Otherworldly Merchant
Chapter 618: The Mermaid’s Tear

Chuyi shook his headand smiled. “Idon’t thinkthe Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragonwillshow up again. I guess it just randomly came to this place totakeshelter.SinceJiulin used the Thousand Mirrors Formation to capture it, I’m afraid it was so scaredthatitwon’tcome again.”

After Chuyi said that, I remembered the layer of ice on the roof. I told him that detail.

He nodded.“It seemsthe Scaled Dragon was hurt. It used the ice to heal itself.Sinceit has removed the ice, Idon’t thinkitwillcome back.”

Yin Xinyue and I smiled as we felt relieved. However, Chuyi still frowned. “Although it’s gone, the situation hasn’tendedhere.”

“What?” Looking at his countenance, my heart sank one more time.

Chuyi then explained that when a living human contacted the Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragon and started to grow scales, the scales wouldkeep growinguntil that person died. Moreover,sincethe victim had to trim more and more scales, their skin would becomeveryrough. Eventually, they would become realmonsters.

Perhaps Chuyi was afraid that Yin Xinyue couldn’t stand it. When he came to this part, hespokemuch faster. Then, he changed the topic. “To solve the scale disease, the only solution is to use the tears ofawater nymph.”

“The tears ofawater nymph?” Yin Xinyuehad longedfor this answer.

I was also cheered up, butquicklyfelt lostbecause I knewthat finding the tears of a water nymphwas much harder than finding the Undead Grass.I wasn’t afraid of the difficulty. I was just worried that our parents couldn’t wait until wefoundthe water nymph’s tears!

“Water nymph’stears areamermaid’stears.”

Chuyi’s answer made Yin Xinyue perplexed. My facegrimaced.

Mermaid?Might as wellask forUltraman’s tears at this point!

ButChuyi did not seemto notice our strange countenance. He continued his explanation.

According to the legend,when the Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragon jumped into the swamp and almost lost its life, a mermaid appeared. That mermaid wanted tosavethe ox, but she wasn’t strong enough. She stayed by the monsteras she was worried about it. At the moment the monsterwas about tocompletely sink, the mermaid cried.

The Scaled Dragon saw that. Its resentment and unwillingness were allswept awayatthatmoment, leaving only gratitude and love for the mermaid. The Eight-hundred-mile Dragon Scale was lucky enough to escape the swamp. However, it would never forget the mermaid’stears.

It was a sad and romantic story, but Iwasn’t in themood tolisten to it. Instead, I asked with a frown, “Chuyi, have you ever seen a mermaid?”

Legends aboutmermaidswereplenty, but I had never seen one before.

Chuyi shook his head. It was the first time he didn’t sound confident.“Theyshouldexist, but I have only heard ofthemin legendsso far…”

Then, he finished his cup of jasmine teaand lookedat us. Hisvoice was firm. “I’m sure I will solve this problem. Don’t worry.”

I nodded. As it had come to this, we had to follow his arrangement. “Do you have any idea what to do now?”

“As long as we find the Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragon, we can find the mermaid,” Chuyi said strongly. I had the same idea. The Scaled Dragon wasalso lookingforthe mermaid.And, itshould be able todo so beforeus.

Then, he turned to ask if my in-laws had eaten something unusual before they got sick, like strange beef orif they drankwater fromawell or river.

I didn’t say anything, but I was also curious how my in-laws had bumped into the Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragon. It was as rare as a meteor hitting earth. How could it happen to them…

Father had thought for quite a longtime, buthe stillshook his head. At the same time, I noticed that my mother-in-law’seyes were twinkling. It was as though she was thinking about something…

Whenweall looked at her, she hesitated for a while before sending her husband a look. Shestuttered,“Husband, could it be the wild vegetables we picked before?”

“Wild vegetables?What about them?” My father looked bewildered, but I had a feeling that it was the root of the problem.

I asked,“What happened when you picked the wild vegetables?”

“Oh, it happenedatthe beginning of this autumn. The riverbank at the East of the village grew a lot of fresh vegetables. Your mother and I saw themon our wayhome from the field. We thoughttheywould be delicious,so we picked some of them to boil…” said my father.

Chuyi and I exchanged looks. We understood immediately that the problem came from the wild vegetables. First of all, in autumn, Shandong would be yellow and dried. How could there be lushly green wild vegetables?

Still, whywas everyone elseall right, and only our parentshad aproblem?Could it be that noother peoplehad pickedthe wild vegetables? Or, were they the only ones thatfound that spot of green vegetables?

“So that was the problem...” myfather-in-lawsaid when he saw our strange faces. “No wonder all the vegetables were gone the next day. Your mother and I even thought that someone had cut all of theminone night.”

“Mom,Dad, how could you act without thinking? Don’t we have money? How could you eat things when you don’t even know what they are?!” Yin Xinyue burst out.After yelling for a short moment, her voice lowered as she cried. “I’ve been working hard to send money homeevery month. I just want you guys to have a better life. Why did you…”

She covered her face and ran to our bedroom. I followed her to comfort her.Later, our father took me and Chuyi to the riverbank to see.

As it was night, there was no one walking on the street except for us.Thishelped us calm down.

Father talkedtous while walking. “The small river in our village is actually a branch of the Yellow River. Every year, thereisa flooding season. But thesepast fewyears, the Yellow Riverhas beendrying up,and the river in our village doesn’t have much water.The people whohavea clever mindwill gothere to claim some areas to grow vegetables.”

Indeed, when we crossed the bridge, I shone my flashlight down and saw a vastarea ofgreen wheat. I also spotted a barren area the size of a basketballcourt,where I could see the brown soil.

That area of land was right in the middle of the riverbank. There should be no reasonfor thevillagersto leaveit empty. Thatwaswhy I concluded it was the spotwhere thelush wild vegetableshadgrown.I strode toward that spot.

When wegotthere, Chuyi directly stabbed his eight-faceted Han sword into the ground. Intheblink of an eye, the entire blade sank until we only saw the handle!

I thought he would readaspell. However, he drew the sword out and sprinkled some ashes from his bag on the blade of the sword. The ashessizzled like boiling water.

After around one minute, the ashes slowly fell off the blade. I was surprisedas I could smell a terriblestench comingfrom the sword.

“I see.” Chuyi used a handkerchief to wipe the blade before putting it backinits sheath. He smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “The Eight-hundred-mile Scaled Dragon is smart. It usedthe ice here to cover its Yin energy.”

I nowrecognized that the soil underneath was really soft. It wasn’t frozen. It turned out the Scaled Dragon had absorbed the ice around. The beast wasstruggling, though. Although it didn’t like thecold, it had to use ice to cover itself.

I sighed.“Can you locate that beast?”

“Let me try.” Then, he took out a calabash and released Little Lin.