Li Leyou sat aboard the emergency airship that had been dispatched at short notice, watching the castle below, its lights already glowing, slowly shrink into the distance.
She had also arrived by airship only a few days ago, yet her emotions were completely different this time.
Sitting by the window with her forehead resting against the glass, Li Leyou stared blankly outside. Most of what she could see was the deep-blue ocean stretching endlessly below.
Grandpa He Ping sat across from her. He didn’t know why Mr. Laomu had suddenly changed his plans either, but he had never questioned any decision Laomu made.
“The place we’re going is quite far away. Perhaps you should get some sleep? I can bring you a soft blanket,” He Ping offered.
Li Leyou shook her head sullenly.
He Ping continued trying to comfort her.
“We’re going to a manor in the mountains. It’s also one of Mr. Laomu’s properties. Of course, it will belong to you in the future.”
“Su Wei was sent there this morning as well. She’ll continue taking care of you. The scenery there is beautiful, and it’s a very peaceful place to rest and clear your mind.”
It was, however, extremely secluded. In the past, Laomu would only stay there for a few days when he didn’t want to see anyone.
Other than He Ping, even his own people didn’t know about the place.
He had no idea why Laomu had suddenly changed his mind and ordered him to take Li Leyou there.
Li Leyou pressed her lips together without saying anything.
He Ping understood and stopped bothering her.
Just like when she had first arrived in Anla’s cramped little airship, she had faced the unknown future by trying her best to comfort and reassure herself.
This time, faced with Laomu’s unpredictable behavior and his sudden change of plans for no apparent reason, she silently tried to process everything as well.
It was fine.
At least she was still alive.
Everything was fine.
In fact, things were much better than they had been a few days ago. What did she have to be unhappy about?
But she still felt angry and wronged for no particular reason.
She was going to start hating Laomu!
The airship gradually moved farther from the ocean. Below them, the deep-blue water gave way to gently rolling mountains.
The sky darkened completely.
Had the merfolk already returned to the sea by now?
Li Leyou could almost still hear the sound of waves in her ears.
A small airship suddenly approached them.
Li Leyou recognized it immediately.
It was Anla’s airship.
He was only arriving now?
Wasn’t that a little too late?
He was even late to the funeral.
What terrible sense of time.
Just because he was Laomu’s younger brother, she would forgive him too—
No.
She would hate him along with Laomu.
Anla noticed them as well, and Li Leyou felt as though he had spotted her.
Suddenly, his airship accelerated toward them and made a dangerous landing directly on top of their larger airship.
A moment later, the top hatch opened.
Anla, dressed in combat gear, jumped down from above, his boots landing heavily on the floor.
“What happened to her?”
The moment he arrived, he pointed at Li Leyou.
“Shouldn’t she be at the castle right now?”
He Ping answered, “I’m not entirely sure what happened either. But I was simply following Mr. Laomu’s instructions and taking Miss Li Leyou to another location.”
Anla rubbed his head and clicked his tongue several times.
“That idiot Laomu. He’s been smart his entire life, and now he’s suddenly lost his mind.”
He looked at Li Leyou.
“Come with me.”
He Ping immediately stood up to block him.
“I’m sorry, but I must strictly follow Mr. Laomu’s orders. I can’t allow you to take Miss Li Leyou away at a time like this.”
Anla didn’t even bother taking him seriously.
When Anla wanted to do something, even Laomu couldn’t control him, much less He Ping.
Still, to make things easier, he turned to Li Leyou.
“What about you? Don’t you want to see a mermaid’s death with your own eyes? I’ll take you there.”
“I’ll go.”
Li Leyou stood up, still burning with anger.
He Ping hurriedly tried to stop her.
“You shouldn’t act impulsively. Mr. Laomu must have had a reason for not wanting you there. He was only doing it for your own good—”
“Grandpa He Ping, thank you. And I’m sorry to trouble you.”
After saying that, Li Leyou lifted her skirt, stepped onto the seat, grabbed Anla’s arm, and let him pull her up onto the roof of the airship.
Laomu might have had his reasons.
But what did that have to do with her?
She needed to let him know that modern college students could be rebellious too!
The airship was still flying when they stepped outside.
Li Leyou nearly got blown away by the wind before Anla grabbed her and shoved her into his smaller airship.
Holding down her windblown skirt, Li Leyou stumbled into the rear passenger seat.
Compared with the clean, luxurious, spacious airship she’d just left, Anla’s little aircraft was a complete mess.
There were even dusty footprints and dried bloodstains on the floor—some of which Li Leyou had secretly wiped there a few days ago.
“Hold on. We’re leaving!”
Anla climbed into the pilot’s seat.
The small airship that had been sitting on top of the larger one suddenly tilted and shot away.
Li Leyou was thrown sideways against her seat.
She could still hear Grandpa He Ping shouting after them.
But his voice quickly disappeared, swallowed by the roar of the airship.
Anla flew the little aircraft like a fighter jet.
He wasn’t interested in a smooth ride.
He only cared about speed.
Li Leyou felt as though she’d been thrown back into those crazy taxi rides in Shancheng when she’d once been racing to catch a high-speed train.
The speed was so intense that she almost felt as though her soul was being left behind.
Because they were traveling so quickly, the ocean soon appeared before them again.
Compared with when she’d left, the waves were now enormous.
Dark storm clouds covered the sky, hanging so low they seemed close enough to touch.
Farther out, flashes of lightning flickered through the clouds.
They passed the castle, but Anla didn’t stop.
Instead, he continued toward the storm-covered stretch of ocean.
Li Leyou silently grumbled to herself.
What the heck?
Apparently I don’t actually have to swim there! We can just fly over!
Then why did they exclude me? Is it discrimination because I don’t have a tail?
Thunder crashed outside.
Lightning struck terrifyingly close.
Li Leyou shuddered and grabbed the leather seat cover tightly.
Okay.
Maybe it really was a little scary.
What if the airship got struck by lightning?
The aircraft descended lower.
A sudden splash sounded below.
A fish tail broke through the surface.
Li Leyou’s eyes immediately lit up.
She leaned toward the window—the same window she’d instinctively moved away from because of the lightning.
But as she watched excitedly, one brightly colored fish tail after another emerged from the water, followed by beautiful faces.
They were Laomu and Anla’s fellow merfolk.
But Laomu was nowhere among them.
“Anla, why are you so late? Laomu is already gone.”
Haixia was floating among the waves.
The airship had descended to only a few meters above the water. When Haixia noticed Li Leyou inside, she looked surprised.
“Didn’t Laomu have someone send her away? Why did you bring her back?”
Anla snorted.
“She has to be here.”
At first, Anla had only wanted to bring the experimental subject here to provoke Laomu. He couldn’t stand watching Laomu act like a dead man, so he thought bringing her here might stir something in him.
But he never expected the normally intelligent Laomu to actually lose his mind.
He had truly mistaken this experimental subject for his long-dead lover.
He hadn’t even bothered investigating her origins and had instead devoted himself to arranging her future.
For the past few days, Anla had been busy interrogating the researchers and inspecting what remained of their laboratory.
When he returned, he learned that Laomu intended to leave all his assets to the experimental subject Anla had sent him—and that he had even been calling her by the name of his former lover.
It was so absurdly foolish that Anla almost wanted to laugh.
The worthless assets were one thing.
But had Laomu never considered what this experimental subject represented?
M089 was the only successful experimental subject—a being created by combining human and merfolk genes.
To make the experiment succeed, those humans had even secretly entered that forbidden deep-sea ruin.
It was an absolute desecration.
M089 could not be allowed to live.
Otherwise, experiments involving merfolk would never stop. Instead, the discovery of this possibility would only fuel even more twisted and ruthless human desires.
Anla believed that Laomu was smart enough to understand this.
Yet Laomu had still chosen to send her away.
His emotions had clouded his judgment.
Anla, however, wouldn’t make the same mistake.
From the very beginning, he had never intended to let this experimental subject live.
And now that he knew her existence was connected to the forbidden deep-sea ruins, he was even more determined that she could not survive.
Her best fate was to sink into the deep sea together with Laomu.
“Hmph. Laomu cares so much about her. How could he possibly leave her out of something this important?”
Anla looked at the other merfolk.
Haixia sensed the danger in his voice and flicked her tail uneasily.
“What are you planning to do? If you do something against Laomu’s wishes, he’ll be angry.”
Anla laughed.
“So what if he’s angry?”
Laomu was already dead.
He could no longer summon a giant wave and send Anla flying more than ten meters into the air just because he was angry.
He couldn’t knock Anla’s teeth out anymore, either.
As his biological brother, Anla could sense the unmistakable scent of a merfolk’s death spreading through the ocean.
A merfolk’s final death came incredibly quickly.
The scent of rapid decomposition mixed with the salty smell of seawater, sinking deeper and deeper into the ocean.
His brother, who had suffered for so many years, had finally returned to the embrace of the deep.
He no longer had to repeatedly chew over and revisit the emotions he’d learned from the human world.
“Hey, did you hear that?”
Anla suddenly draped an arm over Li Leyou’s shoulders.
“Laomu’s body is sinking.”
“He cared about you so much. Why don’t you go down there and keep him company?”
Li Leyou had still been desperately searching the surface for Laomu.
At those words, she turned to Anla.
“Huh? What do you mean? Are you telling me to be buried with Laomu?”
“You understood perfectly.”
Anla kept one hand on her shoulder and snapped his fingers with a grin.
A storm suddenly erupted across the ocean.
The people around them shoved Li Leyou forward.
Splash!
She plunged headfirst into the storm-tossed sea.
The waves suddenly surged higher, and muddy seawater crashed over the entire airship.
Anla, clinging to the airship’s door, was drenched from head to toe.
He casually spat out a mouthful of seawater and watched as Li Leyou was swept away by the waves.
Water rushed into her ears.
Every sound became muffled, as though separated from her by a thick membrane.
Her body was tossed around by the raging waves.
It felt as though she were a little rubber duck being thrown around inside a washing machine.
Everything was chaotic.
Upside down.
The icy seawater rapidly drained the warmth from her body, while its salty, fishy smell rushed into her mouth as she tried to scream.
She choked.
She couldn’t breathe.
She desperately flailed her arms and legs, trying to find the right swimming position amid the monstrous waves.
But every wave grew higher than the last.
They roared like an enraged beast.
Lightning became more frequent, striking the surface of the sea and colliding with the towering waves.
Li Leyou felt that she probably wasn’t going to make it.
Her entire body began to go numb.
Hallucinations started appearing in her mind.
Someone was singing.
The voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away.
Someone else was speaking, but the words were indistinct.
“I cannot change fate,
because I cannot resist fate.
I cannot resist fate,
because fate is what brought you to me…”
Her white dress drifted through the seawater.
Amid the thunder and crashing waves, the flash of white suddenly disappeared.
And at that very moment, when she was hovering on the brink of death, a terrible pain suddenly tore through her body.
The pain overwhelmed the suffocating sensation.
Li Leyou, who had been on the verge of losing consciousness, suddenly opened her eyes underwater.
She curled up in agony.
Then, in front of her eyes, a golden fish tail and fins drifted past.
What the hell is that…?
She grabbed at her dress, which was floating around her in the water.
Then she saw it.
A dazzling golden fish tail was attached to her waist.
She reached out and touched it.
Scales.
They were growing directly from her body.
Around her waist.
Across her abdomen.
And the fish tail—
That enormous fish tail—
was also growing from her own body.
Where are my legs?
Did they turn into a fish tail?
I…
Am I a golden arowana?!