Chapter 41: He found a place covered by scales
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Before Heinrich came close to him, Lin Xu quickly and secretly used his psychic powers to gather up the crystal nuclei scattered in Zerg’s brain and crush them with his palm, but the infused energy disappeared into his body like a stone sinking into the sea.
Tiredness, weakness, hunger, thirst, fear and lust still haunted his brain.
Heinrich crouched down and cast a shadow, blocking some of the sun for Lin Xu and giving him a chance to breathe. His next move made Lin Xu want to curse, but his dry, aching throat could only let out a rough, feeble refusal, “Get your hands off me… Hot…”
Heinrich actually tried to put a long black military jacket on him, in the almost 50 degree heat! Lin Xu was so angry that he slapped the sand hard with his translucent black tail fin.
His consciousness was not very lucid to say the least, his vision was so blurred that he couldn’t even control his actions and was completely overwhelmed by his inhuman instinctive tendency to reach up and climb Heinrich’s leg. Heinrich froze.
It took him a while to react, and he used his arm to vaguely wrap around Lin Xu’s back, carefully avoiding the wound. Lin Xu’s body was riddled with scars, except for the new ones that were recently added and still covered with sand, old scars that fell deep and shallow on the pale skin, and sunburns on both shoulders and cheeks that were red and peeling. And the fishtail…
Heinrich let out a slow breath. The dark fishtail appeared close to two meters, the lines were smooth, cold to the touch scales in the daylight with a metallic sheen, like a knife bush.
But the corrosive venom of the winged insects burned several holes in the fish tail, the scales were corroded and melted, leaving black scorched pits, where the flesh and sinew spasmed and twitched with pain, shrinking and contracting. The scales opened and closed and oozed droplets of blood, but before they hit the ground, they were submerged in the black scales again.
Lin Xu’s autonomous consciousness was almost crushed into the abyss by the impulse, and he murmured confusedly, his desire burning and forcing him to climb up Heinrich’s arm to his shoulder, with some rough and reckless brutality in his movements.
He was still scraping the wound across Heinrich’s mecha combat suit as if he didn’t care at all about his own injury, rubbing away the clotted scab, the blood following the contours of the muscles on his white spine where the fish tail meets the body, hidden from view. But it wasn’t like he couldn’t feel pain.
Heinrich noticed that Lin Xu started shaking again, his whole body was trembling, whimpering in his throat while huffing and puffing, clinging to Heinrich’s spine with such force that Heinrich almost fell down.
Heinrich held Lin Xu’s fishtail and half-kneeled to steady himself, the sweet aroma mixed with the smell of blood bursting upward along with Lin Xu’s movements.
Enveloped in the hot aroma, Heinrich lifted his head back and stretched his neck to lift his face, trying to breathe in some fresh air that wouldn’t make him dizzy, but there was only heat, yellow sand and strong ultraviolet rays on this planet. The air was as hot as a red-hot iron.
Lin Xu unconsciously followed Heinrich’s movements and moved up, as if being close together would give him some sense of security. Only the air around Lin Xu carried some of his coolness, although warm, but did not burn. One can only get addicted. But the pure black smooth fishtail under Heinrich’s hand was rapidly absorbing heat and heating up, and Lin Xu began to sweat, and within a few minutes it seemed to be soaking wet.
Lin Xu could not be allowed to remain in this state. Was a mermaid more prone to dehydration than an ordinary human? Heinrich lowered his head, brushed his palm over the soft fins at the tips of the mermaid’s ears, and caressed the back of Lin Xu’s head, “Lin Xu, let me pick you up, let’s go to the mecha.”
He picked Lin Xu up by the waist, his wide, long, beautiful tail fin almost dragging to the ground. Lin Xu’s ear fins twitched and his whole body suddenly struggled, “No, no…”
Heinrich could barely hold him, “Lin Xu, don’t do this.”
“Don’t go there,” Lin Xu’s arms wrapped around Heinrich’s shoulders, his voice tinged with sobs, “Go to Wind Erosion Rock…”
The gunmetal gray Blizzard stood in a half-kneeling position, silent in the stellar glare, the wind and sand scraping across her burned and mottled steel fuselage. On the other side, ancient rocks were cut into odd shapes by the desert winds, gathering into a strange, primitive hill that whispered and wailed as the sand blew by.
“Wind erosion rocks… Move!”
Lin Xu’s tail twisted and slapped Heinrich’s calf, the soft, silky-looking tailfin slapping against the human body almost like a leather whip with barbs. Heinrich grunted and backed off, “Okay, okay, let’s go to Wind Erosion Rock.”
The star was sinking toward the horizon, night was coming, and it was fine to wait until the temperature inside Blizzard had dropped to the right state. But Lin Xu…
Heinrich stepped toward the windswept rocks with the black-tailed mermaid in his arms, the shadows of the sun cast by the rocks in the Gobi moving at an even pace as the time drew closer to night.
It was the third day since Lin Xu had disappeared from the Silver Fortress. Heinrich wasn’t sure exactly how he had ended up on the planet, but he could confirm that Lin Xu had nothing on him before he disappeared from the surveillance feed. No weapons, no clothes, no food, no drinking water…. Lin Xu was a fish, and he needed water more than the average human.
The planet had a steady stream of Zerg. A few steps short of reaching the wind eroded rock, Heinrich was about to climb up with Lin Xu in his arms and find a shady place to rest temporarily when he was suddenly tugged on his shoulder by Lin Xu.
“Stop…”
“What’s wrong?”
Heinrich noticed that Lin Xu was huffing and puffing and shaking even more. He tried to pet Lin Xu’s hair to soothe him, but Lin Xu started to struggle with his tail wagging.
The mermaid in his arms only looked thin and weak, but in reality, his strength was frightening, and his strong, powerful fish tail was covered with steel-like scales, and when he became agitated, he began to hit him with his tail, and Heinrich let Lin Xu break free from his arms without paying attention.
But Lin Xu was not trying to escape from Heinrich’s side, he jumped into the sand and grabbed one of Heinrich’s arms, taking him with him into the sand. Heinrich was inadvertently poured down by the sand again, coughing violently, and Lin Xu came up and held his mouth, pressing Heinrich against the stone wall.
This grotto was better than the previous one, which was dark and narrow, and the two could barely sit up straight. The light fell like stars on Lin Xu’s face, which was hidden in the shadows, illuminating Lin Xu’s face full of sand and sweat, red sunburn and dry, cracked lips.
But the foggy gray pupils carried the coolness of irrationality, like a predator stalking through the snow, and being held in these eyes, Heinrich felt both awestruck and alarmed by the danger that was emanating from every cell in his body. They had never been close to each other in their normal state, as if one of them had to lose consciousness and act out of line in order to penetrate the ice of their divide like a spike.
Before Heinrich could figure out how to apologize and get back on friendly terms, the Zerg came along.
For some reason, Lin Xu’s pupils quivered and his whole body began to tremble, and soon he couldn’t even control the hand covering Heinrich’s mouth, like a boat being tossed in mid-air by the tip of a huge wave. A humming noise came from the desert, it was the Zerg is high frequency vibration wings approaching.
The sound was loud, the sand was howling, and the mecha detection system remotely sent a warning message to Heinrich’s terminal that the A-Class Zerg and the Zerg swarm were approaching.
The air tumbled under the heavy body of the A-Class Zerg, who could be almost a building high, with his wide transparent wings supporting him in the air, and many Zerg crawling on the ground right behind him. All the insect noise seemed to make people’s ears almost ring.
Lin Xu curled up and buried himself in Heinrich’s arms, his head rubbing against the side of Heinrich’s neck, his animal instincts making him tremble with fear in the face of an irresistible crisis, almost to tears.
Human reason and animal nature fought against each other, and what was triggered was a strong rejection of the aftermath of the genetic transplant.
His fever returned, his brain was a mess, his long hair was soaked with sweat and plastered to his cheeks and back, his lips were bitten white, and Lin Xu’s mind was completely invaded by primitive instincts seeking the safety of a powerful gene.
Heinrich cradled the soaked mermaid, and Lin Xu rubbed confusedly against the side of the alpha gland that gave off a faint vetiver smell, as if trying to rub the tip of his nose through this piece of Heinrich’s skin, but huffing and sobbing, afraid to get down.
A multi-legged Zerg crawled over the gap in the wind eroded rock, its sharp, hard insect feet pounding the ground. Heinrich held Lin Xu in his arms, telling him not to shake too much and not to cry out, rather than let Lin Xu hold his neck and bite it.
He looked up at the tiny hairs on the insect’s feet, his heart felt like it was hanging from a knife, and his body was warmed by Lin Xu, soaking his combat suit with sweat and messing up Marshal Chu’s always neat and intact silver hair.
The Zerg have a talent for distinguishing between human genes, but Heinrich and Lin Xu’s genes apparently have abnormal fragments, as long as they were well hidden, did not make a sound, and did not display an attack posture, the Zerg would not rush up to attack a dragon and a mermaid.
While the two men had an army of marching Zerg above their heads, the grotto was so quiet that they could hear every rub of Lin Xu’s long hair on their skin and the draw of air in their throats.
Heinrich didn’t know exactly what the sweet scent from Lin Xu was, but his own pheromone was triggered by the smell, and the two became inextricably entwined, sweet with a bitter mellowness of herbs. The violence of death and lust fermented together.
…
After an unknown period of time, this wave of Zerg transit ended, the stars were sinking, and the sky was divided into half orange and half deep blue.
Lin Xu was not shaking as much, his long hair was soaked and stuck to his back in locks. He took small breaths, his fishtail left traces of water stains on the sand and on Heinrich’s body.
Heinrich maintained his chin resting soothingly on the top of Lin Xu’s head and asked, “I’ll carry you out and up to Blizzard.”
Lin Xu curled up in Heinrich’s arms and gave a muffled response, his throat as dry as a charcoal fire, barely able to make a sound. After confirming this, Heinrich smashed his fist through the rocks above his head and carried Lin Xu out of the windswept rock mountain.
The star had completely sunk beneath the deep blue, the night sky blooming with bright stars, three moons of varying sizes casting their cool glow down.
Under the Battle of Marquee, the silhouettes turned inky blue, the blazing wind of the day quickly cooled down, Lin Xu’s fishtail scales became cold, and the droplets oozing out between the scales even began to crystallize into ice slag. He wagged his tail uncomfortably and hugged Heinrich tightly. The cold wind blew away the sweet scent and dry heat, and Heinrich calmly quickened his pace.
When Blizzard’s frosty fuselage opened, they entered the cockpit, Heinrich closed the hatch and turned on the heat. The cooling system was out of order, but the heat was barely working.
Lin Xu was placed in his right-hand pilot seat, and as Heinrich was about to go for something, Lin Xu grabbed his wrist in a death grip. Thinking Lin Xu was afraid, Heinrich whispered, “Right away, soon.”
Lin Xu, half-lidded and seemingly unconscious, reluctantly let go of his grip as Heinrich persuaded him to do so. Heinrich went around to the back of the reserve room to get nutrients, medical supplies, wet towels and water.
He fed the nutrients and water to Lin Xu and began to clean the dust and wounds on Lin Xu’s body with wet towels and alcohol pads. Heinrich’s face was always cold when he worked, and it still was, but his movements were gentle.
The tip of Lin Xu’s tail would curl and roll from the pain as the alcohol wipes touched the out-turned flesh, scraping across Heinrich’s ankle as he kept tugging on the corner of Heinrich’s shirt to pull the man toward him.
After a while in the confined cockpit, the sweet smell began to permeate again, and Lin Xu leaned back in his chair, lips pursed in a way that made him want to do whatever he wanted.
Heinrich averted his eyes. Everything in the grotto was out of place enough… He was a little overwhelmed.
The simple medical treatment progressed up Lin Xu’s fishtail. The fish scales were so hard that unlike the upper half of Lin Xu’s body where the skin would be cut by sand, the only thing that needed to be treated on the tail were the scales corroded by Zerg’s venom.
Heinrich looked at the unfamiliar fish tail and was silent for a while, taking out the tweezers and preparing to pull out the scales that had been corroded into the flesh before applying the medicine.
He picked up the tweezers with some hesitation, but quickly pulled off the scales after clamping them in place. Lin Xu’s half-closed eyes snapped open at the pain, and the fish’s tail struggled wildly under Heinrich’s hand. Heinrich tried to hold him down, “Don’t move! I’ll be done with you soon.”
Lin Xu didn’t listen to Heinrich’s words at all, his hands scratched at Heinrich’s body, but luckily he didn’t extend his claws, otherwise Heinrich’s combat suit would have been torn into pieces by now.
Looking at the wound that had just been treated and started bleeding again, Heinrich sank his face and sent a command to the AI, and the robot arm then handed him two semi-circular rings with electric arcs. Lin Xu didn’t realize what was going to happen next and was leaning into Heinrich. The strong magnetic arc flashed with crackling sparks.
Until Heinrich pulled his shoulders away and the strong magnetic handcuffs secured each of Lin Xu’s wrists to the back of the chair. Lin Xu whimpered incredulously.
He raised his wrists with difficulty, and the handcuffs, which were attached to the metal, were surprisingly lifted a little, and the current used to create the magnetism leaked and ran down Lin Xu’s wrists. The whole fish shivered with electricity.
Heinrich’s face changed, he didn’t expect Lin Xu’s strength to almost break free from the strong magnetic handcuffs, urgently fished out the medical kit of injections, gave Lin Xu two tranquilizers, and added a shot of painkiller.
Lin Xu’s fierce movements slowed, his muscles gradually lost strength, and he could only stare at Heinrich with foggy gray eyes. Heinrich said in a deep voice, “I’m sorry.”
Then he went back to work on the injuries on the fish’s tail, waiting for him to finish pulling the scales, applying repair gel to all the wounds, and finally starting to wipe Lin Xu’s tail clean with a wet towel.
The temperature in the cockpit was moderate enough that Lin Xu wasn’t sweating anymore, but the tail was still dripping. Heinrich cleaned the tail by checking the condition of the scales one by one, starting from the tip of the tail and working his way up. The strange sensation made Lin Xu squirm uneasily.
The scales themselves felt nothing, but when they lifted, a pulling sensation was felt, and the air lifted through the scales to the exposed skin tissue, which was cold and itchy.
Nearing the end, Heinrich was struck by a moment, his normally cold countenance cracking. His cleaning proceeded to the front side of the fish’s tail, near the waist and belly, a layer of finer, smoother scales that could be plucked away, covering the place where the flowing water came from…
A flash of light color in the darkness made Heinrich withdraw his hand like an electric shock, blood rushed to his brain, stood up and subconsciously tried to push away some distance, but was caught by the translucent black crystal tail fins curled around his ankles.
The strong fish tail was now soft and boneless, and the smell of retention was greater than the resistance.
Heinrich looked over at Lin Xu, the sunburn on his shoulder and cheek a patch of redness, but blood was also coming through under his untanned skin, and he opened his mouth and exhaled hot breath slowly and raggedly. His ribs rose and fell as he breathed, the fine scales opening and closing with the rise and fall.
In the night, the soft petals of the red Chinese roses were not rounded at the edges like the roses, they curl up at the edges as they bloom, folding out at the sharp corners as the nightingale falls and wings away, the condensed dew dripping down the corners as the petals tremble.
Heinrich realized that Lin Xu’s current condition was not madness at all. He was…
The author has something to say.
It’s a mouthful.
Understand?
I’ll write… I’ll write it so that I don’t have to, um.
Professor Lin’s consciousness is now confused, the stimulation is relatively large, controlled by instinct, after a while, he’ll wake up.
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