He and It Chapter 23: The King’s Pearl (23)

Chapter 23: The King’s Pearl (23)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

Jiang Mian guided Raperth to submerge in the sink, while he himself went to prepare the utensils needed for washing up.

“What are you going to do?” Raperth asked curiously.

He could wash off all those fine scales by shaking his hair and going underwater, but Jiang Mian wanted to clean his body — a treatment that mermaids were only entitled to after a relationship was established, so how could he refuse such a temptation? So he dutifully floated on the water, waiting intently for Jiang Mian’s action.

Jiang Mian brought his sea salt-scented soap, as well as the comb, shampoo and conditioner he used.

“I guess, when you’re under the sea, you don’t need to wash your hair, right?” He ran his fingers through Raperth’s long hair, first smoothing out some of the tiny scales and the mucus secreted from the fish’s skin scales.

Then Jiang Mian wet the comb and delicately combed through Raperth’s tangled strands of hair, pretending not to see them snaking of their own accord.

“In the sea… it’s all seawater,” Raperth said, puzzled, “why… why wash it?”

Jiang Mian laughed, Raperth’s black hair was thick and dense, tough and coarse, each like a soft copper wire, shining with a lustrous lacquer color and possessing a surprising strength. He brushed one strand away, and another crept up his leg, twisting sheepishly around his ankle.

“Ahem, Raperth?” said Jiang Mian, clearing his throat, “What, is your hair alive?”

Raperth’s fast swaying fishtail froze and he stammered, “Well, um… No!”

Jiang Mian held back his laughter and ignored the restless hair. Putting down the comb, he picked up the water and wet the top of Raperth’s hair — although it was redundant to do so, he found himself enjoying the sight of the water rolling through his long dark hair, down the mermaid’s neck, onto his strong back, and then into the pool.

As he poured, he whispered, “So, will I end up as a mermaid, with a fish tail and fins like you?”

The hair wrapped around the ankle bones receded, and the male mermaid gently took the youth’s slender ankle underwater and gently rubbed it, causing Jiang Mian to take several panicked breaths.

No, not anymore, Pearl, Raperth’s gaze dimmed, your mermaid blood has degenerated for too long, and you’ve been used to being a human for too long. If I could have found you ten, eight years earlier, even just five years earlier, I would have been able to return you to your mermaid form, but now… 

His tone, becoming as low and slow as running water, “You will have fins. But the tail, your legs, can’t withstand that much change.”

Jiang Mian hurriedly asked, “Then can I still breathe in the water like you?”

He couldn’t help but feel the sides of his neck, where the skin, like the ankle bones, was itchy and hot from time to time these days, which made him think more.

“Sure.” Raperth pillowed on his knee and purred, “I will make you eat well and enough… your body… will get enough nutrients… and by then… your mermaid organs… will slowly develop and perfect… and I will take you… home.”

Jiang Mian sniffled and whispered, “Okay.”

He picked up the shampoo and squeezed it in his hand. In fact, mermaids have an extremely acute sense of smell, and they have their own scent sacs, so they should stay away from these artificially scented products, but Raperth sniffed the scent and was satisfied that it was the long-lasting smell of Jiang Mian’s hair.

Mmm, sweet!

Jiang Mian rubbed out a rich lather and plowed through Raperth’s hair, his nails, very soft for a mermaid, scraping delicately across his scalp. The male mermaid lowered his head contentedly in front of Jiang Mian, a low rumbling sound emanating from his chest and intermittent little grunts.

His blood seemed to be full of soft fluffy bristles, Jiang Mian just rubbed his hair roots, but he itched all the way to the tip of his tail and had to fling it back and forth to relieve the urge to roll over in Jiang Mian’s arms.

The young man couldn’t help but reveal a sly smile, the long thin fingers buried in the hair, twist open the smooth foam, slowly press the scalp of the mermaid, as if playing hard, after pressing once, and then tap the knuckles should be the location of acupuncture points, methodical push pinch — he learned the massage technique for Jiang Pingyang, now, he decided to experiment on the mermaid.

Raperth opened his eyes wide and looked ahead with a very bewildered expression.

“What is this?” He asked in a whisper.

Jiang Mian pursed his lips and tried not to laugh as he cleared his throat and said innocently, “It’s a massage. Haven’t you ever had it done before?”

No, it really sounded like Raperth was making a small, aggravated-sounding sound as he grunted and whimpered, so close that Jiang Mian could see it perfectly, his spine shaking uncontrollably, producing the tiniest of undulations.

Raperth’s voice faltered, “I, no…”

The two-meter-long fish tail stretched and tightened, his muscles tensed and then relaxed, his scales rattled, looking like a volcano about to erupt, and his grunting voice grew louder and louder, and Jiang Mian, fearing that Raperth would lose control, dared not tease him anymore and hurriedly stopped.

“There!” He said, “Is that okay?”

Raperth’s eyes went straight and he gave a few disoriented “mmmm’s” that didn’t look like he wanted Jiang Mian to stop, so Jiang Mian quickly started flushing the water for the next session.

He picked up the water, rubbed the mermaid’s hair, and saw the sewage being pumped away by the observation room’s water purification system. When it was completely rinsed out and the hair was new, with all the fish scales and slime gone, he picked up the conditioner and applied it carefully from the middle of the hair until the long hair felt silky smooth to the touch and smelled sweet and fragrant, before he stopped and dried them on his lap.

“Wait a moment,” Jiang Mian said, “then rinse again, and you’re done.”

The mermaid looked dreamy, “It’s a pain, but it’s comfortable… I like it.”

Jiang Mian laughed, “That’s because your hair is too long and there’s so much of it, so of course it’s a pain to wash.”

He stroked the mermaid’s long hair lovingly and whispered to the other, “Counting down, how many days are left in the heat period?”

Raperth leaned into Jiang Mian’s lap and kissed his white skin tenderly, “Maybe… four or five more days… for the first time… it won’t be too long.”

“Four more days.” Jiang Mian hung his head worriedly, “But, by the day after tomorrow, the executive of Sigma Group will be here…”

Raperth immediately looked up at him, and something unusually cold flashed in the depths of his golden eyes.

“They… disturbing you… make you feel uncomfortable? Then I will… at first… execute them.”

“That’s not the reason,” Jiang Mian hurriedly explained, “in the past, when the Immortal Water had not been developed, the research institute was only a second-rate institution in the group, but over the years, the research institute has become the most important core of the group, and can even compete with the headquarters…”

He frowned, “Because of this, the headquarters has become more and more guarded over the years, each visit, must be the general director and the Institute’s senior group to meet, but also to speak some specific code words… The specific process is not very clear to me, but only this way can they put down their guard a little, otherwise, the executive will not even take a step towards the door.”

“How is Fabian doing?” Jiang Mian asked, “If he’s too badly injured, missing an arm or leg, or unable to speak, it would be too much of a shock.”

Raperth smiled slightly, Jiang Mian was rinsing his hair, and at the moment, the smell in his hair was starting to become exactly like the little one, so how could he be in a bad mood?

“He’s fine,” the mermaid said carelessly, “and when the time comes… I’ll let him out.”

—

For Raperth, the number one thing that mattered was to accompany Jiang Mian through his heat; but for Jiang Mian, if he could bury the Sigma Group’s headquarters deep into the ground along with the Institute, and bury everything about the legacy of the Immortal Water, even if he had avenged Lady Red, it wouldn’t be a waste of the twenty years he had spent here.

As for Jiang Pingyang’s relics, without Fabian’s hindrance, Jiang Mian had already sorted out his manuscripts, treatises, and notebooks that had been dismantled to bits and pieces. The more he collected, the more silent he became. Later, Jiang Mian wasn’t too eager to move the personal terminal, which was regarded as top secret by the institute and locked in the machine vault, and he was ready to wait until after he finished dealing with Sigma first.

Speaking of Fabian, the night before the executive visit to the Institute, Jiang Mian saw an old acquaintance he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Technically speaking, it was not a “long time no see”, just a week after the date when Jiang Mian regained his freedom, but so many things happened during this week that he saw this old acquaintance of poor character again, and it felt like a lifetime ago.

In particular, Fabian’s current appearance had changed so much that Jiang Mian really froze for a while.

Once upon a time, he was a strong white male, despite being over forty, but because of good maintenance, and also because he took the Immortal Water, he looked at most in his early thirties, still in his prime, youthful and strong years. He was able to use only one hand to make Jiang Mian unable to break free.

However, now, not to mention the blood and vigor, he was simply old, living as if the years had mercilessly drained the last trace of energy.

Fabian’s hair was still brown-black, but the texture of the hair was brittle, as if a gentle blow, full of straw-like hair will turn into a withered ash. The pupils of his gray-blue eyes were devoid of light, covered with dried blood, cheeks deeply sunken, with no flesh on his body. The German stood there, but let a person hallucinate a jagged skeleton.

As Raperth said, Fabian was fine, his body didn’t have a single wound, but it looked as if he had suffered all the torture under the sky, and even had to spend his entire life to resist its killing.

“Look, isn’t he fine?” The sound of water floating, the mermaid towered behind Jiang Mian, leaning down his body and clinging to the youth, “I wasn’t… lying to you.”

Jiang Mian turned around, looked up at the mermaid and hesitated, “To say that it’s not good, there’s really nothing wrong with it, but to say that it’s good… Is he too haggard like this to blend in?”

The bronze king laughed, his eyes burning with lava gold, his eyes glancing slightly at the walking Fabian. At an angle that Jiang Mian couldn’t see, the German suddenly began to shake desperately, so much so that it wouldn’t be out of place to say that he was dancing fiercely. However, no matter how he twitched and twisted, his teeth remained clenched and his throat contracted unnaturally, not letting Jiang Mian hear the slightest extra movement.

“It’s definitely okay.” Raperth advised gently, “Don’t worry… he’s not… out of the question.”

The mermaid’s long, dense hair spread out completely, as if a dark cloak, completely wrapped around Jiang Mian’s body, but also enveloped the dead space on either side of his vision.

While Jiang Mian wasn’t looking, Raperth gave him a quick peck on the corner of his eye and said, “Eat… you’re hungry.”

“Hey!” Jiang Mian was too late to stop him and had to glare at the mermaid, “Let me tell you, this isn’t the boundary of friends, ah.”

Raperth aggrieved, “But last time not promised… a little more than friends…”

The male mermaid hugged Jiang Mian tightly, the sound of the water surging never ceased as they turned away, rambling and talking, while fading away.

Behind them, the long, silent figure that had been left behind was still struggling wildly out of control. He tore at his own flesh with his ten fingers, as if it was the ultimate relief to turn out all his organs and intestines without fear.

The wounds he created healed in a flash, as if it was a futile illusion.