Mermaids Descend

Every morning in the Federation is awakened by countless screens of light. The first glimmer of light on the horizon doesn't come from the sun, but from the reflection of vast networks of energy, the light folding into a silent gold along with the sea fog. People walk through this golden fog, while overhead advertising screens loop announcements for the latest "Physiological Reconstruction Health Project"—the Federation's highest-level program, a joint initiative by the Department of Science, the Department of Energy, and the GI Institute, supposedly aimed at improving human adaptability to extreme environments.

It's not just the federal government. Today, the elites of almost every country in the world are systematically promoting this kind of thing.

However, no one noticed that the gene fragments used for "improvement" do not actually belong to humans.

In top-secret federal files, the project's real name is "Project Memory Resonance." Its core technology originated from a silver-scaled mermaid. As for the mermaid's name, that's irrelevant.

After the GI Institute pioneered the first "mental resonance" experiment, fragments of ancestral memories began to spread through neural regulatory networks via signal encoding. Initially, this technology was touted as "improving brain tolerance and preventing consciousness disorders in long-term divers," but the institute soon discovered that this signal had a strong "mimicry tendency"—any individual exposed to this frequency would experience dream-like memory illusions within a short period of time, followed by "positive indicators" such as emotional stability, enhanced empathy, and improved sleep quality.

The medical community cheered, and the political world tacitly approved. The business world immediately packaged it as the gospel of a new era.

At a global press conference, the president of the Federal Academy of Sciences solemnly read out the statement that had been widely circulated: "We have finally proven that isolated islands of consciousness can be connected through technology."

No one saw that Shen Huai'an, with his eyes lowered, whispered to himself in his villa by the Xuhai Lake:

"The tide is rising."

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"Memory resonance" has been rapidly implanted into every corner of society.

Educational institutions are promoting "cognitive tuning" in the classroom, companies are embedding "mental optimization modules" into their employee health systems, and the military is directly incorporating it into its training programs. In just three years, more than one-third of the world's population has received some form of implantation.

All of this does not rely on coercion, but unfolds in the form of "choice".

Human beings have always loved the illusion of being "free to choose".

Shen Huai'an no longer needs to be propelled; he only needs to "maintain" it—maintain the temperature of the resonant frequency, making it soft, uniform, and harmless, so that every person who comes into contact with it will unknowingly "dream of the sea," dream of breathing underwater, and dream of hearing an ancient call: go home.

These dreams were initially fragmented and unstable, but under the guidance of ancestral memories, they gradually developed a unified narrative—the sea in the dream was no longer a single blue, but a space filled with light; the calls in the dream also changed from vague murmurs into a language, a language without syllables, yet whose meaning could be understood immediately.

That is the memory of the mermaid ancestors being revived.

For the first time in this dream world, humanity's elite experienced "harmony." They found that political conflicts decreased, disputes in cross-border trade declined, and the boundaries between art and religion were subtly blurred.

Thus, the "dream" became policy.

"Let every citizen embrace the dream of health." — This is the theme slogan of the Sixth Federal Conference on Awareness of Health.

The audience erupted in applause.

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Meanwhile, the golden-scaled creatures on the seabed were also restless.

The first to sense the call was the ancient capital of the Golden Scales in the southwestern ocean, where the circular dome shimmered with tiny fragments of light, like countless folded suns. Nixos, who had become the chief and chief elder of the Golden Scales, heard the forbidden call in his meditation.

The voice came from above the abyss, gentle yet firm, as if saying: Come.

When Nyx opened his eyes, his pupils reflected the lights of human cities—a signal from his ancestors guiding him.

He immediately summoned all the elders of the council.

"Silverscale's song has begun again." Nixos's voice was deep and carried an undeniable air of authority.

“This is impossible,” an elder said in a trembling voice. “The Silver Scale Clan… they vanished long ago after the War of the Tide, their memories have been sealed away—”

"Sealed within whose body?" Nixos looked up, a cold glint flashing in his golden pupils. "It's Ceresis."

“He is calling from the shore,” he said slowly. “And we must respond.”

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The Golden Scale Clan has possessed partial shapeshifting abilities since their inception. They can transform between human form and their original mermaid form, but at the cost of enormous energy consumption and for a limited time. In the past, they viewed this ability as a curse—because shapeshifting meant turning away from the protection of the sea.

But now, they have redefined the "curse".

That will no longer be betrayal, but "evolution".

Nixos established a new council composed of seven pure-blooded golden scales. In the deep-sea palace, they conducted their first consensus ceremony around an ancient crystal core that emitted a cold light.

“Chen Huai’an has restarted the ‘Tide Rising Protocol,’ and the door to humanity is opening for us,” Nixos said. “The memory of the Silver Scales has taken root in their bodies, and the bloodline of the sea will continue on land. If we do not take over this ‘evolution,’ we will eventually become passive pawns.”

"Then what should we do?" one of the elders asked.

"Let's go ashore."

"Get ashore?"

“Yes.” Nixos’s voice was as calm as the deep tide. “Go ashore, take shape, infiltrate, and take control.”

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The golden scales began to move.

The transformation ceremony was held on the night of the highest lunar tide. Hundreds of Golden Scale Clan members simultaneously entered the energy pool, their scales shedding one by one, leaving their skin pale, delicate, and soft. The golden patterns originally used to identify lineage were folded inward into the genetic layer, transforming into a hidden light within the spinal cord.

When they opened their eyes again, the sunlight on land was no longer stinging.

They became "human".

Nixos led the first group of people ashore on the western Pacific coast—a human energy reserve and the headquarters of the Federation's "Deep Sea Survival Program." Thus, no one doubted that they were simply authorized "research volunteers."

They possess perfect physical appearance, exceptional intelligence, and astonishing adaptability. Within just a few months, these "volunteers" have entered high-level fields such as scientific research, medicine, finance, and diplomacy.

Humans love beauty, but the beauty of golden scales is poisonous.

They took over in the gentlest way—not by conquering, but by absorbing. They learned languages, adopted human beliefs, and even married and had children. Those children possessed a dual respiratory system from the moment they were born: they could breathe underwater and also grow up in the air.

No one noticed anything unusual; instead, they were called "new humans" and samples of human evolution.

Nixos was appointed as an advisor to the Federal Energy Agency. He always smiled at meetings, his voice gentle yet firm. His fingerprints and iris scans were registered in the federal system, showing no abnormalities. Yet, on countless nights, when he stood alone before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the high-rise conference room, watching the city lights reflect on the sea, his pupils would slightly contract, a fleeting golden light flashing within them.

That was his response—a response to memories from the deep sea.

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Meanwhile, the plan to sink Huai'an entered its final stage.

He has become a symbol in the scientific community: the pioneer of consciousness architecture, the leader of gene resonance, and the founder of the human "collective consciousness." Any proposal of his is unconditionally approved.

“If humanity must move towards a higher form of symbiosis,” he said at a global science summit, “then let humanity connect with the sea.”

His proposed solution is so simple it's almost naive—to preserve a "deep-sea pressure-resistant code" in the human genome to ensure that humans can spontaneously adapt to any future ecological disasters.

People cheered because it sounded like a ticket to immortality.

Shen Huai'an knew that the so-called "pressure-resistant code" was actually the "sea source channel"—a shared spiritual interface between the silver and gold scales. Once the human population was generally activated, the entire species would be introduced into the "consciousness field of the sea."

That means the human self will no longer be independent, but will become a vast and gentle whole.

Shen Huaian gazed quietly at the flashing data, his eyes cool and calm.

“Humans think they control the tides,” he said softly, “but tides can never be controlled. Just like humans, we are nothing more than bacteria on Earth.”

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Ancestral memories are spreading globally. The first to show signs of change are children—they begin drawing the same symbols in their dreams: spirals, scales, halos. Doctors believe it's some kind of "collective unconscious reaction," while psychologists call it "the dream of our time."

Then it's adults. More and more people are hearing the sound of water in their dreams; some dream of walking on the seabed, others dream of seeing the sea through other people's eyes. Government departments have stepped in to reassure them, calling it a "common adaptation phenomenon after consciousness frequency adjustment."

But no one questioned it further. Because everyone who "dreamed of crossing the sea" awoke more gentle, rational, and patient. Social crime rates declined, the economic system stabilized, and energy efficiency increased—humanity ushered in its first "global era of peace."

The media called it "the miracle of the sea".

The real miracle is that humanity is unaware that their consciousness is already partially connected to the mother of their ancestors' memories.

They are no longer alone, no longer in conflict, and no longer ask "who is whose enemy?"

In a private conversation, Nixos said to Shen Huai'an, "You make them as quiet as the sea."

Shen Huai'an looked at him and said calmly, "You're wrong. The sea is never calm; it's just too deep to be understood."

Just as the higher-dimensional world from which our ancestors came cannot be understood by this lower-dimensional world.

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The expansion of the Golden Scale Clan did not stop.

They establish new capital networks in the financial system, control gene bank keys in the medical system, and manipulate discourse with perfect logic in the diplomatic arena.

The second generation of Nixos has entered Parliament, and his bloodline still retains a faint golden glow. They know who they are, and they know they must hide it.

However, they no longer feared the land, for the land was turning into the sea.

As night deepens and the wind blows from the sea, the breathing rhythm of human cities synchronizes with the tides, and the whole world rises and falls in a unified rhythm.

Shen Huai'an stood on the high-rise platform of the research institute, watching all of this. The lights of the distant coastline flickered in the fog, like countless breathing eyes.

He closed his eyes in the wind, and the whispers of his ancestors' memories echoed in his ears—a voice that had blurred the lines between him and it.

“You did it,” it said.

“No,” he replied. “I simply restored it to its original state.”

He slowly raised his hand, the skin on his palm gleaming slightly silver, the last layer of human appearance being peeled away.

The wind came from the sea, gently brushing against the long hair on his forehead.

The world is so quiet that only the sound of the tide can be heard. The sea is awakening.

—And humanity is having a long, gentle dream from which it cannot wake.