After Teasing the Crazy Mermaid, He Actually Deceived Me into Marriage - Chapter 28

He had no desire to explain too much to her. After saying these words, he noticed a flicker of hope emerging on Si Tang’s face, like a branch suddenly sprouting amidst the desolation of the past two days.

The deity couldn’t help but let out a low, hoarse chuckle.

Then look forward to my destruction, Tangtang.

Fan Yi slowly spoke the second half of his sentence.

“But if it doesn’t shatter, Tangtang you will never escape. Your soul and mine will be forever bound within the Divine Scroll.”

He curled his lips into a faint smile, personally fastened the fish scale around her neck, and gave her a deep look. Then, in a flash of white light, Fan Yi vanished from the cave.

Si Tang’s fingers lightly brushed the scale as she stared blankly at the empty space before her. Fan Yi’s figure had disappeared without a trace.

She picked up the book he had left for her and, upon opening it, couldn’t help but cover her lips in astonishment.

It was her lifeline.

In a daze, she lifted her gaze, only to find everything around her spinning and shifting dramatically.

The cave gradually reverted to the state Si Tang had first seen overgrown with weeds, dark and damp, with only the swing at the entrance gently swaying.

It was as if Fan Yi had never been there.

Yet the fish scale around her neck and the book by her side reminded Si Tang that none of this had been a dream.

Beneath the sea, the scattered palaces gleamed with golden splendor amidst shifting shadows and dim light. Fan Yi, holding a trident, coldly watched the ever-expanding black vortex before him. Like the claws of a monstrous beast tearing through space, faint black lightning leaked out, reducing the rebuilt Atlantis to ruins. The sheer destructive force was incomparable to the divine punishment the main god had cast three months prior.

A golden light circled incessantly around him. 8856 knew this was a sign of the heavenly thunder’s descent. If Fan Yi did not enter soon, the thunder would forcibly affect this dimensional plane.

“I must go. If I don’t return alive, let humans discover that cave and take her away,” FanYi said calmly, his gaze fixed on the rift before him, not forgetting to issue a warning. “But during these seven days, I don’t want anyone to take her away from this island. Understood?”

“Must Lord Fan Yi really do this?” 8856’s voice was filled with anxiety and urgency.

8856 hoped Fan Yi could survive this thunder tribulation. After all, if the Sea God perished here, the truth would eventually come to light, and it would not be able to escape unscathed.

8856 was filled with regret deep regret. If only it had protested when selected to be the Sea God’s supervisor, but it had been too cowardly to defy orders.

It regretted even more not reporting to the main god the moment Fan Yi began his misdeeds by abducting the human to the cave.

Now, the deity had developed feelings for a human, leading to this disastrous outcome.

In just three short months. No one had told it that the cold-blooded and cruel Sea God would turn out to be so sentimental.

Ignoring its anxiety, Fan Yi tightened his grip on the trident and flew straight toward the rift. The black mist and clouds instantly swallowed his dark robes.

A massive heavenly thunder and divine punishment awaited him there in the fourth dimensional plane.

In truth, he had already made up his mind.

If he couldn’t withstand the thunder tribulation of love, his soul would scatter to the winds the end he deserved. And he would grant her wish, letting her go.

On the other side of the island.

Day One.

Si Tang immediately went to the shore to light a fire and create smoke. After returning to the cave, she carefully read and memorized every word of her fate line before burning the book.

She then warily watched the cave entrance, fearing that his figure would appear and say in a teasing tone, “Tangtang, I was just messing with you,” thereby destroying her last hope.

The second day.

Si Tang began repeatedly analyzing his reaction from that day, her thoughts oscillating between “He was toying with me” and “He had a change of heart.”

The third day.

The wild fruits left by Fan Yi had piled up like a mountain, as if he feared she would starve in his absence. The fire-starting tools were neatly arranged. In her spare time, Si Tang would go to the lake at the island’s center to catch fish.

For some reason, she kept recalling that day the aloof yet gentle deity carrying her as they moved across the lake, with butterflies fluttering everywhere like an unreal dream.

The fourth day.

Si Tang silently counted down the seven days. The white glow on the fish scale necklace around her neck had gradually dimmed without her noticing, causing her heart to tighten with an inexplicable sourness and unease.

The fifth day.

Si Tang on the swing, Si Tang felt an unprecedented loneliness enveloping her, as if she had been forgotten in a corner of the world.

The fish scale necklace around her neck had gradually faded from its radiant shimmer to a plain white, appearing at first glance like an ordinary object.

Did this mean. it was a sign of its impending shattering?

But this was a deity’s scale. If it truly shattered, it would mean its owner.

Some things, Si Tang dared not dwell on.

The sixth day.

The fish scale necklace around her neck had developed faint cracks.

The seventh day.

Si Tang woke up early and sat silently on the beach, gazing at the horizon, clutching the fish scale necklace tightly in her palm.

She waited for the scale to shatter, for Fan Yi to appear and fulfill his promise to take her away from the island and back to the shore.

In her palm, the cracks on the fish scale necklace deepened, as if on the verge of breaking apart.

Suddenly, it dawned on her that his parting words contained no hint of “If the scale doesn’t shatter, I will return to help you leave.”

And his act of restoring the cave to its original state before leaving clearly indicated, he had other intentions.

Si Tang looked up and realized dusk had arrived. The orange light, slicing through the waves, illuminated the entire sea, which appeared calm and no different from usual.

For some reason, she thought. Perhaps.

He would never return.

Later, twilight descended.

Si Tang did not wait for Fan Yi’s return, nor for the scale to shatter completely.

Instead, she waited for a rescue ship.

The people on board told her they were part of an expedition team researching the lost civilization of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. A day earlier, they had encountered a storm at sea and had to detour, only to discover smoke rising from the island. Upon investigation, they found signs of human presence.

Si Tang felt conflicted, finding it all too coincidental.

She suddenly recalled Fan Yi’s act of restoring the cave before leaving. If not for that, she would have had no way to explain everything inside the cave.

Her emotions in turmoil, Si Tang identified herself to the expedition team and boarded the ship to leave.

As she stepped onto the ship, she instinctively glanced back at the island where she had spent three months the “cage” she had been confined to for three months.

Si Tang had finally achieved her wish, with freedom now within reach.

Food and lust are human nature, and even if Si Tang was unwilling to admit it, she had to acknowledge that she harbored a complex mix of emotions toward Fan Yi, a kind of hidden fondness. Yet, she was acutely aware of the vast differences between them and could not agree with his ways, so she stopped herself from sinking deeper.

Si Tang didn’t know what Fan Yi truly felt for her, whether it was possessiveness or something else but it no longer mattered.

In truth, if not for that merman’s excessively morbid, obsessive possessiveness toward her, they might have truly become friends. Perhaps in the future, she would have revisited the island to reunite and reminisce with an old acquaintance. Regardless, she was grateful to Fan Yi, he was the one who had revealed the threads of her fate to her.

But she knew all too well that returning might mean never being able to leave again.

Standing on the deck, watching the island gradually blur and shrink into the distance, Si Tang felt a subtle sense of reluctance and melancholy.

So, she would treat it all as a dream.

But she would never set foot in the Atlantic again.