She had been worried Xi wouldn't understand, but after just a short while, the piece of animal hide in his hands was starting to look more and more like the shoe upper she had imagined.
An Jin quickly handed him two thin wooden planks that were similar in shape, with their corners smoothed and holes punched along the edges to serve as soles.
Xi deftly stitched the two parts together.
Now, it really looked like a pair of hide shoes.
An Jin was overjoyed. She squatted on the bank, tilting her little face up to look at the water's surface.
Under the gentle sunlight, the breathtakingly beautiful Merfolk had his head lowered. Long, blue hair flowed like seaweed over an upper body that seemed carved from jade. His waist was as supple as water, and his lower half was a long, beautiful, finned tail. Its scales glimmered like ice on an azure sea—a dazzling, dreamlike sight.
