After Encountering My Deceased Wife, I Became the Male Lead's Love Rival - Chapter 68

Chapter 68: Hope

The seawater was all-encompassing, cradling the bubble condensed by the mermaid as it drifted toward the depths.

The woman lying in Ling Qiu’s arms exuded an aura of death; not even a sliver of spiritual power could be found within her spiritual sea. The blue-tailed mermaid swam toward the altar at maximum speed. There lay the treasures left by the Emperor—surely, they could save Fang Ziyue.

The human in her arms felt icy, her body temperature even lower than that of a mermaid. If it weren’t for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Ling Qiu might have already collapsed. Her heart was clenched tight, filled with a suffocating, grinding pain that made her want to double over and curl into a ball. Perhaps that would make the agony more bearable.

A round pearl fell, lost in the darkness of the deep sea. Ling Qiu bit her lip hard. She had always known humans were fragile. She had trained herself diligently, learned to use human weapons, and mastered the laws of the human world, yet she had still failed to protect her.

The mermaid, having endured the journey in silence, bit her lip until it bled. Taking advantage of the pitch-black depths where no pearl-light reached, her tears—now pearls—blended into the restless seawater and were swept away into unknown corners.

But the person in her arms would no longer raise a hand to tap her forehead or find ways to coax her out of crying. Before, Ling Qiu hadn’t thought much of it, but now that Fang Ziyue was silent—no longer holding her, no longer patting her back, no longer leaning against her to act like a spoiled child—Ling Qiu felt lost.

She didn’t know… she didn’t dare think about what she would do if something truly happened to Fang Ziyue.

Numerous sea monsters were hidden around the altar. These giant creatures had guarded the Emperor’s territory for ages, never moving a step. As Ling Qiu approached, the monsters vaguely revealed their massive limbs, warningly churning the water and whipping up glowing shells. Through the turbulence, one could glimpse their gargantuan bodies. Like a mountain traveler standing at the base, she could see no peak, no end.

The immense pressure did not make the intruder retreat an inch. Instead, a song rose from the lips of the creature that was tiny in the eyes of the sea monsters.

“Roar—” The monsters’ pained bellows and churning silt surged toward Ling Qiu. The mermaid’s song pierced uncontrollably into the monsters’ spiritual seas, forcing them to turn on each other.

This was an overload of control. Those sea monsters had lived around the altar for an unknown amount of time, sustained by the perfectly preserved spiritual power within the bodies of the Mermaid Emperor and the Elders. Their spiritual seas were exceptionally stable. Ling Qiu was essentially performing a suicidal maneuver, using her own spiritual power to control them. Once her strength failed and she was counter-controlled, her spiritual sea would shatter in an instant.

“Are the children nowadays all this crazy?” A spark of light hidden deep within a shell nudged a nearby spark.

That spark moved sluggishly to the side, ignoring their Great Emperor.

“Oh my~ What do you think their relationship is?” The little spark hopped up and down, turning from white to pink with excitement.

The spark beside him simply found a sand pit and buried itself. As long as it didn’t look, their Emperor was still that dignified, non-gossiping ruler!

The ignored little spark bounced back and forth, dejected. He had been trapped here for too long—so long that time and memory had blurred. But looking at the struggling figure in the distance, he felt a sense of familiarity, as if he had forgotten something very important.

The mermaid’s song echoed throughout the altar. The fighting sea monsters stopped and drifted away in a daze. Ling Qiu’s spiritual power, overextended from controlling the monsters, was suddenly replenished. Like the soothing touch of a kind elder, she felt the spiritual power helping her was filled with gentleness.

The spark that had been playing dead in the sand suddenly shot out, growling irritably at the much-dimmed spark: “Have you lost your mind?”

Because of the long seal, they had become like this—tiny sparks of light that could go nowhere and do nothing. If it weren’t for the sake of seeing the day their clansmen were unsealed, the proud mermaids would never have allowed themselves to exist in such an unbearable form.

“Alright, keep your voice down. Don’t frighten the child,” a gentle male voice said weakly. He was happy to help his clansman; just like in the past, he was still needed by his people. This was his duty as Emperor, and his honor.

The little spark, glowing red with anger, slammed into their Emperor, only to pass right through the other spark. The dimmed spark hopped playfully, laughing triumphantly: “You can’t hit me~”

Before seeing this with her own eyes, Ling Qiu would never have believed the gentle and powerful Emperor of her ancestral memories could have such a mischievous side.

No matter how much the Elder wanted to hit this unreliable Emperor, he couldn’t do it in front of a junior. The Great Elder regained his usual cool demeanor and asked the scarred Ling Qiu what had happened and what she sought.

“I beg you, save her!”

Ling Qiu held the human in her arms tightly, not daring to let go. She feared that if she loosened her grip, Fang Ziyue would turn into bubbles and vanish into the sea, leaving her with no way to hold her back.

“She is a human,” one of the sparks gathering around said disapprovingly. “Humans will hurt you.” Not just physical harm, but harm to the soul.

Before the war broke out between mermaids and humans, captured clansmen had met kind humans; some mermaids and humans had even fallen in love. But the results were always tragic. Bloody conspiracies and greed tore away the facade of love and warmth. Those humans, despite their solemn vows, eventually weighed the lovers they swore to cherish against gold.

‘They are not of our race; their hearts must be different.’ This was a saying among humans, and the Elder agreed. Even if a tiny minority of humans truly risked their lives to protect their mermaid lovers, in the eyes of the ruling class, their resistance was insignificant. There could be no happy ending for mermaids and humans.

“If we save her, will you go to the human world to live with her, or will she stay under the sea to accompany you?” the Elders questioned. They restrained the Emperor, who was eager to treat the patient, demanding an answer from Ling Qiu. These Elders, who had risked everything to protect their race, did not want to see another clansman harmed.

“She won’t hurt me,” Ling Qiu shook her head decisively. Though urgency flickered in her eyes, uncontrollable and obvious, she still worked to organize her words, quickly describing the changes in the outside world. She had to convince the Elders that Fang Ziyue would never hurt her.

“Therefore, I beg the Emperor to save her.”

The changes Ling Qiu described were unexpected. The little sparks flickered, and Ling Qiu could clearly feel them sizing up Fang Ziyue. To put it bluntly, the Elders still didn’t believe that among the humans who once hunted mermaids on a massive scale, there could be someone who truly cared for them—someone who could change the world single-handedly.

Well, it hadn’t completely changed yet. After all, they had been chased to Planet Ruize by humans, and that fragile girl was on the verge of death.

“Alright, let me through.” The dimmed spark bumped into the sparks in front of him. His gentle voice carried an undeniable authority; this seemingly unreliable Emperor once again showed his imperial majesty. Even if his soul was so weak it was about to dissipate, no one could countermand his decision.

The mermaids respected and loved their Emperor, just as the Mermaid Emperor loved every one of his subjects.

The scarred, dark-blue mermaid, driven by an unknown resolve, broke through the lines of sea monsters. Despite the crushing weight of the chaotic spiritual pressure, she entered the altar.

The dimmed spark hovered over Fang Ziyue’s forehead, and a clear, profound spiritual power was injected into both their spiritual seas simultaneously. Ling Qiu’s spiritual exhaustion was swept away, and at the same time, she heard the Emperor’s voice.

“Have you heard the story of the Little Mermaid?” The voice was floating and weak, yet it carried a convincing, comforting power.

“A human child from a village saved an injured little mermaid. The mermaid was very grateful and gave the child a conch.”

Whenever you want to see me, just blow the conch. No matter how far, I will definitely come to see you.

The lonely child and the injured mermaid kept each other company until the mermaid’s wounds healed. Sensing the call of her clansmen, she left reluctantly. The villagers said the child was a fool; he should have killed the mermaid, sold her for a fortune, and moved to a bigger town to live a good life. But the human child did not do so; he cherished the conch as he cherished his distant friend.

“If only humans and mermaids could live in peace one day,” the little golden-tailed mermaid had once lamented while leaning on a reef, looking at his friend.

“They will,” the young general, with stars on his uniform, looked down at his friend, deeply convinced.

“Good,” the golden-tailed mermaid replied, his interest piqued. He laughed softly, “Then let us be the pioneers.” Or as humans say… the first to eat the crab?

“It’s a promise.”

Young souls possess a mysterious persistence and drive, fearing nothing. But the power of one or two people is far from enough. In the eyes of the Alliance leaders, a general who refused to hunt mermaids was merely a traitor.

When the conch, stained with red marks, was delivered to the Emperor by a returning clansman, he only had time to tuck it into his embrace before the ten-thousand-year seal began.

“I am glad you have made me even more certain that such a day will come.”

Before dissipating, the dimmed spark touched the top of Ling Qiu’s head—a gesture of comfort from an elder. Compared to the Elders who had never interacted with humans, the Mermaid Emperor believed the world Ling Qiu described truly existed.

When everyone could control their own spiritual power, and after the military confirmed that mermaid flesh had a powerfully destructive effect on the human body, many stopped chasing mermaids. Furthermore, at Fang Ziyue’s request, the military assisted her in fulfilling a wish she had left behind: using fruit and vegetable seeds as leverage, and with the support of the people, they forced the Merchants and Royalty to sign the Mermaid Protection Law.

Their descendants were far stronger than they had ever imagined…

The Emperor’s help and dissipation happened so quickly that Ling Qiu didn’t even have time to react. She turned her gaze in bewilderment to the many other sparks, only to find that they, too, were gradually fading.

Time erodes all things. To continuously provide the stable environment needed for their clansmen’s slumber in the pitch-black sea, even one as powerful as the golden-tailed Mermaid Emperor would inevitably suffer spiritual exhaustion. It was only because these Elders—who seemed to despise the Emperor and daily performed acts of “disrespect”—had secretly been transferring their spiritual power to him.

But the once-mighty Emperor had already become unable to sense their small gestures. The Great Elder sighed inwardly. In truth, even if Ling Qiu hadn’t come here for help today, they wouldn’t have lasted much longer. To see a living clansman in their final moments made them very happy.

“Remember your promise. I hope everything you said comes true.”

Let these descendants witness the peace the Emperor anticipated.

Watching the sparks vanish, Ling Qiu realized that in the end, her only promise was that Fang Ziyue would not hurt her, and that she would trust the other forever. This had nothing to do with the future of the mermaid race, or rather…

Ling Qiu suddenly discovered the conch stained with blood-red marks, held tightly in the palm of the Mermaid Emperor’s petrified body. The seawater carried a faint, blurred sound to her.

Listening closely, the word was: “Hope.”

The Mermaid Emperor and the Elders saw in Fang Ziyue the hope for the future of the mermaid race. She was a human who would protect their kind, a human who truly loved her mermaid.

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