Stop Thinking Chapter 5: A little angry

Chapter 5: A little angry

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

After sorting out the ins and outs, young Ruan Yu set out to care for Gu Xiuhan, who had lost an arm.

In fact, Gu Xiuhan’s life wasn’t inconvenienced in any way.

The mechanical arm proved to be more dexterous and practical than a flesh-and-blood body, and for ethical reasons, the Council even had to set up a cumbersome and unreasonable vetting process for prosthetic devices to prevent some citizens of the Empire who were addicted to mechanical modifications from turning their bodies into a “Ship of Theseus”.

Gu Xiuhan didn’t need sympathy, but he thought that accepting proper help would alleviate Ruan Yu’s guilt, so he went along with it.

The tiny baby Ruan Yu, barely standing on the sink with his fishtail, tried to wipe Gu Xiuhan’s face. But just as the little fat hand picked up the face wipe soaked in cleaning solution, the fish tail wobbled and lost its balance, and the face wipe “slapped” Gu Xiuhan’s face.

“…”

Gu Xiuhan silently wiped away the cleaning liquid that flowed along his jaw and into his collar.

[Good wipe.]

[Next time…]

Gu Xiuhan curbed his thoughts.

Ruan Yu’s reaction was half a beat slower, but after helping a few times, he realized that he was helping out.

And Brother Xiuhan actually even faked the sound of his heart, condoning him to help.

Little fish baby wilted again.

So, the next time the robot arm was maintained, Gu Xiuhan did not deliberately avoid Ruan Yu, but carried Ruan Yu to the maintenance table, allowing him to observe the whole process of disassembly and maintenance of the robot arm.

The robot arm could do everything, the only exception was to maintain itself.

[I need help with this.]

[Really.]

Gu Xiuhan picked up a tool with his left hand and showed Ruan Yu how to use it with a little dexterity.

Ruan Yu’s eyes were rounded, his pale Persian irises so clear they reflected the patterns of complex circuit components, his big eyes unblinking, his cheeks so serious they were holding their strength, bulging into two small puffs of soft flesh.

Ruan Yu wasn’t very bright, and his mind was slower than that of a Homo sapiens toddler of his age, but he showed an amazing learning speed while observing the construction of the robot arm.

Ultimately, the moment he was fished out of the sea by the silent, cold steel giant, Ruan Yu was like a fledgling that happened to fall on a giant whale and took the whale’s back as his world.

So he tried his best to operate his slow mind, staring at the tool with sore eyes and an aching head, wishing he could do something more for Gu Xiuhan.

For sixteen years, Gu Xiuhan had been the most important person in Ruan Yu’s life, and the center of his universe.

However, how much love one carries, how much privilege one has, is how much responsibility one carries at the same time.

The more innocent and pure they are, the more they should restrain the delusions that grow like weeds…

Don’t act without permission.

Ruan Yu’s differentiation period proceeded to the second half of the process, the tail pain problem became more and more serious, from once every few days to every day, and the onset time also showed a significant tendency to extend.

In order to make Ruan Yu suffer less, Gu Xiuhan went to the research institute when he had time, but he could not do anything else, so he just stood in the minister’s room without expression, using silence to pressure the drug development department to give a new plan.

“… Generally speaking, mermaids do experience discomfort during the differentiation period due to initial skeletal morphological changes.” The minister flipped through Ruan Yu’s lab report and pointed to one of the numbers with a thick frown, “But the mermaid race has its own countermeasures, they secrete a morphine-like biosynthetic hormone for their own pain relief, limiting this pain to what the body can tolerate… You see, his concentration of this hormone is completely within the normal range.”

The implication was that the pain was theoretically not so intense as to be unbearable.

“Hmm.”

Gu Xiuhan nodded his head, as if he had listened.

After a pause, he repeated, “Is there a new option?”

The minister, “…”

“Continuing to apply painkillers in large quantities on a tolerable basis is not good for the body…” The minister dipped his handkerchief into his sideburns and weighed his words, “Generally speaking, as long as the hormone level is normal, it is recommended to try to tolerate it or massage it, The vast majority of mermaids are handled in this way during the differentiation period, no other options are needed.”

Between the lines, it seemed as if the message “things are not that serious, just that you have raised your family mermaid too delicate” was penetrating to Gu Xiuhan.

Gu Xiuhan’s dark eyes swiveled and scanned the numbers on the examination report.

Was Ruan Yu acting spoiled?

Some images come to mind.

When Ruan Yu was maintaining his robot arm, he would squeeze the tool with his hand for a short while, and his white fingers would be marked with prismatic red indentations; when Ruan Yu put down the tool, he would twist his fingers and rub them, and the conspicuous carmine would be rubbed away, staining the entire bulging fingers with pink… They look like they’ve been covered in pink.

Gu Xiuhan’s Adam’s apple slowly rolled, forcing the conclusion –

Not spoiled.

Having said that, when Ruan Yu’s differentiation period ended, he would go to school in a few months, and his ability to live independently should be cultivated. He could no longer treat Ruan Yu as baby Ruan Yu as he did in the past, and be at his beck and call…

Gu Xiuhan was thinking about it when a new message came to his terminal.

[Ruan Yu]: Brother Xiuhan, my tail is hurting again, and I have a fever this time.

A small tearful expression emoji followed.

Ruan Yu’s attack was extraordinarily strong this time, and it was completely different from the degree of those times before.

The heat was not too obvious when he sent a message to Gu Xiuhan, but in a short while, his body became hot.

Especially in the middle of his tail.

In Ruan Yu’s increasingly confused consciousness due to the high fever, the long flexible bones were like burnt and molten white wax, and were being pinched and stretched by the invisible force from the genetic information deep in the muscle, trying to reshape them into two leg bones suitable for land travel.

The heat radiated from the core of the fish tail to his entire body. The original temperature of the lake water gradually appeared cold. Ruan Yu shivered and dived to the bottom of the lake.

The research institute was not far away, and Gu Xiuhan’s flying machine could take the special channel of the military department, so he rushed back in ten minutes.

The artificial lake was transparent like glass, and at the bottom of the lake, Ruan Yu dutifully curled up with the tip of his tail in front of the heater used to control the temperature at the bottom of the lake, like a human being warming up in front of a fireplace.

His face was red from the heating grill, and his lips opened and closed dreamily, spitting out silver chain-like bubbles.

The bubbles float to the surface and break open with even frequency.

“Prrrr… Prrrrrrr…”

Like a series of small purrs.

“… Ruan Ruan?”

Gu Xiuhan plucked the water.

Ruan Yu closed his eyes and shook his ear fins and rolled over.

Waiting to fall asleep.

The corners of Gu Xiuhan’s lips curled invisibly.

It’s good to get more rest during the differentiation period, but Ruan Yu’s sleeping appearance was not stable, his eyebrows were wrinkled, and his flushed cheeks looked cute at first glance, but they were vaguely sickly.

Obviously sleeping uncomfortably, still have to be called up to take some fever-reducing medicine.

“Ruan Ruan.”

Gu Xiuhan raised his voice.

Ruan Yu lifted his sore and sleepy eyelids and woke up. This short sleep was uncomfortable for him because his tail kept hurting and his dreams were of someone beating him up.

He wilted, drunkenly swimming to the shore, his face turned toward the shore rocks in self-loathing, soft flesh squeezed and deformed, “Brother Xiuhan, I want to go up, but I don’t have the strength…”

“Mn.”

Gu Xiuhan shook open a thick bath towel and wrapped it around Ruan Yu, then leaned over, hooked his back with one hand, dipped his hand into the water to firmly clasp the fish tail, and fished the little mermaid out and put him on the bench.

As his hair dripped, Ruan Yu tossed his head like a puppy.

A mermaid’s keratinocyte structure was special, the water in the hair could not be absorbed, and after landing on the shore with a shake he could be eighty percent dry.

“Don’t shake.” Gu Xiuhan was quick to hold down the little head, covered with a bath towel, and rubbed it gently.

The fever was accompanied by a headache, and a few shakes made it worse.

“Can you wipe my tail again?” Ruan Yu requested in a soft voice.

For some reason, probably from instinctive hints, he suddenly did not want to let his tail get wet.

This would mean that maybe after this attack, he could grow human legs.

Ruan Yu was worried because he was slow to learn anything except for the spiritual field of knowledge, and he always had to work twice as hard to reach the same level of learning as Homo sapiens, so it was difficult to learn anything at all. But the thought of being the same as Gu Xiuhan, Ruan Yu heart rose a secret leap, the tip of the tail twisted around like seaweed, shy.

Gu Xiuhan tugged two bath towels, padding one under the fish tail, with the other carefully stroking through the dense silk smooth scales, and finally squatting on one knee next to the bench, unrolling the sensitive fin veil at the end, carefully becoming drenched in water.

After drying all over, Ruan Yu asked in a whisper, “Can you carry me to the bedroom to lie down for a while? I want to sleep in the bed today, and I want to be covered… I don’t want to take a walker because I feel sick.”

Gu Xiuhan held back, but couldn’t say no, so he raised his eyes to look at him.

Ruan Yu was taught to be polite and used to use phrases like “can I” and ” may I” when making even the smallest requests, and his tone was soft, as if he had no temper at all and it didn’t matter how many times he was refused.

But if he was really rejected, Ruan Yu would be angry for a long time.

What’s worse, if it’s an outsider, if it’s Ruan Yu’s perceived kin, then even if he’s angry, he wouldn’t resort to tactics like cold war, taunting, or making a fuss, he would just hold his fire and continue to get along politely with the other person. At most, when no one was hiding at the bottom of the lake in a fish roll, silent aggression to the deformation.

It was the first time that a person wanted to be pampered, but they couldn’t bear it.

Gu Xiuhan wrapped Ruan Yu tightly, even both arms were wrapped in a bath towel to prevent Ruan Yu from coming up to hug his neck, finished, before picking up Ruan Yu, who had a question mark in his head.

“You can not hold.”

The reasoning was unreasonable.

“…”

Brother Xiuhan had always been unpredictable lately, so it was better not to provoke him.

Ruan Yu pursed his lips, wanted to struggle a little, but still endured, honestly stationed in Gu Xiuhan’s arms in the military posture.

Ruan Yu usually lived in the artificial lake, he had a bedroom but did not necessarily go to sleep there more than once a year, so it was purely as a symbol, and was not cleaned every day.

The blankets inevitably accumulated a little thin dust, very little, if it were another person, it would not be noticeable at all.

“There is dust.” Ruan Yu glanced at the cover disgustedly, refused to lie down, spitting out words out of tightly closed lips, like he was afraid to say too much and have dust float into his mouth.

Gu Xiuhan could not do anything about it, so he retreated to the door of the room.

“Is it okay to go to your room?” Ruan Yu breathlessly pillowed into Gu Xiuhan’s collarbone, “I’m so sleepy, burning all over, my body aches, and I want to quickly take the medicine to sleep…”

Gu Xiuhan had no choice but to carry Ruan Yu back to his bedroom and put him to bed. After feeding him the mermaid special fever medicine, Gu Xiuhan rubbed his tail for a while, and saw that Ruan Yu was dazed and about to fall asleep, so he tucked in the blanket and turned on the heater, and quietly went to the side to the chair.

For fear that even a close brother would not be so willing to help.

The goose down pillow was very soft.

Ruan Yu’s face was sunken into a small part of the palm of his hand, looking even smaller.

He was used to sleeping in the water, lips open in order to spit bubbles, occasionally opening and closing two times, the moment of opening, one could see a little bit of the inside of the mouth’s light red flesh, reflecting a sparkling shimmer.

Gu Xiuhan unblinkingly watched, his pupils obscure and unknown, even ten mermaids together couldn’t read what he was thinking.

However…

The differentiation period could produce stimulation to Ruan Yu’s perceptual organs that collect brain electrical signals, so that they get a second development, and his mental energy would gradually increase.

This was one of the characteristics unique to the royal bloodline.

But sixteen years ago, there was only one surviving royal family, Ruan Yu, and the research institute had almost zero research on this, so that even Ruan Yu himself was not very clear.

After an unknown period of time, Gu Xiuhan slowly reached his hand towards Ruan Yu.

With the back of his fingers, he traced from his eyebrows to the tip of his nose at a distance of one to two centimeters.

Ruan Yu’s exhaled breath was hot and moist, entangling the fingertips and tempting him to touch.

But…

[That’s enough.]

Gu Xiuhan bent his fingers, clenched them into fists, and set them back squarely on his knees.

…

Ruan Yu didn’t sleep very well.

In a daze, probably dreaming, he felt a brief enhancement in the energy of his spiritual network.

Within the range of his perception, the color of the individual mental bodies in the manor became more subtle and the layers clearer than before, no longer just a chaotic and generalized mass of emotions.

He could read more.

Among the many spiritual bodies in the manor, there was a strange colored spiritual body that stood out, and its owner seemed to be not far from Ruan Yu.

It was hyperactive and restless, surging with a kind of strong and woefully hot valley that Ruan Yu could not read.

It also sent out a strange brain signal, without a beginning or an end –

[Will it be soft?]

What thing is soft or not soft ah…

Ruan Yu’s ears burned abruptly, did not understand, but inexplicably felt embarrassed and ashamed, but also a little angry, he struggled to shrink back, trying to avoid that frightening spiritual body.

As if sensing Ruan Yu’s resistance, the mental network energy abruptly fell back to normal levels.

Everything was back to the old way.