Chapter 78: Don’t Be Afraid
The flying chair’s soft whirring sound was exceptionally clear in the quiet room. The mechanical finger, which had not turned off its tactile nervous system, was almost completely enveloped by the wet touch.
“Turn around, turn around.” Deng Xi pushed at the man who was staring at him, motionless. His soft, crying voice was anxious and incoherent. “Don’t look.”
Deng Xi’s push was very light. The first time, he didn’t move. The second time, he could feel the silver-tail’s firm body slightly move with the force.
He looked a little unsteady.
Si Jisheng suddenly came back to his senses.
Deng Xi could see with his own eyes that the chest in front of him had heaved deeply once. They were so close, he could even hear the breathing that was at hand.
The cold aura was so strong it was impossible to ignore, not to mention the silver eyes that had him in their sights. Deng Xi felt as if he were completely exposed under the little mute’s gaze, without a single bit of private privacy.
Deng Xi pushed him hard. As his eyelids trembled, tears kept spreading, and the blush on his face also widened bit by bit, from the tips of his ears, to his neck, to the delicate white skin under his thin shirt. His entire body was flushed pink.
He was dying of shame.
“Go out, Little Mute, go out.”
Si Jisheng followed Deng Xi’s force and was forcibly pushed to turn around. With his back to him, his tone did not sound any different, but his voice was becoming hoarser and hoarser. “Put on your clothes yourself.”
“Then, then Little Mute can’t peek.”
“I won’t look.”
On the side of the wall opposite the bed was a cloakroom. At the entrance was a huge, smooth, and clear mirror.
The bed and the mirror were at a diagonal.
Si Jisheng was standing in the middle of them. With a single glance, he could see everything. The little merman in the mirror was slumped on the bed, his head lowered as he looked around, at a loss, not noticing the large mirror in the cloakroom at all.
He had finally found the two small pairs of pants that were hanging on the side of the bed, and he frantically reached out from under the quilt, trying to hook them in.
Because his hands were too short, he could only kneel up and lean over to get them. After he had finally gotten them, he quickly shrank back into the quilt.
But putting on his clothes under the quilt was simply too difficult for the still-unskilled little merman. Deng Xi tried several times, but he couldn’t find the right direction to put them on.
In the end, he couldn’t take it anymore and lifted the quilt.
Si Jisheng instantly closed his eyes, his brow filled with forbearance. The sound of rustling clothes kept sounding from behind him. Every minute, every second of waiting seemed to have become exceptionally long and torturous.
“Alright.”
Deng Xi said in a small voice.
Only then did Si Jisheng open his eyes and turn his head sideways.
Deng Xi had his head lowered and didn’t dare to look at anyone, as if he had done something wrong, guiltily staring at the water stains all over the bed.
The flying chair, which was spraying a water mist, was turned off. Si Jisheng bent down. The flying chair was already filled with water. He activated the drying mechanism that had been specially made for the little merman, and only then did he look at Deng Xi on the bed. “Come down first.”
Deng Xi stammered an agreement and obediently climbed off the bed. He stood barefoot on the carpet, watching at a loss as the little mute folded the wet quilt, put it in a laundry basket, and after setting the program, a robot would come in to take it away and wash it.
There were also a few water droplets on the carpet.
Just a little bit.
Deng Xi put his hands behind his back.
After Si Jisheng had checked and found that it could be air-dried, he no longer bothered with it. While setting the program, he said, “Next time you want to play with water, you can go to the lounge.”
Deng Xi let out a small “hmm.” After he had replied, he realized what was going on. He raised his face and widened his eyes. Just as he was about to ask something, he held it back.
Yes, he just wanted to play with water!
He wasn’t doing anything else!
After Si Jisheng had calmed down, he had thought it through.
A simple little merman would not possibly do anything else, besides turning into a fish tail on the bed and accidentally getting water droplets from his tail on the bed. He would not think of anything else.
Deng Xi breathed a sigh of relief and quickly explained, “I-I was too hot when I woke up. It wasn’t on purpose.”
The little merman’s excuse was extremely clumsy, and his intention to cover up was not too obvious. But under the premise of his rising body temperature these past few days, this clumsiness was also taken as normal.
Si Jisheng replied with a faint sound.
Deng Xi secretly glanced at him and, after discovering that the little mute seemed to have believed him, the panic in his heart slowly subsided. He rubbed his flushed red face and used his palm to cool himself down.
After he had left the bedroom with the little mute, the blush on Deng Xi’s face slowly faded. He bit his lip, thinking of the reproductive chamber that he had been on the verge of seeing, and was a little regretful.
But he no longer planned to look.
Even if he went back home, he wouldn’t secretly look in the shell. Deng Xi never wanted to face the situation from today a second time.
Si Jisheng continued to deal with official business.
Deng Xi felt that it was still a little hot. He poured a cup of ice water and sat on the sofa in front of the French windows, drinking it while looking at his comm.
The room was very quiet, with only the sound of Si Jisheng flipping through documents and signing. He didn’t know how long had passed before Deng Xi suddenly ran to his side. “Can Little Mute watch with me?”
Si Jisheng nodded slightly.
Deng Xi looked around, struggled to drag over a large chair, and sat down beside the little mute.
The blue screen of the comm was clearly displaying Deng Xi at the time of the auction.
Without the military’s suppression, the star network was now filled with all kinds of news about Deng Xi. After watching for a while, Deng Xi would see many of his photos, with unfamiliar characters mixed in with the familiar interstellar language.
It wasn’t until Deng Xi saw the auction video of himself that he had wanted to watch yesterday but had not clicked on.
The moment Deng Xi had opened it, he had been frightened by the sea of people in the video. In his memory, there had clearly been no one at that time.
The scared little merman hugged his comm and sought comfort.
But the armrests between the two chairs were simply too wide. Even if Deng Xi had pushed them together, there was still a long distance between him and the little mute.
Deng Xi jumped off the chair, lowered his eyes to look at the sitting little mute, and curved his eyelids. “Let’s sit together.”
Before Si Jisheng could reply, Deng Xi had already sat down.
The chair was taken by the little mute, so Deng Xi could only sit on the little mute’s lap. He leaned against the broad chest behind him and, still not satisfied, wanted the man to wrap his arms around him.
Si Jisheng’s body stiffened slightly. He restrainedly hugged Deng Xi. “What are you looking at?”
Deng Xi mumbled, “Why are there so many people?”
So many people were looking at him.
The first thing he saw when he clicked on the video was the golden-haired, blue-tailed little merman in the empty pool. The camera slowly pulled back and up.
People.
All people.
A sea of people.
The empty seats in his memory were packed with people. Their faces were blurry, and their figures were bloated. They were squeezed together in the thousands of seats, waving their arms, whispering to each other, and staring straight at him, who was curled up in the pool.
Every blurry face, every pair of human eyes.
They were all looking at him.
But it was clearly not like this.
Just now, Deng Xi had seen this and had not dared to look any further. This time, when he watched it again, he wished he could shrink into the little mute’s embrace.
Because it was too strange.
But Deng Xi was only a little scared. He was different from how he had been at that time. He knew that the little mute was very amazing, and no other human could ever capture him or hurt him again.
He would no longer have to face so many great white sharks by himself.
Deng Xi leaned back and could feel the little mute’s presence. He said in a small voice, “There was no one at that time. There was originally no one.”
He repeated it incoherently.
Si Jisheng explained in a low voice, “These people are all virtual projections. A comm’s video call can let us meet even if we are very far apart. And the existence of holographic glasses can help humans project their own virtual projections and, in a second, reach any place in the world.” He found the holographic glasses by his side and gestured for Deng Xi to look.
Holographic glasses were a necessity for Si Jisheng to have meetings with the leaders of various galaxies.
Deng Xi nodded, half-understanding. “Then these people are not monsters?”
Si Jisheng nodded.
After the short, ten-second video had finished playing, the comment section automatically popped up. Deng Xi couldn’t help but look over.
“Who could bear to hurt such a cute little merman? The star pirates are too despicable!”
“Did any of you see the announcement that the military posted?”
“I saw it. I’m really grateful that the little merman can use his song to cooperate with the experiment and research a new generation of gene-suppressing drugs. The moment I saw the announcement, my tears came out. It’s really not easy for us.”
“When we go berserk, we all lock ourselves at home. Only a small number of aliens hurt humans.”
“Are all the people upstairs aliens? I’m not. Does anyone know how many times the《Alien Convention》has been applied for in these three years? More than forty times, but it’s been rejected by the Interstellar Alliance almost every other month.”
“The military has too many factors to consider. If they really wanted to, the convention would have been announced three years ago. But that would have harmed the safety of us normal humans. Without the guarantee of medicine, no one knows when an alien will go berserk. I’m really grateful to the Marshal, who, as an alien, has never been biased in his orders, and to the little merman who is now willing to stand up.”
“Thank you, little merman! Will Deng Xi see this video? Will he be scared by the video?”
“It’s possible. He probably doesn’t even know about holographic glasses. From the video, the little merman at that time probably didn’t know that there were many people around him watching him.”
“Xixi, when you see this comment, can you turn on the bullet comments and watch the video again?”
This comment was at the top.
“Do you want to turn it on?” Si Jisheng asked. Deng Xi hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded his head.
The moment the bullet comments were turned on.
The originally empty video was instantly filled with words, some gold, some blue. They were so dazzling that Deng Xi’s eyes were almost blurred.
He tried his best to look, to recognize every interstellar word in it, and recited them one by one, “Don’t… be… afraid.”
And also—
“Xixi, don’t be afraid!”
“We’ve blocked them all!”
“What support color does Xixi want?”
“Do you like gold or blue?”
The interaction in the bullet comments made Deng Xi unable to watch the video playing behind him anymore. He curved his eyelids. The little merman was not very clear about what “support color” was.
But which color did he like more?
Deng Xi was conflicted for a moment, then chose the blue that was more like the ocean.
At the very end of the video, the bullet comments filled the entire screen—”Thank you, cute little merman, for coming to our world!”
Deng Xi couldn’t help but curl the corners of his lips. He watched it over and over again. After a long, long time, he suddenly looked at the little mute behind him, his blue eyes sparkling. “Can Little Mute teach me?”
“Teach me how to let them hear the song I recorded.”
