I am the old, fiery-faced man from the senior department.

"Stay here tonight, there are plenty of spare rooms in the house."

"No, no, no, that's already enough of a bother. We were just passing by, came to visit you and the little princess, and now we should be leaving."

"...Fu Xun, I want to stay here."

"..."

Looking at the expressionless but pleading little girl, Fu Xun helplessly covered his face.

"Stay here. Ah Yuye..."

Before Bai Zhou could finish speaking, the doorbell rang.

"Grandpa, I'm back. I also brought a gift for my sister."

Then, the singer in red entered with a cheerful gait.

The next moment, the room fell into an unspeakable silence once again.

Twenty-eighths, our destinies are intertwined.

"..."

"Why... are you here..."

The hunter raised his blood-red eyes and stared intently at it.

Even though it had lost the moisture of the sea and concealed its true form, she could still smell... the scent of the sea that permeated the air.

“Isha-mla…”

Shouyan looked at her and softly called her name.

"I... came to see you. For our... future."

She had not yet mastered much of the art of human language, and when faced with hunters with whom she could not communicate through the bonds of her race, she felt the limitations of humanity.

She could only use the vocabulary she had learned during this time, along with the emotions she had picked up from others, to express herself.

“You have our blood in your veins, sister. Our blood is thicker than water. I followed the call of our bloodline all the way here.”

Skadi had thought about it many times.

Skadi knew she was connected to them, but she attributed it all to the side effects of the scars left by the final battle.

But no matter how much she tried to deceive herself, her body kept telling her the truth.

She can smell it, she can hear it, she can recognize it.

"lie!"

She was unwilling to accept it.

"I am an Agor! I have nothing to do with you!"

“Isha-mla…your blood is our blood.”

She spoke with a blank expression, yet in a tone brimming with intense emotion that she had never shown before.

“Your flesh is there, and then our blood goes in. We become one. Our blood flows in your body, and your heart beats because of us.”

“I have many blood relatives. They met you. They died.”

"They can smell you. Just like you can smell us."

“They think their compatriots are trapped under your skin. They tear at your flesh without regard for the danger, trying to release their own compatriots from your bodies.”

“They weren’t ready; they didn’t have the organs to understand. Their instincts told them… our blood relatives were bound.”

“But now we know. You did not trap your fellow countrymen within your bodies. Sisters, you are our fellow countrymen.”

"Ishar-mla. You are us."

Hai Si's language seemed to possess a magical power, prompting Skadi's chaotic thoughts to drift back to the past...

She remembered... when she and the other hunters fought the terror fish, the stronger the smell of blood in the seawater, the more excited they became, the more intense their movements, and the more their bodies responded.

Blood of the same kind...

“I will awaken you, sister. You will remember that feeling. The bodies of the Agorians are too fragile, things pass too quickly, and many memories are forgotten. I will help you find that feeling. That… feeling of becoming one with the ocean.”

"Stop! Stop!"

She didn't accept it.

"But you want to know. I know you want to know."

First, I know.

Skadi knew that too.

They can't fool the other party.

Skadi had always wanted to know.

Skadi wanted to know what she really was and why she had to suffer so much bad luck.

"You killed so many of us Agorians... and now you want to claim kinship with me?!"

"My blood is the same as yours."

Shouyan simply looked at her and answered her questions one by one.

"You smell our scent, just as we smell yours."

"You found us, and you killed us..."

“When we don’t understand, we will kill you too.”

"We feed the ocean. Our bodies nourish the ocean."

"lshar-mla, we share the same homeland."

“But you killed my family…you killed my mother, my grandmother, and my sister.”

Skadi remembered... she remembered the grief she felt when she received news of her family's deaths.

No, it won't.

Shouyan shook his head.

“We are connected… sisters. Your blood relatives… our blood relatives… we will not kill our blood relatives.”

“We never go to the city of Agor.”

"You've destroyed so many cities!"

“Those cities are in our territory…they killed us first…and you…killed us.”

“Ha, but even in the cities deep in the Agor region, you will hunt Agor people.”

No...no.

“We will not do that. The city of Agor rejects the sea, and dying in the city will not be able to support the people.”

“The Agors attack us, and we attack the Agors. We are no different.”

"The deaths of people in your territory were committed by people in your territory. The more complex one's emotions become as a human being, the more such incidents occur."

She learned a lot and saw a lot during this time with Fu Xun.

She has developed her own perspective on the concept of "human being".

"lie!"

"Lying? No, I haven't learned to lie yet, sister. 'Lying,' you just said it yourself. But... Fu Xun didn't teach me, and neither did Xiao Yu. Sister, how... does one constitute a lie?"

The little girl's voice was full of confusion and curiosity; she genuinely wanted to know what lying was.

froze.

It seemed to touch upon Hai Si's thoughts.

The information about Haisi flowed directly into her mind through the scent.

She can do that too.

She...of course...

"Ishar-mla, sister, the barrier between you and us is too great. You are not yet able to convey your thoughts to us."

"But it's enough that you know what we're thinking. I'll tell you everything I know."

"My body has grown, enabling me to speak, communicate with you, come ashore, and meet many people."

"But language is cumbersome and difficult to use; many emotions cannot be fully conveyed through language alone... That's all I can say. Now, I can still answer your first question in our way."

“lshar-mla, sister, I have come to see you.”

Skadi knew. Skadi knew from the various messages that came from there—

Haisi doesn't lie.

And she felt the same way.

"Me and you... no..."

"You often feel that the living things around you are strangers to you."

Shouyan looked at her and told her what he knew about her.

"When you walk on land, you can feel the direction of the sea's movement and know all sorts of things in the sea without light."

"Sometimes... when you're fast asleep, you feel like you're diving into the sea and swimming with a large group of fish."

Skadi's blood was boiling.

How could this be? How could...this be?

Skadi knew.

Skadi empathized with her.

Skadi whispered among herself and the other hunters.

Skadi is an outlier than the other hunters.