Chapter 238: Love Under The Water (ii)

No... she hadn’t made a mistake just now, had she?

Sora had never expected Ryan to have such a side to him as well.

For a moment, she could only stare at him in surprise.

It seemed that one truly shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. She had probably underestimated Ryan.

During the previous Night Guarding, Ryan had spent most of the time singing to her and soothing her to sleep. She had thought that was all there was to him.

But this time, he clearly wasn’t planning to let her off so easily.

Especially after she had told him that she liked the water curtain.

Those words had touched something deep inside Ryan.

His mind couldn’t help but drift back to his childhood.

When he was young, he would often crawl into the water curtain in search of his Mother. She had always sat quietly inside, her expression filled with sorrow, as though her heart had already drifted somewhere far away.

Ryan had never understood it.

One day, when he was still young and innocent, he had looked up at his Father and asked,

"Why is Mother always unhappy?"

His Father had reached out and gently patted his head.

"Your Mother is longing for her homeland."

"Homeland?"

Young Ryan had blinked in confusion.

"The ocean is full of water. Where would there be land?"

His Father had fallen silent.

Ryan still remembered the confused look on his face.

Not far away, his Mother had been staring blankly into the distance. After a long silence, she finally spoke.

"Apart from the sea, everything outside is land."

At that time, Ryan didn’t even understand what land meant.

To him, the world was water.

Water was where he had been born.

Water was where he lived.

Water was where his family was.

So he couldn’t understand why his Mother wanted something beyond the sea.

The next day, Ryan had planned to go into the water curtain and ask his Mother what she meant.

But when he arrived, she was gone.

Completely gone.

"Mother?"

He had called out anxiously, looking around in confusion.

His Father eventually came over.

He didn’t explain much.

He only placed a hand on Ryan’s head and gently said,

"Ryan, your Mother has gone to find her homeland."

Ryan had stood there in silence.

Was a homeland really that important?

As a child, he had wondered about it more than once.

Why had his Mother been willing to abandon him just because she wanted to find a place called home?

Why wasn’t he enough?

Why wasn’t the sea enough?

He couldn’t understand.

As he grew older, however, Ryan began cultivating continuously.

Eventually, he reached the Land.

When he finally saw the place his Mother had always longed for, he had been filled with disappointment.

What was so great about this land?

The moment he stepped on it, his feet became dirty.

The ground was hard and uncomfortable.

Whenever it rained, the earth became muddy and unpleasant.

How could something like this compare with the soft, cool, comfortable water of the sea?

Ryan had been completely confused.

He had even turned around, preparing to leave.

Then he heard someone say that a homeland wasn’t simply a place.

It was a kind of sentiment.

Only after living on a piece of land and then leaving it could someone truly understand the attachment people felt toward their homeland.

Ryan had been stunned.

Was that why his Mother had abandoned him?

He still didn’t understand.

But because he wanted to know the answer, he decided to remain on the Land for some time.

After living there for a while, his attachment to the Land still wasn’t particularly deep.

Yet, without realizing it, he had begun to miss the sea.

Sometimes he would suddenly think of the endless blue waters.

He would remember the feeling of swimming freely.

He would remember the silence beneath the surface.

But whenever he looked at Sora beside him, he would suppress that longing.

Perhaps this was how his Mother had felt.

Perhaps she had missed the sea so badly that she could no longer bear remaining on the Land.

Yet Ryan believed he was luckier than she had been.

His Mother had been restricted to a small water curtain.

He wasn’t.

He could move freely between the sea and the Land.

If his Mother had been able to move freely through the ocean and the Land like him, would she have been happier?

Would she have been less miserable?

Would she have stayed with him?

Ryan didn’t know.

His Father had once said that he himself was partly responsible.

He should never have been together with Ryan’s Mother in the first place. If he had not brought her into that situation, she wouldn’t have suffered while confined inside the water curtain.

From the moment Ryan had first ventured toward the sea, his Father had warned him repeatedly.

Never become attached to a Land Female.

Land Females didn’t like water.

Even if they stayed together, nothing good would come of it.

Ryan had always believed that.

Until today.

Sora had told him that she liked water.

That simple sentence had seemed to break open something he had kept tightly sealed inside his heart for years.

His long-suppressed feelings finally found an outlet.

Ryan’s silver hair drifted gently through the water.

His ice-blue eyes seemed even brighter beneath the surface.

His fish tail flicked behind him, curling around Sora’s legs and holding her securely.

He drew her closer into his arms with a mixture of tenderness and excitement.

The two of them drifted slowly through the water.

After realizing how much Sora liked the water, Ryan used his Water Avoidance Technique again.

A transparent sphere formed around them.

Water flowed around the outside, while the inside remained calm and protected.

Sora stayed safely within the sphere with him as it moved gently with the current.

Inside the water, Sora felt strangely free.

Her body seemed lighter and more flexible than it ever did on land.

The surrounding water supported her movements, allowing her to turn and bend in ways that felt completely different from normal.

Although her body was somewhat tired, every time she looked at Ryan’s handsome face, she felt that fatigue disappear.

His features looked as though they had been washed clean by the water itself.

His silver hair floated around his face.

His ice-blue eyes seemed almost luminous.

Sora couldn’t help staring.

The longer she looked, the more dizzy she became.

Eventually, even the swaying water grass around them began to blur in her vision.

Her eyelids grew heavy.

Before she realized it, she had drifted into a deep sleep.

What Sora didn’t know was that the transparent water sphere continued rolling along the surface of the stream.

The movement wasn’t exactly quiet.

Water splashed repeatedly.

The current rippled.

The sphere bobbed and rolled across the surface, creating quite a disturbance.

Several figures standing on the shore watched the increasingly large splashes.

Their expressions gradually became uglier.

Their eyes seemed to turn red with envy.

No one wanted to continue watching.

Finally, unable to bear it any longer, they dispersed and found places to sleep.

Unfortunately, the sound of the splashing wasn’t small.

Even after forcing themselves to lie down, none of them could truly fall asleep.

They spent the entire night awake.

The next morning, when Sora opened her eyes, she discovered that she had already returned to the shore.

She had no idea when Ryan had brought her back.

She was lying comfortably on her own beast-skin blanket.

Perhaps because she had spent so much time in the water, her body surprisingly didn’t feel uncomfortable.

Sora stretched lazily before sitting up.

Then she suddenly remembered the pottery they had made the previous day.

She immediately became energetic.

After getting up, she walked toward the fire.

She picked up a stick and gently brushed away the layer of ash and soil covering the pottery.

A smile quickly spread across her face.

These Dragon Beastmen really were fast learners.

The pottery had turned out exceptionally well.

Almost none of the pieces had cracked.

The quality was also excellent.

Judging from the results, there was hardly any need to remake them.

When Sora began taking out the clay pots she had made, several of her Beast Husbands immediately came over to help.

The sounds of movement soon woke the Dragon Beastmen.

One after another, they climbed out of their sleeping places and hurried over to check the pottery they had made yesterday.

Sora directed everyone to move the pottery carefully.

While she was busy organizing the finished pieces, two Black Pig Beastmen were secretly watching from a nearby hillside.

Mat stared at the exquisite pottery with surprise.

"This person actually knows how to make pottery too. It looks almost the same as the pottery made by the Chieftain’s Wife."

The yellow-haired Black Pig Beastman beside him immediately slapped Mat on the head.

"Even if it looks similar, it definitely can’t compare with the Chieftain’s Wife’s pottery. Look carefully. They’re using red mud. The black mud the Chieftain’s Wife uses is much better than this."

Mat continued staring at the distant pottery.

"But none of this pottery is cracked. Many of ours came out cracked."

"What do you know? That’s only because you can’t tell the difference when using red mud."

Mat scratched his head.

Then the yellow-haired Black Pig suddenly frowned.

"Wait. Why are you talking so much about pottery? The Madam told us to watch for salt, not mud."

Mat immediately became serious.

"But they’re not going to the Salt Well grounds right now. What are we supposed to do?"

Mambo thought for a moment before answering.

"Let’s return and report to the Chieftain’s Wife first."

Mat nodded.

The two Black Pig Beastmen immediately left their hiding place and hurried back.

Meanwhile, on the journey home, Sora was once again sitting on Drake’s back.

This time, however, none of the Beast Husbands said anything.

They simply glanced at Ryan from time to time.

Whenever Ryan looked back at them, Ace and Lucas would snort coldly.

Ryan was completely bewildered.

He had no idea what he had done to offend them.

Sora, on the other hand, looked perfectly clean and refreshed.

Seeing this, Xavier finally felt somewhat relieved.

At least nothing had happened that required him to worry too much.

Sitting comfortably on Drake’s back, Sora began thinking about the current living conditions of the Dragon Tribe.

Now that the pottery had been successfully completed, they finally had some lightweight kitchen utensils.

That solved one problem.

But the next issue was food.

They had already collected quite a few rice ears.

If those rice ears were going to be distributed among the tribes, the Wolf Tribe couldn’t be excluded.

Otherwise, it would become a matter of favoring one tribe while neglecting another.

The question was how exactly they should distribute them.

She needed to discuss that matter properly with Martin.

Then there was the so-called Romance Value.

The system had already told her that someone was beginning to display behavior related to it.

But Sora still hadn’t figured out who it was.

She would have to observe everyone more carefully.

As Sora and the others continued toward the Wolf Tribe, Mat and Mambo had already reached the Black Pig Tribe.

After returning, the two Black Pig Beastmen immediately went to find Serena.

They reported everything they had witnessed near the Red Land in detail.

Serena listened carefully as the two men described what they had seen.

The pottery.

The dragon Beastmen.

Sora’s activities.

And everything else they had observed.

Neither Mat nor Mambo realized that their discovery might become important.

They had only followed the order they had been given.

But now that they had returned to the Black Pig Tribe and reported everything to Serena, the information had officially reached the Chieftain’s Wife.

And the matter of the Salt Well was still waiting.