The woman's body was burned to ashes and buried in an unknown, desolate place. Fearing that her resentment was too deep, the townspeople even hired monks to perform rituals to help her pass on to the afterlife.

The child who died was wrapped in many layers of cotton blankets, tied tightly with rope, and thrown into the sea.

There were still many mermaids on the shore at that time, and they threw the child into the sea in front of a group of mermaids.

The mermaids didn't understand what it was and thought it was food given to them by humans. Many mermaids followed the child who was wrapped up and dived into the water to find out what it was. Meanwhile, some mermaids who were still waiting on the shore were driven away by the town's residents.

To prevent the mermaids from coming ashore, the townspeople gathered a lot of branches and piled them on the shoreline, then lit them on fire to keep the mermaids away. Some mermaids, unaware of what these things were, approached in bewilderment and were immediately burned by the flames, letting out shrill screams. The air also faintly smelled of roasting meat, which made the townspeople sniff in fear and disgust.

Among these mermaids, the most persistent was the one who fell in love with Zhang Jianqiu. He approached the shoreline again and again, only to be burned repeatedly, his body covered in blood and gore. His once lustrous scales were burned black. In the end, he died on the shore and was finally thrown into the sea by a resident with a stick. As the tide rose, the mermaid's body disappeared into the vast ocean.

The townspeople thought the matter was over, because the mermaids no longer approached the shore, and everything seemed peaceful.

One month later, a merchant from out of town got into a dispute with a cargo ship at the dock because he found something that looked like a human finger inside the belly of a fish he had bought. He had sold the fish to a wealthy local family's maid, who was terrified and immediately came to confront the merchant and demand compensation.

The vendor, feeling unlucky, lost a large sum of money and gained a bad reputation in the area, which seriously affected his business. So he returned to the area to demand compensation and an explanation.

Upon hearing this, the townspeople immediately thought of the child who had been thrown into the sea. However, adhering to the principle of not airing dirty laundry in public, all the townspeople agreed to claim that the vendor was maliciously extorting money and spreading rumors, and drove him out of the town.

However, a few days later, another merchant came to argue that the seafood he bought contained human tissue, suspecting that someone on the cargo ship had murdered and dismembered him. This immediately attracted the attention of the government, and the matter was exposed.

However, fishing is the industry on which the local area relies for development, so the government could only help cover it up while trying to find a solution. Finally, they found a wizard who gave them a solution: put a part of the deceased Zhang Jianqiu on the merchant ship to prevent marine creatures with "evil spirits" from getting close, and pour "magic potion" into the surrounding seawater when they reached the deep sea to protect the ship.

So the townspeople dug up the grave where Zhang Jianqiu was buried, and dismembered the body, which had decomposed to the point of being nothing but bones. Several of the biggest merchants even fought each other over more of the body parts.

Finally, the wizard cast a spell on the skeletons, and the merchant ship that left the skeletons there had a very smooth voyage afterward, and no more strange objects were retrieved.

However, after people discovered the usefulness of the bones, they harbored many malicious intentions. Not only did they fight over them, but some even secretly smashed and stole parts of the bones. In short, over time, although more and more merchant ships possessed bones, the amount of bones on their ships did indeed decrease.

Zhang Jianqiu's skull was hidden by the townspeople in the local sea god shrine, and they would come to worship there every time they went out to sea, with remarkable results.

As time went by, this story was gradually buried in the past. Later, these bones were made into various shapes and called "lucky charms" and passed down. Fewer and fewer people knew the truth of that year.

So much time has passed, and the sea has remained calm, that people have long lost their reverence for the ocean and are unaware that the "sea god" they worship is actually Zhang Jianqiu, not a "mermaid."

After decades of use, the "magic potion" was found to contain substances that pollute seawater, and its use was banned by the government to ensure the quality of marine life. However, it is unknown whether anyone secretly used it for safety reasons.

It's unclear whether the mermaids' power has increased, the wizards' magic has failed, or simply that none of the merchant ships happened to be carrying bones. I never expected such changes to occur so frequently recently.

After hearing this story, Gu Qingqiu sighed deeply. This small town was truly burdened with sins!

How could Mother know so much?

Seeing Gu Qingqiu's hesitant expression, her mother answered decisively, "Zhang Jianqiu's mother is my aunt's great-grandmother. This is a story my mother told me."

They were even related to her? Gu Qingqiu was filled with mixed feelings. No wonder none of her family members worked in the ocean-related fields; it was probably because of these unbearable memories that they were afraid of the ocean.

However, this made Gu Qingqiu feel that her mission was even more difficult. The conflict between humans and mermaids was already very serious. If she tried to go into the sea, she would probably be torn to pieces by the other mermaids before she could find the male lead!

Over the next week or two, Gu Qingqiu spent her free time either at the town's library or at the Sea God's Temple looking for clues.

Since witchcraft exists in this world, she wanted to find a way to safely go into the water.

However, the world setting here seems to be from a rather ancient era. Gu Qingqiu could only vaguely understand the fonts and expressions on many of the books in the library. Fortunately, because the general level of education is not high, most of the books here come with illustrations and explanations.

Gu Qingqiu read a lot of information about mermaids in the books, but since these books were written by people, it was impossible to verify how much of it was true and how much was false.

For example, the book says that mermaids are beautiful, alluring, and androgynous, cold and ruthless, and like to use their appearance to lure innocent people into the water and eat them. At least initially, mermaids should have been very friendly to humans, but it was only later, due to human selfishness, that the two sides became enemies.

The book also describes some of the mermaids' weaknesses, such as fire. Gu Qingqiu thought this made sense, since past events showed that they were indeed afraid of fire. The question was, how could they use fire in the deep sea?

Some say that mermaids have weaknesses in their neck, tail fin, and waist, but if you actually encounter a mermaid, you can't test them one by one.

After browsing through all the books related to mermaids in the library, Gu Qingqiu still knew very little about mermaids. The only method she found for successfully getting into the water was a scholar's hypothesis—it was said that kissing a mermaid would allow one to breathe freely in seawater.