As twilight sank into the sea, the streets of Yuzhou City turned into a narrow gray ribbon.
Bai Qingxue stood at the edge of the pier, facing the sea.
The sea breeze pressed in from afar, carrying an increasingly heavy fishy odor and the scent of the churned-up seabed.
Ning Qinghan sat on the stone steps at the edge of the pier, her bare feet dangling above the water, her toes less than half a foot from the sea.
She kept her head lowered, smoothing out the creases in the hem of her Daoist robe, her posture relaxed.
The tide was beginning to rise.
The sound of the surging waves grew louder, slapping against the stone steps of the pier wave after wave.
On the sea's surface, the shadows that had been faintly visible earlier suddenly grew larger and more numerous.
The water line was pushed up from below and broken, revealing dark gray backs, one after another, rising and falling at the boundary where the twilight met the sea.
The first sea beast rose from the water. Its body was covered in a layer of slick, dark scales, its limbs thick and webbed, its back hunched, resembling an elongated lizard.
Standing in knee-deep water, it tilted its head, its cloudy pupils contracting slightly.
Then it moved. Springing forward with all four limbs, its entire body launched out of the sea and landed heavily on the stone steps.
Its sharp claws dug into the stone crevices to steady itself, and then it took another step. Behind it, a second, a third, and even more sea beasts rose from the water, surging toward the pier.
Ning Qinghan still did not budge.
Sitting on the stone steps, she tilted her head to watch the sea beasts crawl ashore, her gaze as if she were looking at a school of uninteresting fish.
She did not even change her posture, merely uncrossing her legs and resting her bare feet on the cold stone slabs.
“Immortal Master Bai,” her voice drifted over from behind, drawn out. “These monsters look so terrifying. You have to protect me~”
Bai Qingxue did not look back, nor did she reply.
The Frost Moon Chant was already in her hand, held horizontally to her lips.
The first note sounded. Frost began to form on the stone steps at the edge of the pier, fine white traces spreading along the crevices.
The leading sea beast stopped abruptly, tilting its head as its cloudy eyes turned toward Bai Qingxue, as if trying to make out something it did not understand.
Bai Qingxue naturally paid it no mind.
The second and third notes fell in quick succession. A thin layer of ice floated onto the sea's surface in front of the pier, spreading outward from the stone steps beneath Bai Qingxue's feet, sweeping across the shallow waters near the shore, past the ankles of the sea beasts, and over those dark gray backs rising from the water.
The leading sea beast looked down at the ice around its ankles and tried to take a step,
but the ice had already frozen up to its knees. It struggled violently, cracking the ice in several places, but a new layer immediately covered it again.
“My, how impressive,” Ning Qinghan's voice drifted over again, carrying a deliberate note of admiration.
“With Immortal Master Bai here, I can rest easy.”
Bai Qingxue's fingertips moved over the holes of the flute, and the fourth note joined in.
The ice began to grow upward. Slender icicles thrust out from the frozen surface around the sea beasts' ankles, climbing all the way up their leg bones.
The sea beasts began to retreat, forced back into deeper waters by the ice. The sound of the waves grew louder, the entire sea surface churning restlessly at their retreat.
As the next note fell, the first crack appeared on the stone steps at the edge of the pier. The ice shifted from expanding to contracting, and from contracting to freezing solid.
Several sea beasts were trapped in place by the ice, while those that had retreated to deeper waters sped up, carving churning white lines across the sea as they fled into the distance.
Instantly, the pier fell silent.
The ice covered the entire shallow area near the shore, casting a dull silver-white sheen in the twilight.
Several frozen sea beasts stood stiffly on the ice, frozen in their struggling postures.
Bai Qingxue lowered the Frost Moon Chant, a thin layer of mist condensed on the flute's body.
At the same time, Ning Qinghan finally stood up.
She dusted off non-existent dust from her Daoist robe, stepped onto the edge of the ice with her bare feet, and lightly tapped her toes against the frozen surface, as if testing its strength.
Seeing that the ice did not crack, she nodded.
On the sea, the fleeing dark shadows did not linger near the shore, nor did they regroup; they simply vanished where the twilight met the sea.
Ning Qinghan bent down, her fingertips brushing over a small remnant of the dark outer membrane on the ice, picking it up to inspect it.
She held the fragment up to her eyes, turning it against the last light of day, before releasing her fingers and letting it drop back onto the ice.
“It's just like the one yesterday,” Ning Qinghan straightened up, brushing the powder from her fingertips.
“The same batch of creatures, coming from the same direction. They will return tomorrow, and likely in even greater numbers.”
Ning Qinghan turned her head, pulling her gaze back from the sea to rest on Bai Qingxue.
“You don't plan on waiting for them to come a second time, do you?”
Bai Qingxue stood at the edge of the pier, her silver-white hair lifted and lowered by the sea breeze.
She watched the direction where the dark shadows had vanished, fell silent for a moment, and then set off, walking toward where the sea beasts had disappeared.
“Let's go look at the source.”
Ning Qinghan watched Bai Qingxue's retreating figure and raised an eyebrow.
She did not follow immediately, standing in place for a breath. She looked down at her bare feet, then at Bai Qingxue's receding back, before finally taking a step.
“My, how dangerous,”
Ning Qinghan's voice chased after her from behind, carrying a drawn-out, reluctant tone.
“Running into the sea in the middle of the night... what if this weak little woman gets swept away?”
Bai Qingxue did not look back, only saying indifferently,
“Then don't go.”
“I never said I wasn't going.”
Ning Qinghan took a few quick steps to catch up.
She tilted her head, glanced at Bai Qingxue, and curled her lips into a smile. “I'm just reminding you, in case we run into something you can't handle later, don't count on me to step in.”
“After all, I'm just a weak woman.”
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