Whispers of the Drowned in New Harbor City

Wang Ping, a former Navy corpsman, returns to the coastal city of Xingang to work as a port emergency medic, carrying a tactical dagger engraved with the name of a fallen friend. Built a century ago atop the wreckage of sunken ships, the city is now plagued by a string of bizarre “drowning disappearance cases.” The victims’ lungs are full of seawater, yet show no signs of struggle, and fish-scale-like red blotches appear on their skin. The latest missing person is Wang Ping’s childhood friend.

At a victim’s home, Wang Ping finds half of a bronze compass engraved with backward tidal patterns. The moment his palm touches a murky “amber eyeball,” visions of an underwater altar of bones surge over him: figures walk toward the deep sea on metal frames, while an ancient ship’s emblem wrapped in octopus tentacles lies half-buried in the silt. A dying warning from a retired professor tears open a corner of forbidden history. During the British colonial era, the crew of the missing Black Tide made a pact of eternal life with the deep-sea Old God known as the Lord of the Deep Throat. Beneath Xingang’s foundations, the dismembered captain’s heart and a slumbering colossus lie sealed away.