Chapter Text
The ocean was always dark and cold, it was always a dark aegean blue. Colorful fish filled the inky ocean, so many different sizes, shapes and otherwise. Hydrophytes cover the sea floor, all different lengths and shades of green. Fish swim through neon corals and seagrasses, as colorful as the fish that are swimming in it, but now fish aren’t the only thing in the ocean. Bright-colored tails also fill the ocean, but to them not an upper body of a fish does its tail belong to.
The tails belong to those called mermaids and mermen, alluring half-humans that will never see the world above them. Yes, the humans above believe merpeople to be creatures of fiction, unreal things that do not exist outside of tales that paint them as mythical. This is a tale much like those, but this is not one of fiction.
This tale is about a mermaid who longs to be part of the world above, a tale about a mermaid who collects thousands of trinkets. Most importantly, a tale about the love between a mermaid and a prince. One that shows love will prevail in the most direful conditions.
The story begins with a mermaid named Shi Qingxuan with a fondness for tchotchkes, and an overprotective brother called Shi Wudu who makes it his job to defend his sibling no matter the circumstance. The story begins in the ocean many miles deep, thousands of meters down from the place that Shi Qingxuan wants to be.
The story of another begins just above sea level, sailing the sea secretly inhabited by many merpeople. The story of a prince named He Xuan, who ruled over Fu Gu yet had a fondness for sailing. Above all, this is the story of a prince and a mermaid. It tells the tale of their unconnected paths that came to a surprising divergence in a fascinating way.