The noise at Erpis Harbor hit a strange, languid peak in the afternoon.
A salty, damp sea breeze—sharp with that unmistakable brine—rolled in waves over the pier, carrying the dock's signature cocktail of rust, fish stink, and the faint burn of ship fuel from farther out. It slapped against the planks, the railings, and the rows of anglers lined along the edge.
Sunlight poured down without mercy, roasting the blue surface of the sea until it glittered in trembling fragments, as if someone had flung a fistful of crushed diamonds across the water—bright enough to make you squint. Heat shimmered in the air, mixing with the smell of sweat. Fishing rods stood like a forest of thin spears. Floats bobbed in the waves. Now and then, a fishing line hissed through the air with a sharp whoosh, or a quiet exclamation rose when someone landed a catch.
But most of the time it was just waiting—silence, low chatter, and the steady hum of boredom.
Against that backdrop, Qianye looked wildly out of place.
He carried a professional carbon-fiber fishing rod that had no business being on someone with such a slim frame. His silver hair—so bright in the harsh sun it was almost glaring—caught the light like polished metal, and even his signature cowlick seemed slightly wilted from the heat. His emerald eyes were flat and still, like two deep pools of winter water, reflecting the wavering sea. His face held no expression at all, as if the heat and the harbor's noise belonged to another world entirely.
"You came."
The voice was old but full-bodied, roughened by years, and it drifted from the shadowy end of the pier.
There—wearing a washed-out white tank top so thin it was nearly translucent, loose brown shorts, and a battered pair of flip-flops—sat a blond old man on a small stool polished shiny from use.
Old Man Gu.
He had his back to Qianye, leaving only the silhouette of a "lonely master" gazing into the horizon.
"I'm here." Qianye's reply was as calm as the windless sea. Not a ripple.
"You shouldn't have come." Old Man Gu sighed dramatically, the kind of sigh that screamed the rivers and lakes are treacherous.
"Oh." Qianye answered with brutal efficiency.
Then—without even sparing the "master" a second glance—he swung the fishing rod onto his shoulder, turned around, and started walking away. Clean. Decisive. No hesitation.
"Then I'm leaving."
"Hey—HEY—HEY!!"
The moment Qianye actually committed to leaving, Old Man Gu's "sage" mask shattered into dust.
He sprang up like his stool had turned into a trampoline. For an old man, his movements were terrifyingly agile. In three steps he caught up, and before Qianye could take five more—
Old Man Gu executed an absurdly practiced slide and latched onto Qianye's leg in a full bear hug.
Perfect technique. Zero dignity.
"You brat! I'm kidding! How are you this hard to tease?!" Old Man Gu looked up with a face full of shameless, pleading grin, his blond hair now a bird's nest from the sprint. There wasn't a molecule of "grandmaster" left in him.
Qianye stopped, forced by the deadweight clinging to his calf. He looked down at the old man.
No rage. Only a deep, familiar emptiness—an exhausted kind of "why is my life like this."
He tried pulling his leg free.
It didn't move.
"Let go…" he ground out, voice strained through his teeth. "Old Man Gu, if you have even a shred of conscience, you should think about what I just went through."
His tone finally gained a bit of actual emotion—pure grievance.
"I bought fresh fries. Hot. Fragrant. Haven't even tasted one. And then a whole pack of seagulls—eyes red like starving bandits—dive-bombed me and instantly split the entire thing. Not even crumbs. That scene was basically 'justice falling from the sky.'"
He took a breath, as if fueling himself.
"And that's not the end of it. Now I have to sit under this sun—this poison sun that'll peel skin off—and waste time陪着一个——"
He paused, then spoke with deadly clarity:
"——a shameless old man whose fishing skill is 'moving enough to bring tears,' and who only ever hooks a finger-length fish when some dog-shit luck falls into his lap."
He leaned into the words like he was carving them into stone.
"Tell me. If it were you, would you not be angry?"
A vein pulsed faintly at Qianye's temple.
"Cough—cough! Qianye, that's vicious!" Old Man Gu's face flushed as he tried to salvage the last scraps of his pride, neck stiffening.
"What do you mean dog-shit luck? What do you mean 'moving enough to cry'?! I've fished at Erpis Harbor most of my life! I've got disciples—if not a hundred, then eighty! Who doesn't call me 'Master Gu'? You really think without your… uh… magnetic field, I can't catch a single fish?!"
He puffed himself up, trying to sound tough.
His eyes, however, drifted away in a way that betrayed him completely.
Qianye didn't even bother to argue.
He just looked at Old Man Gu, calm and merciless, with a hint of pity.
That silent stare did more damage than any insult.
Old Man Gu's shaky pride collapsed instantly. He tightened his grip on Qianye's leg and swapped faces like a professional actor, going straight into tragic, tearful, pitiful mode.
"Yes! You're right! Please! Qianye! Don't go!"
His voice cracked dramatically.
"Let me experience that feeling again—when the rod suddenly drops, the reel screams, adrenaline explodes, my heart tries to jump out of my throat, and then I yank a live fish out of the water—thrashing, shining—right in front of me!"
He shuddered with theatrical ecstasy.
"That moment when even your cerebral cortex is vibrating, your whole body opens up like every pore is cheering—that feeling!"
He wailed, utterly shameless.
"Without you here… with my luck, I'll be pulling up fish bones, rusty cans, and stinky boots again!"
Qianye stared at the warm, heavy "human accessory" locked around his leg. His temple vein throbbed harder.
He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and used what looked like his entire lifetime of patience to avoid kicking the old man into the sea.
"Let. Go. Of. Me."
"Then what do I do?!" Old Man Gu roared as if his dignity had already died and been buried. "Say it! What do I have to do for you to stay?! If it's within my power—knife mountain, oil pot—I'll do it!"
Qianye snapped his eyes open.
His emerald gaze pinned Old Man Gu like a scalpel.
He enunciated each word with the crisp fury of a man who had reached the end of his rope:
"Then. Let. Me. Go. Buy. A. Hat. Okay?"
His voice rose, sharper now.
"My hat was also stolen—by that same gang of damn bandit seagulls!"
Every syllable struck like sparks squeezed from teeth.
A while later…
The sea breeze was still salty, and the sun felt even more vicious.
Qianye and Old Man Gu sat side by side at the pier's edge. The atmosphere around them had dropped below freezing. Even the loudest seagulls seemed to sense the danger and circled wide.
Not far away, a cluster of anglers whispered among themselves, eyes repeatedly sliding toward Qianye's direction.
"Hey, look at that little girl over there," someone murmured. "Damn, that back view is unreal. Never seen her at the harbor before."
"And she's sitting with Old Man Gu?!" another man in a straw hat stroked his chin, gaze bouncing between Qianye's slender back and Old Man Gu's messy blond hair. "Don't tell me that's his granddaughter?"
"…Old Li," a steadier middle-aged man snorted, "with an imagination like that, you should be writing novels."
He squinted.
"Old Man Gu looks like that and you think he produced a granddaughter with a back view this… uh… clean and otherworldly? Look at that waist. Those legs. And the outfit—white short-sleeve, khaki shorts, arms and legs out, neat and fresh. She's like a cool breeze in summer."
He declared confidently:
"My guess? She's a tourist girl who came specifically to learn fishing secrets from our 'Sage Teacher' Master Gu."
"…Old Wang," someone else replied flatly, "do you not hear yourself? Are you seriously not laughing while saying that?"
The whispering wasn't quiet enough.
It drifted over like needles, pricking Qianye's nerves one by one.
A faint blush crawled over his pale cheeks and spread straight to the tips of his ears. Even his stubborn silver cowlick looked like it was trembling with humiliation.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, jaw clenched so hard it looked sculpted, forcing himself not to hurl his fishing rod at the gossipers. His emerald eyes locked onto his motionless float as if he wanted to burn a hole through the sea.
Beside him, Old Man Gu wore a gloomy, suffering expression. He raked a hand through his already-chaotic blond hair like an annoyed old lion and muttered under his breath:
"New Eridu kids these days… got their eyes blown crooked by the sea wind or what? Can't even tell male from—ah, hell—men and women…"
He shot Qianye a careful glance filled with sympathy and guilt.
Because Qianye's current outfit…
Was, unfortunately, spectacularly convincing.
On his head sat a wide-brimmed sun hat that screamed summer countryside aesthetic.
Soft pink and pale yellow little flowers dotted the off-white cotton-linen brim in a tasteful scatter. A few strands of silver hair slipped from under the brim and rested against his smooth forehead and cheek. Sunlight filtered through the weave and painted shifting flecks across his skin—so fair and fine it looked like polished jade—making his already delicate features seem even more unreal.
The only problem was that the hat itself, with its aggressively gentle floral pattern, clashed violently with Qianye's icy aura.
Old Man Gu fought hard, failed, and finally surrendered to curiosity… and a small, sinful streak of schadenfreude.
He leaned closer, whispering carefully.
"Uh… Qianye… why did you… buy this hat?"
His expression twisted as he tried to keep from laughing.
Qianye's body stiffened.
His fingers around the fishing rod tightened until the knuckles turned pale.
His emerald eyes surged with humiliation and rage, then sank into a cold, dead calm like a winter lake.
He was silent for several seconds before he finally forced out the truth, voice trembling with an aftertaste of trauma:
"…Do you… believe this?"
He inhaled like he needed courage just to remember.
"The shop owner. A woman."
His voice sharpened with bitterness.
"The moment I walked into her damn store, her face lit up like a hunter watching a rare prey stumble into a trap."
"And then—right in front of me—calm as could be, hands faster than lightning—she took every single men's hat on the shelf. Every dark one. Every sporty one. Even anything remotely neutral. All of them."
He spoke faster now, heat rising.
"Like a magic trick—zip zip zip—she shoved them into this big box behind the counter marked 'To Be Processed.'"
Old Man Gu's mouth fell open.
Qianye continued, voice dropping into a bleak, icy monotone.
"Then she turned around with that… that 'I understand, I understand everything, you poor thing' smile—sweet as poison—and said, slowly and politely…"
He mimicked her tone with hateful accuracy:
"'Oh dear, I'm so sorry, little Qianye What unfortunate timing Those you saw just now were all defective stock, you know—quality issues, destined for disposal. You mustn't even touch them.'"
He swallowed, face tightening.
"'Right now, our store only has these brand-new, best-selling ladies' sun hats! Look at the pattern, the craftsmanship—how perfectly they suit your vibe~'"
Qianye's imitation was flawless.
His resentment was also flawless.
Old Man Gu stared, stunned. "S-so… you… gave in?"
"Gave—IN?!" Qianye whipped his head toward him like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, cheeks flushing violently beneath the floral brim. His eyes flared with wounded pride.
"How could I possibly give in to a trick that stupid and full of holes?!"
"Then… what happened?" Old Man Gu asked, now fully invested.
Qianye's voice sank into a drained, doomed whisper.
"She…"
He looked like a man remembering the precise moment his soul left his body.
"She saw through me. And right before I exploded, she leaned in and said—like the devil whispering into my ear—"
Qianye shut his eyes.
"'Little Qianye don't be mad. Let's make a deal'"
His fingers twitched.
"'If you buy this hat—yes, the one in your hands, the most perfect floral style for you—and then let me take one tiny, pretty photo as a keepsake…'"
He opened his eyes.
There was pure, exhausted despair in them.
"'Then from now on, no matter how many friends you bring, no matter how many hats they pick, no matter how many they buy—everything is FREE for you. Forever.'"
His voice became almost weightless on the last words.
"…Forever free."
Qianye slumped back, the wide floral brim drooping to hide most of his face, leaving only the elegant curve of his chin—an entire anatomy of defeat.
"So," he exhaled, long and empty, "I… gave in."
The sea breeze tugged at the hat's pale ribbons, letting them flutter like a small white flag under the ruthless sun—wordlessly announcing the total collapse of his "dignity defense line."
Old Man Gu sighed, oddly moved.
"In the end… you sacrificed yourself for a tiny profit."
Qianye's eyes narrowed to a knife-thin line.
"…I'm getting angrier the more I think about it."
His voice turned dangerously calm.
"Later I'll buy more fries. And put laxatives on them. Feed them to the seagulls."
Old Man Gu jolted upright. "Hey! There are seagulls and anglers everywhere! Are you trying to create hell?!"
Qianye paused, eyes drifting away, voice dropping into a conspiratorial murmur.
"…Fine. I'll do it secretly."
Old Man Gu's face twisted.
"HEY! I'M NOT DEAF!!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 80
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 74
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 48
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 50
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 47
Uma Musume: From Beginner 42
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