I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

Aunt Zhang came over carrying a bowl of freshly boiled water.

My gaze swept across the sofa, where several people were sitting in different places.

The water glasses on the coffee table remained untouched, and the water had long since cooled.

She stopped, gently placed the kettle on the wooden coaster at the edge, turned around, and closed the glass door to the kitchen.

Carter's back was completely detached from the sofa back.

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

The pale blue light from the screen shone on his face, outlining the lines of his taut jawline.

A fine layer of blood vessels appeared at the corners of his eyes, and his eyelids hadn't blinked for a long time.

The text on the screen is slowly scrolling upwards.

This is a text without any "fat".

There are no lengthy psychological analyses, nor are there any piles of rhetoric.

The sentence was reduced to its most basic state, leaving only nouns, verbs, and conjunctions.

Carter looked at the message on the screen:

【The line went out and out and out but it was slowing now and he was making the fish earn every inch of it.】

(The fishing line was cast out, cast out, cast out, but now it slowed down, and he made the fish pay the price for every inch of the line.)

Carter's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

"and...and...and..."

A series of "and"s.

In existing writing tutorials and AI editing systems on the West Coast, this type of sentence structure would be highlighted and replaced immediately because the algorithm considers it to be due to a lack of vocabulary.

But Carter saw in those few simple words a taut fishing line, emitting a screeching sound.

The rough hemp rope rubbed violently against the wooden planks of the ship's side, almost sparking.

The fish dived into the deep sea, and the old man gripped the line tightly with his withered hands.

There are no adjectives used to describe the power; the actions are simply mechanically juxtaposed, and the structure of the text becomes a violent physical tug-of-war.

Carter's fingers tightened unconsciously.

The text on the light screen continued to flow downwards.

Under the blazing sun, on the vast ocean, a lone little boat.

The old man carried the fishing line on his shoulder, and the incredibly large marlin dragged the boat underwater, swimming towards the unknown depths of the sea.

The stalemate lasted from day to night, with the Gulf Stream disappearing at the horizon and the boundless darkness pouring down like ink.

There is no end.

【"Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead."】

(“Fish,” he whispered, “I’ll stay with you until I die.”)

Carter's breath hitched for a second.

Facing the vast ocean, the old man neither shouted nor questioned with grief or indignation.

Only one person whispered in the middle of the ocean.

The voice was soft, yet heavy.

A person and a fish, their lives bound together by a rope, became each other's gods and tombstones in the silent stillness.

Carter felt as if a rough hemp rope had been tightened around his back, tearing his skin open and burning with salty sweat.

The old man's left hand cramped up.

His fingers were stiff like the claws of a dead eagle, curled into a cold and comical bow shape.

In the depths of the ocean, there are no medicines and no medical tools.

He could only use his right hand to pry open his left, as if he were dismantling a piece of scrapped machinery that didn't belong to him.

【"Pain does not matter to a man."】

(Pain is nothing.)

A short sentence appeared in the center of the light screen.

Carter raised his right hand, pinching the web between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

The nail dug deep into the flesh, and a wave of stinging pain surged to my brain.

He didn't let go, his gaze continuing downwards.

The old man did not curse the fish that had tormented him and drained him of all his strength.

He gazed at the deep blue sea and addressed his underwater prey:

【"I love you and respect you very much.But I will kill you dead before this day ends."】

("I love you very much, and I respect you very much. But before the end of today, I will definitely kill you.")

Carter's pupils contracted slightly.

This is not a conflict deliberately created for dramatic effect.

The hunter showed the highest respect to his prey, calling the fish "brother."

Then, in this respect, they risk everything to take the other's life.

It felt like a fire was burning inside Carter's chest.

Long before artificial floating cities were built, long before neural interfaces were inserted into the back of the human brain and emotions were turned into data waves that could be bought and sold at will, those pioneers who faced storms and the deep sea survived because of this courage and this spirit.

The marlin leaps out of the water, its silver scales shimmering in the sunlight, before the harpoon pierces its flesh.

The blood stained the seawater.

Immediately afterwards...

The shark is coming.

Star sharks and scythe sharks, drawn by the scent of marlin blood, slashed through the water and pounced on the old man's prize.

The old man pulled out the harpoon and plunged it into the head of the first shark.

The harpoon broke.

The old man tied the knife to the oar and continued stabbing.

The blade broke.

Nothing.

【"It is silly not to hope," he thought. "Besides I believe it is a sin."】

("It would be foolish not to have hope," he thought. "And I consider that a sin.")

The bestseller lists on the West Coast are full of stories about how people turn the tide in desperate situations through technology or miracles.

But Yu Wen left Santiago no way out.

The old man raised his short stick and began to strike the shark repeatedly.

The short stick fell into the sea.

The old man pulled out the helm from the boat.

【He hit it with his blood mushed hands driving a good wood with all his strength.】

(With his bloodied and mangled hands, he swung the sturdy wooden stick with all his might and brought it down.)

The big fish that the old man had risked his life to catch, enduring two days and two nights of hardship, was being torn apart piece by piece.

The old man's dignity, honor, and the aspirations represented by the entire sail were torn to shreds by the sharks in the sea.

Carter clenched his teeth, the muscles in his cheeks taut and forming a hard line.

The old man was facing a dead fish that was nothing but a huge skeleton.

【"But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."】

("But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.")

This sentence appeared in the center of the screen.

Carter's movements froze completely.

He had seen that sentence in the introduction.

Only now did he realize the weight contained within it.

Eighty-four days of bad luck.

Hands with torn and bleeding skin.

Back muscle spasms.

A desperate battle with the fish in the darkness.

The lost harpoon, dagger, wooden stick...

And finally, sailing through the Gulf Stream, dragging an empty skeleton behind...

These are the foundation of this statement.

West Coast readers are used to winning, to the distribution of benefits, and to measuring gains and losses with data.

The old man lost everything, yet he stood at a height that defeat could not reach.

Carter's vision blurred for a moment.

He took a deep breath, tilted his head back slightly, leaned against the back of the sofa, and closed his eyes.

The old man's small boat sailed into the harbor.

The night was deserted.

The old man pulled off the heavy mast, carried it on his shoulder, and walked uphill step by step.

The mast pressed down on his shoulder.

He stopped to rest five times.

I walked back to that dilapidated shack and lay down on the spring bed with old newspapers on it.

【Up the road,in his shack,the old man was sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him.The old man was dreaming about the lions.】

(In the shack across the road, the old man was sleeping face down. The child sat beside him, keeping watch over him. The old man was dreaming of lions.)

……

The study is kept at a constant temperature.

But sweat trickled down Carter's forehead, dripping onto his shirt collar and leaving a small, dark stain.

He raised his right hand, grabbed the tie around his neck, and pulled it outwards forcefully.

The bow tie loosened, and a large amount of air rushed into the trachea.

Carter slowly opened his eyes.

iceberg!

This novel is an iceberg.

What emerges from the water are cold, hard words, an old man, a big fish, and the sea.

Beneath the surface lies the soul of the West Coast.