Hey! Control Yourself! - Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Never Had Sex

Lei Yi rubbed his chin. “Bite him? Why did you bite him? He’s a mermaid, not an actual fish—though now that you mention it, we haven’t eaten in so long, I’m starving too.”

Royce was speechless. “You idiot.”

Lei Yi’s realization came with a delayed shock. “You mean to say…”

Shen Ji replied, “Exactly. He has my pheromones in him now; it might make you all feel a bit uncomfortable.”

An Omega who has just had their gland bitten inevitably carries the lingering scent of the Enigma’s pheromones, and the bitten Omega finds it difficult to control this territorial scent. It was bound to affect others.

Lei Yi shrugged. “Whatever. We’re all Alphas here—uh, I get it, I get it.”

Royce caught the unique nature of the scent. Though it was now heavily diluted, it was fundamentally different from an Alpha’s pheromones. While he understood the implications, he chose not to say it aloud.

This time, the group had grown wiser. Aside from the mermaid lab, they recorded data from the other facilities including human experimentation and genetic research, on their light-brains to ensure they had something to show for the mission.

Then, they activated the experimental city’s self-destruct system.

As the flames of the explosion soared into the sky, the entire Red Mist Forest shook to its foundations.

In a reservoir located in the mountains behind the facility, the water was crystal clear, shimmering under the sunlight as several figures moved through it. When Shen Ji poked his head above the water, a blue-silver tail flashed like a meteor across his vision.

Sheng Lu leaned against a spring rock at the water’s edge, squinting his eyes against the blinding sunlight. His long hair trailed over the stones. Because he had been deprived of sun for so long, his skin was deathly pale. His features possessed the classic, deep spiritual aura of a mermaid, blended with the defined, natural contours of a human face.

He was handsome, but Shen Ji felt that this handsomeness, twisted by years of torture, looked warped and pathological. His red eyes held the mystery of the deep sea, making it impossible for anyone to guess his thoughts.

Perhaps because he had been in the lab for too long, his gaze would occasionally drift, falling into a trance. Right now, for instance, he floated by the edge, staring at the deep woods and the shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy, motionless and blank-eyed.

But the moment Shen Ji waded through the water toward him, Sheng Lu turned his head as if he had been waiting, capturing Shen Ji’s eyes with the same precision he would display in every meeting ten years into the future. He looked at Shen Ji, his eyes reflecting the water, a spark of life slowly returning to them.

“What is your name?” he asked.

Shen Ji smiled slightly. Finally, he had turned the tables. Finally, he knew something the Great Demon did not; finally, he wasn’t the one on the defensive.

“I’m not planning to tell you,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

Just then, Lei Yi stood up abruptly in the water, his complaint echoing from a distance: “Hey! Shen Ji! Wait for us!”

Shen Ji: “…”

Lei Yi was speaking the common tongue of the future, not Gaya, but Sheng Lu understood the name. He tilted his head back and called out: “Shen Ji, hold me.”

Shen Ji felt a stir in his heart. As an Omega who had just exchanged pheromones with an Enigma—and a mermaid who currently couldn’t walk on land, the request was perfectly reasonable. Moreover, an Enigma possesses a natural, inescapable protective instinct toward an Omega they have bitten.

He leaned down and scooped him out of the water, one hand around his waist and the other supporting the magnificent tail. Water splashed everywhere, and wet white hair draped over Shen Ji’s shoulder.

During this, Sheng Lu’s fingers caressed the gland at the back of Shen Ji’s neck, saying in a voice that wasn’t quite perverted yet: “An Enigma’s gland… truly wonderful…”

“Don’t touch it.” Shen Ji dodged his hand. After all, the gland was a sensitive spot.

Royce and the others followed behind, gloating but tactfully keeping their distance. “Hey, Shen Ji, we’re going to find some water over there.” With that, they sprinted down a side path.

“…” Shen Ji was speechless. Did these guys actually think they were giving him alone time for a date?

Things had developed unexpectedly, but Shen Ji hadn’t forgotten his main objective. He followed his memory to find the low slope. Before starting, he placed Sheng Lu on a patch of relatively soft grass nearby.

He had kept the material required for the ship inside his coat, wrapped in a waterproof bag, so it hadn’t gotten wet during the swim. He found the crack in the rock, placed the item inside, and carved the mermaid tail mark onto it.

By the time Shen Ji turned back, night fell with startling speed; the sunset was over in barely ten minutes. The red mist in the forest grew denser. Royce and the others were nowhere to be seen; they had likely been separated in the fog.

This forest had been chosen for the experimental city for a reason—it had a unique magnetic field that prevented their light-brains from tracking or positioning each other. Shen Ji decided to stay put for the night and wait for Lei Yi and the others to find them.

He lit a bonfire and sat nearby to sleep, drying his damp clothes in the process. Sheng Lu sat beside him, watching him—watching his Adam’s apple shift in the flickering firelight, watching his shadow sway, and watching those calm, indifferent eyes.

Shen Ji was already exhausted and leaned against a tree to sleep. He was usually someone who could sleep anywhere, but now, he couldn’t.

“Are you trying to strangle me?” Shen Ji glanced down at the mermaid who was pressed tightly against him.

A mermaid’s hand bones were naturally larger than a human’s, not to mention the strength developed from years of moving in deep-sea currents. If that tail could wrap around him twice, it really could have strangled him to death.

“There are wild beasts. I can smell them,” Sheng Lu looked up at him innocently.

This mermaid was truly the bane of his existence. Shen Ji pulled his arm out of the tight embrace, wrapped it around Sheng Lu’s shoulder, and expanded his mental energy cocoon to shield them both.

“Sleep,” Shen Ji whispered, closing his eyes.

The young man fell asleep in a second, missing the way Sheng Lu’s eyes widened in surprise and the slight flush on his cheeks—as if they had been dyed by the surrounding red mist.

By the middle of the night, Shen Ji felt something was wrong with the person in his arms. He opened his eyes to see Sheng Lu’s face contorted; his body was dry, his lips as white as snow, and his once smooth, shimmering scales had become dull and shriveled.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s drug rejection…” Sheng Lu lowered his eyes, looking as if he were truly on the verge of death.

Shen Ji frowned. He had seen this phenomenon in the mermaid lab; some of the mermaids in the body bags had that same shriveled appearance. He had assumed it was due to the bodies being left out for too long.

Sheng Lu’s voice turned raspy. “They injected me with drugs to keep me in mermaid form permanently. Once I’m away from water for too long… my skin reacts.”

His body felt as if it were being roasted over a scorching fire, ruthlessly evaporating his life away bit by bit.

“I’ll take you back to the reservoir,” Shen Ji said, picking him up.

The mermaid’s long tail trailed through the red mist and under the night stars. The reservoir was two hours away, so Shen Ji decided to take a shortcut through a patch of primeval forest where the grass was taller than a person.

He held Sheng Lu, moving quickly through the cramped woods. Suddenly, a beam of intense light completely illuminated the dark forest. Shen Ji was nearly blinded by the sudden brightness. He ducked low, hiding in the tall grass.

The lights came from dozens of large shuttles in the sky, slowly patrolling the air and turning the world below into daytime. Likely, the backers of the experimental city had sent them to hunt them down.

It was a massive mobilization. Just the cruise shuttles overhead could carry at least a thousand men each.

Shen Ji looked down and saw that Sheng Lu was showing signs of severe dehydration. His lips were beginning to shrivel, looking exactly like the dead mermaids in the bags. If Shen Ji started running, the noise from the grass would immediately give away their position, but if they waited, Sheng Lu wouldn’t last much longer.

Sheng Lu looked at his anxious face and suddenly laughed. “Put me down.”

Shen Ji didn’t speak, nor did he put him down.

“To see the sun before I die, and to see… someone like you… actually…” Sheng Lu’s eyes flashed with a pre-death excitement. “Dying at a time like this is also a kind of happiness. I only have one regret.”

“What regret?” Shen Ji placed him in the grass.

Sheng Lu looked at him. “From my birth until now, I am actually over a hundred years old.”

This caught Shen Ji off guard. Sheng Lu looked like a twenty-something human adult. But mermaids were said to live up to a thousand years, so proportionally, it made sense.

“So, what’s the regret?”

A pathetic, pathological light gleamed in Sheng Lu’s eyes. “I’ve never had sex.”

“…” Shen Ji closed his eyes.

For a second there, he had actually been expecting something meaningful. He had clearly overestimated the man.

“…Won’t you satisfy me before I die?” Sheng Lu’s eyes were impossibly sincere.

He opened his mouth to say more, but Shen Ji cut him off: “Old man, don’t think too much.”

“…” Sheng Lu was speechless.

Shen Ji suddenly reached out and pressed his hand over Sheng Lu’s mouth. A warm, wet liquid smeared onto his lips. Sheng Lu realized a second later that it was blood; he saw the gash in Shen Ji’s palm was bleeding.

Shen Ji’s hand brushed over his neck and shoulders, leaving a thin layer of blood on the skin.

“What are you doing?” Sheng Lu was stunned.

“Blood is also water.”

Shen Ji pressed his hand against the tail, rubbing over the scales. The hot blood was quickly absorbed by the parched scales, which regained a flicker of their brilliant color. Shen Ji reopened the two cuts in his palm, letting more blood flow.

“Just hold on a little longer. Once they leave, I’ll take you to the reservoir. Trust me, you won’t die.”

He spread the blood across the tail like spreading a rainbow across a blue sky. Sheng Lu felt the blood was scalding and hot. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, becoming terrifyingly quiet.