Chapter 1 The Water Tower

The water tower was right next to the pumping station, surrounded by a barren patch of land. It was the most traditional kind of tower from many years ago: a straight, vertical cement tower with a large water storage tank on top. When Hao Ren was a kid, he liked to tempt fate, and he even climbed the iron ladder on the outside of the water tower once. Now, he finds his mischievousness from back then unbelievable. It seems there's a reason he has a fish that tempts fate all day long; this is called karma.

When the group arrived, there was no one guarding the water tower. Lily quickly circled the cement exterior and discovered some abnormalities: they could see the same anti-gravity upward flow of water here, and in some inconspicuous corners, they could even see thin strands of water floating in the air. If this place weren't so desolate and remote, and if the workers inspecting the water tower hadn't been so focused on the tank and pipes, paying no attention to the corners, these phenomena would probably have attracted the attention of the Chinese Academy of Sciences long ago.

Hao Ren was just glad he decided to come here. It proved that there were indeed supernatural phenomena here!

"Indeed, there's an aura of my kin here..." Nangong Wuyue carefully sensed the surroundings and finally widened her eyes. "How could a siren have run all the way here?!"

Hao Ren was pleasantly surprised to hear this—he had wanted to meet a normal siren for a long time. The mysterious underwater city in the deep sea was a huge mystery that he couldn't forget, and it was also the key to deciphering the strange phenomena on Earth. However, Nangong Wuyue couldn't help him in this regard, and normal sirens never walked the earth. Most of the sirens who landed a century or two ago had disappeared without a trace, so his progress in this area had been slow.

Now, a siren had actually run to the southern suburbs!

"The aura is coming from the storage tank," Nangong Wuyue's eyes shimmered slightly as she focused on the top of the water tower. "Let's go up and take a look."

After confirming that no one was around, Hao Ren and the others immediately climbed up the water tower. Then, they searched the circular iron frame at the top of the tower and found the opening to the storage tank. Nangong Sanba opened the rusty iron gate without much effort, which surprised Hao Ren. "Does the demon hunter's skillset include picking locks?"

Nangong Sanba: "...Surviving in the martial world, surviving in the martial world."

The large tank was shaped like a thick barrel that was wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. Inside, there was a ring of stainless steel scaffolding along the outer wall for maintenance. Below was the shimmering surface of the water. The data terminal flew out to provide illumination, and Hao Ren peered inside, but he didn't see anything.

"No one's here," Nangong Sanba also peered inside for a long time. "Wuyue, are you sure you sensed correctly?"

Nangong Wuyue shook her head and jumped off the stainless steel scaffolding, landing steadily on the water's surface. As she walked forward, she carefully observed, "No... I can feel she's in this water... but it seems like she's hiding."

Lily thought for a moment and shouted at the water, "Hey! Is anyone in there? We're not bad people! We're here to talk to you!"

Loud echoes and the sound of rushing water came from around them, but no one responded to Lily's calls.

Vivian frowned and waved her hand, summoning a swarm of small bats. Lightning crackled among the bats. "Please come out and talk. We don't mean any harm, but if you keep hiding like this, I'm going to electrify the water!"

As soon as Vivian finished speaking, everyone around her immediately took a half-step back. Lily pointed at the stainless steel scaffolding under everyone's feet and the iron pipes extending into the water. "Bat, can you not do this every time! How many times has your unlucky lightning caused a five-man team wipe?"

But regardless, the water in the tank remained still, and only the noise from the pipes echoed around them.

Finally, Hao Ren couldn't help it. He casually took out a large plastic bottle from his dimensional pocket and pretended to pour it into the water below. "Listen up in there, if you don't come out, I'm going to pour vinegar into the water! I don't have anything else, but I have plenty of rice vinegar!"

He suddenly remembered that Nangong Wuyue's biggest weakness was vinegar. Accidentally eating a little bit could make her droopy for a whole day, so he came up with this plan. Of course, he couldn't really take out a few tons of vinegar from his dimensional pocket and pour it in—after all, this was the residents' drinking water.

But the siren hiding here didn't know if it was true or false, so there was indeed a reaction. They only heard a rustling sound from the water, and a large mass of crystal-clear liquid bulged up in the center of the tank and quickly solidified into a semi-transparent human figure, looking like a young girl. A voice, accompanied by the sound of rushing water, came from her, "Why are you so immoral! I was just finding a place to sleep, what did I do to offend you?"

Hao Ren chuckled and put away the vinegar bottle. "Do you know that you've offended the entire city? It's lucky that we came to check on the situation. Otherwise, in a few days, it wouldn't be the Chinese Academy of Sciences coming here, but the demon hunters. You'd be in even bigger trouble!"

The humanoid water flower swayed in the water, looking very wary of the people in front of her. "Who are you? How did you find me? And I feel like there's an aura of my kin nearby... Could it be you?"

"It's me," Nangong Wuyue quickly waved her hand, and then her body quickly shimmered. "Look, I'm also a siren."

But unexpectedly, Nangong Wuyue was better off not revealing her identity. This revelation made the strange siren very excited. She retreated to the edge of the tank with a splash, and countless water flowers rolled around her. Her voice was unusually angry. "Are you still not satisfied even though I'm like this?! What's wrong with you guys that you have to catch us and take us back! Who did we offend by wandering around outside for a few more days?"

Hao Ren frowned immediately upon hearing this, feeling that there was a lot of information in her words. "What do you mean? Who wants to catch you? Other sirens?"

"Pretending to be confused?" The strange siren looked at Hao Ren warily (her expression should have been wary, but her face was transparent, so it was hard to tell). "You've already chased me here, and you've brought so many people with you. Aren't you here to catch me?"

Nangong Wuyue was also confused, but the first thing she did was clear up the misunderstanding. "You've misunderstood. We don't know about this—I was born on land, you see, I can't even merge into the water like you..."

"A land-born siren?" The water girl cautiously approached Nangong Wuyue a little. "Indeed... there's a slight impurity in your aura. But I still don't dare to believe you. Let me see your pure water."

Nangong Wuyue nodded and separated a small water droplet from her body, which flew towards the strange siren. The strange siren merged the water droplet into her body and then relaxed her guard. "Indeed, you're not a pure-blooded siren. How strange, I didn't expect there to be a mixed-blood siren living here. So you're not here to catch me?"

Hao Ren spread his hands. "I told you that from the beginning."

"Then why are you here looking for me?" The strange siren swam to the front of the group with the sound of rushing water. "How did you find this place?"

Hao Ren roughly explained the abnormal tap water situation in the area and how he came to investigate, then pointed to the water tank around them. "Don't you know what your sleeping place is for?"

"I don't know," the strange siren said in surprise after hearing Hao Ren's explanation. "Isn't this just a big pool of water? Am I offending anyone by staying here?"

Hao Ren blinked and turned to look at Nangong Wuyue. "Are sirens really this lacking in common sense?"

"Otherwise, how could so many of the sirens who landed back then be taken away by humans," Nangong Wuyue said with an awkward expression. "But to be honest... it's been over a hundred years, and it's rare to see someone who hasn't improved this much. I guess this one has been staying with some reclusive family in the deep mountains."

The strange siren saw Hao Ren and the others chatting and asked curiously, "Are you talking bad about me?"

Hao Ren quickly waved his hand. "No, no—by the way, can you come out of there? The situation you're causing by staying here has already attracted the attention of ordinary people. I estimate that it won't be long before the demon hunters smell the scent and come here."

"I'm healing," the strange siren shook her head. "Can you provide me with a lot of fresh water? And it has to be living water."

Hao Ren thought for a moment and turned to look at Nangong Wuyue. "Do you think the tap water at home will work?"

He felt that the siren was healing in the water tower's storage tank, so she must be using a lot of water. Therefore, he didn't have much hope when he asked, but Nangong Wuyue nodded without even thinking. "Of course it can be used. It only takes a bathtub of water to reshape my body once, that's enough."

It turned out that this strange siren didn't need too much water to heal, it was just that sirens naturally liked water, so they always looked for places with a lot of water.

She really found a good place.