“For putting you to sleep, I’d say I’m quite experienced.”
Li Leyou had already experienced that firsthand. She still had no idea what strange spell he had murmured, but the moment he started talking, she had fallen asleep almost instantly.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m going to sleep now. Good night, good night.”
She pulled the blanket over herself, wrapping herself from head to toe. Then, beneath the covers, she strained her ears to listen for any movement in the room.
Very soft footsteps approached.
The mattress sank slightly beside her as he sat down. A hand rested on the blanket over her shoulder.
Li Leyou held her breath and remained completely still. When she heard nothing else, she wondered what he was doing.
Could he actually be planning to sit by her bed and watch over her until she fell asleep?
Luo Mu leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on top of the blanket.
Not long afterward, Li Leyou felt the hand on her blanket withdraw. The footsteps moved toward the balcony and soon disappeared.
She waited a little longer before finally pulling the blanket down from her head.
The mermaid was really gone.
Tonight, he hadn’t sat beside her, held her hand, and whispered strange things to her until she fell asleep.
Yet the sound of the waves outside, which had felt like soothing white noise over the past few nights, suddenly seemed much louder.
The sixth day since she arrived in this world.
Li Leyou discovered a secluded little stone platform behind the castle.
Half of it was covered by climbing roses, which bloomed in glorious profusion, their flowers fading from soft pink to white.
She dragged a lounge chair there and settled down for an afternoon nap.
She hadn’t slept well the previous night. Even after making sure the mermaid had really left, she had stared at the ceiling for a long time before finally falling asleep.
She suspected she was simply lonely after going several days without touching her phone.
Once her safety was no longer an immediate concern, all sorts of other problems began surfacing. The more she thought about them at night, the harder it became to sleep.
Now, listening to the waves crashing against the rocks and shore and breathing in the faint fragrance of roses carried by the wind, she slept deeply and peacefully for a long afternoon nap.
There was only one problem.
When she woke up, there was someone beside her.
Luo Mu, who was always elegant and composed during the day, was sitting on the ground beside her lounge chair. His head was tilted against her lap, and one of his hands rested over the back of hers.
He seemed to be fast asleep.
His eyes were closed, and his dark blue-green hair was slightly messy, flattened beneath his cheek.
Once Li Leyou realized what was happening, she didn’t dare move.
She slowly and stiffly lay back down.
Did this mermaid randomly respawn beside her every time he fell asleep?
And wasn’t it daytime?!
She stared blankly into the distance for a while before accidentally glancing down again—and nearly jumped out of her skin.
At some point, Luo Mu had opened his eyes.
He was staring directly at her.
His eyes, shaded from the sunlight, were a deep, almost blackish green. They reminded her of algae drifting in the still waters of a quiet lake, or perhaps a crystal called a “Green Phantom.”
Staring into those eyes for too long gave her the strange sensation of being pulled underwater, surrounded by cold, weightless seawater.
His long lashes lowered slightly, softening the depth in his eyes.
Luo Mu spoke gently.
“I want to hear you sing.”
What was this supposed to be now?
“Me? You want me to sing for you?”
Li Leyou didn’t think she was that bad at singing, but her friends had certainly disagreed whenever they heard her.
Singing alone for fun was one thing. Being asked to perform in front of someone suddenly made her nervous.
“I haven’t heard you sing in a very long time.”
That single melancholy sentence was enough to make Li Leyou surrender.
What a siren.
If he spoke to other people in that tone, she suspected no one would be able to refuse him—even if he asked them to hand over all their money.
There had to be something mixed into that voice.
“Then I’ll sing a couple of lines?”
Singing in front of a mermaid felt like showing off an axe in front of Lu Ban.
Just as she opened her mouth, she suddenly remembered something and cautiously asked:
“Was I… good at singing before?”
The question was somewhat unnecessary.
Luo Mu’s deceased lover had also been a mermaid. Singing was practically a natural talent for their species. How bad could she possibly have been?
Sure enough, Luo Mu answered without hesitation.
“You were very good. Your voice was unique. No other mermaid in the sea could compare to you.”
Li Leyou was stunned.
That good?
Then how amazing must her singing have been?
Compared to that, her own singing was going to be absolutely devastating.
Would she destroy his beautiful memories of his lover?
But she had already agreed.
And Luo Mu was looking at her expectantly.
So Li Leyou had no choice but to begin.
Her mind was completely blank, like a student who had just sat down for an exam and suddenly forgotten everything she had studied.
The only lyrics she could remember at that moment were from Mermaid.
She had been thinking about that song quite a lot lately.
“I’ll draw a circle on the beach, our own peaceful little world…
As long as you’re by my side, I’ll ignore every rumor and every word…
I’ll turn into a statue and wait for you to appear…
Goodbye… never to meet again…”
Li Leyou couldn’t quite stay on key, but at least she remembered the lyrics perfectly.
Luo Mu simply listened in silence.
He didn’t look horrified or disappointed, which gave Li Leyou enough courage to finish the song.
When she sang the last line, she quickly added:
“Maybe because of certain reasons, I don’t sing as well as I used to. Don’t mind it, okay?”
Luo Mu said, “No. You sounded wonderful. Exactly the same as before.”
Li Leyou nearly laughed.
So all that worrying was for nothing.
Love really was not only blind—it apparently made people deaf, too.
If his former mermaid lover really had sounded exactly like her, then that poor woman must have been considered musically disabled among mermaids.
“I’ve finished singing. Can you sing a couple of lines too?”
Li Leyou asked tentatively.
She was genuinely curious.
Everyone said mermaids had beautiful singing voices, but she’d never actually heard one sing before.
Luo Mu shifted slightly on her lap and took her hand.
Then he opened his mouth.
“Hou wi—for li—a—”
At the very first note, Li Leyou felt as if the top of her skull had been blown away.
The sound didn’t seem to enter through her ears.
It felt as though it seeped through the air itself, entering every pore of her body.
She felt light-headed, almost floating beyond the boundaries of heaven and earth.
He only sang a couple of lines before the rest became nothing but a single lingering note.
How could even one syllable sound this beautiful?!
Was this the natural talent of mermaids?
So this was what people meant by a voice that could linger in the air long after the song ended.
This was what they called the voice of heaven.
Li Leyou remained stunned for a long time.
Only when a huge wave crashed against the stone platform, spraying water almost onto her, did she finally snap out of her daze.
Before Luo Mu began singing, the sea had been calm.
Yet in such a short amount of time, the waves had risen dramatically, almost reaching the castle gardens.
“Why did the waves suddenly get so strong? Is the tide coming in?”
Li Leyou asked foolishly, still unable to recover from the song.
Luo Mu finally lifted his head from her lap.
“My power is dissipating. I can’t completely control it, so it affected the waves. I can only sing this much. Otherwise, the sea will flood the castle.”
Oh!
So this is the legendary special ability of mermaids!
Li Leyou suddenly remembered something from the old books and newspapers she’d read the previous day.
One mermaid had once explained that the name “Luo Mu,” in the mermaid language, meant “the one who stirs the waves.”
His voice could actually move the sea?
That was incredibly cool.
As expected of a fantasy creature like a mermaid!
“You sing beautifully. I was completely mesmerized just now.”
If she hadn’t been worried about being swept away by the waves, she would have asked him to sing again.
“You really liked it?”
“Of course! But what did the lyrics mean?”
“It means, ‘Among the swaying coral, a shimmering golden tail, the heartbeat of the sea…’”
Li Leyou had expected a love song.
Instead, the lyrics were surprisingly simple and wholesome.
Could this be some kind of traditional mermaid folk song?
She imagined little golden fish swimming through colorful coral reefs.
It did sound beautiful.
“Are the lyrics really that short?”
“I can’t remember the rest.”
No wonder he’d spent the latter part of the song humming a single syllable.
So his memory for lyrics wasn’t as good as hers!
The aftereffects of the mermaid’s singing were astonishing.
Even that evening, Li Leyou still felt slightly dizzy from hearing him sing earlier that afternoon.
Before she returned to her room, Luo Mu specifically told her:
“I won’t disturb your sleep tonight. Don’t worry. Go to bed early. Tomorrow will be busy.”
“What are we going to do tomorrow?”
“You’ll know when tomorrow comes.”
Luo Mu took her hand and turned it over.
He lowered his head and placed a gentle kiss against the inside of her wrist.
“Go to sleep. Have a good dream.”
Li Leyou couldn’t ignore the lingering warmth on her wrist.
When she returned to her room, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror beside the door.
Her face was bright red.
She suddenly crouched down where she stood, grabbed her hair, and silently lost her mind.
Ahhh! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!
To the mermaid somewhere in heaven, I’m sorry!
I tried my best to resist, but I couldn’t! I’m still young! I can’t handle this kind of temptation!
Seriously, who could resist this?!
The mermaid’s singing was so beautiful that Li Leyou even dreamed about it.
In her dream, she saw colorful coral reefs and transformed into a tiny fish herself, swimming happily through them, free and carefree.
Remembering that Luo Mu had said he would be busy the next day, Li Leyou got up early.
But apparently, she still wasn’t early enough.
When she reached the staircase leading to the main hall, she stopped dead.
The once-empty hall had completely changed.
It was packed with people.
Or rather—
mermaids.
They all had blue-green hair like Anla, though the exact shades varied.
Li Leyou froze at the top of the stairs, suddenly unsure whether she should go down.
The mermaids who had originally been facing away from her gradually turned around.
One beautiful face.
Then another.
Two.
Three.
Dozens upon dozens of equally beautiful faces.
These mermaids were dressed elegantly, wearing beautiful clothes and exquisite jewelry, as though they had gathered for a grand banquet.
Standing together, they were almost dazzling to look at.
What is this, some kind of supermodel convention?
As Li Leyou hesitantly descended the stairs, more and more mermaids noticed her and turned their eyes toward her.
They had beautiful human forms, but when they gathered together like this, the clearest word that came to Li Leyou’s mind was:
School.
Yes.
A huge, orderly school of fish in the ocean.
They looked at her differently from how they looked at one another.
It was the way large fish looked at a small fish.
That strange sensation made Li Leyou stop hesitantly on the stairs once again.
Then Luo Mu appeared from among the crowd surrounding him.
He walked to the foot of the stairs and held out his hand toward her.
“Come. I’ll introduce you to my people.”
“They’ve all gathered here today to see me return to the deep sea.”
The gazes of the mermaids made Li Leyou’s skin crawl.
She hurried down the last few steps and placed her hand in his palm.
But when she heard his final words, she froze.
“Return to the deep sea?”
Of course, she knew what that meant.
For a mermaid, returning to the deep sea meant death.
But was the ceremony really happening today?
Did they hold funerals for people while they were still alive?
“Yes,” Luo Mu said calmly.
“My return to the deep sea is today.”