He and It

by Lady Lotus Crane (Madame Lianhe)

Year: 2021

Genre: BL, short stories, humans, animals, love, supernatural, mermaids, gods, otters, half-beast, non-humans, ml falls in love first, multiple pov, death, blood, gore, abuse, lies, conspiracies, 

Novel Status in Country of Origin: 256 Chapters (Complete)

Translator: Addis

~~~~Brought to you by ExR~~~~

SUMMARY:

A collection of short stories featuring non-humans! 

(Six novels that can be read independently with very different styles, just pick your favorite and read along.)

① The King’s Pearl. Jiang Mian was adopted as a child by a professor whose life revolved around researching mermaids. After his father dies, Jian Mian is the sole person with this secretive research. When the research institute captures a ferocious mermaid, Jiang Mian becomes the only one who can get close enough to the imprisoned creature. 

②  A God’s Marriage. When there’s no longer something to guard, the guardian gods will dissipate between heaven and earth. The sea otter was the guardian god worshipped by the Ice Sea people, but the new era was also full of new gods, and in the ancient sea otter clan, only one particularly large and white sea otter remained.

The big albino sea otter lived alone, wandered alone, and waited for the fated finale to come. Until one day, on the beach, it found a living sacrifice intended for a new god, covered in bruises.

The great sea otter: a wild pup from the sky! Now mine, quickly tucked away.

③ Dark Sky Sanctuary. Yu Mengzhou is a professional horse farrier. He was born to be close to horses, and all the horses whose hooves he had repaired would put their big heads into his arms to be pampered. Until one day, Yu Mengzhou suddenly fell into a new world.

The demonic war horses of the other world were huge and lofty, with black flames burning around them, and the lords of the herd had just started a rebellion, tearing and devouring their former riders, and sizing up the frail humans who had fallen from the sky, baring their fierce fangs – Yu Mengzhou stared at the warhorse lord studded with thorny bone thorns hooves, hesitated and spoke in a whisper, “Do you need to fix your hoof? Experience price… can be free of charge.”

④ Utopia. Gu Xingqiao did not want to live. He was demoralized and lost everything, and there was no other sorrow or joy in this life. He finally fell into a disused battleship of unknown centuries.

After thousands of years of wandering and silence in the universe, the abyssal battleship finally found fresh prey again. He wanted to torture him, give him hope and then mercilessly deprived of all, He wanted to make the other party wail, cry, scream in despair! He …

[…Uh, why don’t you run away?]

Gu Xingqiao: “Why, silly?”

 

⑤ Male Echidna x persistent human painter

⑥ Dragon carrying the evil of all worlds x human royal son who was sacrificed 

 

One sentence synopsis: I love you, beyond the stars.

Intention: Love transcends everything.

Book 1: The King’s Pearl

Chapter 1: The King’s Pearl (1)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

¹

Jiang Mian stood in a dark wave of blue light, tilting his head upward and gazing intently at the finely rippling waters.

The dome was as clear as dull blue crystal, with its thick transparent glass and steel wall, and the cold ground was as smooth as a silver mirror. Jiang Mian’s shadow was completely dispersed into a hazy mist.

This wasn’t an aquarium; aquariums didn’t have such endless desolation. It was more like a super giant prison, a place designed and manufactured to control and imprison.

However, Jiang Mian still stared intently at the lifeless artificial seawater for a long time.

For as long as he could remember, Jiang Mian had a stubborn preference for water. He liked to dip his skin into the water and feel the colorless, clear waves slowly swallowing his fingertips, palms, wrists… and other parts of his body. When he was young, he even tried to dive his head into a sink full of water — and was caught off-guard when he choked on it.

The afternoon temperature was hot and humid, and the sky was blue like a big bowl of molten gel, without a single stray cloud stirring in it. His adoptive father, Jiang Pingyang, woke up from his nap and arrived to see his adopted son committing suicide. His face turned white with fear, as he hurriedly grabbed Jiang Mian by the hair and collar, lifted the wet boy into the study, and reprimanded him severely for more than an hour.

That night, as punishment, Jiang Mian was denied food, and could only go hungry, curled up under the blanket in tears.

Growing up a bit, having read more books, and having received more education, Jiang Mian fully understood Jiang Pingyang’s overreaction that day. In fact, as the head of a research institute, Jiang Pingyang himself had a sharp personality and didn’t smile. He claimed to have found Jiang Mian as a baby in a small seaside town, and the role he played in Jiang Mian’s life was closer to that of a strict teacher than that of a loving father.

But in any case, he raised Jiang Mian, brought him into the Institute, and taught him how to work as an assistant. Without him, Jiang Mian would’ve been a dead man by now. So, no matter how old-fashioned and impersonal he was, this was what Jiang Mian owed him.

…Besides, Jiang Pingyang had already died three months ago.

Jiang Mian pursed his lips, trying to control the heat coming up from the depths of his eyes. He lowered his head, and even though there was no one around, Jiang Mian blinked many times to hide his feelings. He couldn’t risk being discovered by his fellow officers and expose his weakness in such an open place.

Right now, he had to be the one who was infallible.

“Jiang Mian!” someone behind him called him. Jiang Mian’s heart shuddered and he turned his head sharply; his colleague Ted was striding over, calling his name out loud, “Jiang Mian, there you are!”

Jiang Mian was slightly relieved; with Jiang Pingyang gone and the transition of power at the top of the Institute already completed, his status had become exceptionally awkward, and Ted was one of the few people who was still willing to show him kindness.

“Ted,” he gestured with a formal nod, “what can I do for you?”

“We’ll talk as we walk,” Ted asked with concern as he pointed in a specific direction, “How have you been?”

Jiang Mian looked down and smiled bitterly.

“Well… I’m fine, not starving. How about you?”

How had he been — a question that anyone with eyes must’ve been able to see.

The project he was assisting with at hand had been stopped long ago, and the resources which Jiang Pingyang was willing to share with his adopted son when he was alive had been taken away by the current head of the Institute, even the notes, terminals, data insights he left behind, the manuscript about the mermaid slate book… Those things that could be called relics and legally should be inherited by Jiang Mian were also seized in Jiang Pingyang’s office — now Dr. Fabian’s office — on the grounds that they were “highly confidential and he was of insufficient rank to view them”.

No matter how much Jiang Mian reasoned, moved, and pleaded, the tall, cold German just looked at him with a smile and said, “You aren’t qualified, Mr. Jiang.”

It was as if he was enjoying the whole process of Jiang Mian’s unsteady breathing and the wounded shrinking of his thin shoulders.

English was Fabian’s second language, and he usually preferred to give orders in his native tongue. Thanks to Jiang Mian’s blessing, he was able to speak English more fluently than German.

Ted gave him a sympathetic glance and shrugged, “I’m still the same, you know, all that boring research about their habits, habitats, and so on, and it’s not a good time… You should’ve heard, the other day, the Institute’s two research vessels were transferred, one of them is our project team’s namesake, a 3000 horsepower baby, ah…”

He cleared his throat, “But that’s not the point I want to talk to you about.”

Sigma Research Institute’s research vessel, which also doubled as a whaling vessel, was a delicate thing for Jiang Mian to sniff out, and he pursued, “What’s wrong?”

Ted paused and pulled him into an unoccupied room.

“The professor has caught a mermaid!” His lips tightened so that every word he spat out was like a sharply blasting bomb.

Jiang Mian’s eyes widened and his mind went blank, like a thunderbolt had struck.

He didn’t know how long it took, maybe a second, maybe ten minutes, or an hour, then his eyelashes fluttered in confusion until Ted nudged him with his hand and asked, “Are you okay?” as he suddenly came to his senses and drew in a long breath.

The air that smelled like disinfectant poured into his body, and Jiang Mian’s hands and feet went numb.

Struggling to find his voice, he forced a smile and said, “…Really? The last time we caught a mermaid was…”

“Six years ago, when Dr. Jiang was here,” Ted added for him, “Yes, after six years, we caught a mermaid again.”

Jiang Mian then suddenly responded, “So that newly built…”

His throat swallowed hard, and the word that came out of his mouth was “cell”, but he held it back, because Fabian was a human supremacist, and he wouldn’t allow Jiang Mian to call the place where he kept the species a cell, “…That new observation room is for this mermaid?”

Ted nodded, “Yes, that’s right.”

He looked up at Ted and squeezed the only question of the moment out of his chaotic brain, “But why are you telling me this?”

Successfully capturing mermaids was no small feat, and at this moment, the Institute should have been armed and sealed into a brick wall, and it would be difficult even for microbes to crawl out of that place. This kind of top secret information, even if Jiang Pingyang was still alive, Jiang Mian couldn’t have access to it in the first place, let alone now.

Ted was willing to tell him this, if there was no authorization from the top, he was afraid that he would have to be cast to the danger zone to feed the sharks after he left this room.

“You guessed it?” Ted said in a low voice, “I can come to you because the mermaid caught this time is too special. Not to mention the Institute, or search the world, there’s not much information about it. We looked through Dr. Jiang’s notes and manuscripts carefully, but still couldn’t find the direction of the research. That leaves his personal terminal…”

Jiang Mian understood where he was coming from.

Hearing that those unrelated people, even a twisted person like Fabian, were actually more qualified than him to dispose of his adoptive father’s relics and casually go through the precious information that should’ve accompanied Jiang Pingyang instead of him, Jiang Mian could hardly suppress the sting in his heart, yet Jiang Pingyang’s personal terminal, his truly huge database, was still a core secret that even the top brass wasn’t allowed to break into, and only his adopted son might have the secret key.

This was one of the main reasons why Jiang Mian could still stay at the Institute and not be brutally executed by the internal tumble.

“…How special are they?” Jiang Mian asked, “I want to know how special they are.”

Ted sighed, “Look, Jiang, I can’t…”

“I want to know how special they are.” Jiang Mian mustered up the courage to be tough for once, “Are they recorded mermaids, or are they those in dangerous habitats? Or do you mean their size, their species is rarer? I need to know this.”

Ted looked at him bitterly, “Just… Just take this chance, okay? You know you need it! You’ve been left out of the inner circle for too long, and if you keep this up, like those people that are laughed at, what’s the difference between you and a janitor, River? You can’t ask too much of Dr. Fabian, and look at you now…”

Ted was right, Jiang Mian was supposed to have a hard time growing flesh, and even after being fed a nutritionally balanced and carefully formulated diet by the Institute until he was twenty, he was still incredibly slim. Not to mention that after three months of experiencing the pain of losing his father, being ostracized, humiliated, and suppressed, Jiang Mian became thinner and thinner, even his pale cheeks were slightly sunken in, putting a faint shadow under his cheekbones. Standing in front of him, Ted was almost half a head taller than him, and his size was two times as wide as his.

Fortunately, Jiang Mian’s hair was naturally shiny as silk, and his pink lips were soft and glossy without lipstick, the thinnes not overwhelming him, but to add another melancholy, black veil of beauty — although there have been many times that Fabian’s men whistled at him unabashedly, insultingly, jeering “Wiggle your ass, pretty girl”.

Jiang Mian sighed as he made up his mind and impulsively interrupted.

“I’ve seen Dr. Jiang’s intellectual library.” He said, “I don’t have the Doctor’s secret key, he never told me about it while he was alive, but I’ve seen it, I remember.”

Ted shut his mouth in mute silence as he looked around subconsciously and whispered warily, “Did you tell this to…”

“No,” Jiang Mian said, “I didn’t tell Fabian.”

Before that, he just wanted to hold the utmost determination and perseverance to keepsomething from Fabian, at least to take away his adoptive father’s manuscript, which, in Jiang Mian’s view, was more valuable than the research material handwritten and hand-drawn in notebooks that made the top brass eye look at the intellectual library, which was all the work of Jiang Pingyang, word by word, stroke by stroke. To get it, Jiang Mian was willing to try his best to poke his sensitive and fragile tentacles out of the snail’s shell, even if it meant more harm and more hardship.

Once he had the notebook, Jiang Mian was able to plan an escape as quickly as possible. He had lived here for twenty years, and Jiang Pingyang had spoken to him, consciously or unconsciously, about many secrets. He could find the Institute’s breach and then go far away, henceforth incognito, and take Jiang Pingyang’s legacy with him to live by the sea, which he had dreamed of.

In the end, the Sigma Institute had a lot of power and involved a lot of muddy forces, Jiang Mian knew very well. But he believed that the world was big, there was always a place for him, and he would one day regain his freedom and leave this cold, depressing, blood-soaked place once and for all to walk in the real sunshine.

However, the reappearance of a mermaid unexpectedly shattered his plans.

Almost recklessly, he gave away part of his base card to Ted, as the instinct, too strong for words, was churning and screaming in his brain.

He had to stay, he had to see for himself what the mermaid looked like, he had to… There had to be something done.

Ted’s shoulders slumped, as if defeated by Jiang Mian.

He sighed in frustration and said, “Okay, okay! When you tell me something so damning, it looks like I have to do something about it too.”

He pulled out his personal terminal and carefully clicked on the screen. A screen of light appeared in front of Jiang Mian, showing an extremely short video.

“Look, I’ll have to destroy it after watching it, I didn’t intend to let a second person see it…”

The video was only a fleeting four seconds, but Jiang Mian stared at it as if it had been frozen for four long centuries.

A huge mermaid floating quietly in the high-voltage grid, tail fins in the turbid waves. In the world, there was no such beautiful silk smoke, but from the overall view, he was really a staggering behemoth. Underneath the fine scales that reflected the luster of fine gold, thousands of strong and powerful muscle bundles undulated and intertwined, proving that he was able to sink a small fishing boat at will by brute force alone.

——Despite his serious injuries, and blood all over his body, as if scraped by the turbines of large ships, this mermaid remained the ultimate embodiment of strength and beauty, a legend that could only be glimpsed at in paintings.

Jiang Mian’s gaze couldn’t move and was glued to him. He was the largest and strongest of the mermaids he had ever seen in his life, and Jiang Mian guessed that he had an extraordinary position.

When he looked more closely, the mermaid’s chest was strong, his shoulders broad, and his muscles undulating, like majestic mountains. His blood-stained eyebrows were deep, his features were sharp, and three dark gill lines were embedded diagonally on the side of his neck, so there was no way to say he wasn’t handsome, but there was no way to say he wasn’t intimidatingly wild.

As for the incredible fishtail, it was a rich inky black, but both the ear fins, elbow fins, and tail fins flowed with a bronze golden light, ancient and proud as the first monarchs.

Together with the silky fin plume, the body length of this mermaid had long exceeded three meters.

Such a huge species, the special scale color… 

Jiang Mian was struck by lightning, at this moment, his heart pounded wildly, hitting his chest, not knowing whether the current that suddenly ran through his body was from fear, or from excitement, or from grief, and other unknown complex feelings.

His face was as white as paper, but his eyes were wide and red as he hissed, “Raperth, the ruler of Stormhaven, Raperth… You’re crazy! How dare you bring him back?!”