The Little Mermaid and the Merman Hooked Up - Chapter 9

All these “food items” were tangled up in seaweed, and since Deng Xi was the first to see them, they were naturally caught by him. Deng Xi thought so with total righteousness.

Si Jisheng looked at the pile in Deng Xi’s hands—sea creatures that clearly remembered his scent and were trembling with fear, feeling the suppression of a Jiao-man at the top of the food chain. He fell silent for a moment.

Deng Xi also looked down at the pile of food that had suddenly appeared from the sky, then looked at the silent silver tail. Suspecting a certain possibility, he tilted his head and surveyed the silver tail from head to toe with confusion. He didn’t see any new red wounds, nor did he smell blood.

Si Jisheng’s body stiffened inexplicably under the scrutiny.

Deng Xi circled the silver tail, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Little mute, you didn’t sneak out and enter the waters of those dangerous large creatures while your injuries weren’t even healed, did you?”

Si Jisheng’s expression froze.

Deng Xi’s eyes were full of tension and worry; seeing the silver tail remain unresponsive, the rims of his eyes grew increasingly red.

Si Jisheng bit his lip and shook his head with a bit of a headache.

Deng Xi instantly breathed a sigh of relief. “I can catch fish. Those large creatures are very scary! Don’t get injured again.”

“I am very amazing!”

“I won’t break our deal!”

Si Jisheng looked at the bruises on the boy’s body and gave a nod. Yes, very amazing.

To avoid dirtying the nest, they sat together at the entrance to process the food. Deng Xi watched with curiosity as the silver tail used his sharp claws to easily slice through a crab shell. Wide-eyed with wonder, Deng Xi used his own fingertip to touch the other crab. Not only did he fail to slice it, but he nearly got his hand pinched by a claw, causing him to pull back in a fright.

Deng Xi puffed out his cheeks in anger, snapped the crab in half with his hands without a word, gave a couple of triumphant huffs, and prepared to dig in.

Before he could touch it, he was blocked by the silver tail’s hand. Si Jisheng lowered his silver eyes, indicating for Deng Xi to look at the crab in his own hand. He slowed down his movements, peeling out the gills, heart, intestines, and stomach and throwing them away.

Deng Xi asked curiously, “Why throw those away? Are they not edible?”

Si Jisheng nodded.

Deng Xi clumsily mimicked the little mute and began processing the food, committing every movement to memory. After finishing, he looked at the silver tail again.

Si Jisheng had already finished the crab and was starting on the octopus. He sliced off the head entirely and threw it away, then used his fingertips to peel the skin off the tentacles before throwing that away too.

Deng Xi ate while watching the little mute work. For the first time, he realized that eating wasn’t just about filling one’s stomach—there were so many particulars.

Si Jisheng sliced the octopus tentacles into pieces, one for Deng Xi and one for himself. By the time they finished this octopus that was larger than a face, Deng Xi was full. He managed to taste a bit of shellfish meat, but the rest—including the two red-tailed fish—all went into Si Jisheng’s stomach.

Over the next few days, every time Deng Xi returned, he would find many things near the nest. Even many strange sea creatures he had never seen before would be tangled in seaweed in his little corner. Oysters, sea urchins, tuna… there was even a sea snake!

Deng Xi was startled by the sea snake that suddenly poked out, but seeing it flick its tongue and realizing there were no fangs in its mouth, he breathed a sigh of relief. Were they knocked off? Deng Xi thought curiously as he tapped the snake’s head before taking today’s food home.

Lately, things were getting stranger. The weather in this part of the sea hadn’t changed at all, and the temperature of the water remained stable. No ocean currents were passing through, so he had no idea where all these sea creatures were coming from.

Late at night.

Si Jisheng glanced at the closed seashell in the nest and swam out of the entrance. His tailbone had completely regenerated and healed. Now, he intended to get some exercise.

Si Jisheng swam to the waters where the Great White Sharks were. He caught dozens of blood eels, sliced them open with his claws, and began to bleed them with slow deliberation. It wasn’t until the entire area was dyed red by the eels that he finally encountered the creatures he was waiting for.

At the bottom of the pitch-black, lightless deep sea, the silver merman hovered calmly in the water. From all directions, several Great White Sharks lunged at him, churning the waves.

His silver vertical pupils lifted slightly. Jiao-men are naturally bellicose and love slaughter. If he didn’t vent his energy tonight, then in a few days, he would become a merman who lost his consciousness and acted solely on instinct. That would be terrifying—both for others and for Si Jisheng himself.

Si Jisheng’s translucent silver ear-fins froze for a second. He turned his face expressionlessly and swept his two-meter-long tail fin violently, nearly kicking up a whole wall of waves that sliced a fast-swimming shark in half at the waist.

Blood instantly scattered like sea mist.

In the next moment, an entire shark was torn in half by hand starting from its mouth. Being soaked in the salty, metallic blood caused the silver pupils to become even more vertical, like those of a wild beast.

Slaughtering a pack of sharks didn’t feel much different from slaughtering an army of Zergs. This one-sided crushing ended within Si Jisheng’s estimated timeframe.

It took only five minutes.

Si Jisheng bathed in the water that had turned completely crimson. He lowered his eyelids expressionlessly, quietly watching the shark corpses sink below.

He picked one that still had a relatively intact corpse and swam toward it. Just as he lifted it, he noticed something flickering with a faint light in the dark blood mist.

He closed his vertical pupils and used his ear-fins to sense the water movements in that spot. It was a dead object.

Si Jisheng swam to the seabed and picked it up. His mind was still somewhat chaotic; he rubbed the smooth surface slightly, and his silver pupils closed slowly before he belatedly realized:

This was his optical computer (Light-brain).

Si Jisheng cherished it yet didn’t dare touch it, gently wiping the surface with his fingertip only to find the computer was still covered in bloodstains. He wiped it many times, but it wouldn’t come clean. He realized, once again belatedly, that he wasn’t on the Empire’s capital planet, but at the bottom of a pitch-black, silent sea. His only companions besides blood were corpses.

Si Jisheng was momentarily dazed. He stared at the computer in his hand for a long time until his eyes grew sore, realizing he had forgotten to blink. He closed his eyes; when he opened them again, the beast-like vertical pupils had returned to human-like pupils.

He had returned to being the ever-calm and self-controlled Marshal of the Empire.

Si Jisheng leaped out of the sea with the computer. Water rolled off his body drop by drop. He nonchalantly unlocked the computer and watched the blue screen appear out of thin air.

His fingertip paused before the blue screen, hovering in the air for a long time before slowly clicking into the main page. He knew full well what this meant. The moment it was unlocked—the moment his computer regained a signal—the Empire, far on the other side of the galaxy, would detect it in the next second.

In the interstellar era, the star-net covered the entire universe. The computer successfully switched interfaces, and what met his eyes were the countless requests from the Empire for pre-war or post-war communication.

The Empire’s military hadn’t become so useless as to let other departments cross the line to ask for news of their own Marshal. Si Jisheng enjoyed a moment of tranquility.

Soon, he activated the interception program within his computer, cutting off any possibility of being monitored, and dialed a private frequency number consisting only of digits. This was a secret connection signal within the Imperial military; the next second, the call was connected.

A figure appeared on the blue screen—the adjutant Si Jisheng had personally promoted within the military. Seeing that it was truly the Marshal, the adjutant was so excited he looked ready to lunge through the screen. He choked out, “Marshal! We… we truly thought…”

That you died in that battle with the Alliance.

Si Jisheng’s expression was icy. He made a gesture for silence and signaled with his eyes for the adjutant to begin reporting.

Through years of cooperation, even if Si Jisheng didn’t utter a word, the adjutant could accurately make the next move. “Since the Marshal’s disappearance, we have been searching for your traces. Most of the starship black boxes left from the battle were destroyed; the reconnaissance department is repairing them.”

The adjutant gave a military salute. He was a grown man, but now he looked ready to cry, his voice raspy as he shouted, “Marshal, rest assured! The military will surely wash away the grievances on your name!”

Grievances? Si Jisheng knit his brows, his expression confused.

The adjutant still hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. He took a deep breath. “The Marshal hasn’t checked the star-net yet, right?” He said tragically, “Half a month ago, the Empire suffered a crushing defeat. Almost no one survived that battle. We all thought the Marshal… we were this close to announcing your death to the whole country.”

“But your signal appeared once briefly after the battle. The Imperial high-level determined you were not dead. To appease the public, they released the news that you were still alive.”

The adjutant grew more indignant as he spoke. “But no one could contact you personally. You never appeared before the public. Even though the military issued a statement that you were likely seriously injured, as day after day passed, we could no longer control public opinion.”

He lowered his voice. “Now the Empire’s star-net says you are a… deserter. A… traitor.”

Si Jisheng’s heart tightened suddenly.

A long time passed. Si Jisheng finally opened his lips slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with difficulty. Overcoming his psychological stress response, he uttered a few meaningless, mumbled sounds.

Raspy and unpleasant, like a mute whose vocal cords had been cut.

The adjutant suddenly realized something and wide-eyed with disbelief.

Only Si Jisheng knew what he was saying. He repeated it once more in his heart.

Trai. tor.