When the two surfaced, they noticed the waters had narrowed considerably, and the reflection of the fiery clouds on the surface was exceptionally brilliant.
Qin Ci looked up at the sky: "Why does it feel like the sky has gotten lower?"
Zhu Haowen: "It's so rare to be able to have a real-time face-to-face conversation; finally, we don't have to float around in the water anymore. "
Qin Ci: "Is it just my imagination? It feels like the sea of fire above is closer to us, even the surface water temperature seems higher."
Zhu Haowen floated almost completely on his back, making the view above even clearer: "That's right, the sea of fire is definitely closer. And it seems like something is moving through it."
Just then, a gust of hot wind swept over them, and they felt a surge of fire on the sea surface, quickly diving underwater to escape.
Through the water, they saw a ball of flame burning on the surface, which soon slowly extinguished.
A huge fire dragon roared across the sky above the sea of fire, its massive wings flapping, sending many flames crashing down to the surface, waiting to extinguish themselves.
Qin Ci exhaled a small bubble: "Isn't this a Chinese dragon? Why does it have wings?"
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "China also has winged dragons, like the Yinglong."
Qin Ci's bubble: "What kind of dragon is the Yinglong?"
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "I once read in the *Shuyi Ji* that a hui transforms into a jiao after five hundred years, a jiao transforms into a dragon after a thousand years, a dragon becomes a horned dragon after five hundred years, and then becomes an Yinglong after another thousand years."
Qin Ci's bubble: "So it seems the Yinglong is a very high-level dragon?"
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "Yes, there's a saying: 'What is the Yinglong like? What are its rivers and seas like?' It seems to say that the Yinglong helped Yu the Great control the floods." "It used its tail to draw rivers on the ground, thus guiding the flow of floodwaters."
Qin Ci was a little confused: "This Yinglong is clearly covered in fire, like the dragons in Harry Potter."
Zhu Haowen didn't have time to understand that Qin Ci actually watched Harry Potter, and said in a bubble: "Did you notice that the fire on this dragon's body is intermittent, sometimes there is fire, sometimes there isn't; and although the dragon's wings flapped and some flames fell, it actually carried away the large clusters of flames on the water."
At this time, the water was calmer, and the two floated to the surface again.
The dragon had long since disappeared; perhaps it was just a strange cloud formation that caused some kind of illusion.
All the fire on the water had disappeared, not even a small flame could be seen, but the fire clouds in the sky were still low, as if they might gather into a ball at any moment and bring a fire rain.
The two of them had long lost their sense of direction and could no longer find their way back.
Because the waterway had narrowed, the two of them could even see the scenery on the shore.
"Should we go ashore, or continue swimming?" Qin Ci found that he was still swimming as fast as a fish.
"We can swim faster than walk now," Zhu Haowen thought, believing swimming was a good way to cool down, besides being fast.
The waterway was getting narrower and narrower, and it no longer resembled the sea at all.
Qin Ci observed the trees on both banks: "The waterway here is as narrow as the Slender West Lake in Yangzhou."
But there was no Slender West Lake here; both banks were lined with pine forests, making a sound like the wind rustling through the pines, which sounded just like being in the sea.
Ahead, there was an exceptionally tall pine tree, growing right on the shore, and a person was sitting under it.
Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen swam quietly over and saw an elderly woman under the tree, mending an old garment.
"Could this be the Dragon Girl the Sea Monk spoke of?" Zhu Haowen was somewhat incredulous.
"The woman mending clothes perfectly matches the Sea Monk's description of the Dragon Girl." Qin Ci had already swum to the shore.
The two of them went ashore one after the other, soaking wet, and came to the large pine tree.
The elderly woman was completely unaware of the two men approaching. She continued mending the clothes in her hands with undivided concentration, seemingly unaffected by even the weight of a mountain.
Upon closer inspection, one would notice that she was not using ordinary silver needles, but black pine needles, and the thread she was using was a bright red, extremely strong thread. Moreover, what she was mending was not ordinary clothing, but large, torn dragon scales.
"Grandma," Qin Ci stepped forward and greeted her gently, "I'm sorry to bother you."
The old woman hesitated for a moment, looking up at Qin Ci, then at Zhu Haowen. Her eyes were almost entirely gray. "My eyesight isn't good; I didn't notice you two earlier. It's no trouble at all. This pine tree provides the best shade; anyone can come here to cool off."
Qin Ci continued, "If I may ask, are you the Dragon Girl?"
The old woman smiled. "Dragon Girl? That's what I called her when I was young. Now I'm just an old woman, sitting here every day mending clothes for my son."
Zhu Haowen also asked, "Grandma, we jumped off the sea of fire. The Sea Monk gave us a ride, but we encountered danger along the way and separated temporarily. He told us to come find you."
The old woman's gray eyes looked at Zhu Haowen. "A person who dares to jump into the sea of fire is truly brave and courageous; it's rare."
Zhu Haowen thought for a moment, then… The box was taken out: "Our box has tamed a Suanni from the sea. I'd like to ask, where can we find a second Suanni?"
Upon hearing Zhu Haowen's words, the old woman suddenly burst into laughter, laughing for a long time before stopping: "Tamed? It was clearly a matter of mutual consent, how can you say it was tamed?"
Qin Ci hurriedly said: "We don't understand this either, we hope the old woman can enlighten us."
The old woman, while mending, said: "There is only one Suanni in the sea in this world, where am I supposed to find a second one for you? There is, however, a divine elephant, hidden on the seabed below the temple. There is an Indian shipwreck there, with several chests of treasure inside, including a golden urn, and the divine elephant is hidden inside."
The two carefully noted down the old woman's words, and Zhu Haowen asked again: "According to you, the patterns on this box are not all Suanni? A divine elephant is also needed?"
The old woman remained silent, seemingly in tacit agreement.
"Grandma, we thought finding a few Suanni would be enough, but now we've added the Divine Elephant. Do we need anything else? How many kinds do we need in total?" Qin Ci couldn't help but ask.
The old woman rubbed her eyes, seemingly exhausted. "Look over there, do you see that little hill?"
The two looked over and indeed there was a solitary hill, its surface shimmering with pearly light, as if it weren't covered in rocks and trees, but rather sprinkled with pearls.
The old woman slowly said, "Go to the foot of that hill, and use this red thread to whip the base of the hill, while loudly proclaiming: 'If Hai Ruo is not protected, where will the aquatic creatures be?'"
Zhu Haowen took the red thread from the old woman with both hands, finding it very thick and exceptionally resilient.
The old woman stood up, brushing the dirt off her clothes. "Alright, this is all the help I can give you. Saying any more would be revealing heavenly secrets."
Seeing that the old woman was about to leave, Qin Ci hurriedly asked, "Please have mercy and tell us what kinds of things we need to find, and what their names are?"
The old woman didn't even look at Qin Ci, picked up the large dragon scales, shook her head, and said, "These children nowadays don't even know about the Eight Sea Monsters... What kind of world is this?"
The old woman ignored the two men and limped away, leaning on her cane. When the two men tried to help her, she resolutely refused.
She disappeared into the depths of the pine forest.
The two remained standing under the large pine tree, carefully pondering the old woman's words. Qin Ci said, "When I read the information about the 'Sea Beast and Grape Mirror,' I seemed to have heard of the term 'Eight Sea Monsters,' but I hadn't studied it in detail. I remember there was a similar bronze mirror called the 'Seahorse and Grape Mirror,' which was said to be carved with 'heavenly horses,' or some say they were horses from overseas, which is somewhat similar to the overseas Suanni… I'm rambling a bit, but that's all the information I have."
Zhu Haowen seemed to have also fallen into deep thought. After listening to Qin Ci's words, he finally said after a long pause, "I feel like I've heard of the 'Eight Sea Monsters' somewhere, and if I remember correctly, they seem to be things like fish, shrimp, crabs, and clams… I really can't remember where I've seen them. I don't have a habit of visiting museums; I've only been to an art museum once in my life, and it was…"
Qin Ci: "…"
Zhu Haowen, however, seemed to have really thought of something: "It seems to be hot pot!"
"…"
"It's hot pot, the kind of copper hot pot!" Zhu Haowen's memory was completely unlocked. "When I was little, there was an old mutton hot pot restaurant near my house. They used those very traditional copper hot pots that burned charcoal. The outside of the hot pot was carved with things like fish and clams, and some things that looked like monsters. I thought it was strange at the time, and I even asked about it. I remember my grandfather telling me that the copper pot was carved with the Eight Sea Monsters, and that it was to keep the fire under control."
"Keep the fire under control? Doesn't a hot pot need fire? Why would it need to be kept under control?" Qin Ci asked, puzzled.
"It seems that these aquatic creatures were used to suppress the fire, so as to prevent it from catching fire." Zhu Haowen used an old saying.
Qin Ci understood that "catching fire under control" meant catching a fire.
Qin Ci asked, "Do you remember exactly what was on there? Were there any Suanni? Were there any divine elephants?"
Zhu Haowen replied, "I really can't remember. I just remember there were fish, turtles, clams, and some fierce-looking beasts."
Only then did the two realize that "you only realize how little you know when you need it." In the past, with Mu Yiran and Shao Ling by their side, they could always solve these traditional problems easily, but now they were stumped by the two men, who were not lacking in education.
"What we can be sure of now is that this box is meant to contain the Eight Sea Monsters, and the Suanni is one of them," Qin Ci could only try to analyze and summarize. "According to the old man, there's also the Divine Elephant and that strange mountain, that makes three. Add to that the fish, turtle, and clam you saw on the copper pot, and that makes six. Let's search in that direction first."
Zhu Haowen nodded; that was all they could do for now. "That small mountain isn't far, but it's not close either. It'll be faster if we swim there."
The two of them were soaking wet just now, but their clothes were mostly dry by now, and the fiery clouds in the sky seemed to be pressing down lower and lower.
Zhu Haowen handed the red thread to Qin Ci for safekeeping and asked, "Did you see where she got this red thread from?"
Qin Ci saw it too, but couldn't make it out clearly: "It looks like it came from her leg. Was there some kind of sewing bag there?"
"No, it came from her body, from her leg," Zhu Haowen said. "Even the red threads she used to mend her clothes were drawn from her body. If I'm not mistaken, this should be a part of her tendons."
Qin Ci was startled, remembering the old woman who walked with a limp: "If she really is a dragon girl, then this is a dragon tendon."
"Yes, that's why it has such great power to shake a mountain."
The two of them had already jumped into the water and were swimming vigorously towards the small mountain. When they got closer, they were shocked to find that it wasn't a small mountain at all, but a giant clam the size of a small mountain! Its entire body shimmered with pearly light, exquisitely beautiful!