A morning mist hung over the coastline like a veil of white gauze, blurring the distant city skyline into a faint wash of ink. Lin Ruoshui stood atop a cliff overlooking the East Sea. The sea breeze, thick with brine, tugged at the stray hairs on her forehead.
She was not here for the view; this was her sanctuary for daily cultivation. With eyes half-closed, she drew the ambient energy—the Qi—into her body, feeling the invisible currents of heaven and earth surge into her Dantian like the tides. Her breathing synced with the rhythm of the waves, and her heartbeat pulsed in harmony with the ancient rock beneath her feet. In this moment, she was one with the world, her senses magnified to their absolute limit.
Suddenly, today's ocean felt different. In her "vision," the sea was no longer just a body of blue water, but a living, breathing canvas of raw emotion. Deep within that canvas, a grotesque, greyish-black undercurrent was roaring silently. It wasn't a standard current; it was a dormant serpent of shadow, carrying a resentment that pierced the heavens, surging toward the shore with irreversible momentum.
The water had changed color, turning a muddy, abyssal grey. The sound of the waves no longer resembled a song; it was a low, guttural growl of a beast in pain.
Ruoshui snapped her eyes open. The silver line on the horizon was rising at a terrifying speed, a wall of water ready to devour the land. It was a tsunami—a manifestation of the deep sea's long-hoarded fury.
She stood on the precipice, her robes snapping in the violent wind. Her razor-sharp judgment told her: if she descended now, the only mountain path would be swallowed by the surging tide; if she stayed, the peak would become a desolate island, cutting off all escape.
She had to call for help. Fast.
With trembling fingers, she fished her phone from her coat pocket and dialed the emergency services.
"Hello, I need to report an emergency... I'm at the North Cape cliffs," Ruoshui's voice was fractured by the wind but remained piercingly clear. "A tsunami is coming. It's massive. It will hit the coast in three minutes. Evacuate the waterfront immediately, and... please, send a helicopter. I'm trapped on the summit."
"A tsunami? Ma'am, there are no weather warnings. Are you sure—"
"There is no time to explain! Trust me!" Ruoshui hissed. For a fleeting second, her eyes flashed with an authority that didn't belong to this world.
The dispatcher on the other end was jolted by the sheer weight of her voice and instinctively began recording the details. However, as Ruoshui hung up, intending to check the tsunami's position one last time, her fatal curse took hold.
She blinked.
The life-or-death urgency that had gripped her shattered into dust within a single second.
Ruoshui stared blankly at her phone. The screen showed: Call Ended – 0:45s.
"Who did I just call?" she murmured. She looked back at the ocean. Far in the distance, the giant waves were indeed churning, but in her current memory, it was merely the tide coming in—a natural, mundane occurrence. She couldn't remember why she had been screaming into the phone with such desperation just moments ago.
"Should I head down now?" she asked herself, checking her watch. "The partners' meeting starts at nine."
She turned toward the winding path leading down the mountain, unaware that in two minutes, that path would become a watery grave.
High above, a black private helicopter cut through the dead silence, its rotors thundering. Inside, He Qiguang sat with a cold, predatory focus. He was the city's power broker, a man with political instincts so sharp they bordered on the supernatural.
"Mr. He, internal word from the Meteorological Bureau," his secretary said, face pale. "Two minutes ago, an anonymous call came in claiming a tsunami was about to hit the North Cape. They thought it was a prank, but the deep-sea buoy data just... it went off the charts."
He Qiguang closed his leather folder, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the eerily calm sea. "The North Cape? My rival's firm has a retreat there. Turn the chopper around. Go to the cliffs."
He didn't believe in prophecies, but he believed in "anomalies." If someone knew about the wave before the machines did, he wanted to know who they were.
On the mountain path, Ruoshui had reached the halfway point. She stopped—not because she remembered the wave, but because of the silence. The birds had vanished. The wind had frozen. This absolute suppression of life triggered her instinct again.
Suddenly, the roar of the helicopter drowned out the stillness. A rope ladder dropped from the sky as the cabin door slid open.
"Lin Ruoshui!" He Qiguang's voice boomed through the external speakers. "Get up here! Now!"
Ruoshui looked up, her hair whipped into a frenzy by the downdraft. She saw the man looking down at her—a man she'd seen at a gala once, the one who hadn't listened when she told him his wine glass was going to break.
"Mr. He? What are you doing here?" she shouted back, sounding almost annoyed at the interruption.
"Saving your life!" He Qiguang shouted, looking at the white wall of water that had already begun to erase the horizon.
Ruoshui hesitated, but the "death-sense" of the earth was now screaming beneath her feet. She grabbed the ladder. As she was hauled into the cabin, a deafening explosion of sound erupted from below—the tsunami slammed into the cliff's base, instantly vaporizing the path she had stood on seconds before.
The cabin door slammed shut, sealing out the sound of destruction. Ruoshui slumped into a luxury leather seat, gasping for air. She looked at the man beside her—immaculately dressed, eyes deep and unreadable—then out at the abyss where the mountain path used to be.
"Thank you, Mr. He," she said sincerely, her eyes clear. "I don't quite remember why I was heading down, or why you happened to be passing by, but... you saved me."
He Qiguang leaned in, his presence heavy and suffocating. "You don't remember? Counselor Lin, you made that emergency call. You predicted the tsunami to the second. Now tell me—how did you know?"
Ruoshui froze. she searched her mind, but found only a vast, tranquil blankness.
"A call?" she asked, blinking with genuine innocence. "I called the police? Are you sure?"
He Qiguang's breath hitched. He realized his formidable insight had hit a wall—she wasn't faking. She had truly, utterly forgotten.
Lin Ruoshui looked at him with a polite, puzzled smile. "Mr. He, could you drop me off at the law firm? I really have a meeting I can't miss."
"Mr. He?" He Qiguang stared at her, his expression turning ice-cold. "You... just what the hell is wrong with you?"