As Ming Shu and Gu Cai cautiously stepped onto the sloping stone bank approaching the fallen Ruan Hei, the water suddenly churned, and a massive, completely black Giant Salamander burst forth. More than half of its serpentine body landed on the shore, and with one snap of its jaws, it seized Ruan Hei. With a violent shake of its head and tail, it plunged back into the water, immediately followed by trails of blood mixed with frothy white bubbles surfacing.

The entire event unfolded with terrifying speed, utterly without warning. A collective gasp escaped everyone, and no one could move quickly enough to intervene. They could only watch helplessly as the boat captain, Ruan Hei, was dragged under by the salamander’s maw. Even if we jumped in now, sacrificing our lives to fight the dragon's thrashings with bare blades, it would be too late. How ferocious must that Sword-Spined Salamander, known as the Executioner, truly be? To swallow a man whole and drag him underwater—Ruan Hei was no Golden Arhat; his life was surely forfeit now.

In the brief moment of stunned silence, Ruan Hei’s apprentice, Gu Cai, clutching a short blade between his teeth, plunged into the water to save his master. Ming Shu tried to hold him back but only managed to rip his outer garments. In truth, Ming Shu highly valued Gu Cai’s talent, and seeing the boy rush into certain death, he instantly burst into panicked curses: “You crazy brat! Are you tired of living?!” This place, the Guixu Abyss, was infested with all manner of fish and aquatic beasts. Besides the Sword-Spined Salamander, countless sharks prowled the depths, fighting for dominance in a brutal struggle where the weak are devoured. It was infinitely more perilous than the Coral Spiral Sea above.

Watching anxiously from the stone pillar, I realized the situation had reached a critical point. Gritting my teeth, I turned to Shirley Yang and said, “We’re going in to save him.” Shirley Yang nodded immediately: “Right!” At that moment, we could no longer afford to worry about the numerous dangers lurking beneath the waves. Drawing our diving knives, we prepared to leap from the pillar into the water. Across the way, Pang Zi on the opposite boat had already grabbed his fish gun, all of us intent on diving to rescue Gu Cai.

Just as we were about to risk the jump, the seawater began to roil violently. Huge clouds of blood welled up from the depths, clearly indicating a desperate, life-and-death battle raging below. A powerful surge of water erupted, and we saw Gu Cai, using the Fenshuici (Water-Splitting Thorn) and physically wrestling the completely sodden Ruan Hei, riding the turbulent current back toward the stone platform. By some unimaginable feat of skill, he had managed to wrench Ruan Hei free from the salamander’s grip.

The rest of us were left utterly dumbfounded. While it was true that the egg-divers depended entirely on their underwater skills for survival, the disaster of being consumed by a vicious fish was an accepted risk. No one had ever heard of an egg-diver actually engaging in a head-on fight with such a monster. Gu Cai was barely fifteen or sixteen, a native of Coral Temple Island. To see him return with Ruan Hei rescued from the abyss was unbelievable; we immediately saw him in a new light. What hidden capabilities did this young man possess?

Underwater, Gu Cai had used the stone sand and the Fenshuici to injure the killer whale. The hungry sharks, drawn by the scent of blood, swarmed in to attack the Sword-Spined Salamander, turning the surface into a chaos resembling boiling water. Seeing the opportunity, I quickly hailed Pang Zi to paddle the rescue dinghy over so Shirley Yang and I could join the others.

On the listing deck of the Triceratops, Gu Cai and Duoling were weeping uncontrollably over Ruan Hei. The salamander had bitten both of Ruan Hei’s legs clean off, nearly at the root. The wounds were too severe to staunch the bleeding. His breathing was faint; it was clear he was not going to survive. When Pang Zi and I reached his side, Ruan Hei suddenly opened his eyes. I knew this was a deathbed resurgence, a final chance for a parting message, so I quickly took his ice-cold hand and urged him, “Boss Ruan, say whatever you need to say. We will do our utmost to fulfill it.”

Ruan Hei’s eyes were vacant. He struggled for a long time just to part his lips, but no words emerged. He merely shifted his gaze toward Duoling. I understood his unspoken thought and reassured him: I would personally ensure Duoling found her relatives in France.

Shirley Yang was also weeping. She had hired Ruan Hei and the others to help; otherwise, the three of them would still be fishing and harvesting eggs on the island, living hard, poor lives, but at least alive.

Ruan Hei gathered his remaining strength and spoke in broken fragments, telling everyone that in the lives of the egg-divers, they were as if bewitched by the task of diving for eggs. They knew the dangers lurking below—the fierce storms, the hungry fish that swallowed boats—and that for every ten dives, nine men died, yet they willingly risked death to go. He confessed that he’d never truly understood why until this moment, when a strange clarity struck him: in the end, it was all about money. If one didn't brave the thousand-foot waves, one couldn't harvest the ten-thousand-gold egg. Once you chose this path, whether you lived or died was your own burden; you couldn’t blame others. If you were unlucky enough to die on a dive, it simply meant the patriarch of the egg-divers, the 'Fishing Lord,' had withheld his blessing for that bowl of rice. You had to accept fate.

He was leaving the world poor, with no major attachments other than his two devoted apprentices. Yet, Captain Ruan Hei had spent his entire life harvesting eggs without ever obtaining a true Qingtou (Green Head) pearl. He requested that after his death, a ‘Youth-Retaining Pearl’ (Zhu Yan Zhu) be placed in his mouth. This was the most dignified form of burial for an egg-diver since antiquity—to be laid to rest holding the pearl, offering a final accounting for a life spent battling the elements and risking death beneath the waves.

I sighed silently. Even at this final moment, he was concerned with South Sea pearls. Were the egg-divers truly bound by such values? What use was a pearl in the mouth after death? If it couldn't bring enjoyment in life, how could it benefit the deceased? But perhaps this was simply the ancient custom of the 'Egg People.' With Ruan Hei fading, I could only nod in solemn agreement, allowing him peace for his final journey.

Seeing my assent, Ruan Hei stared intently at the backpack on Pang Zi’s shoulder—inside lay the South Sea pearls he had risked his life for but never claimed. He suddenly tried to lift his arm, grasping at the air, but before he could draw another breath, he let go and passed away.

I borrowed the most brilliantly lustrous pearl from Pang Zi. Using the same technique a Mojin Xiaowei uses to retrieve a bead from a tomb occupant’s mouth, I braced the back of Ruan Hei’s skull, pressed open his jawbone, and inserted the Zhu Yan Zhu into his mouth. I then straightened his chin and closed his lips and teeth. Since he had just died, his body was not yet stiff, and the insertion was easy. Given the profound jingqi (essence) of the South Sea pearls we had gathered in the Coral Spiral, interring this pearl within his body now meant that even a hundred years later, after all of us had turned to dust, his corpse would remain uncorrupted, his features perfectly preserved, looking exactly as he did now.

According to the old traditions, if an egg-diver met a good end, they were not to be water-buried. The custom of wrapping the body and sinking it at sea was widespread, partly because keeping a corpse aboard a vessel was considered inauspicious, and partly out of fear that high temperatures might cause decomposition and spread disease. However, since the egg-divers faced the constant peril of being devoured by fish, any who died with a complete body usually wished for burial in the earth. I looked around; only the ruins of the Guixu Ancient City offered an available plot...