Chapter 18 p2: Failed Product
Deng Xi didn’t sleep for long.
An hour or two, and he was woken up by an itch.
In his sleep, Deng Xi had unconsciously touched his tail, scratching it lightly with his fingertips. He subconsciously stretched his tail and rubbed it against the uneven surface of the reef.
Si Jisheng noticed Deng Xi’s abnormality immediately.
Deng Xi had only touched it two or three times before he woke up in a daze. He propped himself up, rubbed his eyes, and looked down at his tail. He wanted to scratch it, but Si Jisheng held his hand down.
Deng Xi tried to pull his hand away but couldn’t. He complained pitifully, “It’s so itchy, Little Mute. My tail is itchy.”
Because he had been out of the water for too long, the remaining moisture on Deng Xi’s tail had been dried by the sea breeze and evaporated. The scales on his blue tail had even turned white and transparent, with their tips slightly curled up. The few times he had unconsciously rubbed against the reef in his sleep had even scraped off some scales.
The shedding of a few scales didn’t alert Deng Xi at first. It wasn’t until he moved his tail that he felt a fine pain. “It hurts.”
Deng Xi’s little face scrunched up. He bent down to look, then picked up the few scales that had fallen on the reef with a pained expression and showed them to the silver-tail. He was so upset he was about to cry. “My scales fell off too.”
Will all my scales fall off and I’ll become a very, very ugly merman? Deng Xi was so anxious that his blue eyes filled with tears. He reached for his tail with his other hand, but that was also held down by the silver-tail.
Deng Xi couldn’t pull his hands away and was about to cry. “Itchy, I want to touch.”
“Touch, touch.”
Just as Deng Xi finished speaking, he was lifted into the arms of the silver-tail, who had straightened up from the sea. One arm was around his back, and the other was supporting his tail.
His teary blue eyes widened.
Deng Xi was stunned as Si Jisheng placed him in the sea. The moment his dehydrated tail touched the seawater, it was quickly rehydrated, and the pain and itchiness instantly subsided.
Si Jisheng restrained himself and let go of Deng Xi.
Deng Xi was stunned as he soaked in the seawater, staring blankly at the silver-tail. He didn’t even flick his tail fin. After a long while, he stammered a “thank you” in a very small voice.
The smooth, slippery sensation still lingered on his fingertips.
Si Jisheng’s breathing was a bit messy. He nodded slightly.
Deng Xi had already come to his senses. He reached out and touched his now smooth tail and breathed a sigh of relief. “So I was dehydrated just now?”
Si Jisheng nodded.
Deng Xi guessed, “Did Little Mute want to see what would happen to me if I left the seawater?”
Si Jisheng nodded again.
Deng Xi was troubled. “That was very dangerous just now. We can’t stay out of the water for too long, otherwise our tails will become very fragile, and our scales will fall off with just a touch.”
He had never tried to see how long he could last out of water before.
A hint of apology appeared in Si Jisheng’s eyes.
Even after his Jiaoren transformation, he could still survive out of water without any side effects. But the blue Jiaoren was clearly different from him. The blue Jiaoren had never left the ocean since he was born, so it was naturally difficult for him to adapt at once.
The blue Jiaoren had never experienced the human world. Compared to him, he was much more fragile. Just being out of the seawater for less than three hours would cause severe side effects.
He didn’t know if the symptoms would be relieved after he transformed into human legs. Si Jisheng furrowed his brow. The blue Jiaoren had probably never even seen human legs.
Si Jisheng’s upper body was bare, and his bare silver tail was only wrapped in the Jiaoren’s fins. Without any clothes to cover him, he could only dismiss the thought of turning back into a human.
The frightened Deng Xi was treated to a full meal by the silver-tail, and only then did his eyes curve into a smile again. After returning to the lair, he collapsed tiredly into the old shell.
Deng Xi collected all the scales that had fallen off. He couldn’t bear to throw them away and strung them together with a fishing line he had saved.
The shed scales were transparent, about half a finger long, with a hint of deep blue at the tips that faded to a light blue at the ends. When strung together, they made a particularly beautiful bracelet.
This was also a memento.
To remind Deng Xi that he couldn’t be dehydrated for too long.
A merman’s scales were very precious. They didn’t shed their skin like sea snakes. Every scale on their tail had grown with Deng Xi since he was young. Once they fell off, they were gone, and it was difficult to grow them back.
Deng Xi decided to give this memento to the little mute.
He placed the scale bracelet in the silver-tail’s palm. “Good night, Little Mute.”
Si Jisheng closed his palm, clenching the bracelet. He quietly watched as Deng Xi shrank into the shell opposite him, rubbed his sleepy eyes, then slowly pulled his tail in, and finally closed the shell with a “click.”
Si Jisheng held up the bracelet and looked at it, then turned it around with his fingertips, then held up the conch shell on his neck and looked at it for a long time.
As the Marshal of the Empire, Si Jisheng rarely wore luxurious accessories. To present a perfect public image, his attire was always clean and neat, without any extra embellishments, and he would never allow things like necklaces or bracelets.
The only decorations on his body were the various medals that symbolized the glory of the Empire, his shoulders covered with countless heavy, weighty golden medals.
Si Jisheng untied the fishing line that strung the scales together, then, with some novelty, wrapped it around his wrist. Because it was meant to be a bracelet, the fishing line the blue Jiaoren had chosen was very short. After tying a knot, the scales would press tightly against Si Jisheng’s wrist.
He fiddled with it slightly.
The sensation of touching the blue tail seemed to return to his fingertips.
Si Jisheng took a deep breath and stopped looking at it. Instead, he opened his comm and quickly issued an order, “Bring an empty water tank in the returning starship, at least three meters wide.”
The adjutant quickly replied, “Roger.”
The next second, the adjutant requested a communication. After successfully connecting, the adjutant asked impatiently, “Marshal, when can we send a team to pick you up?”
Just as he finished speaking, the adjutant’s eyes widened in surprise.
Although he knew that their Marshal had fallen into the ocean of some planet, and the background of the previous two communications had been a boundless sea or a pitch-black deep sea.
But now.
The adjutant swallowed, his gaze landing in disbelief on the exquisite, beautiful, and extremely girly pearly white shell behind their Marshal. Then it moved to the conch shell necklace hanging from the Marshal’s neck, and then to the half-exposed wrist when the Marshal was typing.
What was that shiny, blue, transparent thing??? Could it be a bracelet?! Wait, something seemed to have flashed behind the Marshal just now.
The adjutant looked closely and realized that there was a glowing fluorescent jellyfish floating around behind the Marshal.
The adjutant’s pupils quaked.
Where had their Empire’s cold, powerful, taciturn Marshal, who slaughtered Zerg as if entering an uninhabited land, gone???
Si Jisheng coughed lightly.
Although his language system had crashed, Si Jisheng could still make basic coughs and laughs after his rehabilitation.
The adjutant instantly snapped back to his senses.
Si Jisheng silently sent a message, “Did you find it?”
The adjutant shook his head gravely. “No abnormalities have been found yet. After we interrogate the mole, we’ll know if that group of sanctimonious bastards stole the Marshal’s genes and conducted human experiments.”
Si Jisheng sent another message, “Send a starship over after you find out.”
The adjutant was stunned for a moment, then was overjoyed. “To pick you up?! I’ll have the military’s starship set off in secret immediately after the interrogation! Marshal, please remember to keep your comm’s location on at all times, in case we lose your position.”
“Also, are your injuries any better? Do you need a psychologist on the starship? Or are there any supplies you need? Does the planet you’re on have enough energy to replenish? Do we need to bring—”
The adjutant’s voice trailed off as he looked at the new message from the Marshal, his expression stiffening strangely.
“Bring enough water and food, and prepare some more seafood sashimi. Remember to fill the water tank with seawater.” Si Jisheng paused, glanced at the closed, rose-red shell opposite him, and continued to send with a cold expression, “Don’t bring too many people. Prepare a few sets of clean new clothes, two sizes smaller than mine.”
The adjutant: “???”
He looked down at the message, then up at the expressionless Marshal, then down at the message again.
Two sizes smaller?
It couldn’t be for the Marshal himself, so who else could it be for???
That water tank wasn’t for the Jiaoren-transformed Marshal either, could it be… the Marshal was hiding a beauty in the sea???
The adjutant: “Were you saved by someone?”
Si Jisheng gave the adjutant a faint, sideways glance.
The adjutant immediately shut his mouth tightly. It was still the familiar Marshal. His earlier impression must have been a mistake.
After the communication was cut off, the adjutant immediately went to the interrogation. The few researchers from the research institute had already been secretly taken into custody by the military. Although the Empire did not engage in torture and forced confessions, the Empire was still in a period of relying on violent diplomacy. Besides fighting the Zerg, they also had to expand their star territory.
There were no civilized people in the military. If they got rough, the few weak researchers probably wouldn’t last a day before they confessed everything.
At the latest, there would be results by tomorrow night.
At the very least, it would only take one night.
Si Jisheng turned off the comm and lay flat in the shell. His nearly two-meter-long silver tail hung out. Because he couldn’t completely curl up inside, he could only sleep with the shell open.
So the next morning, when Deng Xi opened his shell, he saw the silver-tail sleeping peacefully in the wide-open shell. His sleeping posture was much better than Deng Xi’s. He was lying flat on the seaweed bed, one hand resting casually on his abdomen, the other hanging down.
Deng Xi immediately saw the scale bracelet he had given him last night on that hand. Because mermen spent their years in the dark, sunless seabed, their skin was mostly pale, and the silver-tail was no exception.
The light blue scales made Si Jisheng’s pale wrist, with its visible veins, stand out with a hint of mysterious charm.
It was very beautiful.
Deng Xi lay on the edge of the shell bed, propping his chin on his hands, and fiddled with the scales with his fingertips.
The slight touch instantly woke Si Jisheng up. Acting purely on instinct, he grabbed Deng Xi’s wrist, his silver eyes narrowing dangerously. He pulled him in, and was about to press him down when he met Deng Xi’s clueless eyes.
And in the process, he didn’t know what he had touched, but Si Jisheng’s transparent comm ring suddenly turned on automatically, and a blue screen appeared in the seawater.
Si Jisheng’s silver eyes narrowed slightly.
Deng Xi was no longer afraid of the silver-tail. He didn’t mind that his wrist was being squeezed painfully and greeted him good-naturedly, “Good morning, Little Mute.”
Si Jisheng let go. He paused when he saw the red marks on Deng Xi’s wrist, then glanced at the blue screen that had been accidentally opened and saw the red dot on the adjutant’s message box.
The comm was directly turned off.
He took out the remaining red medicinal grass from when he had treated his injuries before and, without taking no for an answer, had Deng Xi extend his hand. He squeezed out the red juice and gently massaged it in.
The silver-tail’s touch was very light, which made Deng Xi a little itchy. He laughed softly. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt.”
Si Jisheng pressed down hard.
Deng Xi let out a light “hiss” and pouted. “Alright, it’s a little bit.” He held up two fingers and gestured. “But I also woke Little Mute up, so we’re even.”
After applying the medicine, they would normally go hunting together for their first meal of the day. But because there was still some shell meat left from yesterday, Si Jisheng sliced it thinly and gestured for Deng Xi to eat first.
He left the lair and went to the surface of the sea alone.
The sun had not yet risen above the horizon. The sky was a faint, dim white, and the entire sea was still shrouded in the remaining darkness, surprisingly cold.
The comm was turned on, and the blue screen lit up. Si Jisheng opened the message from the adjutant. It was only three short words: “Found it.”
No details were provided.
Only when there was major news, to prevent the data from being stolen, would his confidants not send the results directly, but request a face-to-face meeting.
Si Jisheng entered a special frequency number and dialed. The adjutant had been waiting and quickly connected. His expression was grave. “Marshal, the results of the interrogation are out.”
“A high-level researcher at the research institute was turned by the Council of Elders. Your genes were leaked long ago, and that’s how they were able to develop a way to make you transform into a Jiaoren on the battlefield.”
“And according to that researcher’s confession, they did conduct human experiments and successfully created a Jiaoren using your genes. The research data and materials from that year have all been destroyed.”
Seeing that the Marshal’s expression remained unchanged, still cold, the adjutant dared to brace himself and continue his report. “We could only find out that,”
“that Jiaoren was a failed product of the experiment.”
