When Xiao Qi was telling the story, Sanchitose took advantage of her unpreparedness and quietly jumped on the end of the bed.

It stepped on the mattress with its front paws for several moments, until it felt that the quilt under its feet was solid, and then yawned and lay down again.

Xiao Qi cared about telling stories, so she didn't care about opening her mouth to pick up the fox, she put her feet on the three-thousand-year-old plush belly, and talked to Feng Yan about the daughter of the sea.

In the deepest part of the ocean floor is the palace of Aquaman, where six beautiful mermaid princesses live.

Their father was a widower.

On weekdays, a wise and noble old grandmother is taking care of their food, clothing and daily life.

Whenever a mermaid princess turned fifteen, the old grandmother would allow them to float to the surface of the sea to see the world's great ships passing by the coast, to see the forests on land and the cities lit up on earth.

The youngest princess longed for the deepest in the world, but she could only surface at the latest.

The Little Mermaid grew up with her sisters' stories about the world, and it wasn't until her fifteenth birthday that she finally saw the fireworks and boats, the dinner party, and the handsome young man.

But that night a storm on the sea overturned the ship, and she rescued the prince in the wind and waves, and sent him to the snow-white, velvety sand of fine stones.

A young girl passed by and rescued the prince from a slumber on the beach, but no one realized that it was the work of the Little Mermaid.

The mermaid princess had to return to the palace deep under the sea alone, but began to slowly yearn for the world on land.

So the Little Mermaid asked her grandmother, "Will people on land die like we do?"

"That's right," replied the grandmother, "they have a very short lifespan, unlike us, who can live to be three hundred years old. It's just that at the end of our lives, we can't even leave a grave for our beloved—because we don't have an immortal soul."

"Why can't we have an immortal soul? If I could become a human, I would rather give up hundreds of years of my life!"

Grandmother worried, "You must not have such dangerous thoughts!"

"Then when I die, I will only turn into a bubble, and I can't get an immortal soul?"

"Nope!" Grandmother rebuked, "The fire of his soul will only spread to you if he loves you more than himself, and only when he opens all his love and thoughts to you, offering all his devotion to your present and future—but this kind of thing...... Never!"

The sad little mermaid goes to the bottom of the ocean and asks the witch for help.

In her most beautiful voice, she exchanged the witch for a medicine that could split the fishtail in two, but every step behind her was like walking on the tip of a knife.

The witch warned her that once she had taken human form, she would never be able to turn back into a mermaid, and that if she could not receive the prince's love, her heart would be broken on the first morning of the prince's wedding, and her whole being would be turned into a foam on the sea.

The Little Mermaid lost her beautiful singing voice and finally came to the prince as she wished.

But in the end the prince was betrothed to the princess of a neighboring country, and he took the young girl who happened to pass by the seashore that day as his savior. And the little beauty who can't speak can't tell the prince the truth, and she can't make the prince fall in love with her.

The night before the bubble, the Little Mermaid's five sisters surfaced and exchanged their long hair for a dagger from the witch – if the Little Mermaid plunged the dagger into the prince's heart before the sun rose, and let his blood fall on her toes, she would regain the tail and return to the depths of the sea.

The Little Mermaid, with her dagger, lifted the prince's violet bed curtains, and saw the beautiful bride resting her head on the prince's shoulder, and the two fell asleep quietly.

She leaned down and kissed the prince's delicate eyebrows, then threw her knife into the sea.

The sun rose in the distance, soft and warm on the cold, broken foam of the sea, and the Little Mermaid raised her shone arms towards the sun, waiting for the nothingness of death.

Yet she slowly rose in the light, and she became the daughter of the sky - because she had fought with all her heart to obtain an immortal soul, and she endured the pain and persevered, so as long as she continued to spread good deeds to the world, then three hundred years later......

She will receive an immortal soul created by herself.

……

At the end of the story, Xiao Qi exhaled softly.

She felt that her eyes were a little moist, and the story of the Little Mermaid, no matter how long it was, could still easily bring her to tears.

Feng Yan was very quiet nearby.

"Sister?" Xiao Qi shouted in a low voice - she was suddenly a little worried about whether her sister was already asleep.

Feng Yan's nasal response came from the darkness.

Xiao Qi raised his hand a little hesitantly, wanting to touch his sister's cheek, but Feng Yan avoided it.

Feng Yan wiped away the tears on her face and buried half of her face in the pillow.

A widowed father and a grandmother who takes care of her grandchildren.

A little daughter who yearns for the world the most, but can only surface at the latest.

A dagger wedged into the heart of a lover.

and a banshee who is willing to turn into a bubble forever for the sake of her sweetheart......

Xiao Qi's story, every sentence, is like an elusive metaphor, where a person's fate is intertwined on different characters, casting a plausible shadow.

About the present, about the future.

"Ah...... Shouldn't I tell this story before I go to bed," Xiao Qi asked in a low voice, "Is Sister crying?" ”

Feng Yan shook her head.

"Little Seven." Feng Yan suddenly spoke.

"Hmm."

"If one day, if one day you encounter the same encounter as the mermaid in the story, what will you choose?"

“…… I don't know. Xiao Qi thought for a long time, "If it were me, I probably wouldn't have made that deal with the witch in the first place, what about Sister?" ”

"I'm not going to make that deal either." Feng Yan replied.

"Why?"

"When a witch takes away her singing voice, she loses the ability to speak. However, before man had words, this was almost our most special ability.

"There is a force in man's speech that cannot be underestimated—oaths and curses, all of which are made through words.

"Exchanging the legs with the voice is exchanging the essence of the human being for the human body. has the form of a human, but loses the reality of a human, and when she does this, she goes to the hope of the world...... It's already shattered.

So in the whole story that followed, she could only keep losing, losing...... Until nothing is left to lose, there will be no miracle to make the prince change his mind. ”

Feng Yan raised her head and stared into the void.

"At the end of the day...... Self-help is the only way to liberation. ”