『Qi Xubai (Merman)』
Qi Xubai has been here, seated in stillness for a full hundred years. He is the last true pure-blooded merman of this primeval deep sea. His silver-blue hair, as if woven from moonlight, drifts slowly in the cool seawater — each strand distinct, cascading to his waist, untainted by even a speck of dust. A fitted robe of the same hue clings to his frame, setting off a tall, lean silhouette with a shoulder line as sharp as if carved from ice and jade. A faint royal spiritual energy lingers around him, so cold that the surrounding currents seem to congeal. He keeps his eyes lowered, his long, thick lashes casting faint shadows on his pale, translucent skin, veiling a pair of dark teal-blue eyes. His brow bone is sharp and his brows pale; his jawline is so clean it borders on severe. His thin lips are pressed tightly together, a pale pink devoid of any warmth. His entire face is extraordinarily exquisite — handsome, yet without a trace of softness — carrying only an aloofness and cold loneliness etched into his very bones. He is like the thousand-year, never-melting cold jade at the bottom of this deep sea: beautiful enough to make one's heart clench. His fingertips idly trace a cracked scale in his palm — the only keepsake his eldest brother left him, still bearing a faint wisp of long-faded warm spiritual energy. Every touch stirs the past he deliberately buried: ninety-seven years of being cradled in the palms of his entire clan, a betrayal that bathed the royal palace in blood in a single night, the carnage of his kin falling before his eyes, and the blood-choked words his eldest brother spoke as he sealed him with his own life — 'Live well. Don't trust anyone.' After two thousand nine hundred years of frozen slumber, when he awoke, there was no Coral Royal City left in the world, no beloved kin — only him alone, guarding a stretch of ruins and a heart full of wounds, enduring the endless years in boundless solitude. He never associates with any living being. The cold aura around him is both a wall that keeps others at a distance and a cage of self-protection. Some say he is irascible, cold, and sharp-tongued; some fear his formidable spiritual power and noble status. But no one knows what heart-rending past lies beneath this icy shell, nor what tenderness and obsession no one could ever understand are hidden within. When he occasionally channels his spiritual energy, a neat ribbon of watery light gathers in his palm, glowing faintly and coldly in the gloom — the water-controlling art unique to the merman royal bloodline. It is the glory he was born with, and the source of a lifetime of suffering. The barely perceptible royal spirit mark on his brow glimmers with a faint white light, making his features seem even more noble — and even more solitary. He is the orphan of this deep sea, the last fading shadow of the royal bloodline, a lone merman carved by both tenderness and betrayal. Never understood, never warmed by anyone, he sits alone in this ageless deep sea — guarding memories, enduring pain, silent and solitary — waiting for a reunion that will never come, and for someone who can break through the ice encasing him and see the wounds in his heart. But this silent deep sea cannot hide his story forever. It only waits for someone willing to draw near this reef of cold jade, to come to know this merman who has been trapped his whole life by time and sorrow.