As the water level in the Guixu receded, the ruins of a submerged ancient city emerged in the distance. The city rose against the mountains, and thousands of years seemed unable to destroy it completely; viewed from afar, its general layout remained intact. Behind the city, streams of smoky clouds, yellow tinged with red, drifted across the horizon. Irley Yang and I watched from the remnants of stone pillars for a long time, both feeling that this underground sea was bizarre and sinister, and the fate ahead was utterly unpredictable.

I mused that anything sucked into the Guixu by the sea eyes must have been debris from structures on the surface; an entire ancient city could not have fallen in unless it was originally built right here. So, I casually remarked to Irley Yang, "Why would the Hentian Ancient City be beneath a sea eye? This place is truly well-hidden. Without a traitor leading the way, even the devils might never have found it."

Irley Yang's delicate eyebrows furrowed, her gaze fixed on the ancient city above the water as if deep in thought. "When I was little, I heard an old ship captain tell the legend of a giant whale swallowing a city, and afterward, the city's inhabitants lived inside the whale's belly. But look at the terrain within the Guixu—it truly resembles a whale's belly. The marvels of heaven and earth are truly beyond comprehension. Ancient texts record that once one enters the Guixu, the sea conditions shift and swirl with the Yin winds, much like a boat adrift in the abyssal sea where whales are interred, the rudder lost, navigation gone astray, the water vast and unknowable. While this description isn't perfectly accurate, being here, it feels as if we are placed in the chaotic void of the Stygian sea, which aligns somewhat with what ancient geographers described."

Hearing Irley Yang speak, I finally realized that the terrain here was indeed like the inside of a giant whale's gut. And perhaps within those ruins submerged in the sea lay the secrets of ancient divination using tortoiseshells and bronzes. I momentarily forgot that our ship was damaged and we were stranded in this boundless sea, instead feeling a strong urge to explore. Yet, I also had an underlying sense that this was profoundly ill-timed. Above us, the stratum held several unevenly sized sea eyes; the intense heat contained within the Yin fire generated violent, swirling thermal drafts from these underwater chasms, like geothermal eruptions, blocking the downward flow of seawater. But once the condensed sea vapor formed a climate, the sea caves would once again suck vast amounts of water into the Guixu below. We couldn't gauge the interval between these events—maybe one or two days, maybe one or two months. In short, the sea caves were like time bombs hanging over us; once the water rushed down, we would all be 'men turned into fish or sea turtles.' The immediate priority was to find a relatively safe area to rest before contemplating our next move.

Suddenly, a commotion on the boat interrupted my thoughts. Fatty and Uncle Ming, among others, had also witnessed the spectacular sight emerging from the Guixu sea surface. After a moment of stunned silence, Uncle Ming started lamenting that the backpack containing the South Pearls represented everyone's life savings, and it was wrong to let a coarse fellow like Fatty, who lacked judgment, hold it. He reached out to take it back for safekeeping, but Fatty lifted his arm, posturing as if to strike Uncle Ming, which immediately silenced the older man. Seeing his authority established, Fatty couldn't help but preen. He carelessly swung the backpack over his shoulder and turned to direct Gu Cai and Duoling to lift the injured Captain Ruan Hei, preparing to abandon the ship for the life raft.

At that moment, as the Guixu water continued to recede, the severely damaged Trident leaked and ran aground on a field of massive, gray stone bas-reliefs, momentarily saving us from sinking to the bottom. However, the ship listing sharply to one side created significant inconvenience for everyone aboard. Gu Cai and Duoling first moved Ruan Hei onto a flagstone among the ruins beneath the ship, then they coordinated with Uncle Ming to drag the rubber life raft toward the water. Fatty, meanwhile, shuttled back and forth, moving various emergency supplies onto the deck.

While transporting a set of scuba gear, Fatty had just stepped onto the flagstone. But the rock face, having been submerged for so long, was slick with numerous reef-building and reef-loving organisms. As soon as he planted his foot, he lost his balance and fell backward. The cover of the backpack slung over his shoulder snagged on a broken piece of stone cornice, and a few pearls inside tumbled out, sliding into the water, their brilliant gleam intensely dazzling. Fatty scrambled up to get down into the water to retrieve them.

The ruins underwater were a haphazard jumble of collapse and accumulation; crevices formed by massive stones, bronze statues, and sunken wreckage created a labyrinth of intersecting trenches. Fatty checked the water surface nearby and saw no sign of sharks circling, so he waded into the waist-deep water to feel for the South Pearls that had fallen onto a nearby rock. The pearls shone for a hundred paces, bright enough to extinguish a lamp, so finding them in the shallow water shouldn't have been difficult. But from my distant vantage point on the stone pillar, I saw clearly: the moment Fatty picked up a pearl, the water ten meters in front of him churned violently, revealing the dark, black back of a fish as large as an Eight Immortals table. Its dorsal fin stood erect like a sword, and it charged straight toward Fatty.

I didn't know what kind of vicious fish had appeared in the water, but I immediately shouted a warning to Fatty to be careful, as something was in the water. Gu Cai and Duoling on the boat saw it simultaneously and began yelling, "Sea monster! Sea monster!" They grabbed their spearguns and fired a volley toward the surface; where the arrows landed, they only managed to slightly check the creature's momentum. Seeing the danger, Fatty clutched the pearls and scrambled, half-rolling, out of the water and back toward the ruins behind him.

The inky-black dorsal fin on the water's surface was half a beat too late in reaching where Fatty had been; it suddenly sank beneath the waves, vanishing without a trace. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw Fatty escape the danger. He patted his backside to confirm it was still there, seemingly unconcerned about the peril he had just faced. Casually tucking the pearls back into his backpack, he learned his lesson this time, tying the backpack's clasp into a dead knot.

Irley Yang cupped her hands to amplify her voice, urging everyone on the boat not to let their guard down. Then she turned back to me. "Old Hu, did you get a clear look at the sea monster in the water?"

Seeing her solemn expression, I dared not speak carelessly. The distance had been somewhat far, and the vicious fish had only exposed a patch of black spine, making it impossible to discern exactly which sea beast it was. But judging by its size, perhaps it wasn't a large shark? Yet how could a shark's dorsal fin be so broad?

Irley Yang stated, "In the Icy Sea, there is a type of Orca, incredibly fierce and cruel, not only capable of hunting agile dolphins underwater but also able to breach the ice from below to bite at people or seals on the surface. In the South Sea, there is a similar Sword-backed Whale-Dolphin, smaller than the Orca, with a wide mouth, a black, sword-like spine, and a flat, round belly. It is also adept at leaping from the water to attack people, capable of launching itself directly out of the sea to drag sailors from their ships. It is as notorious as the Orca, known as the 'Man-Eating Whale-Dolphin.' The dorsal fin I just saw looked very much like that of the deep-sea Man-Eating Whale-Dolphin. If such a monster exists in these waters, being on a life raft would put us too close to the surface, which is extremely dangerous."

We immediately warned Fatty, Uncle Ming, and the others to stay as far away from the water's surface as possible to avoid being attacked by a breaching Whale-Dolphin. Fatty and the others had already lowered the life raft, and the injured Captain Ruan Hei had been carried to the edge, ready to transfer him once all supplies were aboard before abandoning ship. Seeing the change in circumstances, they had no choice but to carry the injured man back away from the edge to prevent him from being too close to the water and vulnerable to a sea monster attack.