A Zhou, a boy from Shiyu Village, never imagined that the broken conch shell his grandfather pressed into his hands on his deathbed would be the key to the deep-sea world.
The waters that have sustained generations of fishermen are on the brink of death. Industrial waste has polluted the fishing grounds, strange red tides have swallowed fishing boats one after another, and even the most seasoned captains no longer dare venture beyond the coast. Desperate to pay for his seriously ill younger sister’s medicine, A Zhou risks diving into a shipwreck said to hold the “relics of the sea spirits.” Trapped in a desperate situation, he blows the ancient-patterned conch that summons the tides.
Its call does not fade into the waves. Instead, it awakens the giant spirits of the deep, asleep for a thousand years. A colossal turtle with a coral reef on its back carries him clear of a whirlpool. A glowing anglerfish lights his way to the shipwreck’s treasures. Even the mosasaur said to have capsized ten-thousand-ton ships lowers its head at the conch’s call. At last, A Zhou learns that what his grandfather left him was more than an artifact. It was the legacy of a “Tidewatcher,” a duty to communicate with giant beasts through the tide-summoning conch and protect the balance of the ocean.
