He and It Chapter 7: The King’s Pearl (7)

Chapter 7: The King’s Pearl (7)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey, waiting for THE FACESLAP

 

Jiang Mian opened the door. He wasn’t well and used to cover himself with something thick even in a constant temperature room.

He was wearing pajamas, fuzzy slippers, his hair was disheveled, he was holding a half-drunk espresso in his hand, and there were still a few wet marks from accidental spills on the blanket, looking up at Ted in confusion.

“…You’re dressed like a Michelin tire man.” Jiang Mian commented confusedly, “What’s the matter, do you need me to report the results now? I’ve accessed nearly twelve years of documented literature, as well as the results of fieldwork, artifacts recovered under the sea, and I know it’s a dumb solution, but…”

“Jiang Mian,” Ted took a deep breath and interrupted him in a whisper and urgently, “Jiang Mian!”

Jiang Mian froze for a moment and stopped talking.

“Put on your protective clothing and come with me.”

Jiang Mian raised his index finger, “Wait for me for a minute.”

Drinking the remaining half of his coffee, his dizzy brain finally cleared up a bit, and only then did Jiang Mian realize that something was wrong.

Ted looked at him with sympathy and compassion, as if he were an abandoned son of God who had shattered a $5 million lottery ticket the night before the drawing.

He threw down his blanket, pulled on his thick wool socks, and shoved himself into his protective suit, asking in a nervous whisper, “What’s wrong?”

His body stiffened and he looked at Ted with wide eyes, “Is it Raperth…”

Ted winked at him uneasily, signaling him to look at the two guards following behind him, this wasn’t the place to talk, “Don’t talk too much, first… Where’s your dehydration suit? This one’s as thin as paper, wear that one!”

Jiang Mian shook his head, “I’ve been out of the program for three months, and I’ve been banned from the station for almost a week, Ted. I don’t have permission to leave myself a dehydration suit, this is all I have.”

Ted looked conflicted, he looked like he wanted to say “I’ll give you mine” but didn’t dare; he wanted to say “I’ll go find you one now” but still didn’t dare.

“Don’t be a riddler,” Jiang Mian sighed, zipping up and fastening the harness, “Just tell me what’s going on. Is something wrong with the mermaid?”

Wordlessly compromised, Ted gestured for Jiang Mian to follow him the other way, and in his intermittent whispered descriptions, Jiang Mian finally understood what was happening these days.

“You mean…” Jiang Mian really suspected that he had drunk too much coffee in the past few days and confused his brain, “Raperth is actually a super mermaid, he can not only ignore high-voltage electricity, but also isn’t afraid of strong acid, and is bulletproof? Over the last few days he’s killed…”

He took a deep breath, “…He’s killed six people? How?”

Ted stopped and gestured to the guards behind him, “Guys, back up a bit and leave some space so I can go over a few notes with the handler, okay? Thanks.”

He yanked Jiang Mian forward a few steps, his voice lowered and his speech became quick, “Because those old things… you know what kind of personalities they have. Ever since you left and the mermaid slaughtered the first of your successors, they added a control experiment to try to figure out what was involved, what caused its hostility and aggressive behavior.”

Jiang Mian knew, of course, what kind of character the Institute’s scholars had, the monstrous creatures whose bodies and lifespans had been transformed by the immortal waters, the higher humans who prided themselves on being at the front end of evolution, and how they would put ordinary people in their sights.

Jiang Mian whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Six people…” Ted choked out a laugh, “just gone. You have no idea how quickly they died… The mermaid killed them effortlessly, like crushing a bug.”

He was silent for a moment and said, “…Never mind, look, let’s go find a dehydration suit, it’s not much good, but it’s a relief. You’re a good guy, you have a rare kindness here. I know you want to protect the mermaid, and he’s been good to you, but he’s a real fucking beast, and you need to take it seriously!”

Jiang Mian smiled and said, “Thank you for your kindness, Ted. Dr. Jiang… In all the days since my father died, of all the people, you’re the only colleague who’s still willing to talk and laugh with me, and I appreciate that.”

He hesitated, lifted his hand rustily, and patted Ted’s shoulder.

“Take me to Raperth, please.”

Ted was appalled, “What are you thinking? Aren’t you scared at all?! You’ve never seen how tragic it is for people to die, they, they’re like…”

“I know, I’ve become a pawn that can be discarded at any time.” Jiang Mian interrupted him, “With living mermaids, they don’t value obscure slate books anymore, do they?”

Ted was speechless and didn’t answer.

“Believe me, he’s not a beast,” Jiang Mian said with deliberation, “I mean, he’s got that animal side, but he’s also got that human side. I’m not unafraid, if he really wants me dead, what’s the point of wearing ten sets, even if I wear twenty sets? It’s just what lessons I’ve learned from the past… It’s that the way you treat the outside world determines the attitude the outside world gives back to you at the same time.”

He whispered, “If you treat him like a kind, he will see you as a kind; if you treat him like a beast, you cannot expect him to hide his fangs and claws for you.”

Jiang Mian lowered his head, his cheeks reddening a little, having said too much in one breath, which he wasn’t used to.

Ted was silent for a moment and murmured, “It’s a good thing I’m not connected to the experimental station’s communication route, these words won’t be heard by Fabian.”

Jiang Mian smiled, “Thanks.”

Approaching the observation room, Ted swiped open the all-metal door for him and handed him a micro-com, Jiang Mian nodded at him and headed straight for where the mermaid was.

The cell’s six-fold water valve ensured a clean water supply once a day, and at the moment, the mermaid was swimming by the wall, seemingly investigating something. The heavy chains had been broken by him and were lying in the corner, like a few dead pythons stacked on top of each other.

Jiang Mian took a moment to glance at the high viewport, which was overlooking his every move, and he tried to ignore the feeling of being observed as an experiment, and carefully climbed the steps.

Placing the communicator in his side ear, Jiang Mian held back his apprehension and called out softly into the water, “…Hey.”

Raperth had already known about the commotion of someone coming, but just didn’t bother to pay attention to it. At this moment, as soon as he heard Jiang Mian’s voice, his ear fins shook violently like an electric shock.

[You’re here?] Raperth swung his powerful fish tail, free from the distance limitation of the chain, he was as fast as an arrow, and in a flash he rose to Jiang Mian’s eyes, separated from him only by the distance of a body of water, [Hello, hairy little human!]

He was too close! The mermaid disliked the face of the surprise attack, as Jiang Mian fell to the ground in shock, almost suffocated. He choked and coughed several times, and hesitated for a while before he approached the mermaid and slowly put his hand on the edge of the feeding opening.

“Hi, how are you?” He asked tentatively, “These days… How were you?”

The experiment station was in an uproar, and Ted, who was mentally praying for Jiang Mian’s grip, stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed disbelief

“The experimental body… Really recognized him?” Someone muttered.

“Next step, give him the next instruction!”

The mermaid curiously stretched his arm and used his fingertips to lightly poke Jiang Mian’s slender fingers. Despite the rubber gloves, Jiang Mian felt a little cold wetness that rippled sensitively on his skin.

So close, he could clearly see that the mermaid’s bone joints were thicker, the fingers were longer, the black spiked nails were sharp, and the webbing between the fingers was like smoke and fog in a deep diaphanous color, like a generative ink.

At this point, the headset was filled with a cacophony, and the orders of the experimental station came out.

“Now, test the effect of different kinds of bait on the experimental body. Handler, please…”

Before Jiang Mian could show a jaded expression, Raperth did it. His arm broke the surface of the water like a splash of clear water like a mist, and his sharp pointed armor pinched Jiang Mian’s communicator without missing a beat and deftly ripped it off.

Jiang Mian, “?!”

He watched as the mermaid’s two fingers interlaced slightly, like twisting a pinch of crispy sticky ashes, and in one fell swoop crushed the oval three-dimensional communicator into a long, thin, brittle piece of metal.

Without the obstacle, Raperth withdrew his hand and poked out a head. To say that adult men could be stuffed into this half shoulder, then for mermaids, it was only enough for a face.

Jiang Mian was surprised and wanted to laugh. In return, he also ripped off his hood, stained by sweat drenched black hair on his cheeks, his skin haloed with a wet flush.

[Are you hurt?] Raperth asked, snow-white fangs shifting beneath thin, pale lips, [Did they hurt you?]

The mermaid broke the communicator, which meant Jiang Mian didn’t have to obey the experimental station’s orders for the time being, although being bugged was still inevitable, but he couldn’t care less.

Jiang Mian sat down on the ground and gestured clumsily, continuing the chicken-and-egg pattern of getting along, “Are you okay? I heard that they use strong acid and…”

The rubber gloves got in the way, so he yanked them off and put them aside, twisting them in the air in long, thin lines, “Well, the bullets…”

Raperth stared at him motionlessly, human eyes that reminded him of many a sea reflecting the night sky, when the moon and the stars weren’t yet far away, and the darkest waves rippled with the zephyr of rain and dew.

His smile, his voice, his flushed cheeks, soft pink lips… His scent was warm and relaxing, as if the first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds after a storm, and like some kind of colorful, sweet fruit.

No fear, no loathing, he was just… Just happy, that was all.

Jiang Mian slowly lowered the volume until the words were completely extinguished on the tip of his tongue. The mermaid’s gaze was too serious, too focused, not sure if this was a hunting habit, when he looked at someone or something, always with all his heart and soul, leaving no room for error.

His face heated up, too embarrassed to meet Raperth’s golden eyes, and he had to keep his eyes on the mermaid’s aqua-drenched blank skin, pretending to be distracted by the appearance of the fine scaly glint.

“I’m sorry I’m being stupid, I know full well you don’t understand human words.” He murmured, “You… Just pretend I’m talking to myself, yes, to myself…”

“Name.” Raperth suddenly said, wordily spitting out two syllables, “What’s your name?”

Jiang Mian looked up in shock, almost leaned back and rolled down the stairs because of the excessive force.

What the hell? How did he, he actually… No, wait, theoretically speaking, mermaids are actually creatures with multiple vocal cord structures, and their vocal organs are so much more complex than other species’ that they can, of course, perfectly imitate human language without much effort.

If I think about it… he has been listening to me, asking and answering questions, he’s quite efficient at learning…

There was a long silence in the experiment station.

Dr. Brown said calmly, “According to the vocal structure of mermaids, they can imitate the language of other species, it’s not a fantasy.”

“But do they learn, or do they simply ‘imitate’?”

“…Jiang Mian,” the youth swallowed his throat and said with difficulty, “’Jiang’ of river, ‘Mian’ of sleep, was taken by my adoptive father from the saying, ‘A wild and drunken singer sleeps at the head of the building, the river breeze wakes up the boundless bones…'”

“‘A wild and drunken singer sleeps at the head of the building, the river breeze wakes up the boundless bones…'” Raperth learned to repeat, fluently and without risk, “’Jiang’ of river, ‘Mian’ of sleep, my adoptive father.”

No need to mention the pronunciation, even the tone of voice and intonation were imitated with no difference. Saying that this was like a parrot learning to speak, one would think that the parrot would be ashamed to the point of suicide; this was more like a playback of a tape recorder, a copy and paste on the vocal cords.

“…After the departure of Poe Weng, Fulong went away, leaving the rivers and mountains cold for eight hundred years.” Jiang Mian whispers dreamily, his tone full of admiration, “You… you’ve learned it so well.”

Raperth repeated clearly, “After the departure of Poe Weng, Fulong went away, leaving the rivers and mountains cold for eight hundred years. You — me? Learned so well.”

Not to mention a mermaid from another species, but a fellow mermaid from a different country might not be able to turn his tongue when he heard Jiang Mian’s complicated poetic tracing.

Raperth grinned and looked radiant, and at an angle that Jiang Mian couldn’t see, his huge fish tail was twisting around, fluttering the water waves with glee.

[It’s nothing, the language of the land people is simple,] said the mermaid, [easier than grabbing a cross-clawed crab.]

After a moment of dumbfoundedness, Jiang Mian couldn’t stop laughing.

The moment of surprise was like finding a deep fragrant flower in a jungle made of steel, and Jiang Mian had never been so excited and happy as now.

He couldn’t even contain the unlikely delusion that he could teach Raperth to speak human words, that they could talk, laugh, and exchange secrets. Would he tell me stories from his homeland if I told him about the many things on land?

——If Jiang Mian had to make a wish, Raperth would be the type of friend he would want to have: honest, wild, straightforward, passionate, vibrant, with whom like was like, hate was hate, no suspicion out of interest, and no unexplained distancing.

Raperth sniffed suspiciously, and again didn’t understand.

The little human smelled so joyfully, the scent of delight, it caused his skin to glow and pulsate, like, on a few rare rainy days, when the sunlight refracted by the raindrops would pop up and blow around on the light sea breeze.

He also looked like he was about to fly, but land dwellers only have two legs, could they really fly?

Raperth cautiously stretched out his fingers, intending to press the back of Jiang Mian’s hand.

No flying.

Jiang Mian didn’t expect him to suddenly touch him, removing the barrier of rubber gloves, Raperth’s cold fingertips and his bare skin suddenly met, Jiang Mian’s back of the hand immediately went numb. The mermaid’s body temperature was as cool as jade, but after the numbness, a warm heat instantly spread like a revival, so that even the sweat on his back stood up.

[You have electricity in your hand!] Raperth snapped his fingers away in surprise, and his chest let out a rumbling, big cat-like whining sound, [You… You electrocuted me.]

Combining the mermaid’s movements, Jiang Mian miraculously understood the grunting complaint and covered the back of his hand, “I didn’t! Maybe it’s the residual electricity from your body… What?”

He slowly lowered his voice. Oh, no, in a moment of complacency, his and Raperth’s little gestures had already gone against the proper mode of interaction between a handler and an experimental subject, and the experiment station, which was watching closely… And Fabian, what will he say?