I Don't Want To Fall In Love With The Heroine [Quick Wear] - Chapter 23.1

In a small, exquisite jewelry box lay three pink pearls—one produced the night before, and two born just moments ago.

Bai Qian tucked it into a drawer. Beside her, the girl watched the deep-blue velvet box with curious eyes. “In your human world, how much could a single pearl like that sell for?” she asked.

The woman unceremoniously curled her finger and gave the girl’s forehead another flick. “It stays here. Not for sale.”

Yu Shaoling clutched her forehead, complaining indignantly, “There are so many things you won’t let me do, so now I am commanding you, Bai Qian! You are not allowed to flick my head ever again!”

Bai Qian didn’t bother replying. She closed the drawer, picked up her phone, and began browsing Taobao as if the girl weren’t even there.

Yu Shaoling was equally curious about the electronic device. “What are you doing? Weren’t you going to buy me a fish tank? Why are you holding that little square? Get up! Take me to buy the tank!”

“This is the ‘phone’ I mentioned earlier,” Bai Qian explained. “This app I’m looking at is called Taobao; it’s specifically for buying things. I’m picking out a fish tank for you. Do you understand now?”

Yu Shaoling nodded happily, her head leaning entirely against Bai Qian’s shoulder. She stared at the screen without blinking and suddenly pointed. “I like that one!”

Bai Qian checked the price. It was within an acceptable range, so she didn’t refuse.

Seeing the purchase process, Yu Shaoling had a sudden thought. “I want a phone too. Can you buy me one?”

“I’m broke. Forget it.”

Yu Shaoling had clearly become clever enough to grasp one of Bai Qian’s weak spots. She crossed her arms and threatened, “Then I’m going to cry!”

Bai Qian: “…”

“Buy me a phone!”

Bai Qian went to the bedroom and rummaged around, eventually digging a backup phone of the original host out from the bottom drawer of the nightstand. The “Princess” wasn’t picky at all. She took her gift with excitement and promised happily, “Bai Qian, I’ve decided! When I return to the seabed, I’ll give you two whole rooms filled with Sea-Beef!”

“…Thanks, but I don’t need it. Before that happens, I hope you remember one thing.”

“Hmm?”

Bai Qian gritted her teeth. “Never use crying to threaten me again. If there’s a next time, you can get out of my house.”

Having secured a phone, Yu Shaoling’s invisible tail was wagging furiously. She was as obedient as could be. “I won’t, I won’t! Mermaids never lie. If I say I won’t, I definitely won’t. You have to believe me!”

“The phone is yours. Go play on the sofa. I have to work.”

Yu Shaoling walked out obediently, not forgetting to grab her wet clothes from the chair by the door. “Then I’ll put my clothes back in the bucket to soak. When my fish tank arrives, I’ll put them in there!”

Bai Qian gave a perfunctory nod. “Mmh, fine. Close the door, please.”

Not a minute after the room went quiet, the annoying girl burst back in. “Bai Qian, you lied! This phone is broken!”

Bai Qian suppressed her temper. “It has no power. How is it supposed to work? The charger is by my bed. Go get it yourself. One end goes into the plug, the other into the phone’s port. Surely you can manage that much?”

Yu Shaoling felt a chill down her spine at the look on Bai Qian’s face—the woman looked like she wanted to turn her into boiled fish. She didn’t dare say another word and silently closed the door.

Just as Bai Qian’s mood settled, the door was pushed open for a third time. The girl’s expression was pure and adorable, looking piteously innocent. “I don’t know how to play with it. Bai Qian, will you teach me? Please?”

“…”

Bai Qian made zero progress on her work all morning; she spent the entire time teaching a mermaid how to use a smartphone. Once Yu Shaoling had mastered the basic functions, Bai Qian glanced at the clock. It was time for lunch.

“I don’t want to cook a full meal. I’m making noodles. Do you want some?”

The mermaid, who acted as if she wanted to crawl inside the phone, didn’t even look up. “As long as there’s beef, it’s fine!”

As Bai Qian headed to the kitchen, she remembered the floor Yu Shaoling had soaked. She walked over to check, but after all this time, the floor had naturally dried on its own.

Women love shopping. Mermaids, it seemed, were no exception.

Yu Shaoling had memorized the shopping process. Once Taobao was downloaded, she couldn’t wait to open it and buy things she liked. However, she hit a snag at the very first step: she didn’t have a phone number, which meant no account.

Bai Qian had just brought the water to a boil when the annoying brat came back with her phone. “Bai Qian, this needs a number, but I don’t have one. Can you get me one?”

“I have two SIM cards. You can just have one of them.”

“Okay! Let me know when you’ve set it up.”

Yu Shaoling was about to leave when Bai Qian called her back. “I made lunch, Princess. Do you know what you need to do?”

“Help you eat it all?”

“…” Bai Qian refused to get angry at this intellectually unrefined mermaid. “You’re responsible for washing the dishes.”

“I don’t know how!”

“I’ll teach you this time. Starting tonight, the dishes are all yours. Any problems?”

The noble Mermaid Princess uncharacteristically didn’t refuse a task that was clearly beneath her status. She nodded obediently. “Okay.”

Bai Qian was a bit surprised, but after a thought, she didn’t press further. “Then go wait for me outside.”

After much pestering, Bai Qian finally registered a Taobao account for Yu Shaoling. “Don’t just buy things randomly, got it?”

The mermaid agreed very quickly. But within ten minutes of agreeing, Bai Qian received a notification from the bank about a change in her balance.

Her face fell instantly. She threw down her pen and went out to confront the girl browsing on the sofa. “What did you buy? You spent so much of my money!”

Yu Shaoling answered honestly, “The bathtub was too small, so I bought myself a new bed. Don’t worry, I only bought this one thing. I definitely won’t buy anything else for a while!”

“What kind of bed costs ten times more than mine?!”

The Mermaid Princess showed her the order. Bai Qian stared; it was an ultra-large fish tank—large enough that Yu Shaoling could lay in it and perform a full mermaid show in the middle of the living room.

“Are you insane? Why did you buy such a huge tank!” Bai Qian laughed out of sheer exasperation.

Being scolded made Yu Shaoling pout. She was about to argue, but remembering she had just spent a fortune of the woman’s money, she swallowed her pride. Instead, she murmured, “My room back in the kingdom was several times larger than this tank. Besides, I looked for a long time to find this. It’s already so small that I feel like I’m compromising; how can you say that to me?”

Bai Qian was speechless. “If my bank card could talk, it would be even more aggrieved than you.”

“I don’t care! I want this one, you have to buy it for me! If you don’t, I’ll—” Yu Shaoling remembered her promise not to use crying as a threat. Her voice vanished, and her confidence collapsed like a knocked-over sandcastle.

“You’ll what?”

The girl thought for a moment and muttered, “If you don’t let me sleep, I won’t let you sleep either!”

Bai Qian tried to reason with her. “There’s a pool outside. Wouldn’t it be easier to just sleep there?”

“You refused to wash it for me last night! Even if you beg me today, I won’t use it! I don’t care, I want my new bed! You must buy it!”

“Then what can you give me? In your kingdom, surely there is a concept of equal exchange?”

Yu Shaoling’s confidence shattered at those words. After a long silence, she said guiltily, “I… I can give you three rooms of Sea-Beef.”

“…”

Mentioning her country’s irresistible specialty made the mermaid proud again. She puffed out her chest and raised her voice. “I forgot to mention before, but in our kingdom, Sea-Beef is more precious than pearls! You might not be interested now, but don’t you dare come running to the shore every day begging me for some later!”

“Thanks, but I think once I help you find your tail, there won’t be any reason for us to see each other again.”

Bai Qian was stating a fact. Once the female lead regained power over the Mermaid Kingdom, her mission would be over. At that point, she would be preparing for the next world.

But Yu Shaoling didn’t understand her connection to this world. Hearing this, her face darkened. She bit her lip, wanting to say something, but remembering her noble status, she feigned indifference and said the opposite: “Then don’t you regret it! Even if you come begging to see me every day, I definitely won’t appear!”

Furious, the girl stormed out without looking back.

Bai Qian sensed her mood was off, but didn’t dwell on it and buried herself back in work. As it turned out, Yu Shaoling stayed angry until evening. When Bai Qian finished cooking and called for her, the girl acted as if she didn’t hear, sitting on the sofa playing on her phone in the same position.

Bai Qian had to walk over and call her again. Even standing right behind her, the girl acted deaf. Bai Qian took a closer look and saw the girl’s hands pressing hard against the screen, her grip so tight that her fingertips were turning white.

“Yu Shaoling?”

The girl was silent.

“Are you mad at me?”

Still no answer, but her earlobe flickered.

Bai Qian recalled their conversation and guessed why she had turned into a little silent bomb. She sighed. “In the future, when you go back, I’ll go to the shore to find you. Is that okay?”

The mermaid, who had been as still as a statue, suddenly turned her head. Her long, beautiful eyes were misty, and the corners were flushed pink—she was clearly holding back tears. “You aren’t allowed to say things like that again. And also, you’re the one begging to see me, not me wanting to see you! You’re the one who insisted on it!”

Bai Qian: “Fine, fine, I’m the one who wants to see you. It’s all me. Now can we go eat?”

The coaxed, tsundere mermaid gave a little huff and finally stood up. “Fine, let’s eat.”

8:24 PM.

When Yu Shaoling’s symptoms flared up again, Bai Qian specifically pulled out her phone and noted the time. She discovered another issue: when the symptoms started, Yu Shaoling lost all reason. She was like a predator that only understood its hunger; she wouldn’t stop until she reached her goal.

Bai Qian was clearly the “meat” she craved.

The woman tried to resist just as she had in the morning, but the result twelve hours later was the same—except the forced kiss moved from the sofa to the bed in the master bedroom.

Pale pink fingers gripped the bedsheets helplessly. The neat, white sheets were bunched into messy trails by the host. The sound of soft, flushed gasps echoed one after another, layering the room’s atmosphere with a dizzying, hazy sensuality.

Bai Qian’s long hair, which had been tied up with a simple band, had long since come undone. Strands of hair fell across her collarbones, exposed by her silk pajamas. Her dazed, entranced expression looked like someone had added vivid, moving colors to a clean sheet of paper.

Yu Shaoling stared down at this vision of beauty, her breathing growing heavy. As her primal instincts threatened to surge again, the woman regained her strength and snatched a nearby pillow, slamming it directly against the girl’s head.

“Get out of here and go back to your stupid ocean right now!” she rasped, her voice as hoarse as an old tree.

The feral instinct was stomped back down by the “terrifying” human, slinking back underground to wait for another chance. Yu Shaoling didn’t dare argue or snap back as she usually did. She carefully picked up the pillow from the floor, gave it a few light pats, and placed it back by Bai Qian’s head. Only when she had backed all the way to the door did she dare speak. “I’m going to sleep then. Goodnight.”

Bai Qian was so angry she didn’t sleep all night. The times for the flare-ups were set: 8:24 AM and 8:24 PM. Exactly twelve hours apart.

Bai Qian decided to conduct an experiment. she wanted to see if these symptoms were truly “kiss or die” as Yu Shaoling believed, or if they were like an addiction that could be endured.

8:20 AM.

Bai Qian tied the girl to a chair. Yu Shaoling struggled constantly. “Bai Qian, let me go! I am a noble princess, you dare tie me up! Believe it or not, I’ll turn you into a sea-pig!”

Bai Qian turned a deaf ear, her eyes fixed on the time on her lock screen. When the number changed from 3 to 4, the mermaid’s shouting stopped abruptly.

Bai Qian looked at the restrained Yu Shaoling. The girl’s eyes had turned cloudy; a primal, beast-like nature was crawling out from within, slowly consuming her gaze. The woman didn’t panic; she sat there calmly, watching the girl’s complexion turn from a healthy pinkish-white to a sickly, terrifying blue.

When the purple patches appeared, the veins in Yu Shaoling’s neck bulged. Her cloudy amber pupils were swallowed entirely by blackness. Stripped of her humanity, she looked truly frightening.

Bai Qian’s expression shifted slightly, but she still didn’t move, continuing to observe. Soon, the purple patches merged into a dark, deathly mass. Tiny, sunken spots of black—like larvae—crawled beneath the skin of her cheeks. Her breathing grew heavier and heavier, like a dying elder gasping for their final breath.

Bai Qian couldn’t sit still any longer. She rushed to the girl, who had now closed her eyes. “Yu Shaoling?” she called tentatively.

The only response was a heavy, stifled breathing that made her heart race. The black dots had connected into lines across Yu Shaoling’s no-longer-clear face, making her look as if she were possessed.

Bai Qian gritted her teeth and leaned down, taking the initiative to kiss her for the first time. The moment their breaths mingled, she watched the transformation clearly. The black was replaced by white; the dry, withered skin regained its elasticity and glow.

Closed eyelids flickered. When her eyes opened, Bai Qian caught the familiar amber. She breathed a sigh of relief and moved to pull back, but the mermaid—who had somehow snapped her restraints with brute force—clamped a hand around the back of Bai Qian’s head. She pinned the retreating woman directly onto her lap.

That which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.

This time, Bai Qian was too exhausted to even be angry. The girl, who hadn’t had enough while they were face-to-face on the chair, carried the limp woman back to the room and pinned her down to “taste” her properly once more.

Having stayed up all night, the late-onset exhaustion finally won. Bai Qian fell into a deep sleep right in the middle of that deep kiss. Satisfied, and seeing her asleep, Yu Shaoling thoughtfully tucked her in.

The girl stared at the empty space beside the woman for a long time, hesitating, before lifting the other side of the duvet and tentatively lying down. But within two seconds, she scrambled out with a look of pure rejection and went back to huddle piteously in her fish tank.

Bai Qian couldn’t let Yu Shaoling die, so she temporarily sacrificed herself, offering her lips at the set times every day. Shortly after accepting this bizarre arrangement, she noticed a problem.

During another “treatment,” she endured about ten seconds of the kiss. When the girl tried to slide her tongue in as usual, Bai Qian calmly pushed her away.

Yu Shaoling snapped her eyes open, her anxiety getting the better of her. “What’s wrong?”

Bai Qian’s lips curled, her eyes full of a chilling frost. “Why stop the act so soon?”

Caught in her little scheme, Yu Shaoling grew guilty and didn’t dare look at her.

“Try those unnecessary moves again, and see if I don’t bite your tongue off.”

Yu Shaoling seemed to feel the phantom pain and shook her head frantically.

The mermaid had been on land for over two months now. Her attitude toward Bai Qian had shifted significantly. The wild, biting stray cat had been domesticated into a house cat—not only was she clingy, she knew how to act spoiled.

Hearing the threat, she didn’t say things like “I am a noble princess, you dare bite me!” anymore. Instead, she lowered her eyes submissively, blinked, and defended herself softly: “It’s a lingering effect of the symptoms. I didn’t mean it. Bai Qian, you have to believe me.”

Bai Qian scoffed. “No need for explanations. Starting tomorrow, I’m timing it. The moment it hits ten seconds, consider your tongue gone.”

Support I Don’t Want To Fall In Love With The Heroine [Quick Wear]