The Fallen Merman

Bai Chunian was too busy with his own affair and had no time to placate this bullied fish ball in front of the president. Even he himself was a bit scared standing in front of the president, let alone an experimental subject still in the cultivation stage.

“You probably don’t know your mistake well enough.” Yan Yi’s eyes were cold but stern, “As my subordinate, illegally helping with exams, illegally forming teams in exams, injecting Accelerant hallucinogen to a cultivation stage experimental subject, and finally, you even set your scores to a record high, getting everyone’s attention. You really know how to find trouble ah.” 

“It’s just average. Anyway, the front page headlines should be ours this week.” Bai Chunian replied in a whisper, “Besides, helping with the exams is also helping your son with his exams.”

“Shut up.” President Yan rubbed his painful throbbing temples, “Lu Yan has been spoiled by Lu Shangjin to the point of lawlessness. I will bring up a different way to deal with him.”

“We received news that there was a serious accident in this ATWL exam.” Yan Yi took a gulp of water, “The questions have been tampered with. It’s said that a crawler omega did it by stealing a large amount of the 109 Research Institute’s experimental data, then hacked into the ATWL exam system and planted the tampering program a second before the exam started, mixing the 109 Research Institute’s experimental data and the exam questions together chaotically. We haven’t found any trace of him yet, and we’re not sure what he’s up to.”

“Crawler omega… What is it?”

Crawler was a well-known term used in the Internet field regarding techniques for crawling data. It didn’t refer to a particular creature.

“It’s a programming gland.” Yan Yi replied in addition, “An inanimate gland type, artificially implanting a quark microchip in a cell, awakening and differentiating it through programming. It’s classified as an artificial gland. The crawler omega’s ability can be regarded as a top-level hacker.”

“There’s something a lot more troublesome than this.” Yan Yi continued, “The 109 Research Institute transferred the data backup and destroyed the database immediately after discovering the data leak. However, in the process, a lot of data disappeared completely, along with several special warfare experiments subjects stored in the 109 Research Institute.”

“It should all be because of that crawler omega messing around in secret.” Yan Yi said, “The 109 Research Institute wouldn’t dare to go against me openly. But a large number of their special warfare experimental subjects going missing is never a good thing for us either. We have numerous spies and agents spread out in various regions, and we are vulnerable to these experimental subjects.” 

“So I contacted the PBB base and asked them to send special forces to clear out and recover the experimental subjects. In the meantime, you and your fish should stop going out and causing trouble.”

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The agents in the Alliance building were all talking about the fact that the president’s favourite and most valued confidant had been put in solitary confinement. They heard that he was being watched in 72-hour shifts to write self-criticisms and that he had been subjected to occasional bouts of bright light, splashing water, and oxygen being pumped out of the confinement room, using torture and interrogation on this little white lion who didn’t know the complexity of things.

Three days later, Bai Chunian came out of the confinement cell, holding a pile of finished self-criticism, a full 20,000 words. By the end of writing, he was so sleepy and nauseous that his handwriting turned into indecipherable squiggles. 

Before coming out, Bai Chunian looked at himself in front of the dirty sink mirror in the confinement cell. The dark circles under his eyes were nearly drooping over his face, his untrimmed stubble stuck messily on his chin, and his face was sallow and haggard.

On his way towards the president’s office, some omega agents rubbed shoulders with him as they walked past, greeting him in the process.

“Chu-ge is out.”

Bai Chunian was muddleheaded, “En, I abide by the law. I’m a good citizen.” 

“Chu-ge has worked hard. Come to my place for a drink later? I’ll give you a welcome dinner. ”

Bai Chunian: “There are millions of paths, safety comes first. Drinking and driving, making your loved ones cry.”

“Chu-ge, Chu-ge Chu-ge, let me see how well you wrote your self-criticism!”

Bai Chunian: “I didn’t fucking write till death. Go away.” 

Bai Chunian couldn’t remember how he walked into the president’s office. How he put the self-criticism on his desk. How he wandered back to his downtown flat after the president nodded his head, and then fell headfirst into his bed without getting up again.

So much so that he didn’t notice an oversized glass fish tank filled with water on the other side of the bed. Rimbaud was sleeping underneath in it and only swam up to peek out when he heard movement.

Bai Chunian lay sleeping on his stomach, his face haggard and pale. Rimbaud crawled to the edge of the bed and gently stretched out his fingertips to trace the alpha’s narrow, straight nose and tugged at his eyelashes.

Rimbaud glanced up at the bedroom chandelier and snapped his fingers to cut off the electricity. The bedroom turned pitch black all of a sudden. 

“En…” Rimbaud stirred the glass fish tank with the tip of his tail. The bubbles in the water that appeared as he stirred turned into fluorescent blue jellyfishes. The jellyfishes gathered and floated in the fish tank, transformed into blue nightlights, warmly rendering a deep-sea colour in the bedroom.

Rimbaud crawled over to Bai Chunian’s side, releasing gentle musk rose pheromones around him. He circled the alpha with his arms and tail and slept in a protective position beside Bai Chunian.

Bai Chunian hadn’t slept for five days in a row. He was already in a state of severe sleep deprivation and almost fainted. It wasn’t until the morning of the third day that he woke up, his body aching, and his eyes were so swollen that he couldn’t open them.

As he laid in bed drowsily, a foul smell entered his nostrils. Bai Chunian woke up suddenly and crawled up in one breath: “Did I leave the gas on?” 

Without even bothering to pull on his shoes, he ran into the kitchen. To his surprise, he saw a merman there, with a patch on the gland at the back of his neck. It looked like the suppressor had been removed.

Rimbaud, with a blue polka dot apron strapped to his body, sat on the stovetop with his tail curled around the pan. He was frying toast on pure electricity conducted by the iron material.

There was a pile of ash on a tray in his hand. The slices of bread charred from the excessive electricity had been carefully piled into a heart shape by Rimbaud.

There was also a lot of charred food in the kitchen that he couldn’t see the original shape, but had been forcibly piled into the shape of a heart to make a forced table of love for breakfast. 

Bai Chunian thought of many words of encouragement but could only manage to squeeze the phrase eco-friendly energy out of his teeth. He walked over, took the apron off Rimbaud, hung it on himself, washed the pan, dried it, added oil, and cracked two eggs into it.

The alpha hadn’t been awake for long. His hair was unkempt as if it was fried. He wore only a tight black vest and baggy shorts, standing quietly in front of the stovetop flipping the omelette.

Rimbaud sat on the counter next to him, silently looking down at his two long, slender calves. The exposed skin was white because he’d worn combat gears for so long on missions.

Bai Chunian fried the eggs and topped them with Flavorful Seasoning. He put them on a plate and pushed them to Rimbaud: “Just make do with this, I’m not much of a cook either.” 

Rimbaud held the plate of fried eggs with a twinkle in his blue eyes before stuffing the plate into his mouth and eating it. He carefully put away the fried eggs, framed them in plastic wrap, and stuck them on his fish tank as a decoration.

Bai Chunian: “I can only tolerate it until it spoils.”

After breakfast, Rimbaud left the kitchen by electromagnetic levitation, went to the wardrobe, and pulled out a police uniform.

Bai Chunian: “?” 

Rimbaud held out a note from the pocket of his police uniform for him to read. Bai Chunian took and scanned through it. It was the president’s handwriting.

“I’ve arranged a position for Rimbaud at the Alliance Police Department to help him get familiar with human environments. His salary will be paid on time, and your living expenses are also included in this. After all, your half-year bonus is deducted, you’ll have nothing to eat. You better do some housework when you’re staying at home so you won’t look too useless. (Left by Yan Yi)”

“… Still so fussy.” Bai Chunian rubbed his nose and looked up to see that Rimbaud had already put his police uniform on neatly. The outfit was a short black sleeve and short leather vest tailored to his particular body type, worn over the moisturizing bandages wrapped around the upper half of his body.

“The collar’s too open, others can see your chest when they look down (with bandages in the way)… and your abs too.” Bai Chunian took a cigarette and looked down to tighten the tie for Rimbaud, “I really don’t know what kind of job you can do.” 

Rimbaud sat at the table and looked down at the alpha’s lowered eyelashes. A few tiny veins crept over the thin layers of the eyelids and stacked up like peach blossom petals when raised upwards. The long, bony, well-defined fingers expertly twisted and knotted the tie.

Rimbaud suddenly curled his lips and raised his hand to loosen the tie, revealing a pectoral muscle and collarbone tightly outlined by the moisturizing bandages.

Many living creatures had an instinct for beauty, and he wanted to see the action he had just witnessed again.

Author’s Note: 

Thanks for subscribing to the original! Love everyone muah!

It’s normal for everyone to have different perceptions of characters, so it doesn’t matter if you like them or hate them. I’m happy that some readers like the characters, but I don’t need to try to convince other readers to accept my own views. Also, when I create a character’s behaviour, I think about their behaviour according to the environment they grew up in. The character’s personality will not be disregarded because they are likeable this way or that way. Moreover, every character will grow gradually along the story’s development. I don’t like to create a character in a superficial and one-sided way, so please continue to read happily (≧ω≦). I’m really happy to write and post a chapter every day and wait for people’s speculations and comments on the plot and characters. Be happy when you read the work ♡