He and It Chapter 15: The King’s Pearl (15)

Chapter 15: The King’s Pearl (15)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

Well, no, it’s not really just hallucinogenic, it’s just…

Jiang Mian sharply inquired, interrupting the mermaid’s thoughts, “What about Fabian, the man who held me that day, why did the others say he was sick?”

The mermaid king replied evasively, lowering his eyes, “He was sick… I gave him… nightmares.”

Only, how can one repeat the dirty truth to Pearl? He would be terrified.

Jiang Mian looked at him suspiciously.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Raperth, it was just that the pain a mermaid could endure was far from the same magnitude as a human being, and what Raperth could downplay, when it fell on someone, was unquestionably the end of the line. He didn’t doubt that Raperth said “nightmares”, but what kind of nightmares?

“I taught him a lesson, and then let him dream that he’s being eaten.” In response to Jiang Mian’s confused look, Raperth continued to evade the question and said vaguely.

Anyway, humans have a theory about this, saying that dreams were projections of reality, and he was telling the complete truth, “Anyway… it’s a terrible dream.”

“You beat him up?” Jiang Mian asked, amused and relieved.

Raperth nodded, his eyes pure, “Yes.”

If the simple word “beat” could describe the vicious and cruel revenge of the Mermaid King, then he had beaten that land man.

“He was jealous of you and hurt you,” Raperth said, “and I couldn’t tolerate it… couldn’t allow it.”

Jiang Mian laughed a little and lamented, “Actually, he wasn’t jealous of me, he was jealous of my adoptive father, that’s why he made things difficult for me after his death…”

Halfway through the sentence, he cut himself off, “…Forget it, I don’t care about that man’s death at all. The most important thing is, when are you going to leave?”

Raperth grinned, his outstretched fingertips lightly stroked Jiang Mian’s pant leg — it resembled more like a tug, “No, I’m not leaving… not yet… not yet.”

Jiang Mian froze, “Why? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you should leave!”

Desperate to convince Raperth, he sat closer urgently, almost pressing on the back of the mermaid’s hand, “Listen to me, this is just the Sigma Institute, it won’t take more than a few days, I don’t know exactly how many days but soon, the Sigma Group executives, the really powerful people will be here and if you can’t leave before they arrive…”

“Six more days.” Raperth muttered.

“Hmm… Hm?” Jiang Mian paused for a moment, “How do you know?”

The mermaid’s eyes flickered and he whispered, “People told me.”

“All right? Since Sigma’s people told you,” Jiang Mian didn’t care what Raperth had used to compel the minds of the Institute’s top brass to extract top secret information that should’ve been guarded to the death — in the end, it was Fabian who had made things difficult for themselves by underestimating the strength of the mermaid heir’s blood. This was the price of the rush to “enjoy” the immortal water — but he cared about Raperth’s safety, “Then you should know the seriousness of the matter! When the time comes, I will go with you.”

As soon as he learned that the top brass had been hit, Jiang Mian’s mind raced: this was too good to be true, it was a godsend, Jiang Pingyang’s notes, his personal terminal, the handwritten information left behind… He could roll them away in a single wave, and his previous risky smuggling plan could be gladly scrapped, with plenty of safe routes waiting for him to carefully select. He could commandeer an unused research vessel, hide Raperth on it, and simply sail away… 

However, with freedom close at hand, the mermaid was reluctant to leave, something Jiang Mian had never expected.

Raperth made a rare mistake.

What should I say… you’re actually a mixed-blood mermaid, too long overdue for a heat wave to arrive, and as your male, I must first choose a stable nest to take care of you?

No, he had seen too many examples of different species of sea animals driven by genetic instincts to support the young of a different race who had lost their parents, but nature and intelligence both limited their outcome — there was no upper limit to the serious consequences of cognitive dissonance, and the mermaids wouldn’t forget that Jiang Mian had been raised by humans.

The king’s heir of the abyss extends his claws and could make 10,000 kills with a straight face, but this was his pearl… Couldn’t he have been a competent male, all right and proper to his mate?

“Because,” Raperth said slowly, “you need to relax… and I have… well… other things to take care of.”

Jiang Mian was intrigued by the latter reason, and he mused, “Yes, you’re a mermaid royal of the Storm Lords — no offense, but the human academy refers to the mermaid territory around Drake Passage as the Storm Lords, and according to research, mermaids of your race are rarely seen in the outside world. So, did you leave Drake Passage to do something?”

This speech is a bit too much raw words, Jiang Mian even said and gestured, expecting to make Raperth understand thoroughly.

I left it for you, Raperth nodded, “Yes… I think so.”

Jiang Mian wrapped his knees around him, tilted his head to look at him, hid half of his slightly red cheeks, and asked coyly, “So… Can I know what it is? If it’s about the internal affairs of the institute, I can also help…”

Even after being friends for a short period of time and having experienced many things together, it still took courage to ask a friend to tell you a little secret. Because when you were ready to take the initiative to take a step, but didn’t get a response from the other party, or even get only contemptuous rejection and humiliation… That would really hurt.

However, mermaids didn’t do that.

Jiang Mian knew very well that in the context of mermaids, agreement was agreement, disagreement was disagreement. There was no roundabout social wording, no ambiguity, or smirking answers to blur the line between yes and no. His sincerity was sharp and frank, drier than a knife.

Jiang Mian couldn’t help but smile at the thought that he was nestling up against such a blade.

No good, Raperth looked frozen, my heart… immediately stop hitting the chest!

The male mermaid stammered “hmm” a few times in a panic, he really didn’t know how to conceal the truth. Except for the tactics used in hunting and killing, he has never said an untrue word in his life! It was totally illegal to be so cute… 

Quickly find a reason, or I will definitely tell the whole truth and search my guts until not a single bubble of empty space remains.

“…Same category.” Raperth barely managed to spit out a word, “Related… kindred.”

Time was too short, he only had time to digest the memories of a few people, and in the minds of those land folk, without exception, all recorded one thing profoundly, that another female mermaid had been captured before him.

Perhaps this could be used as an excuse to delay for a while—

Jiang Mian’s smile was like thin snow exposed to the blazing sun, fading completely along with the flush on his cheeks. He scowled and curled up, the smell of pain seeping out of every pore and covering his entire body like tar, almost immediately scaring the male mermaid silly.

——No, wrong thing to say. I shouldn’t have mentioned the female mermaid, Abyss, I was so stupid!

Jiang Mian asked sadly, “You… Are you here to avenge her?”

Raperth’s ear fins exploded, his pitch-black spiked armor shrank and lengthened, and his irises flickered. It was sinful enough to lie to his mate, but it was even more sinful to tell a lie that would cause him pain.

Make up for it, right away, right now!

Raperth’s fishtail tightened anxiously in the water, and he whipped it twice as hard as he could, leaning up carefully and caressing Jiang Mian’s skin with a soothing, warm scent, “She is not… my people… I am just curious to know… to know… more.”

Jiang Mian closes his eyes and whispers, “I’m sorry… I couldn’t save her.”

Raperth was frustrated, if they were at the bottom of the ocean, he could have found a thousand and one ways to make his mate happy, but at this point, he had already broken the old mate adage — “The best time to heal a wound is the moment it is willing to be exposed.”

Since he had uncovered this wound in advance, he had to take on the responsibility of being an aid to healing.

“I want to know… what happened?” Mimicking the human posture, Raperth folded his arms and rested his head on them, likewise inclining his face and gazing tenderly at Jiang Mian, “Sit over here… you can… put your leg in the water.”

That way, the injury on your ankle will heal faster.

“No,” Jiang Mian regretfully clutched his knee, “the disinfectant used in the water here will make me allergic, a little longer contact, maybe a minute or so? My skin will be red and swollen, so I can’t be too close for too long.”

Raperth’s eyes had a momentary carnage, but he hid it so well that the killing intent was but a flicker and didn’t get noticed by Jiang Mian.

You’re my mate, the blood of the deep sea mermaid is also buried deep in your body, how can the water under the sky not submit to you, content to surround you and protect you? Disinfectant… Some land people must have moved it!

A slight commotion could be heard faintly from the experimental station above, Jiang Mian’s heart jumped, hurriedly looked up, but didn’t see a figure near the viewport, he was full of suspicion, but also had to assume that he heard wrong.

The mermaid took this opportunity to gently circle Jiang Mian’s ankle, the cool, smooth skin and swollen, painful cuff marks touched, immediately making Jiang Mian suck in a cold breath, his body also shivering.

Raperth coaxed, “Come on… don’t be afraid… the water here… it’s clean.”

The mermaid put away his sharp nails and used softer knuckles to pick up the corner of Jiang Mian’s pants, slowly moving up against his calf and pulling up the material for the youth. His movements were obviously careful to the extreme, but the skin that had been stroked, still oozed a burning red.

Sparks burst down Jiang Mian’s spine, the small of his back twitched nervously, the distance shrunk so short that he could feel the warm, moist breath of the mermaid flowing right over him. Heart beating like a drum, blood roaring… Jiang Mian tried to resist the shivering urge, but to no avail, his hamstrings were stretched tight and his ankles were burning.

He couldn’t tell if it was hot, or simply painful.

[Come on…] The mermaid called out at length, his voice gushing with melted honey, interwoven with silky soft cobwebs. In the palm of his hideous fingers, the youth’s ankle bones appeared so slender, delicate as ceramic artifacts. He pulled Jiang Mian, as his ancestors had done in ancient times, luring passing sailors to sail to a reef that would never return, [Come on… Pearl.]

Raperth knew in his heart that the present wasn’t the time to indulge in intimacy. But he was so exhilarated that even his pupils were hazily lax. There was no strong wine in the world that could bring a deep-sea mermaid into a drunken state, but at this moment, his lips were burning, his skin ached with longing, and he wanted to both tear brutally and take it gently with pity… 

He wondered if this was what humans call “drunk”.

Jiang Mian had no second choice, he braced his limp body and moved forward little by little until his toes touched the surface of the water and were swallowed by the galaxy of rippling water.

His first reaction was that the water was indeed very clean.

Jiang Mian couldn’t describe how he felt at this moment, he had never had such a peaceful experience, the cool water nudging his calves, making him float under the effect of buoyancy, as if swinging in a cradle of nothing.

He was a man who had been nervous for too many years, and the general environment of the Institute was destined to make him like a hare living in the jungle, at the bottom of the food chain, constantly imploring himself to be alert to the dangers around him and to avoid the deserved traps. Now, suddenly, Jiang Mian was given a heavenly moment, which freed his body and mind, every inch of flesh and bone, loosening up in a comfortable manner.

“One day, we’ll have to talk about touching…” Jiang Mian’s brow stretched, murmuring vaguely, “But it’s not the next topic… Right now, we have more important things to talk about.”

Raperth hovered in front of the youth’s knees, still underwater next to each other as if he would not let go. He sniffed at his partner’s much reduced bitterness, and a small, contented smile appeared on his face.

Despite certain similarities in appearance, mermaids remain far more fit than humans, especially large deep-sea mermaids like Raperth. Even a robust basketball star, or rugby player, and a three-and-a-half meter long mermaid couldn’t be compared, not to mention Jiang Mian, who was still like an immature child.

However, as some researchers have privately teased, in front of Jiang Mian, the mermaid king heir only had the skin of a top predator, the core was a giant marshmallow, looking brutal and fierce, but in fact was sticky and sweet.

Avoiding the social center, Jiang Mian, who knew nothing, sighed.

Since his mood was much more stable, brewing for a moment, the secret was poured out in a low voice.

“She… The Institute’s project, coded her as 001. But in private, when it was just me and her, I always called her Ms. Red.”