He paused, then spread the palm of his right hand towards the vengeful female ghost, preparing to give her salvation.

Seeing this, the ghost quickly shook her head and knelt on the ground, pleading, "Please, don't save me! I can't accept this; he is still alive in this world!"

"Let everything go!" Chen Hao earnestly advised, "Try to be reborn as soon as possible!"

"No!" The ghost's eyes flashed fiercely, and her face filled with hatred towards Chen Hao, "I hate you, I hate all you Onmyoji. Even if I were in the Netherworld, I wouldn't reincarnate unless I see his Yin Soul descend into Hell!"

Chen Hao's expression darkened as he lowered his hand and fell into deep thought. After a long while, he lifted his head to look at the ghost and said, "Well, how about this, I will seal you inside the Soul-collecting Bottle for now, and if I meet that Onmyoji named Luo Jin later, I will release you; if not, I'll have to inconvenience you to stay in the Soul-collecting Bottle forever. You've killed people; I can't just let you go."

"Okay!" The ghost agreed, her eyes resolute, "As long as I can find him, even if it means staying in the Soul-collecting Bottle for ten million years, I'm willing!"

Chen Hao turned to look at Ye Yuqiao, wanting to ask for her opinion at the last moment. Yuqiao first gave him a slight smile and then silently thought to herself, "You make the decision, don't ask me. You are my boyfriend, after all, I'm counting on you to take care of me in the future."

After smiling and nodding, Chen Hao turned his head towards the ghost, and took out a Soul-collecting Bottle from the wooden box strapped to his waist. After opening the lid of the bottle, he lifted the six Golden Word Seals that were restraining the ghost, then sucked her into the Soul-collecting Bottle and capped it.

"Old man, the problem is resolved!" Chen Hao said to the elderly, his face wearing a relaxed smile, "Go back and tell the villagers that they can safely dig the well from now on. They also don't have to hide at home in silence every night, afraid to make noise or to turn on the lights."

"Thank you, thank you so much!" the old man expressed his gratitude.

"Tang Jing, you take this old man back first, Yuqiao and I are going down the well to find Xie Xiaofeng."

After hesitating for a few seconds, Tang Jing reluctantly agreed, feeling somewhat dejected inside, as if she was of no use to the group, like a mere bystander.

Then, watching Tang Jing help the old man walk away, disappearing into the night, Chen Hao said to Ye Yuqiao, "Girlfriend, the entrance to the underwater passage is way too small, I can't squeeze through."

Ye Yuqiao gave Chen Hao a sideways glance and then reached out to touch his belly, teasing, "Look at you, you've put on quite a bit of weight since graduation!"

Chen Hao suddenly squinted his eyes, a wry smile on his face, thinking that even if he were to slim down to just bones, he wouldn't be able to fit through the entrance that was only as big as his head. He reached out to pinch Ye Yuqiao's arm and coldly said, "Look at you, still so skinny, not striving to improve, need to get a better feel!"

"Jerk!" Ye Yuqiao said with a look of disgust. Suddenly, she lifted her left hand and tore at the air, revealing a dark purple crack, and then jumped into the crack with Chen Hao, immediately arriving at the underwater passage beneath the ancient well.

"Boyfriend, I'm a bit cold, and I can't stay in the water for too long, I can only hide in the Nether Acupoint," Ye Yuqiao said.

"Hmm," Chen Hao nodded, summoning a current to pull Ye Yuqiao in.

After that, Chen Hao's left eye emitted a purple Nether Eye light, and under the direction of Ye Yuqiao, he swam deeper into the underwater passage.

The night was cool as water.

At the end of a water cave.

Silver moonlight poured through the crevices in the roof of the cave and hit the calm surface of the water, leaving a trail of light like a Milky Way. Beside the water, there was a large rock not completely submerged.

On the large rock.

After feeling a soft warmth on his lips, Xie Xiaofeng slowly opened his eyes. As his vision gradually clarified, he saw that the mermaid who had just been giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Instantly, his eyes sparked, and his heart thumped wildly.

Overcome with emotion, he couldn't help but cough twice, startling the mermaid away from him, which only added to his vexation.

"You're awake?" the mermaid asked from the water, her demeanor extremely shy.

"Where is this place?" Xie Xiaofeng looked around the stone cave and asked. With the blue glow from the mermaid's body and the spots of moonlight on the surface of the water, he could barely make out the contours of the cave walls.

"This is my temporary home," the mermaid said, her voice as gentle as the surrounding water, "You fainted under the water just now, so I brought you here."

"You saved me, no!" Xie Xiaofeng's eyes suddenly sparkled, "So you can speak our language!"

"Yes!" The mermaid nodded timidly, feeling uneasy.

At that moment, Xie Xiaofeng sat up and leaned forward, bringing his face close to the mermaid to carefully examine every detail of her face.

Within a few seconds, the blushing mermaid plunged into the water and quickly swam away.

"Mermaid, don't go!" Xie Xiaofeng called out urgently, immediately standing up. The rock was slippery, and before he could fully straighten himself, he lost his balance and fell face-first into the cold water with a splash.

"Help, help, I can't swim!" Xie Xiaofeng struggled in the water while calling out desperately.

Before long, he felt a pair of soft hands supporting him. Immediately, he turned around and tightly grasped the mermaid's hands, snickering, "Hmm, let's see how you'll escape now?"

The mermaid pursed her lips pitifully, with tears shimmering in her eyes, and said in a low voice, "So you were deceiving me."

As she spoke, a transparent blue tear flowed from the corner of her left eye.

"Ah!" Xie Xiaofeng was shocked and quickly released the mermaid's hands, explaining, "I didn't mean to deceive you, I just wanted to show you that I'm not a bad person, so you don't need to avoid me."

"Really?"

Xie Xiaofeng nodded repeatedly.

The mermaid raised her hand to wipe away a tear and asked, "Please tell me, are you really human? Why can you turn into an iron arrowhead and water?"

"That's a spell I learned," Xie Xiaofeng chuckled as he explained, "It's cold in the water, let's talk on the rocks."

The mermaid nodded in agreement.

Once they climbed onto the rocks, Xie Xiaofeng realized that the mermaid was shorter than the average person, only about one and a half meters tall. However, her upper body development was very full, which inadvertently attracted Xie Xiaofeng's gaze to her body.

Feeling ashamed and embarrassed by Xie Xiaofeng's occasional glances at her chest, the mermaid said, "I'm more comfortable staying in the water."

Having said that, she gently slid into the water along the smooth rocks, then turned her head, resting her hands on the edge of the rock, and looked up at Xie Xiaofeng.

Looking at the mermaid's ethereally beautiful face, Xie Xiaofeng was mesmerized. After silently locking eyes for a while, he swallowed hard and asked, "Mermaid, my name is Xie Xiaofeng, what's your name?"

"Huang Yue."

"Huang Yue, that's such a unique name," Xie Xiaofeng said with interest, then asked, "By the way, Huang Yue, I just heard from my companions yesterday that merfolk live in the East Sea, so how come you're here?"

In an instant, a shadow of sadness enveloped Huang Yue's innocent face. After a long pause, she said, "Your companion is right, my kin and I used to live in the East Sea. A few years ago, an oil tanker had a spill in our waters, destroying our homeland and displacing us. My family and I were separated from the others during that time."

"Where did your family go then? Why do I only see you alone?"

Huang Yue hesitated to speak, her face suddenly filled with wariness, and she said coldly, "Sorry, I can't tell you their whereabouts for the sake of my family's safety. By the way, can you do me a favor?"

Xie Xiaofeng blinked and asked dumbly, "What favor?"

"There are several bottles behind you, and one of them contains a photo. Can you help me find the person in that photo? He lives in the village where the ancient well is located."

Xie Xiaofeng looked behind him and saw several glass bottles in a large indentation on the rocks, many of which contained sand and paper.

Seeing this, Xie Xiaofeng was astonished, thinking to himself, could these be the so-called message in a bottle?

In a moment, Xie Xiaofeng pulled out a photo tied with a red string from one of the bottles and unfolded it. To his surprise, the photo was an ancient black-and-white one, very old. The photo depicted a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a clear smile. Judging by the date on the back of the photo, Xie Xiaofeng guessed the man would now be in his sixties.

"Do you know this man?" Xie Xiaofeng asked curiously, "If he's still alive, he must be in his sixties by now."

The mermaid first shook her head, then nodded and said in a low voice, "I don't know him, but my sister does."

"Your sister?"

The mermaid sadly nodded and then began to recount a story that happened over fifty years ago:

The mermaid's sister was named Ya Qin. Forty years ago, after a high tide, Ya Qin suddenly found a bottle in the sea near her home, containing half sand and a piece of paper. Driven by curiosity, Ya Qin risked swimming to a nearby island and opened the bottle to retrieve the letter.

It was a letter seeking friendship, penned by someone with the pseudonym 'Ye Yin Shang'. The content was simple, writing, "If you are a mermaid, could you send me a letter back to confirm the legend that mermaids truly exist? Don't worry, I promise not to tell anyone, and I hope we can be friends."

After reading the letter, driven by curiosity, Ya Qin secretly entrusted someone in her tribe to use ink from the sea and write on merm-folks parchment, put it back in the bottle, and tossed the bottle in the same area where it was found the next day when the tide went out.

The ink from the sea was the ink merm-folks used for writing, and the merm-folks parchment was the paper, both of which could remain intact and undissolved in seawater.

What Ya Qin did not expect was...

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