Someone, whom Tang Ze assumed was the king, was at the forefront of the welcoming party, but there were around four thousand other mermen behind him. Some of them were dressed in resplendent armor, while others were civilians either carrying musical instruments or chanting what Tang Ze could only guess were hymns. There was quite a bit of noise as they spotted Tang Ze, though Tang Ze still couldn't risk going any closer to them.
They would ask him to stay in the city, and he was already running out of time, with the paint layer around him growing thinner and thinner.
Tang Ze did not dare get any closer, but that did not mean the same was true the other way around.
Jiao Ming swam forward, waving his hand as a signal, telling the others to wait as he went to go speak with Ma'kat.
It was only natural that the most prestigious among them would go to meet a god.
Not that Jiao Ming was convinced even now that who he saw before him was truly Ma'kat, but he did not let this show on his face as he stopped some distance before Tang Ze.
"I, King Jiao Ming, greet Lord Ma'kat," Jiao Ming said. He was at a respectable distance from Tang Ze and did not approach unless asked to.
"Greetings," Tang Ze said. Jiao Ming frowned - why did that voice sound like that of a scared child instead of an ancient lord of the seas? "I uh, have found the root cause of why your city is sinking…"
Jiao Ming's eyebrows narrowed. Was this stranger telling the truth?
Even if he hadn't bought into the 'Lord Ma'kat' story, he was just as worried as everyone else about the city sinking.
"There is a colony of crabs undermining your city," Tang Ze said.
He hadn't wanted to do this earlier, but decided that it was most appropriate to make use of his telepathic abilities to communicate with fish to let their king know what was going on.
To Jiao Ming, it was a very strange and uncomfortable sensation. Though the television series always described one of Deepcurrent's abilities as being able to 'make friends with any creature of the seas' (not literally as it was also used on freshwater creatures in some episodes), its actual effect was essentially to mind control them.
But, right now Tang Ze only had about a fourth of Deepcurrent's powers, and mermen were intelligent creatures and so not easily subdued.
In any other circumstance, Jiao Ming would've taken such an attempt to be equivalent to an attack on his person, but he paused as images entered his mind of a location beneath their city whereupon they could enter to find this crab colony.
"I must thank Lord Ma'kat for his wisdom," Jiao Ming said. "And I invite him to feast and dine with his followers."
"Ah, sorry that isn't possible, I have to ah, run," Tang Ze said, flustered as he racked his mind for an excuse to leave.
Jiao Ming once again found this person's lack of confidence in their voice to be quite telling. It was as if they were a rather poor actor than the real thing.
"Yet, the glory of my people will be greatly diminished if it were to be known that one as esteemed as yourself turned his nose to our hospitality," Jiao Ming said.
"Ah, maybe but ah, my father calls for me, like, now," Tang Ze said. If he was a god, surely his father would also be important.
"Ah, if your father Mal'char calls for you, what can mortals like us do?" Jiao Ming said.
"Right, sorry, but I do have to dash," Tang Ze said.
That confirmed for Jiao Ming that this thing, whatever it was, was not Ma'kat. Ma'kat's father was killed by his brother in their mythos, and was also not named Mal'char - that was a name he had made up on the fly.
And yet, he did not call out Tang Ze on this. By now, he was aware that his own people had bought the lie hook, line, and sinker - and as such, pulling the wool from their eyes would only lead to extreme confusion and panic.
Not to mention, he already potentially had what he had truly wanted all along - a way to save their city!
Although Jiao Ming was not aware of this, he was behaving in this manner partially because of Tang Ze's mind control. Though it hadn't overtly affected him, it had subconsciously influenced his thoughts so that they would line up in a manner which suited Tang Ze's own.
Instead, as he went back to his subjects, he ordered them to deal with the crab issue after relaying what Tang Ze had told him, though he made up some other excuse as to why Lord Ma'kat had to leave without gracing them with his presence - namely that his sons had suddenly fallen into danger and he had to go rescue them.
"But, rest assured, Lord Ma'kat told me that he would come by to visit us in person when the time is right," Jiao Ming said. "Though, the time in the realm of the gods moves differently than ours, so it might end up being a couple of thousand years. Still, rest assured that his blessings are with us!"
It would later turn out that although that thing had lied about being Ma'kat, the information on the crab colony was indeed true, and their city's foundations were soon stabilized once again.
He did make a note to appoint a new High Priest as soon as was feasible though. It was clear that the one they currently had did not have any clue as to what he was talking about.
While Jiao Ming was returning to his subjects, Tang Ze quickly swam up to Yin Tiang who was waiting for him on the shoreline.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Tang Ze quickly urged.
"What happened?" Yin Tiang asked- he had been pacing back and forth for quite a while, wondering what it was that was going on beneath the water's surface.
"No time to explain," Tang Ze said, changing into his wizard costume. "But, I think I gave them just enough to convince them - and there shouldn't be a fight… I think? Anyway, we've done enough damage as it is - let's get out!'
Yin Tiang did not need to be told twice as they went back to their sect.
"...and after that happened, Yi Tiang and I hightailed it out of there," Tang Ze recounted.
"And then what happened?" Xian Yue asked.
She was watching Tang Ze looking over the dress, trying to figure out what it was that was missing.
He had managed to piece together a few vital pieces of information during the times he came to visit Xian Yue over the past few weeks.
One, whatever pieces were missing needed to be sewn in using Qi within the threads. The amount of Qi was low enough that he could use a simple iron needle to thread it - the issue was with the thread itself. He would need something stronger than normal silk. But, this was not hard to arrange for - though he might not have more than a few pennies to his name, Xian Yue had accumulated quite a bit of treasure over the centuries and was more than happy to give it out if it might help him solve her problem.
On top of that, whatever he sewed in had to match with the rest of the dress… now this was the real hard part. He couldn't figure out what the pattern he was looking for was, given the rest of it was so scattered in terms of both theme and material.
Very little of the original dress even remained.
What was he looking for?
The only conclusion that he could come to was that the real answer lay with Xian Yue. This dress was a collage of her life, so there was likely something that she was missing that had to be put there, metaphorically speaking.
However, last time, when he had brought this up, she shrugged and simply said that she didn't know. She had pinned all her hopes on Tang Ze, but he hadn't the slightest clue how to proceed any further.
The answer had to be out there - after all, she said she had seen a possible future where he would do so. It was like being given a test question - the teacher wouldn't have handed him a question that couldn't be solved. But that didn't mean that Tang Ze knew the answer.
He had been talking about his recent escapades with the mermen simply to fill in time, but he was so lost in thought that Xian Yue had to repeat the question before he registered it.
"Oh? What happened after?" he said. "Well, I didn't dare go near that lake again after that, but Yin Tiang had a way of asking things in a roundabout way about what happened after we left - and as far as we can tell, nothing happened to the human village, so it looks like the mermen took it well. That, or they didn't take it badly enough for war to break out."
Xian Yue sighed. "The two of you though - being so reckless. What if what you had done got yourselves into trouble? Or caused trouble for the empire? The Emperor wouldn't give a damn about saving the two of you, you know? You would find yourselves either exiled or having your heads offered to the mermen as atonement."
"Yeah," Tang Ze said. "But, thankfully it all blew over… at least it looks like that… don't know what they are going to do about the crab issue though."
"If you're suffering from a crab problem," Xian Yue said, winking slyly, "there are medicines for that."
Tang Ze chuckled. "You don't make very good jokes, you know that?"
"You try being funny after being stuck like this for so long," Xian Yue said.
She took no offense at Tang Ze's remarks, she had had very little contact with anyone in so long, and no one came to visit her except for him. Even before that she had been quite introverted and recluse - avoiding human contact as much as possible, and as such her social skills were rather lacking.
"Oh - I was actually meaning to ask," Tang Ze said. "Do you know anything about a lake monster?" He described what he had encountered deep within the dark depths of the lake.
"I haven't heard of anything like that," Xian Yue said. "Whatever it is, it sounds like some kind of ancient desolate beast. It's a good thing you didn't end up waking it - otherwise not even your corpse would've made it back to the sect."
Tang Ze shuddered. He had suspected that. "But, you don't have an idea of what exactly it might be?" He knew what he encountered was strong and powerful, but still, he wanted to have some idea of just how strong and powerful it was.
"No," Xian Yue said. "And I think this goes without saying, but don't go back to that lake."
"I'm not," Tang Ze said. If it were up to him, he would never go back within a hundred miles of it knowing what lurked beneath, let alone that little incident with the mermen.
Silence fell between them, with Tang Ze not making much progress at all, until Xian Yue asked him, "Can you tell me more about your world?"
"What would you like to know?" Tang Ze asked. "There's a lot I could tell you, but there was no real cultivation or magic back there, so it's kind of, you know, boring."
"I doubt that - even mortals have amazing stories of bravery and honor," Xian Yue said. She had little in the way of entertainment, and while she could go snoop around the place, after so many lifetimes, there was little that she found to be engaging or entertaining within this world. It was as if she'd seen it all when it came to things in this world. Something from a different world though - that might actually feel fresh and engaging for a change.
"I guess," Tang Ze said. "But, where do you want me to start?"
"How about starting with your dream?" Xian Yue asked.
"What dream?" Tang Ze asked.
"Whenever I tried to contact you, I would usually find that you were already dreaming. And it was almost always the same exact dream," Xian Yue said, and Tang Ze's spirits fell. He knew what dream she was talking about. "What was going on? I saw you in a crowd with other people. Is there any significance to that dream? Or is it something random?"