Chapter 34: The Sea’s Legend

Next day, 12:50 PM.

Jiang Ciqiu stood in the plaza in front of Shanhai City Station, a full ten minutes earlier than their agreed time.

This was way out of character.

After all, once Jiang Ciqiu started working, she was famous throughout the office as the queen of just-in-time arrival. Work started at nine, and she stepped through the office door at nine exactly, not a second early, not a second late, never letting the capitalists exploit even a minute of her break time.

But today, she got up unusually early.

“I should’ve just ordered some clothes online last night.”

The girl glanced down at her outfit and muttered under her breath.

“My closet is nothing but black T-shirts and white T-shirts, and my bottoms are boring as hell… No, no, why am I even worrying about what to wear? This is just two good bros hanging out!”

Realizing she was actually anxious about looking too plain today, Jiang Ciqiu pinched her thigh in embarrassment and anger.

She was dressed simply today: a white short-sleeve shirt, loose gray sweatpants, and a black baseball cap pressed down on her head.

With her chest wrapped flatter than an airport runway, to passersby she looked like a delicate-featured pretty boy.

“Dressed like this, no one will think I’m on a date with Lin Xia, right?”

The girl pulled a small mirror from her pocket and checked herself from left to right, studying her reflection seriously.

Mm, good. No trace of femininity at all. This kind of neutral style shouldn’t trigger that guy Lin Xia’s overly active teenage hormones!

Otherwise, she’d have to seriously question his sexual orientation.

“Qiu?”

“Wah!”

In the mirror, a familiar face suddenly popped up behind her. Startled, Jiang Ciqiu threw a backhand punch.

“Don’t just pop out from behind me like that! You scared me half to death!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Lin Xia smiled, stepped back half a step to dodge her straight punch, and pressed his palms together. “I was just surprised.”

“Surprised by what? That I came ten minutes early?” The girl rolled her eyes.

“No, I just realized Qiu really is a girl. Carrying a little mirror around and all.”

“Huh?”

Jiang Ciqiu froze, then snapped the mirror shut with a clack, embarrassed and angry. “Who, who says carrying a mirror is a girl thing? If I stuff it in your pocket right now, are you going to instantly TS into a girl on the spot?”

As she spoke, she made to stuff the hand mirror into Lin Xia’s pocket.

It was this motion that made her gaze inadvertently sweep over Lin Xia’s outfit.

A trendy short-sleeve jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, over a sharply cut T-shirt, and a pair of jeans showed off his long legs to full advantage. His hair seemed to have some wax in it, every strand distinct, clearly just styled.

Beneath the short sleeves, there seemed to be a faint hint of forearm muscle…

Jiang Ciqiu swallowed and, suppressed by his normie aura, quickly looked away and put away the small mirror.

“Ahem, are you going to an idol audition, or trying to get scouted?”

“I woke up a bit early and stopped by a hair salon on the way.”

Lin Xia replied lightly, naturally omitting the fact that he’d paid extra for the salon’s art director to put together a date-appropriate look.

“You’re putting way too much pressure on me. It’s like walking next to some male celebrity.”

Feeling passersby begin to cast faint glances their way, Jiang Ciqiu unconsciously held her own wrist and gave a dry laugh.

“Just ignore that kind of thing.” Lin Xia reached out a hand to her. “Hiding and dodging isn’t like you, Qiu.”

Jiang Ciqiu looked at his hand, paused, then smacked it away.

“True. Charge! To the beach!”

Heh, trying to trick me into holding hands? Not a chance! If we held hands, this wouldn’t be a clean, innocent bro relationship anymore!

The girl marched toward the station entrance with great momentum. Behind her, Lin Xia rubbed his reddened palm, not particularly bothered, and followed with a light laugh.

Shanhai City, as the name implies, has both mountains and sea.

A chain of mountains sits at the far west of the city, while the sea lies in the opposite direction, to the east.

Jiang Ciqiu and Lin Xia lived near the exact center of the city, so getting to the beach required more than an hour on the tram.

The faint scent of aromatherapy filled the tram car, a completely different world from the exhausted office-worker commute she remembered, filled with the smell of sweat and cheap coffee.

Jiang Ciqiu sat at the very edge, her head leaning against the window.

Gazing at the short-haired girl reflected in the glass, she felt an inexplicable daze.

Before transmigrating, she had often zoned out in scenes like this too.

But back then, Lin Xia, who had come back from the dead, wasn’t beside her, and her heart didn’t hold this almost overflowing joy.

Thinking of this, she secretly looked at her friend beside her through the reflection in the glass, and found Lin Xia was also looking at her in the reflection.

“…”

Their gazes tangled in the glass for a short while, until Lin Xia was the first to concede, looking away at his phone screen.

“Yay, I won!”

Jiang Ciqiu pumped her arm in celebration.

Lin Xia shook his head, speechless at his best friend’s baffling competitiveness.

“What are you looking at?”

“The magical girl forum. Everyone’s talking about Hongxia.”

“I’m not… she, didn’t she post that she wouldn’t leave?”

Jiang Ciqiu almost bit her tongue and quickly swallowed the “I” before correcting herself.

“That’s what she said, but everyone thinks it was just a smokescreen the management had her release to calm people down.” Lin Xia scrolled through the screen, his tone serious. “I heard they’re about to transfer magical girls from another city over. What do you think, Qiu?”

“I… don’t really want to talk about magical girls.”

“Why? You’re usually pretty interested, aren’t you?”

Facing Lin Xia’s puzzled look, Jiang Ciqiu covered her face.

She had been looking forward to seeing the sea for so long. Couldn’t it just not have anything to do with those stupid magical girl matters?

“By the way, do you know the legend about the sea in our city?” She decided to change the subject and talk about the folk story she’d looked up before bed last night.

Lin Xia honestly shook his head.

“I can’t believe you. Sit tight.”

According to the girl’s story, long ago in Shanhai City, a heartbroken woman threw herself into the sea and turned into a monster called “Lord Yebo.”

It envied couples who looked happy, so whenever couples went to the beach, it would drag the woman into the water.

The woman taken away would then become the next “Lord Yebo,” and so it went, over and over.

“Really? I’ve never heard a story like that.”

“Mm, that’s true.” Jiang Ciqiu smiled in a way that begged for a punch. “For classmate Lin, whose age equals his years without a girlfriend, couples and stuff really are irrelevant.”

From that smile, Lin Xia sensed an aura that made his fist itch.

So this was what they called a bratty little girl?

Some male instinct drove him to strike back immediately.

“Then you’d better be careful, Qiu. If Lord Yebo drags you off later, I might not make it in time to save you.”

“What are you talking about? We’re not a couple. Why would it take me?”

Jiang Ciqiu huffed and turned away, continuing to watch the scenery outside.

After a long while, she added in an extremely light voice.

“…Besides, I’m not really a woman anyway.”

Lin Xia didn’t catch it and leaned closer. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Jiang Ciqiu lifted her chin and gestured ahead with her lips. “We’re almost there.”

Lin Xia followed her gaze out the window.

In the distance, a golden beach embraced the endless sea, shimmering with fragmented light under the sun.

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