As they were rowing slowly in the direction of Coral Island, Shui Xin Ling suddenly furrowed her brows and uttered,
"Stop. Something huge is heading our way."
At once, Lan Hao Tian became vigilant, looking around the waterways. A short distance away, he saw a huge beast speeding across the waters.
"What the hell is that? Are there really fish this big in these waters?"
Although the ocean was home to many gigantic sea monsters, most of them dwelled in the deep sea. This area, being near an island, rarely saw anything of that size.
Their boat was directly targeted by the massive fish. Helplessly, Lan Hao Tian murmured,
"What do we do now? If it crashes into us, we'll lose the boat."
While the creature posed no real threat to his life, he still felt reluctant to part with the vessel. Strictly speaking, the boat didn't even belong to him in the first place.
"Relax. Leave it to me," Shui Xin Ling said as she clenched her fist, ready for action.
Bubbles erupted violently from the surface. Gradually, the identity of the creature was revealed — it was a colossal shark, at least twenty meters long.
She took immediate action as the shark surfaced from the water, still far from the boat. She ran across the waves like a gust of wind, her foot hitting the sea surface as though it were solid ground. She launched herself into the air and used her palm to hit the shark in the stomach.
The power of the attack caused the shark's belly to collapse as it writhed in anguish. It shrieked in anguish and immediately vomited. The shark was terrified and ran out into the distance, knowing that the woman could easily kill it.
It expelled something that splashed back into the sea. Upon closer inspection, they realized it was a person.
Lan Hao Tian shouted,
"Hey! Check if he's still alive! If he is, save him!"
"Why should we?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Aren't we pirates? Why would we care about some random stranger?"
Lan Hao Tian slapped his forehead, his face darkening. He roared,
"Have you forgotten what we really are?! We're revolutionaries, damn it! We fight to overthrow the unjust rule of the empires. Being pirates is just a cover! If someone's in trouble, we help them—unless they're with the Empire. Then we eliminate them."
Shui Xin Ling nodded but suddenly paused, sensing something off.
"Wait a minute," she said. "What revolution? You never mentioned anything like that before."
Lan Hao Tian barked,
"Do you want to come with me or not? If you do, help me save him. If not, I'll do it myself!"
"Alright, alright. I'll save him, okay?" she replied, waving her hand. A pillar of water shot up and launched the unconscious man straight onto the boat.
Lan Hao Tian's eyes widened in shock.
"You… You're a water master too?!"
"Haha, of course I am. Impressed?" She said smugly, puffing out her chest and raising her chin with pride.
"Damn it, who are you showing off to? I'm a water master too," he muttered under his breath.
Unfortunately for him, she heard that clearly. A column of seawater shot from the ocean and smacked him square in the face.
"You're too much!" he grumbled, pouting. "I'm not playing with you anymore."
With a huff, he turned his attention to the unconscious man.
The young man looked to be in his teens, with long black hair cascading down to his waist. Aside from a pair of black trousers, he wore nothing else.
But something felt… off. Lan Hao Tian narrowed his eyes and said,
"That's weird. Why does he look like he's just sleeping? And he came out of a shark's belly, but there's not a speck of filth on him."
Shui Xin Ling also looked closer, her expression gradually growing serious.
How could this be? she thought. Why does he appear completely normal to me? Can someone really hide their true nature from my eyes?
She didn't believe it—no one could deceive her vision. The longer she stared, the more intense the light in her eyes became.
Lan Hao Tian, too, grew more and more astonished. He thought,
"She doesn't just have Heavenly Eyes, he thought, but Holy Water as well? Normally, Heavenly Eyes glow blue, but if the user also possesses Holy Water, their glow takes on that sacred hue. Damn, my luck is insane. I just set out to sea and already found a treasure like this?"
She stared for a while longer but still couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary. Helpless, she could only give Lan Hao Tian a soft warning:
"Whatever you're planning to do, be careful. That guy is dangerous. Even I might not be able to protect you."
Lan Hao Tian blushed at her words. She wasn't the first to ever protect him, but for some reason, her warning made him feel awkward.
"I-I don't need you to protect me," he stammered.
Seeing how cute his expression was, Shui Xin Ling burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! So you can get shy. I thought you were the shameless type who always borrows stuff from others without a care in the world."
"Don't badmouth me! I'm a good person at heart, alright? It's just… The environment I grew up in was a little too comfortable, so I developed a few habits…" he muttered, trying to justify—no, explain—himself.
To shake off his embarrassment, he quickly changed the subject and turned back to the unconscious youth.
"Hey! Wake up already!"
The teenager rubbed his eyes, then covered his mouth as he let out a long yawn. He sat up slowly, glancing to his left, then to his right.
"Who are you people?" he asked.
"You're on my boat," Lan Hao Tian said. "We saved you from the belly of that massive shark. But before you start asking questions, shouldn't you introduce yourself first?"
The youth scratched his head awkwardly.
"My name is Wu Xian," he replied.
"Can't you say a little more than that?" Shui Xin Ling asked, her curiosity piqued. "Like, where are you from or something?"
Wu Xian scratched his head again, as if trying to remember something. Then he slowly said,
"I was born on a poor island, isolated from the rest of the world…"
Lan Hao Tian's expression darkened with each word. He slowly turned toward Shui Xin Ling.
She too was getting second-hand embarrassment and glanced away awkwardly.
"Hold on… Are you seriously going to say, 'As I grew older, I was abandoned and had to wander across the lands'? And let me guess—if it weren't for us saving you, you'd be shark food by now, right? So now you're going to say you owe us a life debt and want to repay it with your body or something?"
Wu Xian blinked in shock.
"You… can see the future?!"