The Little Mermaid and the Merman Hooked Up - Chapter 7

Although the mermaid race is frail, they are quite easy to raise. Their appetite isn’t large; Deng Xi had eaten a fish caught by Si Jisheng a few hours ago, and after nibbling on a bit of seaweed just now, his belly was already rounded and full.

Deng Xi bunched up the remaining seaweed and stuffed it into a clean small shell in a corner of the nest. With a “clack,” he snapped the shell shut to save it for tomorrow—that way, he wouldn’t have to go out and pull grass!

When he turned around, the silver-tailed merman had finished the small fish. He had eaten it very cleanly, leaving only the bleached white fish bones and the inedible innards. He didn’t seem to mind the shallow tooth marks Deng Xi had left on it earlier.

Looking at his expression, he seemed to be left wanting more.

Si Jisheng hadn’t eaten since falling onto this planet. In the Great White Shark’s territory, he hadn’t had time to eat the fish he killed before the sharks, attracted by the blood, arrived at his door. Furthermore, he had traveled a long distance while bearing an injury, consuming a massive amount of physical strength.

One small fish only slightly dulled his hunger.

But because he was living under another’s roof, Si Jisheng simply closed his eyes after eating and endured the hunger to rest. Only when his energy was restored could his injuries heal quickly.

Jiao-men possess strong self-healing abilities for external wounds. If his injuries had been sustained by a normal human, they likely would have succumbed long ago. Even with medicinal treatment, a common person wouldn’t recover for a year or two, and even then, they would be left with lifelong complications.

But Jiao-men are different. In ten days to half a month, Si Jisheng’s wounds would be completely healed, and even the scars would vanish.

The trauma on his body hurt every second. The silence of the deep sea was terrifying; the icy seawater eroded the body, and closing one’s eyes felt like falling into eternal darkness. Such an environment often gave one an illusion: that he would die on this obscure planet, sleeping forever alone on the cold, dark seabed.

Si Jisheng’s tightly closed eyes were full of suppressed agony. He just had to endure these dozen or so days…

Suddenly, the sensation of pain lessened.

Si Jisheng opened his eyes to see a pale pink mist in the seawater. The little mermaid swam through the pink mist, blinking his blue eyes and reaching out his hands expectantly.

Deng Xi’s palms were covered in red friction marks, looking quite startling against his snow-white skin. He pulled his hands back and pushed over a pile of red medicinal herbs. “Little mute, let’s squeeze the medicinal juice into the seawater together.”

Si Jisheng was momentarily dazed.

Because the injury to his tailbone had worsened, his tail couldn’t move. The silver-tailed merman lying in the exquisite seashell turned over, lying prone on the seaweed padding, revealing a bare back with perfect lines. The shoulder blades on his back were covered with a layer of beautiful, lean muscle, and his powerful arms hung casually outside the shell.

But what Deng Xi noticed were the dense wounds on the little mute’s back. His own palms hurt, but the little mute was likely hurting many, many times more than he was.

Deng Xi was about to say he should just do it himself, but Si Jisheng silently picked up the herbs Deng Xi had pushed over and began to wring them without a word.

Deng Xi sat on the upper ledge of the seashell’s upright side, his long blue tail hanging down. His fan-shaped tail fin accidentally brushed against the silver tail’s abdomen.

Deng Xi froze. Si Jisheng’s movements also paused.

“S-sorry!”

Deng Xi hurriedly switched directions, sitting with his back to Si Jisheng.

He knew that among mermaids, if tail touched tail, it was a request for mating. That is to say, he had almost let his tail touch the little mute’s tail! He almost let the little mute think he was courting him!

So embarrassing! Deng Xi’s ears turned completely red.

Even though the little mute’s tail was very beautiful, petting it was enough. How could they… how could they press together? That was too much. He had picked up the injured little mute and brought him to the nest, but not to raise a beautiful merman as a mate.

Although… Deng Xi stole a glance at the little mute who was obediently wringing the herbs. The quiet little mute would listen seriously when he spoke and follow whatever he said.

So well-behaved.

Maybe just raising him for amusement wouldn’t be bad?

Deng Xi steadied his mind and turned his upper body back around to wring the herbs over the little mute’s wounds.

The seabed held more than just silence and darkness. For a time, the rustling sound of wringing herbs echoed continuously in the dim nest. Under the soft glow of the seashell, the chilly seawater seemed to fill with pale pink smoke, gradually deepening from a dreamlike pink to a light red.

For the first time, when Deng Xi stayed idle in his nest, he no longer felt lonely.

The pain in Si Jisheng’s wounds slowly diminished until he finally couldn’t feel it at all. Without the torment of pain, his tightly knit brows also gradually relaxed.

The second day, the third day…

The wound on Si Jisheng’s torso finally scabbed over, and the tail that had been doubly injured during the fight with the Great White Shark could also move slightly.

For these two days, because Si Jisheng was injured, he had been occupying the sleeping shell; Deng Xi usually lay in a newly piled mound of seaweed in a corner.

Once he could get up, Si Jisheng immediately left the exquisite seashell. He looked at the entrance of the nest and frowned slightly.

That blue-tailed mermaid was returning later and later each day. As a Jiao-man, did hunting really require so much time? Or was most of the time spent on the swim there and back?

“Tada—”

Deng Xi’s energetic voice reached the nest first. He swam in carrying a small fish. “I caught this today!”

Because there was only the faint light of the shell inside the nest, the increasing number of green and purple bruises on Deng Xi’s body were hidden by the dimness.

Today he had crashed into things quite painfully.

While the little mute lowered his head to eat the fish, Deng Xi looked down and blew on a small cut on his arm from a sharp rock. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt a bit. Deng Xi gave it a small “whoosh” of air; the moment the seawater’s movement touched the cut, it hurt even more.

Deng Xi put his arm down with a long face. “Blowing on it makes it better” was clearly a lie told to fish.

He looked up to see that Si Jisheng had finished eating. The merman swam to the entrance with the fish bones and threw them outside.

Belatedly, Deng Xi said in surprise, “Little mute, you can move!”

Si Jisheng gave a nod, then pointed at the shell and shook his head. His meaning was that he no longer needed it.

Deng Xi frowned. “But your injuries?”

Si Jisheng continued to shake his head. It didn’t matter.

Immediately after, Si Jisheng pointed to the small shell where Deng Xi kept his edible seaweed. He hesitated for a moment, then tilted his head slightly, mimicking a gesture Deng Xi usually used to show confusion, before quickly returning to an expressionless state.

Deng Xi couldn’t help but crinkle his eyes with a smile. “I already ate outside.” Though he had eaten seaweed, it was fine; in the past when Deng Xi lived alone, he rarely got to eat fish anyway.

Because catching fish was so, so, so much work! Deng Xi would rather gnaw on grass.

But in order for the little mute to recover quickly, the current Deng Xi had to go out and catch fish every day. He truly felt he was very amazing for being able to catch a fish every day—something the old Deng Xi wouldn’t have dared to even dream of.

Si Jisheng nodded slightly. That explained why he was returning later and later.

Si Jisheng swam toward the entrance.

Deng Xi: “Wait!”

Deng Xi spread his arms to block the entrance, asking in a panic, “Where are you going? You promised not to back out.”

Si Jisheng, who had been hungry for three days, met him with silence. He opened his mouth but couldn’t say a word, not knowing how to express that he wanted to go out and catch fish rather than go back on his deal with Deng Xi. The Marshal of the Empire was by no means a man who broke his word.

Seeing that the silver tail didn’t move for a long time, Deng Xi—who assumed the little mute was eager to leave as soon as he could move—felt increasingly aggrieved. The bruises on his body were also constantly shouting in pain.

He worked so hard to catch fish every day and couldn’t even bring himself to eat the ones he caught. If he wanted to leave, he had to at least catch the hundred fish he promised—

Gurgle…

Deng Xi pricked up his ears, his blue eyes going wide. His gaze slowly moved down and fixed on the silver tail’s smooth, lean abdomen. Specifically, the stomach that had just growled.

Even with Si Jisheng’s considerable level of thick-skinnedness, he couldn’t maintain a straight face. His Adam’s apple bobbed slightly, and he bit his lip.

Deng Xi asked naively, “Are you hungry?”

Si Jisheng nodded.

Deng Xi’s gaze was blank. “But didn’t you just eat a fish? Little mute, were you not full?”

Si Jisheng nodded.

Deng Xi was shocked and confused. “But you ate the same yesterday and the day before.” He suddenly thought of something. Could it be…

“Little mute, have you been hungry this whole time?”

The little mute nodded in silence.

“So you want to go out and find food now?”

Another nod.

Deng Xi lowered his eyes with guilt, fiddling with his hands awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

The little mermaid, for whom one fish could basically satisfy three meals, truly didn’t understand. Finally, Deng Xi stepped away from the entrance and agreed to let the little mute go out for food—but on the condition that he had to go along as well.

He claimed that the little mute got injured before surely because he didn’t know where the territories of large creatures were; catching fish so boldly in their territory would lead to a fight if the owner caught him.

Now, Deng Xi was going to teach the little mute how to catch fish in waters not occupied by large creatures.