Thinking about this HuaLian drawings by STARember… 😳
Young sailor Hong-er had just joined a pirate crew. On his very first sail, there was a storm and he was thrown off the ship. His crewmates couldn’t pick him up and everyone, including he himself, thought that he was about to drown to death.
As he was dragged down by the rapid current, Hong-er suddenly felt someone - or something - pulled him up. His consciousness was fading, but he could still see, before his sight went dark, that it was a beautiful mermaid with gentle dark eyes and long black hair, a contrast to his fair skin.
Once the storm passed, his crewmates found Hong-er stranded, but safe, on a nest of big coral reefs - to which they could finally send a small boat to pick him up. They were astonished and asked him how he survived. Hong-er wasn’t sure if he should tell them about the mermaid who saved him, so he only said that he was lucky to have gotten a hold of some floating plank, which he used to stay afloat until he reached these rocky areas and climbed to safety.
During that time and age, superstitions were common, people often believed legends and myths as truths to be sought. Some years later, there were rumors saying that the mermaids hid an abundance of rare treasures that they had amassed from the sinking ships. If one could bring back this treasure trove, it would be equivalent to all the wealth the world could offer, and one would live blanketed in riches down to their seventh generations.
As mermaids were generally seen as the enemies of sailors who often seduced men on the sea to crash their ship and drown them to death, many people began to get on board with it and the rumors itself grew wilder and wilder by the day.
Some said that eating a mermaid’s flesh could grant one with immense power and immortality, some also said when mermaids were taken out of the water, they would turn into extremely beautiful women - and really, which men wouldn’t love to have beautiful women by their side?
In any case, it did not take long for these hearsays to become obsession and thus, a widespread mermaid hunt began. People started to race one another, fighting and killing off each other to fulfill this baseless ambition.
The pirate crew that Hong-er was part of certainly wasn’t an exception. He saw with his own eyes how his crew mates devised various traps to lure the unaware sea creatures, catching them heartlessly as if they were merely going on a fishing trip.
No matter how much he disagreed in his heart, Hong-er, who was still just a young man and a mere lackey, couldn’t do anything to stop them. He could only swallow down his grief and disgust whenever he saw his crewmates killing off the pitiful half human, half fish creatures, blocking off his ears in frustration so that he would not hear their heartrending screams and cries when these barbaric pirates killed them off one by one when the mermaids refused to talk and lead them the said secret treasure trove.
That is, until one day, he saw a familiar face amongst the mermaids that his crewmates had captured.
Even if many years had passed, there was never a time when Hong-er did not remember that stormy night when he thought his life was about to be swallowed down by the raging sea, when that certain figure swam against the mighty current to pull his helpless body out of death’s embrace.
It was that very same mermaid who saved him that day. The moment he saw this creature being caught and was about to be subjected to the same torture the previous mermaids had undergone, his eyes went dark and he attacked his own crewmates, attempting to release all of the captured mermaids back into the sea.
Nobody would’ve thought that this skinny little lackey, whom they had been ordering around the ship like some slave, could be so vicious. He injured a great number of the pirates, tore off the massive nets huddling all of these mermaids, and urged them all to jump back into the sea.
But of course, this action was not without consequence. Not only did he suffer major injuries from battling dozens of his crewmates all by himself, losing an eye in the process, Hong-er was then branded a traitor. They beat him up until he could no longer move or speak, then tied him up to a huge rock. Just like that, the bloodied Hong-er was thrown off the ship to his death, this time for sure.
Yet there was no hint of regret on his face. In fact, Hong-er felt very much at peace. Even if it was only for a brief moment, he could meet his beautiful savior once more and pay him back in full. Closing his eyes, a smile appeared on his lips. He prayed in his heart for the kind mermaid to be able to live freely and happily with his people in the vast ocean, unrestrained by the greed of humans.
He had no idea that from the distance, a familiar shadow was swimming towards his sinking body.
The merfolks treasure trove was a big issue and remained so for quite some time, but for the men of the sea, there would always be new legends, new myths for them to gossip about while drinking in the taverns, to fight each other off while sailing on the ships. Rumors came and went like the changing of seasons, but it was not until ten years later that an alarming story began to spread among the seamen.
On the high seas, whenever the mermaids started singing, a “Ghost Ship” would appear quietly through the fog and mist, approaching unsuspecting ships with all of its otherworldly magnificence. The crewmates weren’t rough and dirty pirates, but men and women so beautiful they looked like fairies instead of humans, as if it was not a ship that was sailing, but a palace instead. The captain of the ship was a gallant young man dressed in red, a rare, peculiar scimitar hanging on his waist. It was said that he had only one eye, and he was known by the name Hua Cheng. Beside him, there would always be an extremely beautiful person donned in white, and the two were never seen to be apart.
But who could testify how accurate these descriptions were? Everything was a mere hearsay, for every single ship who came too close to the Ghost Ship, bewitched by its glory, would disappear without a trace. Were they sunken? Were they eaten? Were they spirited away to the ghost realm? Nobody knows. This Hua Cheng and his Ghost Ship were like a harbinger of death disguised as gold and flowers.
Hence a warning was soon spread amongst the seafarers, “If you hear the mermaids’ singing, turn around and never look back, for it means the Ghost Ship is sailing nearby, and those who laid their eyes on Hua Cheng and his beautiful companion in white would never live to tell the tales.”
As for whether the merfolks really did hide a treasure trove equivalent to all the wealth in the world, or whether their blood could grant power and immortality, or whether they could turn into the most beautiful people out of water, who knows? Maybe skinny little Hong-er had a clue, but unfortunately he was no longer a creature of this world.
stormborns
pixelskylines
areudirty
