Downstream Merfolk

"They say a merfolk coming ashore brings disaster, but you are my disaster."

Legend has it that a beautiful and dangerous creature lurks in the deep sea.

They bewitch sailors with their voices, stir hidden currents with their tails, and gaze upon the human world with jewel-like eyes.

Humans call them "merfolk," regarding them with awe and fear.

Those who have seen them either become lost in a gentle underwater illusion or flee back to land in terror, bearing a curse. In the end, without exception, they meet unnatural deaths.

Twenty years ago, Xia Xun's mother took part in a top-secret operation codenamed "Andersen."

She was the only one to return alive, but she also became the merfolk's number-one target for revenge.

Mother and son concealed their identities and hid in a small town in Jiangnan. Then a great fire burned away all their peace. His mother was dragged into the deep sea, leaving behind only a bloodstained scale:

"They've come ashore... They cut off their tails and blended in with the crowd."

To avenge her, Xia Xun joined the Andersen team.

But the truth was far stranger than he had imagined.

The team's files described merfolk as brutal and bloodthirsty, yet the one of their kind he encountered was nothing like that.

On a stormy night, a pale young man rose from the water, wet hair clinging to his neck, a rose pinched between his fingers.

"Long time no see." Pei Fengqi sneered. His fish tail transformed into legs, and he closed in step by step. "Brother, are you going to take my life? It was yours to begin with. Go ahead, take it."

Only then did Xia Xun realize that the neighbor boy who used to follow him everywhere had long since become the sharpest blade in the merfolk clan.

And the blade was aimed at the heart of the Andersen team.

Mutual salvation, younger love interest. Thanks for reading!

Theme: Finding the strength to save oneself and change one's fate, even when destiny seems set in stone.