The Little Mermaid and the Merman Hooked Up - Chapter 2

Falling, falling, falling…

It was a nightmare.

Endless darkness, endless slaughter, a blinding crimson, and the piercing wails of alarms echoing in his ears—

“Starship A-101 is disintegrating—” “Warning! Warning! Dropped from the B26 galaxy to an unknown planet—” “Starship A-101 is completely scrapped. The core protection capsule is activating—” “The capsule shell is undergoing high-combustion disintegration due to high-speed descent—” “The core protection capsule is scrapped.”

With the final alarm, a thunderous boom erupted in the sky. Firelight exploded, and thick black smoke filled the air.

A figure, looking exceptionally tiny against the vastness of the world, fell out of the smoke. With a heavy thud, he crashed from a height of several thousand meters into the deep sea.

Seawater flooded his nose and mouth. His ears were filled with a deathly silence.

Familiar faces flashed through his mind; their blood was still warm, their expressions frozen in the shock they felt before death. Pair after pair of eyes that could not rest in peace were all staring at him.

The world seemed to grow noisy again—the mechanical voice of the system announcing that everyone had lost their vital signs, and his own futile, powerless roars.

These people died because of him.

Si Jisheng opened his mouth, but his throat was filled with the scent of blood, parched and aching. He couldn’t utter a single word. He closed his bloodshot eyes.

Yet, it wasn’t darkness before him. In a trance, his consciousness sank into another world.

The sun was so fierce it made it impossible to keep one’s eyes open.

In the filthy, foul-smelling concentration camp, people were packed together, the air thick with the unpleasant stench of sweat.

He sat in a corner loading bullets into a gun, shrouded in shadows and isolated from the sunlight. Not a single drop of sweat fell from his body, and no one approached him.

He could sense the subtle gazes around him—contempt, curiosity, jealousy, and disgust. There was no kindness. His keen hearing allowed him to catch the base and cowardly discussions of these people.

“That newcomer just killed a few hundred Zergs on the battlefield, what’s he so smug about?” “We tampered with his firearms; he killed those Zergs with his bare hands.”

After a long silence, someone swallowed hard. “Bare hands? Is he even human?” “Does he look human to you? He’s the only freak in the whole camp, walking away whenever he sees someone.” “Damn it, the brothers tried to say a word to him and he didn’t even bother to respond.” “You guys think… maybe he’s a mute?”

Mute.

The crowd squeezed out a few muffled laughs from their throats.

The young man’s leisurely movements paused slightly, his lips pressing into a cold line. He stood up with his gun, his silver eyes suddenly erupting with a hint of ferocity.

Freak? Mute?

It was a simple movement, yet the entire concentration camp fell instantly silent. The youth turned his back and walked out of the shadows, his icy aura forcing even the blazing sun to retreat three paces.

Si Jisheng lifted his gaze.

The direct sunlight stung his eyes, causing a wave of dizziness. Once the vertigo passed, his surroundings abruptly changed. He turned his face and blinked, confirming that the nightmare had ended.

The dream was over, but the stinging pain on his body was real.

Falling from a height of several thousand meters, Si Jisheng would have been a corpse by now if not for the fact that a merman’s constitution was sufficiently powerful. His current state of heavy injury was already considered fortunate—there were nearly a hundred cuts across his body, several broken bones in his tail, and his wounds were swollen and inflamed from being soaked in seawater. To make matters worse, the bleeding had not yet stopped.

Living might be more painful than dying.

Using only his arm strength, Si Jisheng propped up his upper body and looked at his tail. Was that tingling sensation an illusion? His gaze darkened as he scanned his surroundings.

An endless sea, a few scattered reefs—forget people, there wasn’t even a single fish.

Si Jisheng frowned; he thought he saw something.

Deng Xi hurriedly hid behind a reef, clutching a small bunch of red grass in his palm. This was something he had just spent a great deal of effort to pick.

This type of red seaweed could heal injuries. In the mermaid heritage, Deng Xi had seen that his ancestors would collect these small red grasses that grew in the crevices near red coral. They would squeeze the juice out of a large amount of the grass and let it dissolve into the seawater. After living in that patch of water for a few days, their wounds would slowly heal.

Deng Xi had swum for a very long time to find it. He was panting with exhaustion by the time he returned, but he hadn’t even gotten lost! He had successfully made it back to the silver-tailed merman’s side.

Deng Xi quietly praised himself in his heart and peeked out with half his face to look at the silver tail.

The silver-tailed merman still lay quietly on the reef. Blood slowly slid down his body, and his silver eyes were half-open and half-closed, making it impossible to discern his thoughts.

Deng Xi retracted his head again, his blue caudal fin swaying back and forth. He looked worried as he did some mental preparation, trying to figure out what kind of opening line would keep him from getting beaten up.

Deng Xi silently rehearsed: “Are you okay? You look like you’re dying.” That didn’t seem quite right.

He “pui-pui’d” twice and continued to simulate: “Hi? Your tail is so beautiful.” Deng Xi shook his head and continued silently: “My name is Deng Xi, you—”

Before the word “hello” could leave his mouth, a great force suddenly grabbed Deng Xi’s tail and dragged him to the side. Terrified, Deng Xi cried out, “You, you, you—!”

Deng Xi gripped the reef tightly, trying to resist, but his strength was too small. In an instant, he was dragged by his tail from behind the reef.

Panicking, Deng Xi turned his head and, without any defense, locked eyes with a pair of silver vertical pupils.

Deng Xi: “!!!”

How was I discovered! When did he come over! Wasn’t he almost dead! Why is he so strong!!!

Deng Xi was scared to death, his hands still reaching forward, desperately clinging to the reef where he had just been hiding.

For some reason, the force pulling his tail suddenly loosened. He immediately flicked his tail fin and scurried back behind the reef. Deng Xi leaned against the rock, his heart still pounding with terror.

So scary, so scary.

After a while, the uneasy Deng Xi carefully poked his head out to look. The surface of the sea was empty.

Deng Xi: “!”

Where is the silver tail?!

If not for the residual pain in his tail, Deng Xi would have thought it was a hallucination. He swam out from behind the reef and circled the area. He even carefully studied the reef where the silver-tailed merman had been lying; nothing was left but dark red bloodstains.

Such a large, long tail had simply vanished into thin air.

If he wasn’t on the water, was he under it?

A flash of inspiration hit Deng Xi, and he instantly dove beneath the surface, following the faint scent of blood. After diving for a while, he finally saw the silver-tailed merman slowly sinking toward the seabed.

It was a blurry little shadow, but the bright silver on the tail fin allowed Deng Xi to catch it at a glance. He quickly swam toward the merman.

While still on the surface, Si Jisheng had noticed the small portion of a blue tail fin peeking out from behind the reef. He instinctively assumed it was some kind of fish. To survive, Si Jisheng used his last bit of strength to roll off the reef and dive into the sea. The sound of the crashing waves perfectly masked his movements. He grabbed the tail fin and pulled with force.

He hadn’t expected that what he caught wasn’t an edible fish, but a living, speaking merman.

Golden hair and a blue tail—it was a merman.

Si Jisheng’s silver eyes narrowed slightly. His hand paused, and eventually, his strength failed him, forcing him to sink toward the ocean floor. Despite several struggles, he couldn’t move his agonizingly painful tail fin. Si Jisheng allowed himself to fall into the depths of the cold sea.

Suddenly, a splash of eye-catching gold entered his vision.

It was golden hair spreading smoothly in the seawater. The blue tail appeared even more dreamlike in the transparent water, and the tail fin—as thin as a butterfly’s wing—cut a long, narrow current through the water as it swayed.

Si Jisheng had grown up in human society. He had once thought he was the only merman left in the world; he hadn’t expected to find one of his own kind on such a backward, fringe planet.

Like that splash of gold, the merman abruptly broke into his world, drawing closer and closer to his sinking form. The golden-haired, blue-tailed merman reached out a hand toward Si Jisheng.

Si Jisheng stared intently at this merman. His increasingly constricted vertical pupils narrowed slowly and dangerously.

Usually, this was the gaze of a predator locking onto its prey.

It was dangerous and filled with killing intent. Only Si Jisheng knew what dangerous creatures the merman race truly were. Every part of a merman’s body was a lethal weapon. Their claws were exceptionally sharp, capable of tearing any creature apart alive; their tail fins were hard enough to shatter stone walls, and their constitutions were more powerful than any beast.

From the moment Si Jisheng discovered he was a merman—knowing he was a freak among normal people—he had always been an outcast to avoid hurting others. But despite this, because of his merman nature, he had committed unforgivable sins.

And a merman like this—one who had never experienced the influence of human society, had no sense of morality, and grew up savagely on a backward fringe planet—would likely choose to kill rather than save. They might even be cannibalistic.

Si Jisheng expressionlessly reached out his own hand. Deng Xi grabbed the silver merman’s forearm.

Deng Xi’s heart leaped with joy. Finally caught him!

The accident came without warning.

A familiar force, a familiar yank, and a familiar sense of terror.

Deng Xi was so startled that he squeezed the red medicinal grass in his hand. Because of the excessive pressure, the red juice was squeezed out, gradually merging with the seawater.

As a relatively weak species in the ocean, merfolk had always been exceptionally sensitive to danger, with very few exceptions. When Deng Xi swam over, the silver tail didn’t move, maintaining a weak and exhausted state. It was only when Deng Xi touched him that the silver tail suddenly struck.

Deng Xi didn’t even see how the silver tail moved before all his movements were violently restrained. His back was pressed against a cold body, and a large hand squeezed his neck tightly.

It was absolute suppression.

The red medicinal grass instantly scattered into the seawater, the area of red juice expanding further and further. Deng Xi clawed at the arm choking him with both hands, trying to break free. But a mermaid’s strength was simply too small; his struggles were entirely useless.

Suffocation and pain arrived together. Deng Xi’s vision went dark, and his gills flickered frantically as his body automatically tried to draw oxygen from the seawater for its master. Suddenly, Deng Xi shuddered, belatedly realizing that the gills behind his ears were being stroked by something cold.

At that moment, Deng Xi felt that the silver-tailed merman wanted to rip his gills out alive.

The crimson juice in the undersea depths was as dreamlike as mist. The sacred treasure used by the mermaid tribe for healing since ancient times removed the stinging pain the moment it touched the wounds. It was gentle and cool, washing away fatigue.

The hand choking Deng Xi’s neck paused slightly.

Si Jisheng looked at the red grass scattering from the blue-tailed merman’s hand, and his grip loosened slightly.

Deng Xi finally got a chance to breathe. Before even a few seconds had passed, he lowered his head and bit down hard on the web of the silver merman’s hand.

The sharp pain caused Si Jisheng’s hand to tighten again, forcing Deng Xi to let go and lift his head. Si Jisheng looked down at the wound on his hand, a hint of strangeness appearing in his eyes.

It was a perfectly shaped crescent-moon mark. The tiny wound produced a pitifully small amount of blood; if one didn’t pay attention, it would heal in the blink of an eye.

Given how cruel mermen were, Si Jisheng was certain that a bite fueled by resentment should have torn off half his palm, rather than being like this—like a child playing around.

The ferocity in his silver eyes dissipated instinctively. His pupils were no longer maintained in vertical slits due to pain and alertness but returned to the eyes of a normal person.

Si Jisheng narrowed his eyes slightly, sizing up his prey.

Due to the suffocation and pain, the clear blue eyes were misted with water, and the corners of the eyes were flushed pink. The little face was tensed with fear, not daring to move an inch, yet he was secretly grinding his teeth.

His prey didn’t seem to be as powerful as he imagined. Instead, he was thin, weak, and cowardly.

Si Jisheng’s expression was unreadable. What kind of merman is this? Without sharp claws or teeth, he was like a piece of exquisite, fragile porcelain.