Chapter 54: The Merman

“Splash!”

The loud sound of water splashing sounded in the empty glass room, and the crystal clear water splattered and cascaded in the moonlight.

The tall man dived to the bottom of the pool, brought the sleeping merman into his arms, and then carried him and swam to the surface.

“Splash—”

Rowett showed his head, and there was a shallower ground the edge of the pool, enough for a grown man to stand up straight and breathe.

The white shirt clung tightly to his body, revealing the colour of his skin and outlining the man’s broad chest and sturdy body. He raised his hand to sweep back the black hair in front of his eyes, and then looked down at merman lying in his arms.

The merman still haven’t woken up.

He leaned against Rowett’s chest with his eyes closed, his wet blue-purple long hair clinging to his cheeks, like seaweed clinging tightly to his slender upper body, his slender waist wrapped in the man’s arms, as fragile as if it could be held in one hand.

Rowett pressed his palm to the other’s chest—

yes, his heart was still beating.

The moonlight shone above his head and spilled on the mermaid, like a warm jade glowing in the night.

Although the skin of a merman looked similar to that of a human, it felt completely different.

It feels amazingly smooth to the touch, as if it is covered with a thin film of water, like a spring flowing through the palm of your hand, that could easily slip way from your palm if you didn’t hold it tightly.

It made him want to uncontrollably increase his strength, to imprison it firmly in his hands.

Soft and pliable, the temperature was much lower than that of a human skin, and he felt a desire suddenly rise in his heart. He wanted to press his lips to it, to let his sharp teeth sink deep into it—

to watch the bright red blood wind like a snake on the skin as white as first snow, to dye the icy cold skin like a cold blooded animal’s with scorching heat.

Rowett’s eyes gradually darkened, and deep and fiery flames seemed to be burning in the depths of his dark eyes, and an almost terrifying aggressiveness was stirring at the bottom of his eyes.

Even the cold water around him couldn’t extinguish the dark fire that was suddenly burning in his body.

He knew for a long time that many nobles raised mermaids as tools for them to vent their desires, but in the beginning when he decided to raise a merman, he actually didn’t have such an idea.

From the first moment he saw merman in the video, Rowett knew that with an incredible beautiful creature, it should belong to him.

Innate instinct of a predator and possessiveness naturally made him want to take all of him for himself.

But then…

This simple possessiveness quickly changed its taste.

Rowett’s mind once again showed when the merman looked up at him—

The tip of the scarlet tongue was cold and soft, slowly licking away the hot blood on his fingertips, those blue-purple eyes straight at him, the bewitching eyes were like a certain ancient and wicked calling, and his face was clearly reflected on the clear irises.

From that moment, a restlessness grew and stirred in his body, sending the fiery flames throughout his body.

Rowett stared at the merman’s pale face, his wet eyelashes clinging to his cheeks, looking fragile and vulnerable.

But it’s not the time now.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, forcefully suppressing the terrifying impulse in his heart, slowly moved through the water around him, and swam in the direction where he had just thrown his coat.

——No matter what, he had to find out what happened to his merman first.

After a few seconds, the communicator was connected, and the face of the mermaid expert appeared on the screen.

The young Emperor ordered without a place for refusal: “Come now.”

·

Ge Xiu was clearly aware he was dreaming.

His body seemed to be pressed by a heavy weight, his limbs were filled with lead, and he couldn’t move at all. He seemed to have a fever, and every inch of his body seemed to be scorched by flames, but an icy chill came from the depths of his bone marrow, making him want to shiver uncontrollably.

“P…”

“…Pan”

“Pandora…”

The ravings hovered in the depths of his mind, the word with unknown meaning was repeating over and over again, as if low-pitched whispers were coming from all directions, whispered by countless mouths, approaching little by little, the white noise like waves above the deep sea took over his mind, making his confused thoughts almost impossible to organize.

The broken frames were connected frame by frame.

The damp stench of nightmares haunted his senses, and the thick walls slowly surrounded him, occupying his breathing space little by little, a sense of suffocating panic poured out from the depths of his body, and a feeling of powerlessness that made him feel hopelessness overwhelmed him.

Heart rate soared, body temperature soared, but less and less air was pouring into the lungs.

——He smashed the wall desperately, letting out an almost inhuman scream from his throat.

The next second, the door opened, and he stumbled to the ground, shaking uncontrollably.

At this moment, a young boy’s clear and hoarse voice came from a distant place, bringing a sense of wonderful comfort. Ge Xiu couldn’t tell what was special about the voice, but it felt inexplicably familiar.

He seemed to be saying something, but the content of the words was completely drowned out by the sound of cries* in his ears, leaving only a few vague syllables, barely combined into a vague interrupted sentence: “…eat candy?…”

Ge Xiu sucked in a breath of cold air and opened his eyes suddenly.

His limbs were still struggling subconsciously, and the huge blue-purple fish tail flapped and writhed desperately on the wet and smooth ground, like a stranded fish, frantically trying to break free from the ground beneath it.

The doctors, mermaid research experts, and professional breeders around him were caught off guard by the strong fishtail, and stumbled back. Some people even stepped on the air in panic and fell into the fish pond with a splashing sound.

A pair of powerful palms caught Ge Xiu’s shoulders, and the scorching temperature almost instantly ignited the cold skin of the mermaid. Then, the palms slid down, and the strong arms wrapped around his arms, wrapping his struggling body in an embrace:

“Shh—”

The man’s soothing voice came into his ears, and his voice was low and gentle.

Ge Xiu finally woke up from the nightmare from before, and the shadow covering his eyes finally slowly dissipated. He stopped struggling subconsciously, blinked slowly, and stared blankly at the mess in front of him.

He was lying on the ground next to the glass house.

The cool moonlight shone down from above his head, the ground was full of water stains, and all kinds of strange instruments and equipment were laying all around.

Several soaked people stood beside them with embarrassed expressions, and two others were crawling tremblingly from water to the shore. There was a big age gap between them. There were old men who looked one foot in the grave, and strong young people, the only thing in common they had was that they were all wearing baggy pyjamas.

The faces of those people were all very familiar.

It didn’t take long for Ge Xiu to recognize that these people had appeared when he searched for information on mermaids on the Internet before – basically, the people who had done the most research about mermaids in the entire Empire had appeared in this glass house.

And Rowett was sitting behind him, wrapping his arms around his upper body.

His clothes were also soaking wet, and the thin shirt and trousers were soaked by the water and pressed tightly against his body. His muscular and strong chest was pressed against Ge Xiu’s spineless back, almost unhindered. The high heat of his body was transferred to his cold skin.

Almost ambiguous intimacy.

Ge Xiu tensed his back uncomfortably, and subconsciously tried to move away from the heat source, but was blocked by the arm in front of him.

The few mermaid experts and the doctor began to discuss in detail, countless complicated and profound terms and nouns appeared in their conversations, and Ge Xiu, who was listening to the fast paced conversation, felt a dull pain in his brain, and at most could understand a sentence or two intermittently, in short—

He had a fever before, but the mermaids don’t have fevers.

Even though he was already awake, they didn’t know what happened, so they need to extract some of his blood to study the reasons.

Ge Xiu had a headache again.

It was as if something was stirring and crashing in his head, bringing about a feeling of dizziness that almost made him light-headed, and the feeling of weakness in his limbs aggravated again.

His back was being warmed by Rowett’s chest.

The proximity of the warm temperature made the approach of the other party less unacceptable. Ge Xiu accepted this fact without any resistance, adjusted into a comfortable position in the other party’s arms, and nestled himself in his arms.

Rowett was startled.

He looked down at the mermaid in his arms, but could only see the top of the other’s half-dry hair.

The young ruler of the empire tightened his arms, and under his drooping eyelashes, his dark and deep pupils were like an abyss that didn’t let any light inside.

The experts finally discussed the results. They asked Rowett for advice in fear. After getting approval, they took out a special needle from the medical kit on the side and carefully held Ge Xiu’s arm.

The mermaid’s arms were slender and white, like jade with a delicate texture, and the feeling of touch could make almost anyone’s heart sway.

But under the oppressive gaze of the Emperor, the young doctor did not dare to have the slightest idea of ​​overstepping.

The sharp silver needle was close to the merman, making a shallow dent in the merman’s skin, the doctor found the right angle, and his hands applied force—

“crack”

A small crisp sound was particularly abrupt in the night.

The needle has broken.

The doctor touched the piece of skin where the merman had just been prickled with his thumb in disbelief—the shallow white mark has disappeared, and his arm was intact.

How could this be?

He frowned, took out another thicker needle from the medical equipment box, and stabbed it in the same position—

“crack” The needle broke off on the merman’s skin again.

This was really strange! !

The doctor continued to try in disbelief, but none of the needles in the box survived.

He could feel the sight of His Majesty the Emperor getting colder, slowly cutting into his nerves like a sharp blade, and thin beads of sweat overflowed from his forehead, dripping down his cheeks, although the the temperature in the glass room was not high, and his clothes were soaked with water, but he was still so nervous he was steaming.

The doctor seemed to have suddenly remembered something, and shiveringly took apart the bottom layer of the box and took out a single needle. He wiped the sweat from his forehead in panic, and stammered, “This, this time. Must…”

This time he finally succeeded.

The needle finally penetrated the merman’s skin smoothly, and scarlet blood slowly filled the needle.

The doctor breathed a sigh of relief, completed the blood collection and the subsequent wound treatment skilfully and quickly, then holding the tube of fresh blood, stumbled away from the merman.

At the same time, his mind was full of unsolvable questions.

The only successful needle was the one he accidentally put into the bottom of the medical box a few days ago. It was a special needle made of high-molecular fine-point material. It was specially used to collect blood samples from animals such as elephants and whales whose skin was extremely difficult to penetrate—mermaids’ skin…was it that tough?

Although Ge Xiu was still drowsy, he could clearly see the doctor’s actions just now.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, and made a secret note of the other party’s suspicious expression.

Suddenly, a strange feeling came from his fishtail.

Ge Xiu suddenly jumped up from Rowett’s arms, staring at his fishtail with wide eyes—

the blue-purple scales were smooth and hard, but at the moment it seemed to be softening rapidly, quickly fading into a long transparent film. The light-coloured fishtail flapped uncontrollably in the water stains on the ground, shrinking rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, the edge of the fishtail receded in the direction of the upper body, and the gap in the middle of the fish tail sank downward.

The whole process was extremely fast, it happened almost in the blink of an eye.

The audience was dead silent, and everyone was shocked by the situation in front of them—

They saw that the transparent film shrivelled and closely attached to the two slender legs belonging to humans. The outline of the muscles and skeleton structure was extremely beautiful, as if it have been planned by the most precise algorithm and calculations.

Its colour was an almost lustrous snow-white, as if it was condensed from the moonlight. Even in the dark night, it shone with white light, and it was as cold and clean as the first snow on the mountain peak, as if it would melt the moment of the sunrise.

The soles of his feet were slender, with a graceful arch, and the twisting blue blood vessels could be seen on the white almost transparent instep.

The round pale pink toes were slightly curled, giving a sense of pure innocence.

*凤鸣 this one gave me a headache, it can mean a lot of things, from cries of animals to phoenix to singing… but none of this fits? Well, let’s say it’s those awful sounds plaguing Ge Xiu from before

Little Theater:

Rowett: If you have feelings for your mermaid but your mermaid could kill you would you kiss or not?

The military advisor: Uh, Your Majesty I’m not sure–

Rowett: Okay, kiss it is.

Bamboo has something to say:

Offered Into Marriage is starting to get officially translated by me tomorrow! It has a lot of idioms and sand sculpture jokes to translate so bear with me haha