardly be a mistake. He backed toward a thinner patch of the crowd. Only then did he realize that the object clenched in his hand was no weapon at all.
It was a headpiece made of silver chain and tiny diamonds. His rough handling had bent it slightly out of shape, but it still sparkled.
Yu Xinglan stood rooted to the spot.
Then, one by one, the merfolk began putting their beautiful ornaments on him. The merman whose wrist he had seized was not angry; he even took off his own accessories and pressed them into Yu Xinglan's arms.
He was not rescued until a mermaid wearing a crown appeared.
By then, he was covered in jeweled ornaments from head to tail, just like every other merfolk.
The crowd dispersed, clearing a path for their queen.
“Welcome home, my dear subject.”
The queen did not look very old. Her long hair curled slightly, and she had thick lashes and a striking tail that shaded through different pinks. She looked like a sweet young girl, yet somehow her shimmering pink eyes held a touch of motherly affection.
Smiling, she took Yu Xinglan's hand.
“Don't be afraid. It's simply been so long since they saw a new member of our people.”
Yu Xinglan looked at the queen before him, then at the ornaments cradled in his arms.
He understood now. He had triggered a story sequence.
In an age when games were everywhere, few people between ten and sixty could claim never to have played one. Yu Xinglan was that one-in-millions exception. He had never tried—or rather, had never taken the time to indulge.
He followed the queen into the castle at the center of the city.
“There are so few of us left.”
The scene before him changed. Yu Xinglan seemed to be fixed in place, unable to move so much as a fraction. His gaze could only follow the shifting images.
The castle interior gave way to the merfolk's old royal city.
The old city was far larger than he had imagined. It occupied more than half the beach, and that was only the portion on land. The underwater buildings stretched beyond sight, and the castle was even more magnificent than the present one.
The merfolk had no need to huddle in the deep sea. They played in the shallows and conjured legs to run across the sand.