The strange and chaotic day finally came to an end with a deep, peaceful sleep.
Normally, Li Leyou shouldn’t have been able to sleep so soundly in such an unfamiliar place.
But the bed in the guest room was simply too comfortable.
The mattress supported her body perfectly. The blanket was as light as a cloud, barely weighing on her at all, yet incredibly cozy. She wasn’t too hot or too cold.
And the pillow…
She had never slept on a pillow this comfortable in her entire life.
She even started wondering whether she could somehow take the pillow with her if she ever had to leave.
She hadn’t completely closed the balcony door, and the faint sound of waves outside served as the most natural white noise imaginable.
All of it lulled her into a wonderfully deep sleep.
The next morning, Grandma Su Wei prepared breakfast for her.
The legendary Laoumu was still nowhere to be seen.
So that morning, Li Leyou helped Grandma Su Wei tidy up the castle garden.
She pushed out an automatic pruning machine that had been covered in dust, followed the instructions to start it, adjusted the settings, and then watched it go to work.
Grandma Su Wei stood nearby holding a long hose and said happily, “It’s such a relief to have you here. The gardener used to operate this machine, but I can’t understand all those complicated instructions. The words in the manual are so tiny, too.”
“After the gardener stopped coming, all the flowers and trees in the garden nearly grew wild.”
“You young people really do learn quickly. You only have to look at something once to know how to use it. I’m getting old, so I can’t figure out these machines anymore.”
Li Leyou suddenly felt like she had gone back to her grandparents’ house during vacation, where she would help them adjust the television, radio, or phone volume and receive endless praise for it.
“Grandma, is there anything else I can help with? Does this whole area need watering? I can do it.”
She took the hose from Grandma Su Wei.
Grandma Su Wei handed it over and rubbed her lower back.
“There used to be an irrigation system here too, but I don’t know how it broke last time. It stopped watering automatically, so whenever I have time, I bring over a hose and water everything myself.”
Then why doesn’t she call someone to repair it?
Li Leyou wondered.
Could it be because Mr. Laoumu doesn’t want outsiders coming here again?
He’s really that reclusive?
She dragged the hose around the garden, chatting with Grandma Su Wei as the pruning machine hummed nearby.
Cold droplets of water sprayed from the hose under the sunlight, scattering across the emerald-green leaves.
As Li Leyou walked around the statue in the center of the garden, watering the flowerbeds, she suddenly noticed something.
The statue was of a beautiful male mermaid.
Its long, elegant tail curved gracefully behind it. The sculptor had carved the face with incredible detail—even the long eyelashes were clearly defined.
Its lowered face gave the statue a melancholy, tranquil expression.
“This mermaid statue is beautiful.”
“Yes. It’s a famous sculpture by the master sculptor Viman. He modeled it after Mr. Laoumu’s mermaid form. It’s said to be about seventy percent accurate.”
“Ah… what?”
Mr. Laoumu’s mermaid form?
Grandma Su Wei’s next words completely shattered what remained of Li Leyou’s already fragile worldview.
The legendary Mr. Laoumu was a mermaid.
Yes.
A real mermaid—the kind that existed only in fantasy stories in Li Leyou’s world.
They had fish tails but could transform them into human legs. They possessed beautiful appearances, special abilities, and extremely long lifespans.
According to legend, mermaids originally lived in the ocean and rarely interacted with humans.
Laoumu was the first mermaid to voluntarily enter human society.
He led his people into the human world and helped the mermaid race integrate into human society, eventually making them a well-known new species.
“Mr. Laoumu really is an extraordinary person. Many years ago, when he first came onto land, mermaids were constantly coveted and persecuted by humans. Using his abilities and charisma, he fought for a voice and position in human society.”
“He even witnessed the birth and transformation of this country…”
Grandma Su Wei continued praising Laoumu enthusiastically.
But not all of her words made it into Li Leyou’s mind.
She stood there holding the hose in a daze.
Only three words kept echoing inside her head:
Mermaids.
Mom.
This isn’t just outside the country.
I’m not even on Earth anymore!
Knowing that Mr. Laoumu was actually a mermaid didn’t change Li Leyou’s current situation in the slightest.
After a brief period of shock, she returned to her hard work.
For the entire day, she helped Grandma Su Wei clean the garden and tidy up the castle.
Although the place looked magnificent from the outside, it was actually like an old machine.
Many of its gears had stopped working, so cleaning and organizing everything was surprisingly exhausting.
On her second day at the giant seaside mansion, Li Leyou got to eat a lobster as big as her arm.
The enormous lobster that had been sent here with her—the same one that had proudly waved its claws at her—had now become her meal.
“These weren’t sent by Anla for Mr. Laoumu? Is it really okay for me to eat them?”
Li Leyou said this while already cracking open the lobster’s claws and eagerly sucking out the meat.
The fresh, sweet, springy flavor was so delicious that it made her forget all her exhaustion in an instant.
“Hahaha, eat as much as you want. It’s fine. Mr. Laoumu isn’t in good health and doesn’t eat much anymore. It would only go to waste if nobody ate it.”
And so, Li Leyou spent two glorious days feasting on seafood.
On the morning of the third day, Li Leyou stood on the balcony stretching toward the sea.
Then she spotted a familiar aircraft landing on the platform.
Her recruiter—
No, wait.
Anla was here.
Oh no, oh no.
She had been employed for three days and hadn’t even met her boss yet.
She hurried downstairs and saw Anla’s back disappearing down the staircase leading to the lower levels of the castle.
The lower half of the castle was submerged in the sea.
According to Grandma Su Wei, Laoumu spent most of his time down there.
Li Leyou had never gone anywhere near it.
“Laoumu! How are you? Still alive?”
Anla walked down the stairs.
When his shoes gradually entered the water, he stopped.
The area beneath the castle had been opened up into a vast chamber connected directly to the ocean.
Three sides were made entirely of transparent glass.
The first time Anla had visited, he had joked that the place looked like a giant aquarium.
At this moment, beside the enormous glass enclosure, a mermaid was reclining on a glass platform shaped like a coral reef.
His long fish tail was immersed in the seawater, gently swaying with the waves.
Under the refraction of the glass and sunlight, the dark blue-green gradient of his tail shimmered with an enchanting peacock-blue glow.
He also had blue-green hair, though compared with Anla’s, his was much darker, almost ink-blue.
The mermaid rested his forehead against the glass, quietly gazing out at the ocean.
Even when Anla arrived and started making noise, he didn’t turn around.
Anla sat down on the stairs and called out again.
“Hey, Laoumu! If you’re not dead, at least make a sound!”
The head resting against the glass moved slightly.
Finally, Laoumu turned to look at his annoying younger brother.
“If you want to die, come a little closer. I’ll tear you apart and feed you to the sharks. Then you’ll get to die before me. How about that?”
Laoumu said it in the calmest voice possible, despite the vicious threat.
Anla gave an awkward smile.
“You really should let your devoted fans see what you’re actually like. Then they wouldn’t believe all those reports claiming you’re kind and friendly.”
Before Laoumu could turn away again, Anla quickly added,
“Did you see the person I brought over two days ago?”
Laoumu’s expression didn’t change at all.
But somehow, Anla understood what he meant.
He clicked his tongue.
“You didn’t see her? She looks exactly like your old lover. What was her name again? Right—Liuliu.”
“You didn’t even bother looking at her. I thought seeing her might at least make you a little happier.”
At the very least, he had hoped she could stir some emotion in Laoumu instead of watching him calmly wait for death like this.
Ever since they had left the ocean and come to land, Laoumu had done countless things to help his people adapt to their new home and live peacefully in human society.
Perhaps he had pretended for too long.
Over time, he had become increasingly unfamiliar.
Sometimes, even Anla could barely remember what Laoumu had been like back when they lived together in the Coral Sea.
“Go take a look at her,” Anla urged.
“I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Didn’t you miss her terribly? You even had someone paint a portrait of her and kept it as a treasured possession…”
Laoumu’s fish tail slowly swayed through the water.
“She isn’t here.”
His voice was quiet.
“Her remains are in our homeland, the Coral Sea. She is resting inside the giant clam shell I chose for her, waiting for me to return.”
……
Anla had arrived in a hurry, and he left just as quickly.
Li Leyou secretly watched from behind the staircase railing and only noticed that his expression looked rather grim.
But whether Anla was in a good mood or not had nothing to do with her.
The moment she saw the aircraft leave, Li Leyou almost cheered.
Yes! The HR is gone!
This intern has survived another day!
Having survived yet another crisis, she was in such a good mood that she treated herself to another huge seafood dinner that night.
Unfortunately, the consequences came before bedtime.
Her leg suddenly began hurting terribly.
Holding her leg, Li Leyou wondered,
Could I have eaten too much seafood these past two days and developed gout?
Grandma Su Wei was old and went to bed early.
By this time, she was already asleep, and every light in the castle had been turned off.
The entire place was pitch-black.
Li Leyou searched through the cabinets in the kitchen and living room for a medicine box, hoping to find some painkillers.
As she passed the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows in the hall, she casually glanced outside.
Something flashed across the surface of the water.
A fish tail.
Huh? What was that?
Li Leyou moved closer to the window.
Under the lights from the castle garden, she once again caught sight of a strange fish tail gliding across the ocean.
She couldn’t see it clearly, but Li Leyou was almost certain it was a mermaid.
Because above the tail…
There seemed to be a human-shaped body!
Her curiosity about seeing a real mythical creature completely overwhelmed the pain in her leg.
She stayed by the window and secretly watched for a long time.
Although all she managed to see was a blurry fish tail, Li Leyou was still amazed.
It’s really a mermaid!
Eventually, the sea became completely still again.
Li Leyou took her medicine and a glass of water back to her room, unconsciously humming a song.
“Legend says you were willing to be stranded for love,
And I could dive into the sea for you…”
The song was called “Mermaid,” which felt particularly fitting for the situation.
Her friends always told her that she was hopelessly tone-deaf.
According to them, when she sang, she completely lost her sense of pitch, making everyone listening feel like they were fighting for their lives.
Apparently, in a ten-word line, she could somehow sing all ten words off-key.
But Li Leyou personally thought she sounded pretty good.
Especially in such a spacious place—
She even had natural reverb!
She quietly hummed her way back to her room.
Perhaps she thought she was being very quiet.
What she didn’t know was that mermaids had exceptionally sensitive hearing.
They could hear sounds from several kilometers—or even dozens of kilometers—away beneath the ocean.
So the moment her singing reached the water, the mermaid beneath the sea surfaced.
Laoumu heard a familiar song from a distant memory.
A song that should never have appeared at a time like this.
It sounded almost like a dream before death.
Like a lover who had long since died reaching out her hand and inviting him to leave this world with her.
But why?
Why wasn’t the song coming from the depths of the ocean?
Why wasn’t it coming from his homeland, the Coral Sea?
Why was it coming from inside the castle?
Laoumu’s fish tail transformed into human legs.
His entire body soaked with seawater, he stepped onto the dry staircase.