Lin Shen, a former programmer laid off in a company restructuring, returns to his hometown and gives up on life, spending his days fishing.
Then, on a full-moon night, he reels in a silver-haired woman. She can’t speak, is afraid of heat, and leaves grains of salt in her bathwater. Stranger still, her legs turn into a scaly fish tail in the bathtub.
Before Lin Shen can process the fact that “I fished up a mermaid,” the 749 Bureau comes knocking. “The person you rescued is a mermaid princess. Her father wants to marry her off to a nine-headed serpent in exchange for an elixir. She ran away from the wedding, and now all of the Eastern Sea is hunting her down.” Even worse, Lin Shen awakens a merfolk guardian pact: every time he protects her, he loses some of his lifespan. “How long you live depends on how much you love her,” says an investigator from the 749 Bureau. Lin Shen looks at the trembling mermaid princess in his arms and sighs. “Then I might not make it through tomorrow.”
The Heavenly Dao trembles, and thunder rolls across the sky. The merfolk forbid it; the human world won’t accept it. But she says she doesn’t want to go back, so he has no intention of letting her go.
The result is clear and good