14 min read

Can You Please Stop Thinking?

Year: 2022

Genre: BL, mermaids, mecha, interstellar, love interest falls in love first, mind reading

Novel Status in Country of Origin: 48 Chapters (Complete)

Translator: Addis

~~~~Brought to you by ExR~~~~

SUMMARY:

When Gu Xiuhan was fifteen years old, he saved a young mermaid from the hands of interstellar invaders.

As the only mermaid royalty left in all of the interstellar, Ruan Yu was fostered by the research institute with the Gu Family, which had the ability to provide care and protection.

Since then, Gu Xiuhan became entangled with this sticky, sweet, and creamy little fish cub.

Baby Ruan Yu twisted his short, pudgy, round fish tail, glued his face to Gu Xiuhan’s shoulder, clutched his collar buckle and wouldn’t let go of it, teaching Gu Xiuhan about fish rearing:

“You have to hold me, or I will be swept away by the ocean currents.”

Gu Xiuhan, “?”

Where are the currents?

In Ruan Yu’s eyes, Gu Xiuhan was always as cold and hard as a war machine.

Silent, cold, serious, reticent… He did not know how many years it took to open his mouth to speak, and his feelings were purely oligarchic, and he could only get excited by a mecha exhaust pipe.

Ruan Yu, “I’m not going to rush a marriage along for my aunt and uncle, because you might have a mecha fetish.”

Gu Xiuhan, “…”

I have no such thing.

Ruan Yu ushered in mermaid maturity, and the racial gift of mind reading continued to progress.

At first, it was a mental voice.

Then after that, it was in-brain images.

And then after that, it was a 4k HD blue terminal internal picture…

With the upgrade of Ruan Yu’s mind-reading skills, the image of Admiral Gu’s upright and magnificent iceberg asceticism kept collapsing.

Ruan Yu blushed and whispered to Gu Xiuhan, “What are you thinking? Can you stop thinking? You are so weird…”

Gu Xiuhan, “I’m sorry.”

The efforts to reside in his brain, and the result became more aggressive.

Chapter 1: Cardiac Arrhythmia

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

3 A.M.

Gu Xiuhan lay on his back, his dark eyes fixed on the news screen. Four hours ago, he had ingested more sedative drugs than the safe standard, but the strong nerves from his SSS-level genes were still hyperactive. He had been stationed at the border of the empire for an entire year, and had not returned to the capital once during that time.

The Z289-336 planetary belt was located on the border of the Empire’s star field, and was the first line of defense of the Empire against alien invasion. Although they were in a peaceful era, the border areas still could not slack off. For this reason, Gu Xiuhan personally went to Z289-336 a year ago to improve the defense.

This iron-fisted approach lasted an entire year.

The alien outposts and frontier soldiers were suffering, and they didn’t understand why this imperial general, who could be giving orders comfortably from the capital, was so hands-on.

The habitable transformation of the border star had not yet been completed. The terrestrial planet where Gu Xiuhan was permanently stationed had a dark yellow sky and pungent air and the small-scale harassment and spying from alien species never stopped.

The environment was quite harsh. However, according to the terminal records, Gu Xiuhan’s average time to fall asleep was thirty-one seconds, and the sleep duration was four hours. Except for special circumstances, it did not fluctuate even one minute, and was as precise as a machine. It was a basic skill for soldiers to recover energy efficiently in harsh environments.

After ending the year-long mission, and returning to his manor on the capital on a beautiful spring day…

He could not fall asleep.

Not wanting to make any more futile attempts, Gu Xiuhan sat up straight, lifted his pillow, and took out a thumb-sized holographic projection sphere. The sphere was simply made, with only one knob to control the progress, and the cold silver-blue metal casing had become warn and light where his fingers had repeatedly rubbed.

A year ago, Ruan Yu learned that he was going to the Frontier Planet and recorded this holographic audio and video sphere to appease his irregular mental energy bursts.

Gu Xiuhan turned the knob.

Green, blue and cold light intertwined and solidified a virtual artificial lake. The lake was soft as velvet. Abruptly, the surface of the water split apart, Ruan Yu, half covered with light colored scales, swung his fish tail and leaped to the shore.

“Don’t record it yet, I’m not ready yet.” Ruan Yu instructed the terminal, leaning down to fidget with his tail.

Mermaids, intelligent species, were endangered, and those surviving were scarce.

The military research institute analyzed the few remaining texts of the mermaid planet and concluded that the only surviving mermaid with a rare “royal bloodline” was Ruan Yu. It was easy to see that his appearance was distinctly different from other mermaids and that the flashy but cumbersome fin veil was a symbol of sub-male or female royalty who did not hunt for food.

In short, Ruan Yu would have been the youngest prince of the mermaid clan had they not been exterminated by the alien species.

Ruan Yu’s tail fins were piled up on the reef in a messy heap. The longest fins were more than half a meter long, gradually changing from pearly white to a smoky peachy pink, as beautiful as a dream.

Ruan Yu hung his head, and smoothed down his fins, layer by layer, the soft flesh of his cheeks fell slightly due to gravity.

This obedient child caused one to feel soft-hearted.

After finishing arranging his fins, Ruan Yu lifted his head.

Because his head was hanging down for too long, his cheeks were red with blood, and Ruan Yu scrubbed his face like a kitten before instructing the AI, “Okay, start recording.”

The artificial intelligence in front of him had already faithfully recorded all the above images.

It was this small stupid fish that didn’t check the holographic sphere before handing it over to Gu Xiuhan.

“…”

Gu Xiuhan lowered his eyes, with an inscrutable look, slowly turned the knob back to “00:00”.

… In the hologram that could not be easily continued, Ruan Yu sat on the reef and introduced it carefully, “There are five melodies recorded in this holographic sphere, which are my customized spiritual healing tracks based on your EEG signals. The first 8-14 Hz melody can resonate with your alpha brain waves, emergency relief for your mental energy bursts, and can normally be skipped. The second…”

It was the voice of a teenager, but from the brightness revealed a touch of childish softness, like a new tip of green buds.

Gently scratching at something.

After introducing the functions and applicable situations of the five melodies clearly, Ruan Yu opened his mouth to sing.

The delicate and soft tone of silver velvet spilled out of his throat, flowing in the air and hooking around the holographic collector.

This particular mermaid’s song could cure all kinds of mental damage, mental contamination, needed to be tailored according to the individual EEG signal to work, so it was one in a million.

In the half-illuminated bedroom, Gu Xiuhan sat upright like a pine, his pupils so dark they were almost empty, staring fixedly at Ruan Yu’s hologram.

At the end of the image, Ruan Yu made a gesture of grasping toward the void.

Gu Xiuhan extended his left hand to match the image.

The hologram could simulate the sense of touch, and the mermaid’s fingers looked thin and delicate, but they were warm and soft to the touch.

Then, Ruan Yu tilted his head and put his cheek on Gu Xiuhan’s palm.

The young teenage mermaid, with a thin body, only his cheeks were left with a little bit of baby fat, and the touch felt like jelly.

Gu Xiuhan has already memorized the book “Reference to Mermaid Behavior” that was circulated within the military research institute, and he knew that Ruan Yu’s gesture meant that the young mermaid was expressing respect and trust to an older mermaid, and nothing else.

Knowing that it was only a hologram, Gu Xiuhan still reflexively held his breath and did not move a muscle, his eyes glancing sullenly elsewhere.

At that moment, the mini-terminal on Gu Xiuhan’s left wrist flashed a warning signal.

Arrhythmia…

Gu Xiuhan expressionlessly closed the hologram and disabled the terminal’s health monitoring privileges.

The terminal struggled to pop up the alert box.

[Health monitoring will provide you with tailored medical advice, if you are worried about the risk of privacy exposure, you can turn the monitoring program to run in the background, do you still choose to turn it off?]

Gu Xiuhan relentlessly confirmed.

The terminal screen went dark.

A few moments later, the screen lit up again like a traitor.

But this time, instead of health monitoring, there were two text messages.

[Ruan Yu]: Brother Xiuhan, my tail hurts.

[Ruan Yu]: It hurts so much that I can’t sleep.

Gu Xiuhan’s eyes trembled slightly.

Like a small stone fell in a cold pool.

A few moments later, the ripples dissipated, Gu Xiuhan closed the SMS, pretending to have fallen asleep.

Some time ago, Ruan Yu initially entered a mermaid’s differentiation period.

Since then, Ruan Yu had not only become an adult of eighteen years old in accordance with the laws of the Empire, but also a mature mermaid on a physical level.

At the end of differentiation, a mature sub-male or female mermaid may occasionally experience physical symptoms such as fever, weakness, unconsciousness, pheromone drifting, etc., accompanied by an exuberant desire for a mate.

In addition, the most critical change was that the mermaid’s fishtail would differentiate into two human legs suitable for land walking during this period, and the differentiation process of the legs would last for several days and be accompanied by more obvious discomfort, and after the differentiation was over, the mermaid was free to switch between the two forms.

Although this was the normal physiological phenomenon of the mermaids, due to the differentiation period associated with a hint of charming and erotic emotion. The fact that an adult male human would take care of a sub-male mermaid in the differentiation stage…. Gu Xiuhan thought it was inappropriate.

Suddenly, the terminal rang again.

The message was ignored, and the little mermaid persevered and sent a voice communication request.

Gu Xiuhan originally thought that Ruan Yu would be estranged from him after not seeing him for so long.

On the border star, daily communication was difficult, and the exclusive military band was restricted to convey military orders, and daily use was strictly prohibited. The result was that after returning to the capital star, this spoiled little mermaid, who had never been able to stand a bit of aggression, was not only not cold to him, but also doubly warm and clingy, as if he wanted Gu Xiuhan to make up for all the warmth and affection he owed him during the year.

Gu Xiuhan’s Adam’s apple slowly rolled, not cutting off, nor answering, only sitting silently in the dark, face cold and hard even his eyelashes were like frost.

The medical robot would provide Ruan Yu with a suitable pain relief solution.

He would not go over.

The communication tone of the terminal kept on ringing.

A few moments later, Gu Xiuhan’s deep, cool voice rang out, “… What’s going on?”

In the artificial lake at the back of the main manor house, Ruan Yu was lying on the edge of the lake, sickly fiddling with his waterproof terminal, flinging his uncomfortable and scorching fish tail around constantly.

His invisible and insubstantial spiritual net could cover the whole manor, the majority of people were asleep at this time, Ruan Yu could perceive a comfortable and stretching mass of spiritual bodies, mostly dark or light purple, symbolizing light and deep sleep, in addition to a very few spiritual bodies in a waking state.

In these years of maturity, Ruan Yu’s spiritual network expanded along with the growth of his body, and his perception of the state of spiritual bodies gradually became more sensitive.

[Help! Someone help me!]

[Vom… This alien species is so disgusting…]

Catching two emotionally intense deep sleep EEG signals, Ruan Yu shook his gauzy ear fins as if he was afraid of an itch.

Someone in the manor was having a nightmare.

It was a little noisy.

The perception of EEG signals was one of the mermaid’s six senses, as natural as humans parsing sound waves with their ears.

This mind-reading-like ability had certain limitations; the lower the genetic level and the weaker the mental energy, the easier the mind was to read, and the higher the genetic level, the less likely it was to be read.

The person who had the nightmare right now was a mechanic in charge of mechanical maintenance in the manor, a mediocre D-grade gene, and weak mental energy, so his brain signals were leaking badly, as clear as someone talking loudly in Ruan Yu’s ear.

“…”

Ruan Yu tilted his head, lips opened and closed, and sent a small song in the direction of the EEG signal.

The moonlight-like serenity of the melody curled up to cancel out the waves of fear and anxiety.

The nightmare dissipated and the manor returned to silence.

An hour ago, the medical robot delivered a special painkiller for mermaids developed by the military research institute, and Ruan Yu took the dose, but the effect was negligible. The fish tail was still sore and swollen, and there was an itch deep in the bones, like ants crawling and biting, which made him want to hammer a few punches into the tail.

Ruan Yu leaned against a rocky perimeter at the edge of the lake, struggled to raise the fish tail high, and pounded it with his fist a few times, but the source of the pain and itch was buried deep beneath the layers of muscles in the tail, and Ruan Yu’s strength was not enough, and the only reward was that his hands were hurt by his scales.

The differentiation period was too torturous.

So uncomfortable.

I want to pull my tail off.

“Mnh…” Ruan Yu was so uncomfortable that he flung his fish tail, sending waves of water splashing.

“Ruan Yu.” Suddenly, a low voice came from the shore.

In order to avoid appearing intimate, Gu Xiuhan changed his pajamas into his regular clothes before going downstairs, ironed and straight shirt with black military pants, collar buttoned to his cold jawline.

“Brother Xiuhan!” Ruan Yu saw him, his eyes suddenly went bright, forgetting the pain for a moment. His tail swung twice as fiercely, and his body jumped straight to the shore, like a little puppy that was so happy to jump on people.

Ruan Yu didn’t see him for a year, and Gu Xiuhan didn’t have any trouble. A year’s estrangement could not cool the warmth of more than ten years together.

Sixteen years ago, Ruan Yu’s home planet was invaded by an alien race.

The initial 0.4 level planetary civilization of the mermaid race in front of the level 3 galactic civilization of the alien legions was as insignificant as mole crickets. The mermaids who were living an idyllic life could not even correctly understand the meaning of the term “external interstellar invaders” and thought it was the gods who sent down a calamity. On the verge of extinction, the few remaining guards of the royal family, the mermaid, took the young prince into hiding in desperation.

Fortunately, Gu Xiuhan, a teenager at the time, was chasing a species leader and happened to land on a primitive ocean planet that had not yet been detected by the Empire.

In the nick of time, he rescued Ruan Yu from the sharp teeth of the alien leader.

…

Gu Xiuhan slightly averted his face and let his gaze focus on Ruan Yu’s fishtail.

The moonlight was hazy and enveloped Ruan Yu like silver powder. The young man’s narrow waist and belly were covered with water droplets, glistening and soft, pearly white soft scales shining with shattered light.

Gu Xiuhan had customized some waterproof material tops for Ruan Yu, theoretically not to delay swimming, but also to cover up the shame. But wearing clothes in the water ultimately violates the mermaid’s nature, and Ruan Yu wore them a few times for the sake of novelty, but soon it became too much trouble to wear them again.

“Can you rub my tail? It’s itchy and painful.” Ruan Yu grumbled and complained, his fish tail swung, slapped the water and leaped up, deftly “sitting” on the lakeside lounger, and cocked his tail to Gu Xiuhan’s hand.

“… Hmm.” Gu Xiuhan avoided it with his left hand, and at the same time turned off the sensing function of his right hand.

The five fingers of his right hand glowed with a cold metallic light under the moon. It was a mechanical arm. He crouched on one knee at the edge of the lake and pressed Ruan Yu’s fish tail with his right hand, which had been cut off from sensing.