Chapter 44: Immortal Soul
Faced with the riddle, Aurora’s mind went blank.
The witch’s blessing had only granted her enhanced learning and memory, but it didn’t seem to help much when dealing with spontaneous challenges.
“This treasure is invisible and intangible. It must have no physical form!”
“A treasure without a physical form… Courage? Or perhaps kindness, or some other virtue?”
“No, that’s not right. Merfolk have those qualities too!”
Suddenly, Mermaid Princess Ariel’s furrowed brows relaxed. She raised her hand and said,
“I—I know the answer!”
What? Ariel actually figured it out. sea??h thё n?vel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
Aurora was astonished. This gentle and elegant mermaid princess was clearly not some highly learned sage.
Could it be that the answer to the riddle was something that ordinary humans wouldn’t think of, but that Ariel, because of her unique experiences, held in high regard?
“The answer, the answer is…” Ariel was just about to shout it out.
“Stop!”
To their surprise, the Sea Hag barked sternly,
“Princess, this riddle is meant for the two human children. You are not allowed to answer or give them hints.”
Ariel had no choice but to stop, filled with anxiety.
At some point, she had already come to accept these two human friends, worrying over their successes and failures as if they were her own!
Aurora tried offering an answer.
“Love! Is the answer love? I mean, human love for mermaids.”
She deliberately emphasized love for —wasn’t that something humans had but merfolk didn’t?
The moment she blurted out her answer, the golden-haired girl felt a spark of excitement.
Yes! Love cannot be seen, yet countless poems sing its praises. It cannot be touched, yet it can be tainted or purified. Since love has no physical form, it is lighter than wind, softer than mist! At the same time, love is indeed a treasure more precious than gold. And because love can be recorded and passed down, it can endure through time, never fading away.
Besides, hadn’t Ariel recently fallen in love with a human prince?
“Human love for mermaids” was precisely something that lately.
It matched perfectly!
The Sea Hag froze.
A few seconds later, she coldly announced,
“Incorrect.”
At that moment, Aurora suddenly realized her mistake, recalling the final line of the riddle:
Love didn’t fit.
How was she supposed to answer this? Aurora frowned.
Just then, a crisp, clear young voice rang out:
“Immortal soul.”
The silver-haired boy Rhine, who had remained silent until now, suddenly lifted his chin and repeated the answer, word by word:
“Eternal, immortal soul.”
Ariel’s mouth fell open. She first stared at Rhine with wide eyes, then broke into a smile, finally breathing a long sigh of relief for her two new friends.
She knew that this human friend had answered correctly.
“Huh? What does that mean?” Aurora didn’t understand at first.
Did this answer even match the riddle?
Rhine slowly explained,
“The answer to this riddle is the eternal, immortal soul.
“No one can see a soul, yet countless poems and writings praise it.
“No one can touch a soul, yet it can be tainted and purified—we often say that corrupt teachings can pollute the soul, while sacred experiences can cleanse it.
“A soul has no weight, making it lighter than wind. Its value is immeasurable, making it more precious than gold.
“A soul is softer than mist, yet because it is eternal and indestructible, it never fades, even as time passes.
“And most importantly, an immortal soul is, of course, far more important to the dead than to the living! It is precisely because the body perishes that the immortality of the soul holds meaning.”
Aurora listened to Rhine’s explanation, but she vaguely felt that something wasn’t quite right.
Had her teacher deliberately ignored in the riddle?
“But didn’t the riddle say…” Aurora opened her mouth to question Rhine, but it seemed he already knew what she wanted to ask.
Rhine calmly said,
“Yes, Aurora. Just as the riddle states—humans possess immortal souls, while merfolk and other non-human intelligent beings do not.”
Beside them, Mermaid Princess Ariel lowered her head in silence.
“Your answer is correct.”
The Sea Hag laughed—then burst into hearty laughter.
“Human, I never expected you to know. Even in this great ocean kingdom, only a handful of the wisest elders are aware of this secret.”
The old Sea Hag spoke again:
"Human lifespans are far shorter than those of merfolk and other intelligent beings of the sea.
"But what you humans possess, and we do not, is that radiant, Immortal Soul.
"Some say that when the body perishes, the Immortal Soul will soar into the clear sky, fly toward the shining stars, and ascend to the heavenly realm; or, in particularly terrible cases, it will plunge downward endlessly, sinking even lower than the seafloor, to the deepest depths of the earth.
"In any case, it will go to another world, one we can never see.
"Others say that the Immortal Soul will return to the human world, once again appearing as a newborn.
"When an old person passes away and their loved ones let out their first wail of grief, somewhere in the world, another baby will let out the same loud cry. Death and birth are conjoined twin sisters, forever tightly embraced, never to be separated.
"Since the beginning of history, not a single person has ever truly died."
At this, the Sea Hag let out a slightly mad laugh:
"All of the above are merely the beautiful verses exclusive to you humans.
"As for us, the wise but non-human beings—once we perish, we simply dissolve into foam, into a pool of mucus, vanishing without a trace.
"Because unlike you, we do not have an Immortal Soul."
So it really is like this... Rhine sighed inwardly.
Even though he had already known the answer, experiencing it firsthand in this moment was a completely different feeling.
In some simplified, adapted versions of , or the versions renamed , the story between the mermaid princess and the prince was just a love story made easy for children to understand.
The Little Mermaid wished to become human out of love for the prince.
In the end, when she dissolved into foam at sunrise, her sacrifice was seen as an act of dying for love.
And so, the story formally concluded with the sorrowful image of the Little Mermaid’s body melting into foam.
Born for love, died for love.
But in Hans Christian Andersen’s original writing, the story seemed to carry deeper theological implications and religious meaning.
One critical reason the Little Mermaid wanted to marry the prince was that she was in pursuit of an eternal, Immortal Soul.
She sought to obtain an Immortal Soul through love and marriage with a human.
This religious theme extended to the story’s ending as well: after turning into foam, the Little Mermaid seemingly heard the voices of angels and transformed into a Daughter of the Sky.
God’s radiance was subtly hidden within the text of the story.
God... Rhine’s thoughts swirled.
He also noticed a striking difference between the Sea Hag’s explanation of the Immortal Soul and what was described in the original tale!
In the original story, the "Immortal Soul" was only ever described as ascending to heaven.
But in the Sea Hag’s account, even though the wise beings of the sea were aware of the existence of Immortal Souls, their destination remained a mystery.
They might ascend, they might descend, or they might even be reincarnated:
"When an old person passes away and their loved ones let out their first wail of grief, somewhere in the world, another baby will let out the same loud cry. Death and birth are conjoined twin sisters, forever tightly embraced, never to be separated."
Rhine was certain—this explanation did not match a single word from the original.
Its core concept was also entirely different from the thoughts of Christian Scholasticism.
There was no implication of a singular, omnipotent deity; instead, it bore a resemblance to the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, diluting the original theological undertones.
Did this mean that, in this fantasy world, "the human soul is eternally Immortal" was merely an objective natural law—no different from "water flows from high to low" or "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west"?
The Immortal Soul of humanity was not a gift from God.
This fantastical, magical world might not have an omniscient, omnipotent God at all!
At this thought, Rhine quietly let out a breath of relief.
The Sea Hag let out a cold snort:
"But don’t forget, solving just the first riddle is meaningless. You still have to answer the next two questions."
"As expected of the price demanded by the Sea Hag!" the mermaid princess thought to herself, feeling both awe and unease.
After Rhine and Aurora, she too would have to make a wish to the Sea Hag—to gain human legs and go to the land to be with the prince.
Then, what would her price be?
"Now for the second question, listen carefully, human."
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The Sea Hag raised her voice:
"Human, you already know the answer to the first riddle: the Immortal Soul.
"Then, tell me—how long is eternity?
"Is eternity a hundred years? A thousand years? Or ten thousand years?
"O wise human, tell me—the length of eternity."