Riding the Waves

[As Volume One is nearing its conclusion, over the next few days I’ll keep updating while making some edits to earlier chapters, mainly fixing awkward sentences and bugs. If you’ve already read them, there’s no need to read them again.] [A penniless orphan girl from a fishing village x an ambitious discarded scion of a prominent family] A Zhi has the eyes of a water ghost. She can count fish scales in the deepest part of the sea and catch flying fire arrows in the thickest smoke. The pirates of Feihong Sea all say that from heaven above to earth below, if Dragon Maiden A Zhi wants to see something, she can see it all. Liang Xiao laughed. “We’ve known each other for so long, and I never knew you were an immortal.” A Zhi said, “If I were an immortal, I’d bargain with Granny San. I’d say, if there’s another life, I never want to meet Liang Baizhou again. And if I do, I’ll kill him first. I won’t let him into my sight or my heart ever again.” Liang Xiao laughed for a long time. Then he said softly, “I often think that when I first met that cunning woman, I shouldn’t have taken pity on her. I brought this on myself by raising a tiger in my own home, and now my heart is constantly being scorched.” 1. Mostly serious in tone. The story of a heroine who rises from a penniless orphan to a fearsome pirate queen. Inscription dedicated with thanks to a generous reader who prefers to remain unnamed. 2. The heroine has a grand name, but it’s relevant to the plot, so I won’t reveal it for now. 3. Not a tragedy. The plot and romance develop side by side, with an ensemble cast. 4. I’ll add notes and other content in the chapter comments. 5. The heroine on the cover is how she looks at the end of the story, about ten years older than she is at the beginning. ******Coming soon: the strange tale of an immortal, Borrowed Immortal Bones****** Xie Chunjiu is twenty-three, with a life tougher than iron. She grew up without parents, and when she got older, she was blamed for the deaths of two fiances. Her shop went bankrupt, her house collapsed, her fields flooded, and even the dogs on the street corner went out of their way to avoid her. A wise expert kindly offered his advice: “Young lady, have you angered some kind of spirit?” Xie Chunjiu remembered that ten years ago, to save a faithless lover, she had snapped off a glistening jade branch from an old tree on Luoming Mountain. Kneeling beneath the tree, she had pretended to be devout. “Great immortal, kind immortal! I’ll borrow one of your immortal bones for a while. I promise to worship you every day and chant sutras every night. In ten years, I’ll return it… return the bone to its rightful owner.” When she looked up again, the expert had already fled far away, stumbling over himself. A colossal ink-black shadow rose behind her, then slowly bent down and asked with a chilling laugh in a wonderfully pleasant voice: “Oh? You finally remembered me?” (Written in 2027. A mortal x an evil immortal, a strange tale with a system of gods and immortals.) Theme: I long to ride the wind and roam the edge of the clouds with you.