He and It Chapter 11: The King’s Pearl (11)

Chapter 11: The King’s Pearl (11)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

Three months ago, panic attacks, and angina.

Raperth’s long hair that was loose underwater abruptly stiffened, and his gaze froze.

“Humans, too, divide the days according to the alternation of day and night?”

Jiang Mian nodded.

“Ninety-four days,” Raperth looked at him, “is that how many days since your foster father left you?”

Jiang Mian was very surprised, “Including today, it is indeed ninety-four days. How did you guess?”

[Because I’m connected to your soul.] Raperth said, [So… It’s really you.]

The shocking news came one after another, following the other, and Raperth was suspended in the water, his two hearts silent as death, but his brain roaring and clamoring as if he had been hit head-on by ten thousand roaring thunderbolts.

There was nothing more to say — Jiang Mian’s pain and cries of pain were all motivated by the death of his adoptive father, and this intense suffering was reflected in him at the same time. The stirring resonance of his soul caused him to awaken in the dead of night, sensing for the first time with uncanny clarity the general direction of his partner.

Then, following that direction, he found a human route, chased two poaching ships, and was brought here by mistake to meet a human who had a strong attraction to him… Or rather, a half-blood mermaid.

Even under the sea, human half-blood mermaids remained extremely rare. Back in ancient times, some of the mermaid communities that had not yet reproduced civilization used to make peace with sea animals and give birth to descendants with those powerful but obscure beings. Their lineage, even diluted to this day, were exceptionally tenacious, unrelenting in some mermaids showing ancestral features: such as the wrist feet instead of fins, pincer limbs instead of arms, long spines instead of the spinal joints.

But the hybrid of human and mermaid, Raperth had never been exposed to.

Could this mean that it was the human blood in him that caused his own perceptual confusion?

Mermaids were the most adept creatures in the whole world at phonetics and expressing their thoughts in just the right way, but Raperth looked at Jiang Mian and there was only silence.

I just know that soon after you were born, you were involved in the turmoil of the Abyssal Sea Beasts, and your mother died in that chaotic war, but I didn’t know that you were actually a half-blood mermaid.

That’s why you were able to hide here intact, that’s why you are so thin and weak… Because of the long submersion, the part of your body that belongs to the mermaid has long retreated to the edge of disappearing, you’re actually incomplete ah. Dragging this body, and how many years, how many days and nights have you persisted?

Oh, abyss, I’m really the worst, the worst…

Jiang Mian looked at Raperth in confusion, usually, he could even say that the mermaid’s facial expression was solid. He didn’t smile, didn’t frown, and didn’t move, his pale face was deep and evil, his skin shone with diamond-like fine scales, he was like a plaster statue, but when he was angry, the statue’s cold hard shell would suddenly break, revealing the bloody tyranny of the inside.

But now he stared at him, his expression actually softened in a trance, as if shrouded in the twilight of dusk, and among his eyebrows, there was phantom mourning.

“…This kind of writing is called… tidal writing.” Raperth didn’t use suppressed tiny sound waves to deliver the message anymore, his voice was clear and soft, with a little unsteady tremor, “They were created so that only the kings could decipher them correctly.”

With a jolt, Jiang Mian hurriedly grabbed his notebook and dribbled his pencil, “Tidal script…”

If you hadn’t been stolen away from your home as a child, from me, to a land where the waves are lost and freedom is nowhere in sight, this would have been your words too, Pearl.

Raperth stared deeply at him, and at this moment, the flood of shock receded a little, and he finally felt the belated indignation and pain that crashed heavily on his heart.

What have you been through, and how did you get here?

Humans call you by their name, but you are a living soul of the sea kingdom, and after twenty years have passed, you stay in such a place where you take pleasure in torturing your fellow creatures?

“And then what?” Jiang Mian begged to know, but still signaled Raperth with his eyes, wasn’t it unwise to tell such secrets out loud? The mermaid shook his head slightly, indicating that it was okay, and he continued, “You guessed it, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“To make the tide book, you need special means… carving a pattern on it with a specific depth, and then going to a fixed place, letting the sea wash it, then it can… emit a different song…” 

Jiang Mian was enlightened, his eyes glowed and he couldn’t contain his excitement, “It’s really like this… It’s really true! It’s so beautiful!”

He paused for a moment and then felt lost, “However, this direction cannot be verified even if I guessed it, because I can’t decipher that fixed location.”

“…Yes,” Raperth whispered, “what it sings out is what the tidal texts… really want to say.”

It really is a beautiful place, Pearl. Even though it’s on top of a bluff, there are flowing shimmering lights in the darkness that twinkle endlessly like a starry sky. We all call it the Tidal Library because it forever echoes with the most amorous, faithful words of love that mermaids write to their soul mates.

Jiang Mian bit down on his pencil and hesitated.

“So… I can’t figure out what it says now, can I?”

Raperth knew the contents of the tablet book, but he couldn’t tell Jiang Mian the whole thing while someone was listening.

“That’s amazing…” Jiang Mian sighed, “That sounds so romantic.”

It’s not just the tidal library, we also have a friendly exchange with aurora mermaids from neighboring oceans during the annual winter and spring season. They breed fluffy sea rabbits, the hit of recent years, the size of your hand, that don’t bark but can lie on your shoulder and clean your scales and hair attentively.

Jiang Mian put down his pen with a wistful smile on his lips, “Anyway, thank you for telling me about this. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to the beach.”

“Not once, really?” Raperth’s eyes were gloomy and dull, but his voice was soft, even too soft, and the rest of his voice shook imperceptibly.

Jiang Mian picked his fingers, somehow he felt a little embarrassed, “Mn… I’ve been here since I was a kid. When I was young, I wasn’t well, I was always sick, I had a fever, a stomach ache, and so on. So I rarely even left the house, not to mention the beach, so maybe, and I mean maybe, later…”

He hesitated, looked down at his knuckles, and whispered, “Let’s talk about it later when we have the chance.”

The male mermaid didn’t respond immediately, he replied with silence.

The swords sent from the Far East were quenched in magma, and the ice crystals of the polar regions could remain intact for months. In summer, the migratory lands of the floaters could overlap with our territory, and through their soft, translucent bodies, the haze on the water could be reflected into the deepest and darkest bottom of the abyss, painting the remains of civilizations from ten thousand years ago with a faint golden-red pastel.

Speaking of wreckage, the towering silver king’s court below, was sunken ships all over the sea since ancient times, those masts like needles, cables like tangled silk, the hull in the storm and reef in pieces. A dozen centuries have paved the trench, gold coins piled up like mountains, diamonds as gravel, beautiful jade turned into soft mud. There was a playground for treasure hunting, and whoever had the time to spare could go inside and search a bit, trying to save a favorite human artifact or two under the sea and the erosion of time… 

I once found a carved stone statue of a mermaid, a long emerald fork that wasn’t sharp enough, but beautiful, and several life-like paintings. The painting showed humans with wings on their backs, standing among the dense algae and springs, so I, too, believed for a long time that humans, like birds, were creatures that could soar in the sky.

Raperth was silent, for he had nothing to say.

He knew his soul mate was still alive, by virtue of some minor ailments, some minor wounds — all proof of the soul’s sympathy to the mermaid, yet he could only console himself with this: even if the land and sea were separated, his mate’s situation wasn’t too bad.

In those most irritable and despondent days, Raperth chose to wander far from home for four years in the vast ocean, trying to get close to his mate’s coordinates, so much so that all the neighboring countries knew of his exploits, but in the end, nothing came of it.

Now, Raperth finally found him and saw a frail, thin body and a tortured soul. His smile was gentle, and his shy eyes flickered behind the high walls of his heart, so bruised and out of place compared to the cold prison of steel.

The news was significant enough to overturn the first twenty years of Jiang Mian’s life, just as land people’s dam could properly slow the impact of the tsunami, he also needed a buffer to reduce its impact on Jiang Mian’s strength.

The coming days were long, he thought, it doesn’t matter, mermaids lack patience the least, we still have a long time.

He had a long time, too, to set up his revenge hunting plan.

“Rest, sleep.” Raperth urged softly, “You… shouldn’t be awake this late.”

Jiang Mian bit his lip as he saw the male mermaid’s brow furrow slightly, the concentration so intense it sent a shiver down his back.

He hastily turned his head away and sighed covertly, “How can I sleep knowing all this! I’m so full of tidal writing, I can’t even sleep without it in my dreams…”

[Go to sleep,] the mermaid coaxed him in a deeper voice, [You’re sleepy, you need sleep.]

Strangely enough, sleep came out of nowhere, and Jiang Mian’s rambunctious brain drifted slowly in a daze, as if he were in a cradle, or a calm ocean wave.

“Okay… Okay.” He said in a daze, momentarily forgetting the tidal words and his perverse behavior tonight, Jiang Mian slowly climbed up and slowly stepped down the stairs again, “Good night, Raperth…”

“Good night.” The mermaid watched him intently as he left, following Jiang Mian as he swam all the way to the end of the observation room until he could no longer see the youth’s figure.

During the first adulthood of an established relationship, both partners will simultaneously have their first heat. As a male, he would have a deep desire to build a nest and kill and hoard a lot of prey to feed his partner, making sure that he could eat to his heart’s content and feel warm and safe at all times.

This explained his thirsty impulse, and how their touch could produce an extraordinarily hot and unusual spark.

——So, although Raperth found Jiang Mian, he had to postpone his return home. Their late contact was triggering a long-dormant heat wave in Jiang Mian’s body, and he had to stay here and be a competent male, taking care of his human and guiding him through his first difficult rut.

Could this place serve as a nest for heats? Was it a reassuring and safe place for a mate?

And, could he be a good male?

With some anxiety, Raperth polished his sharp claws and stroked his elbow fins again, narrowing his eyes moodily and judiciously, screening the environment of the Institute.

——No, it was certainly a dumping ground for disappointed mermaids. A lot of noisy and greedy land people, no dark and wet caves, no high and material cliff; too much cold order, too little wild freedom, and too many strong and harsh lights, not natural and soft enough… 

Transform it.

Raperth ran his sharp fingertips over the glass prison walls buried deep in the grid, his mind already made up.

This was no longer a careless game, now it was a really big deal.

—

Not surprisingly, early the next morning, still in a sweet and deep sleep, Jiang Mian was awakened by an urgent notice to go to Fabian’s office.

Jiang Mian had already thought of this outcome when he decided to go to Raperth. However, even though he was prepared for it, he still had some vague hairs on his body when he had to face the German.

He lowered his head, knowing that it was useless to delay and even more useless to resist. Facing the two indifferent guards, he didn’t eat breakfast, just swallowed two stomach pills casually. He intended to bring his notebook from last night, but after thinking about it, he put it down.

“Let’s go.” Jiang Mian said.

Fabian’s office, as always, screamed “uncomfortable”.

Jiang Mian had gotten used to Jiang Pingyang’s unkemptness when he was here, and every time he came up, he had to clean up after the old man for a while. After Fabian moved in, scarlet hand-woven carpets replaced the dun-colored floor, and the light from the windows was blocked by tall, heavy reclining chairs, whose shadows radiated even to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

Every corner was meticulously made, every turn was neat and sharp, and as soon as Jiang Mian stood here, he felt the oppressive tightness in his chest and shortness of breath.

“Do you have anything to report about your work last night, Mr. Jiang?”

After a long silence, Fabian asked with a smirk.

Jiang Mian lowered his head and whispered, “I encountered a difficult bottleneck in my work of deciphering the tablet book, so I…”

“You went to seek the help of the experimental body.” Fabian interrupted him softly.

“…So I went to seek the help of the experimental body,” Jiang Mian admitted dryly, “Yes.”

Fabian stared at him and smiled.

“I noticed that between you and the experimental body, there seemed to be a… very unusual reaction.” He twirled his gloved fingers a few times quickly, “It likes you a lot, doesn’t it?”

Jiang Mian stared at the neatly arranged books and magazines on the table, as if they were cut by a knife, and replied as calmly as he could, “That’s my job.”

Fabian laughed out loud, he was interested, nodded repeatedly, “Good, good, that’s your job… That’s a good point!”

“So, tell me, Mr. Jiang,” the German mused in a pretentious manner, “do you feel a shred of shame in asking a beast for help because of your own incompetence, a human gene that was born to think?”

This human gene that was born to think is not for you to be forced to pick up the slack— Jiang Mian almost spat out this treacherous statement, but he held back and held on to his point, with all the qualities of a scholar, “I thought it was obvious that mermaids are intelligent beings, just like humans. “

Fabian spread his hands in amazement, “Chimpanzees in the jungle learn human social ways, grackles have the ability to mimic human language with ease, are they all intelligent beings? Mr. Jiang, your definition of intelligent life is too lenient, isn’t it?”

Flames burned in Jiang Mian’s heart, and his face was unnaturally red out of anger at being fooled.

“I don’t know what good it would do you to deny a fact, Dr. Fabian!” Jiang Mian’s voice trembled.

Normally, he would try to avoid an argument, because he wasn’t a good fighter, and often before he could finish a counter-argument, he had already taken on an emotional crying tone. But this was different, Fabian pressed on, he really had enough of the other side’s self-deceiving remarks and bad hypocritical behavior — both to Raperth, and to himself.

“You know what he and I talked about last night, the tidal texts are the strongest corroboration of mermaid civilization, no matter what you think or say, mermaids aren’t beasts, and it’s perfectly reasonable for me to seek help for the purpose of solving my confusion!”

Looking up at Fabian, Jiang Mian finally asked a question he had been holding back for a long time, “Is it possible that by alienating an intelligent being into a lowly beast, you can do whatever you want to him and justify your crimes?”

The sound of the reclining chair being pushed away was slight, and Fabian stood up, the broad, tall figure that instantly made the room half-lit and half-dark.

“Oh, of course we can. Did you forget?” The German stood in front of Jiang Mian and flicked his tongue playfully, “The glorious tradition of the ‘Final Solution’— a long time ago, a part of my ancestors, did that to the Jews.”

Jiang Mian took a deep breath and said in disgust, “Shameless.”

The German shrugged and gave him a malicious smile, “—and you, you’re a cheap bitch.”