The Little Mermaid and the Merman Hooked Up - Chapter 10

“Did you injure your vocal cords? Do we need to send a medic? Marshal, please provide your coordinates, and we will immediately dispatch a starship to bring you back to the Empire…” The adjutant blurted out several sentences in rapid succession, clearly anxious.

Si Jisheng quickly regulated his emotions and sent a short message with an icy expression: “No need. I am fine.”

“Tell me your plan.”

The adjutant immediately detached himself from his personal feelings and reported, “The current plan is for you to issue a public statement to appease the citizens.”

As one of the few survivors of this war, whether Si Jisheng was a Marshal or not, he owed the public an explanation. Si Jisheng nodded, signifying his approval.

“Secondly, we are investigating the instigator who spread these rumors. The Alliance has already claimed that star system as their own, so the Empire cannot conduct a post-war cleanup. The military doesn’t have evidence in hand yet, so we can only focus on cutting off the source.”

“At the same time, diplomats are negotiating with the Alliance—”

Si Jisheng’s expression flickered slightly. He typed: “Negotiating what?”

The adjutant steeled himself: “Seeking peace.”

Seeking. Peace.

The Empire, which once sat atop the interstellar hierarchy, actually had a day where it sought peace.

Si Jisheng froze for a long time, taking a while to recover. He typed: “Repeat that.”

The adjutant paused, then repeated his words: “Marshal, we all believe in you. We’ve all witnessed how you’ve lived these years for the Empire, for the military, and for humanity.”

“Even though you are different from us,” the adjutant gave a hollow laugh, “we won’t reject you just because you aren’t human.”

“The few of us were personally promoted by you. Please rest assured—besides, no one wins every battle.” The adjutant spoke earnestly; because of the Marshal’s identity, he had always been isolated from the crowds, with only a few close aides usually able to exchange a word or two with him.

The adjutant was worried. He feared the Marshal, alone, wouldn’t be able to move past this.

“Although we lost this battle tragically, you aren’t a god. No one can guarantee leading the Empire forward forever—” The adjutant’s voice cut off. Seeing the message displayed on the screen, his voice went dry, and he couldn’t utter another word.

“What if I say that I lost my memories during the war and only regained my reason afterward?”

Through the screen, the adjutant stared at the upper body of the Marshal, his gaze fixed on Si Jisheng’s translucent silver ear-fins. These were things a human could never possess.

“Are you certain you lost your reason at that time?” A trace of fear appeared in the adjutant’s eyes.

When the known becomes unknown, when the controllable becomes uncontrollable—this emotion appeared quite naturally. He could understand it.

A hint of mockery appeared in Si Jisheng’s silver eyes as he typed the final line: “In three days, I will release an audio statement.”

A text explanation had low credibility; a video statement would expose his Jiao-man identity.

The communication was disconnected.

In that brief second, the ocean returned to the silence it was born with. The sky, like a black curtain, pressed depressingly down toward the surface. The stars were pitifully sparse, and the crescent moon was sharp enough to cut; their light was miserably dim.

Si Jisheng was surrounded by pitch blackness. He looked into the further distance where things were even darker and harder to see, slowly closing his eyes. The salty sea breeze dried the blood on his upper body, leaving behind countless filthy stains.

He seemed to have forgotten something.

Si Jisheng suddenly remembered: he had forgotten to bring that shark for Deng Xi.

Holding the computer tight, he sank to the seabed. There were too many corpses piled together; he couldn’t find the original Great White Shark he had chosen—the one that was at least somewhat presentable.

He had realized it early on, when Deng Xi had swam through the currents and past a pack of sharks with a pale face to reach him. Si Jisheng realized that this blue mermaid seemed very cowardly. Despite living alone in the ocean for so long, he understood no common sense, lived piteously, was fragile, feared pain, and was timid.

Si Jisheng sometimes wondered how he had survived until now; it was truly a miracle. He was nothing like the Jiao-man race. Completely different from someone like himself who blended in among humans.

They were both miracles.

Si Jisheng finally found a shark corpse that wasn’t too terrifying. It had been sliced in half by his tail fin; the head had sunk who-knows-where, leaving only half the body. The only unsightly part was the protruding internal organs. Si Jisheng cleaned it up and dragged it back to the red coral reef in front of the nest. Even though it was only half a shark, it was ridiculously large and unusually conspicuous no matter how he tried to hide it.

He stopped fussing and just let the half-shark sink in a random spot. He gathered some useless seaweed—the kind that provided the “sense of ceremony” Deng Xi liked—and wrapped it around the corpse.

Having handled everything, Si Jisheng leaned against the red coral. Not knowing what to do, he stared into the darkness for a long time before looking down at the computer in his hand.

He unlocked it with practiced ease, swiped through the pages, and clicked into files, sliding through them aimlessly. His gaze swept over names that were familiar in the past but would become strangers in the future. This was the list of soldiers who participated in that war; most of them were already dead. As a Marshal, it was actually difficult to remember the names of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people clearly.

But Si Jisheng had a physiological muscle memory for every name because he had once recited every single one.

He read very slowly because, as a “mute,” it took a great effort for him to pronounce each syllable, even if the sounds that came out were just a few syllables no one could understand.

Si Jisheng continued his rehabilitation until the seabed began to brighten slightly. The sun’s rays penetrated the surface and shone down; the darkness of the seabed remained, yet it wasn’t as dark as before.

Si Jisheng closed the files, swallowed the metallic taste of blood in his throat almost masochistically, and dazed for a while before remembering he needed to check something.

Why had the computer regained a signal?

“Little mute?” The mermaid language suddenly echoed through the currents, reaching Si Jisheng’s ears. He shut off the screen and, with a few operations, shrank the wrist-sized computer to the width of a knuckle and slipped it onto his index finger like a ring before swimming toward the nest.

Deng Xi woke up dizzily. He poked a hand out from the pearly white shell, hovered for a while, then pulled back and pushed the top of the shell open.

“Good morning!”

Deng Xi turned to the seaweed in the corner to give a greeting, then was instantly wide awake.

Because the seaweed was empty.

Where is the merman?! Where is my big “little mute”?!

Could his kin have run away now that his injuries are almost healed?! My hundred fish! Deng Xi shouted in shock, “Little mute?!”

Deng Xi swam out of the shell. Just as he headed toward the entrance, he saw the silver tail swimming in. The little mermaid swam over worriedly, circling Si Jisheng. “Where did you go?”

Deng Xi threatened fiercely, “Even though your injuries are almost healed, the outside is very, very dangerous! You know how many times you were injured before.” He flicked his tail fin proudly, using an exceptionally terrifying tone to threaten, “If you leave me, little mute, how will you survive?”

Deng Xi intended to build a good relationship with the little mute before getting his hundred fish, so that the silver tail would stay and live with him even after the payment. They were each other’s only kin. Why leave each other?

Si Jisheng again mimicked Deng Xi’s usual expression, tilting his head to show confusion and signaling for Deng Xi to continue.

Deng Xi said as a matter of course, “Little mute, look. On this planet, aside from you, there is only me. We are each other’s only kinsmen. But little mute, you can’t talk.” He said righteously, “That is to say, in this whole ocean, besides me, no other creature can sing.”

“Only I can save you by singing when you encounter danger!”

Si Jisheng nodded hesitantly. That conclusion was indeed correct.

Deng Xi nodded with satisfaction at his own flawless logic. “In summary: it’s not that I can’t leave you, little mute; it’s that you can’t leave me.” The little mermaid’s proud tail fin flicked again.

Si Jisheng’s expression was cold, and he was silent for a moment, but his silver eyes crinkled slightly as he nodded.

Having received confirmation, Deng Xi continued, “So, I’m going out to find food. You wait obediently at home for me to come back; don’t run around.”

The silver tail nodded.

Deng Xi swam out with total confidence. Not a minute after he left, a cry of alarm suddenly rang out in the nest. In the next instant, a blur of gold and blue rushed back in.

Si Jisheng was still at the entrance, having not yet left. With a flick of his tail, Deng Xi swam in at high speed and slammed headlong into Si Jisheng’s arms.

Si Jisheng’s entire body stiffened.

In the next instant, he was tightly clung to by two hands, and even his silver tail was tightly entwined by the rogue’s blue tail. Their bare skin pressed together without warning.

The golden-haired, blue-tailed little mermaid was trembling, appearing piteous enough to cry. He was exceptionally delicate as he sobbed:

“I… I just saw… in front of our house… there is a corpse!!!”