He and It Chapter 18: The King’s Pearl (18)

Chapter 18: The King’s Pearl (18)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

However, the notes didn’t mention that the blood of mermaids had hallucinogenic effects.

According to the delirium level of the experiment station personnel, the blood cells of mermaids must contain new hallucinogens as strong as lysergic acid diethylamide, they could pass through layers of purification procedures, successfully drugged these self-righteous users, or, Raperth himself was a walking poisonous mushroom, even his hair was full of such natural hallucinogens as cycloheximide and cycloxin.

Yet Jiang Mian had scoured Dr. Brown’s notebooks and found not a single trace of this. The Institute’s scholars had exhausted every drop of brain cells, even to the point of catching wind of what was going on, but even so, there was still no mention of hallucination-related arguments.

“The ability to proliferate in vitro is extremely strong…” Jiang Mian’s eyes lingered on the line, and somehow he could feel the author’s mood as he put pen to paper, his tone hesitant and suspicious between the lines, as if he were describing not cells but some restless, exuberant creature.

“Yes, the cellular activity of the subject was the only thing I had ever seen in my life.” Dr. Brown suddenly spoke up, and Jiang Mian, who had been concentrating, was startled by his sudden arm shake.

He looked up and saw that the old man’s eyes were still lax, but his smile remained the same, so bright that it was creepy, as if his soul had fallen asleep, while his body triggered some keyword and was forcibly pulled to respond to Jiang Mian’s doubts, “Moreover, there is no pattern to their division, it is simply… At will.”

Jiang Mian closed his notebook without a trace and asked warily, “Dr. Brown, are you talking to me?”

“Yes, Mr. Jiang.” Dr. Brown replied, “Do you have any more questions? Go ahead.”

Jiang Mian was stunned, “Do you answer whatever I ask?”

“Yes, Mr. Jiang.” Dr. Brown repeated, “What other questions do you have? Please speak.”

Jiang Mian didn’t know exactly what bizarre instructions Raperth had subconsciously given them — the brain circuits of deep-sea mermaids were different from those of humans, something he knew all too well — but he seized the opportunity to try and ask, “If Raperth’s cells are so difficult to control, why are you still determined to do it?”

“Inactivation still has some chance of success,” Dr. Brown said with a smile, “Nothing is ironclad and infallible, we’ve found a way to control them, it just takes patience.”

Jiang Mian said, “Well, then it looks like you’re looking for the wrong thing.”

“—and on that basis,” Dr. Brown ignored Jiang Mian’s sarcasm, “given time to find out the proliferation pattern of mermaid cells, we can even use cloning technology to produce a uniquely human race of mermaids. At that time, they can be just like cattle, sheep and poultry, becoming another resource for food and medicine, or like cats and dogs, becoming companion pets by virtue of their extraordinary intelligence and superior appearance.”

Jiang Mian’s brow knitted into a knot as he could hardly contain his discomfort at hearing this passage and said in disgust, “It’s not just Fabian, Sigma’s human chauvinism is going to get everyone killed sooner or later…”

The old man’s smile seemed to be firmly pinned to his blue face as he said, “For a detailed plan on this matter, please turn to the last page of the notebook.”

Jiang Mian didn’t care for such arrogant plans, so much so that they seemed ridiculously naive, but since Dr. Brown had said so, and he had plenty of time at the moment, he turned to the back.

Lifting the blank back page, he found the light checkered pattern with just a..

A bee.

Jiang Mian looked at the sketch in confusion, even though the character of the rift had a heavenly flaw, but no one could deny the artistic quality of the Sigma scholars. In addition to being top biologists, they were also top painters, sculptors, and time management masters. Their skillful and sophisticated sketching skills, which served the true narrative, were enough to make any painter who made a living from it ashamed of himself.

It was clear that Dr. Brown had difficulty controlling his muscles and nerves when he was drawing, and that every stroke was rugged and shaky, somewhere between “accurate” and “messy”. The long, thin tentacles, the narrow black belly, and the two veins and moles on the forewings all reveal the identity of the creature.

Jiang Mian said bewildered, “It’s just a honey bee.”

Hymenoptera, the family of the honey bee, are the little devils that spend their larval period on other species of insects… What did it mean? An ironic metaphor, symbolizing that the human forces led by Sigma will henceforth lie on the mermaid and suck blood?

The old man, who wasn’t answering questions, didn’t speak, and his eyes slowly widened until they opened their sockets to the extent that they looked more and more bulging. Jiang Mian didn’t know if it was an illusion, the whites of his eyes seemed to be glowing with an eerie blue light.

Jiang Mian’s intuition had a bad feeling, “…Doctor?”

Dr. Brown clicked and closed his mouth, his teeth biting so fast and furiously that he couldn’t even close his tongue in time, and the rich blood broke open his dry lips like a curtain, dripping on the snow-white overalls, instantly haloing a large blue-red and foul color.

“Doctor?!”

Jiang Mian dropped his notebook and rushed up to grab Dr. Brown’s shoulders. He panicked for a moment, thinking only to pry open the other side’s teeth as soon as possible, but he seemed to block it too late. Two lines of bleeding then rushed out of the doctor’s orifices, and when he reached out again, his ear sockets were also cold and moist, contaminating Jiang Mian’s cuffs in an instant.

The people who were still sleepwalking in ignorance before, now swarmed up, completely ignoring Jiang Mian as nothing. They picked up the old man’s spastic body and rushed to the emergency room, and in a flash, the experimental station became empty, leaving Jiang Mian alone.

Jiang Mian was now really puzzled. He picked up his notebook and chased after him, trying to find out the reason for Dr. Brown’s accident. As a result, the researchers sent Dr. Brown to the hospital without asking any questions, just like a group of human emergency vehicles, and immediately rushed back.

Jiang Mian opened his mouth, but had nothing to say. He turned anxiously to the emergency room, wondering how long he would have to wait here before the physician would come out and announce the cause of death of the doctor… 

——The door to the emergency room opened.

The physician, wearing a protective mask, came out, the nurse practitioner behind him removed his bloodstained gloves, and Jiang Mian asked incredulously, “Uh, doctor? How did you get out, please, Dr…”

“My condolences,” the physician nodded politely, “the doctor was already very old, old age, sickness and death are all common, not humanly possible to save. According to the will the doctor made before he died, after his death, the ashes could be sent back to his family in his hometown, and now the body has been pulled for cremation. Do you have any more questions?”

Jiang Mian, “…What?”

The physician looked confused, “Please elaborate, I don’t understand what the problem is.”

A person who was just alive was cremated within five minutes of being brought in? Are you kidding me?

Jiang Mian wanted to scream, but he knew that it was useless to scream, because the style of the Institute, the enforcement was probably even more iron-fisted than the military, said cremation means cremation, there was no room for maneuvering.

So… Dr. Brown was dead? One of the few people who held the highest authority of the Institute, the living fossil of Sigma, the first elite scholar who was qualified to enjoy the Immortal Water, just died?

Jiang Mian decided to struggle a little more, he wanted to find out the truth about the plea for help, he had no good feeling about anyone in the Institute except Ted, but in any case, such a violent death was unnatural.

He asked, “What was the cause of death?”

The physician replied instantly, “Asphyxiation due to brain herniation.”

Jiang Mian asked, “Can I see the death report?”

The physician asked back, confused, “Do you need a death report?”

Jiang Mian was furious for a moment, “You’re a doctor, how can you not prescribe death…”

He stopped talking for a moment, and only then did he see, in the pale light of the corridor, the physician’s dark pupils were filled with mist, almost filling the entire light iris.

Jiang Mian was creeped out and stumbled backwards in panic. He knew that now these people were all in a severe hysteria, and their thinking and logic couldn’t be interpreted by common sense.

“Raperth,” he muttered, “I don’t know what the hell is wrong, but you’re really making this place so weird…”

He hurriedly turned and walked away as if the floor was on fire, without seeing the healer’s eyes widen behind him with a surprised, and hurt expression.

“Raperth!”

Jiang Mian grabbed the notebook and ran all the way to the huge fish tank — or observation room lung to blow up the inevitable, but today, somehow, he was just like a fish in water and with a brisk pace in the thick fog, he was almost like he was going to fly.

“Raperth!” he shouted angrily, “You, you…!”

The male mermaid quietly surfaced, pawing at the edge of the glass wall and carefully poking a head out to look at him.

Jiang Mian lips open and close, freezing for a moment.

How was he going to describe this to the other?

From the mermaid’s standpoint, there was nothing wrong with it. The Institute had captured him, imprisoned him, intended to torture him, to squeeze the last drop of blood and value from him, and even tried to enslave his people by association; the mermaid just let them eat their own fruit and suffer from delusional hysteria. Dr. Brown’s death was at best a chain reaction, as even the physician was no longer in control of his own mind… 

“…You… you’re going too far, I tell you.” Jiang Mian reprimanded him under his breath, “I was asking a man about his words, and he suddenly died?”

The mermaid’s ear fins flapped back and forth, and his tail spun in a huge underwater swirl as he let out a heartfelt squeak, “I don’t know.”

Jiang Mian slowed down, climbed up, and asked as calmly as he could, “What exactly did you give them as a hint, and why did they go so fast when I was still communicating with him?”

A higher tide made Raperth ride like a throne, slowly propelling him to Jiang Mian’s side.

“I told them not to hurt you… not to let you do what you don’t like… not to let them do what they want.” Raperth said, “And then… leave me alone… and not to say a word about being manipulated by blood.”

Jiang Mian asked, “What if they disobey one of these?”

Raperth hesitated, the more human memories he received, the clearer it became that the truth about mermaid blood wasn’t acceptable to ordinary people, and Jiang Mian still didn’t know his own life… He was a patient predator, a qualified male mate who deserved to use a step-by-step approach.

He coiled around Jiang Mian and asked the youth tentatively, “You… don’t like him… do you?”

“So, if you violate one, they will die, right?” Jiang Mian asked rhetorically.

Raperth looked at him, the pupils of his copper-gold eyes burning hot and pure at the same time. He had fought storms and fought thunder, and Jiang Mian had no idea how many beings he had torn apart, a number that depended only on how many ships had wittingly or unwittingly trespassed into the depths of Drake Passage, mermaid territory.

The bones beneath his tail fins, the blood dripping from his fingertips merging with the ocean currents, yet his eyes remain as wide and clean as the windless, rainless sea.

Mermaids have never considered killing a sin or a burden, and have their own ancient laws of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth to endorse their words, deeds and pleasures.

“It has nothing to do with liking it or not.” He acquiesced, and Jiang Mian sighed. So, which of these did Dr. Brown violate? Did he imply that he was being manipulated by blood?

But this was something Raperth had told himself a long time ago, and he really had turned to the wrong person… Right?

“I was just wondering out of curiosity how far they had gone, and what the follow-up plan was.” Jiang Mian covered his face and let out a deep sigh, “…Forget it, you know, in fact, Dr. Brown should have died long ago. It’s not a curse on him, he only celebrated his 125th birthday this July, but six years ago, he should have been so old that he shriveled up into a ball in the nutrition module, and all those extra years were given to him on credit by the Immortal Water.”

He lowered his eyes and whispered, “The other senior scholars are in a similar situation to him.”

Raperth judged, “You’re not happy.”

Jiang Mian hugged his knees and smiled melancholy, “How can I be happy.”

Every time he saw people who should be dead, but were still alive and strong in this world, that miserable white cell, the bright lights like electricity and snow, confined to the torture bed broken mermaid… All sorts of blood-colored brutal fragments flashed back in his brain for a moment, every moment, the smell of metal and sea smell was still lingering in his nose.

Raperth sniffed the air lightly, feeling that his partner didn’t blame him for the timely silencing of the land people, and now that cheering him up was once again a priority, he asked ingratiatingly, “Do you want to know the contents of the slate book?”

Jiang Mian looked up, his eyes lit up for a moment, glad to get a chance to get out of the traumatic memories, “Can I?”

Raperth nodded vigorously, “Yes!”