Hi Master, Little Mermaid Will Support You! 48

Chapter 48

“Wow, roar!”

After 3 hours and 46 minutes, Wen Ming finally connected with MuMu via video call.

“MuMu?”

MuMu waved at the virtual screen: “Awoo!” Master, look, this is Ocean Star!

It spun around, showing Wen Ming the small island it was on and the vast ocean behind it.

The video feed shakily panned across the scenery, but Wen Ming’s gaze was fixed on MuMu, his expression unfocused.

“?!” Is the signal lagging again?

MuMu waved its claws at the screen until Wen Ming blinked, realizing it wasn’t a signal issue.

Then why is Master acting so strangely?

MuMu tilted its head, thinking, then discreetly curled its claws, hiding the webbing between its fingers:

“Woo.” Is my hunting form that scary…?

This was the first time MuMu had consciously shown its Jiao Ren form to Wen Ming.

A Jiao Ren’s hair was coarser than a mermaid’s, making the braids stiff and unnatural.

It tried to smooth the most unruly part of its hair with its claws—

“Snap!”

The hair tie was sliced through by its sharp claws and flew across the beach.

MuMu quickly retracted its claws, no longer daring to touch its hair, its fins drooping dejectedly:

“Gurgle.” I’m not used to my hunting form either, but I don’t know if this island is safe, it’s safer to be a Jiao Ren.

“MuMu,” Wen Ming’s voice was filled with relief, “are you having fun?”

“Awoo!” Ocean Star is beautiful!

MuMu scrolled through its chat log with Wen Ming. There were dozens of unsent pictures before this call.

“Awoo.” I wanted to share them with you, you wouldn’t believe how many colors the coral is!

Wen Ming let out a slow breath: “No signal in the ocean?”

MuMu pointed at its throat and mimed shouting.

“Jiao Ren are jamming the signal?” Wen Ming frowned. “Can you find other Jiao Ren?”

MuMu slapped the ground with its tail: “Mm-hmm!” They’ll hear my sonar and come to take me to the clan.

It opened its waterproof bag and pulled out the bottle of nutritional supplements.

MuMu took one and swallowed it, then shook the bottle in front of the screen, making the pills rattle.

“Hmph.” Only three left! MuMu frantically hinted at Wen Ming: Two pills a day, you should come get me in a day and a half!

Wen Ming watched it quietly, a smile spreading across his face.

“Hee.” You’re smiling?

MuMu grinned, putting away the supplements, and bared its teeth in response.

“…Roar.”

“!” MuMu’s ears twitched like a radar detecting a signal.

It roared in the direction of the sound, heard a response in the distance, and spun around excitedly:

“Roar, roar!” I found them, I’m going to see Mama!

“Go ahead,” Wen Ming said. “Be careful, and contact me if anything happens.”

MuMu’s mind was already in the deep ocean. It nodded quickly and ended the call.

“MuMu.”

Wen Ming stopped it, his voice slightly strained: “Remember to say goodbye to the Jiao Ren.”

You’ll still choose to come back to me after seeing them, right?

“Awoo!”

MuMu eagerly jumped into the ocean. The video feed turned to static, then the signal cut off completely…

A Jiao Ren had responded to MuMu’s sonar.

MuMu followed the signal, swimming into the deep ocean. Seeing another of its kind, tears welled up in its eyes:

“Woo, family!”

The Jiao Ren looked at it strangely: “Who’s your family?”

“I mean, clan brothers.” I’ve gotten used to saying “family” from the livestreams.

MuMu chased its tail, swimming in circles around the Jiao Ren.

In its memory, this gesture signified goodwill among Jiao Ren.

The other Jiao Ren also circled it once, then stopped, noticing the bag slung across MuMu’s shoulder:

“What’s that? What’s inside?”

“It’s for carrying food.” MuMu pulled out a piece of shrimp. “Want some?”

Sharing food, the most sincere gesture of friendship among Jiao Ren.

The Jiao Ren took the shrimp, tasted it, and asked suspiciously:

“Is this shrimp? Why doesn’t it have a shell?”

“It’s been processed by humans.” MuMu smiled. “Isn’t it delicious?”

The Jiao Ren stopped chewing and looked at MuMu’s hairstyle and ear stud with suspicion: “You’ve been interacting with humans?”

MuMu carefully replied: “I was raised as a mermaid by a human for a while.”

“You’re the little Jiao Ren that was captured by humans before?” The Jiao Ren’s tail flicked powerfully. “So you told them you’re a Jiao Ren?”

MuMu tumbled in the current created by its tail: “No! I haven’t even told the human I trust most!”

The Jiao Ren sniffed the water carefully, suspecting that MuMu had brought humans with it:

“Our clan doesn’t welcome Jiao Ren who interact with humans, why are you here?”

MuMu’s expression turned serious, and it carefully pulled a vial from its bag:

“I brought this back.”

The vial contained the powder that had triggered MuMu’s frenzy. The Jiao Ren sniffed at the opening and its eyes widened in shock.

After a long moment, it turned towards the clan’s territory:

“Follow me.”

After ending the call with MuMu, loneliness washed over Wen Ming.

He tried to distract himself by cleaning the messy mermaid room.

Replacing the torn padded walls, draining and cleaning the mermaid pool, discarding the shredded seaweed decorations…

He slowed down when he reached the artificial rock.

MuMu sometimes climbed to the top, hiding things there…

Wen Ming went to the spot where MuMu usually perched and found a small cave in the rock.

If he wasn’t in the pool, this cave would be hidden from his view.

He carefully took out the items hidden inside—

Broken pieces of the home butler’s casing that had been painstakingly pieced back together, a chewed-up toothbrush wrapped in seaweed, shards of the small jar broken by the crab…

All evidence of MuMu’s “demolition projects.”

Wen Ming suddenly remembered something the masked streamer had said during his livestream:

‘Mermaids aren’t intentionally destructive, they’re just not used to human things, sometimes their good intentions cause trouble.’

He could picture the scene: MuMu, feeling guilty after accidentally breaking something, unable to apologize, would hide and clumsily try to fix it.

The little Jiao Ren, raised away from its clan, was walking on eggshells in the human world, trying to make amends even without being reprimanded.

Wen Ming realized once again that he still hadn’t created a truly comfortable environment for MuMu.

He carefully put away the “broken pieces” and noticed a strangely shaped rock.

There seemed to be another opening hidden beneath it.

He reached out…

“Beep!” A call request.

Wen Ming paused and looked at his optical brain: “Marshal?”

“Wen Ming, I searched the military archives for ‘Jiao Ren.’ There are records of past interactions between Jiao Ren and humans.”

The Marshal read from a document:

“Jiao Ren are inherently kind and often used their combat and soothing abilities to help humans, which led to greed.

Someone designed fiber optic nets and captured Jiao Ren en masse, attempting to control and exploit them.”

A sense of foreboding washed over Wen Ming: “What happened to the captured Jiao Ren?”

“They all died in captivity. The remaining Jiao Ren retreated to the depths of Ocean Star, emitting a constant jamming signal to disrupt human detection.”

The Marshal looked up from the document, her voice filled with shock:

“I was wondering why you suspected that lab of experimenting on mermaids, it seems their target is the entire Jiao Ren species!”

Wen Ming suddenly understood, muttering to himself: “So that’s why the Jiao Ren avoid humans.”

Then MuMu, returning there…

“Marshal, I need a warp-capable airship.”

To maintain interstellar stability, warp jumps were strictly regulated.

Private airships couldn’t warp, and larger ships required authorization and a designated time slot.

The Marshal frowned: “Now?”

“Yes, your rank can authorize a warp jump.” Anxiety was evident in Wen Ming’s voice. “Please.”

The Marshal started working on her optical brain: “One moment, I’m requesting authorization…”

“Beep beep!”

Wen Ming’s optical brain flashed a critical red alert, the home butler’s electronic voice crackling through the speaker:

“Alert! Mermaid… physical condition… critical!”

The Marshal continued: “There’s one available in an hour.”

“No need, thank you.”

Wen Ming placed his hand on the floor, energy surging through him like a hurricane: “An airship is too slow…”

The floor beneath him sank, revealing a hidden door leading underground.

“Ding! Authorization confirmed, opening mech bay.”

“This, this is!?”

The Jiao Ren Clan Leader’s body trembled as it held the vial.

MuMu’s fins drooped sadly, and it nodded: “It’s the remains of our clan members.”

The scent of their dead was enough to drive even the most composed Jiao Ren into a frenzy.

After realizing that the powder was extracted from Jiao Ren corpses, MuMu had to come to Ocean Star.

It had to bring them home.

The Clan Leader, a very old Jiao Ren, teared up: “Those Jiao Ren captured by humans…”

Most of the clan had gathered. Some, along with the Clan Leader, had tears in their eyes, while others looked at MuMu with curiosity.

“I’ll bury them, thank you for bringing them back.”

The Clan Leader wiped away its tears and looked at MuMu calmly: “Little Jiao Ren, what reward do you desire?”

“I want to ask, do Jiao Ren have the ability to soothe mental seascapes?”

At those words, the surrounding Jiao Ren’s ears twitched, their expressions wary, as if ready to pounce and demand:

What’s your relationship with humans!?

The Clan Leader raised a hand, calming them, and asked MuMu:

“Why do you ask about soothing?”

MuMu glanced at the surrounding Jiao Ren and swallowed nervously:

These Jiao Ren lived in the deep ocean, hunting and fighting every day, their combat experience maxed out;

MuMu had been pampered in a mermaid pool, occasionally catching a fish in the swimming pool, its most brutal battle being against harsh online comments.

Cowardice was the key to survival!

MuMu carefully replied: “Because I was raised as a mermaid by humans, I have to act the part, not knowing how to soothe would expose me.”

The Clan Leader’s face twitched, seemingly wavering.

“Our clan wouldn’t want me to reveal my Jiao Ren identity either, right?” MuMu pressed. “If I can soothe like a mermaid, the humans won’t suspect me!”

Click to support the “Mermaid Disguise Plan.”

“Indeed, Jiao Ren possess the ability to soothe…” The Clan Leader explained in detail.

A Jiao Ren scraped its claws against a rock impatiently:

“Clan Leader, our rules forbid contact with humans, it’s asking about soothing, clearly it still wants to return to the humans!”

“Yes, what if it goes back and reveals our soothing ability, repeating the tragedy of the past?”

The Clan Leader swished its tail, calming them down.

“Were you really just pretending to be a mermaid in human society?”

The Clan Leader looked down at the vial of powder: “Mermaids are human pets, how could one possibly obtain this?”

MuMu said mysteriously: “To be honest, my identity among humans is ‘Big Streamer.'”

There was no word for “streamer” in the Jiao Ren language.

So MuMu used a phonetic translation.

The “boo” sound created a large bubble, like a potion brewed by a legendary witch, swirling with magic.

“Strea…mer?”

The Jiao Ren, intrigued by the strange word, repeated it, each repetition creating a string of bubbles.

Clan Leader: “What does that mean?”

“It’s a profession. When I start my livestream, thousands of humans are trapped inside, becoming lines of human language called comments.”

The Jiao Ren’s jaws dropped: “Thousands!? What do they do to you?”

“They can’t do anything.”

MuMu boasted: “I’m the only one who can control the livestream, they have to listen to whatever I say, and if they want to talk to me, they have to spend star coins and send gifts!”

In the Jiao Ren’s eyes, MuMu had become the embodiment of a powerful witch.

A young Jiao Ren rushed forward and grabbed MuMu’s wrist, shaking it excitedly: “Big Brother, you’re so amazing!”

The young Jiao Ren couldn’t control its claws, and its sharp nails scratched MuMu’s bag.

“Crack!”

MuMu heard the sound of breaking glass and looked down. There was a tear in its bag, and three nutritional supplements were swept away by the current.

The young Jiao Ren let go of its claws: “Sorry!”

The Clan Leader quickly retrieved the three supplements with its tail and carefully returned them to MuMu: “Keep these safe.”

Could these be poisonous pills that could kill every creature on Ocean Star…?

MuMu, unable to find a container for the supplements, chewed and swallowed two, holding the last one in its hand:

“Would you like one?”

The Clan Leader froze like a dried fish: “No, thank you!”

MuMu swallowed the third pill and patted its belly, muttering to itself:

“Oops, I think I took too much…”

Clan Leader: O.o

There’s definitely something in those pills!

It asked cautiously: “Is this the drug you use to control humans?”

MuMu blinked: “I don’t control them, they obey me willingly.”

It even controls human minds!?