The Fallen Merman

When he entered the Ocean Park, Bai Chunian seemingly unintentionally touched the face recognition screen at the entrance after swiping the special ID card made by the technology department, and stuck a transparent circular sheet that was barely the thickness of a cell phone film onto it.

Very quickly, the inside of the black-framed glasses Bai Chunian was wearing inclined to show the images of each tourist who passed the authentication of the face identification. 

The micro image conduction device was patented by Duan Yang of the Alliance’s Technology Department. As long as the micro data reading sheet was stuck to the screen, the data read could be centered on the data reading piece. The image contents were 0.5 square meters in size, and transmitted to the receiving end, such as the lenses of the black-framed student glasses worn by Bai Chunian.

The target of this mission was 109 Institute researcher Chen Yuan. His omega died in a chain car crash many years ago. His child’s lower limbs were also paralyzed as a result. If Chen Yuan took the child to visit the Ocean Park, he would certainly take the accessibility passageway here. Bai Chunian needed to determine when Chen Yuan would enter the Park first.

After adjusting the glasses, Bai Chunian pushed the wheelchair, taking Rimbaud into the arena along with the stream of people.

Next, he must find the Red-Throated Bird organization member who came to trade with him before Chen Yuan did.

The members of the terrorist organization “Red-Throated Bird” were found worldwide. It was said that the Red-Throated Bird was different from other mafias, known for its strict and impartial discipline. Furthermore, they had a huge resource of mercenaries. Their boss’s whereabouts were riddling, strange, and unpredictable. It was circulated in the outside world that the Red-Throated Bird’s boss was a retired military soldier. The specific army unit that they came from still hadn’t reached a final conclusion.

Red-Throated Bird’s business lines were also spread across various industries. Most of the financial routes were wandering in the brisk of the gray area, from small matters like drug trafficking and smuggling, to big matters like mercenaries and mining. The talk of 109 Institute’s special type of combat weapon experimental subjects in the black market year after year have risen dramatically. The Red-Throated Bird had seen the opportunity to take advantage of the fact that the manufacture and sale of experimental subjects hadn’t been banned yet. They wanted to get a piece of the action in the biochemical chaos.

Each member of the Red-Throat Birds would have a neck tattoo of a bird in red, which was relatively easy to distinguish, but also very easy to be obscured. Besides, the stream of people in Ocean Park was crowded, so it was indeed not easy to find someone in the boundless sea of people.

“I reckon the Red-Throated Bird’s person will be very cautious. Let’s go in first and stroll around to avoid making people feel suspicious.” Bai Chunian pushed Rimbaud’s wheelchair along with the tourists, entering the entrance. 

Rimbaud sat comfortably in his wheelchair playing a disabled omega who had lost his legs, covering the lower half of his fishtail with a small brown blanket and wearing a cat paw sweatshirt that Bai Chunian had bought for him on top.

Rimbaud snorted disdainfully at all the other clothes hanging in the store, all except the model wearing a pink cat paw sweatshirt he saw and couldn’t walk away. He pulled the plastic model up from the store and put it on the checkout counter.

The cat paw sweatshirt’s hat had a pink fur ball hanging on each side. Rimbaud liked them very much and kept tugging them in his hand until the sweatshirt’s hat got tighter and tighter and wrapped his entire head inside.

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Inside the thickened ornamental glass, clear and crystalline water gleamed with the reflection of waves in sunlight. Gorgeous multi-colored ocean fish swam in a large crowd overhead. Visitors tsked and sighed, and from time to time children lying on their stomach on the glass looked left and right in surprise and novelty.

When Bai Chunian turned around to receive a performance schedule, Rimbaud vanished, taking his wheelchair along.

“Fuck, where’s my fish.” Bai Chunian glanced around inside while wearing his student school bag on his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly glimpsed Rimbaud lying on his stomach in front of a large scallop and chewing on the glass.

The large scallop under the coral opened its mouth. The soft, tasty, and tender milky white scallop flesh opened and closed inside the shell. Rimbaud clingingly held the glass and gazed at it, unable to take his eyes off. 

Bai Chunian walked to his side and saw Rimbaud’s saliva slobber into a string.

The alpha squatted down and lifted a corner of the blanket to wipe the corner of Rimbaud’s mouth: “Was this necessary? Did I mistreat you at home?”

Rimbaud pointed to the large scallops in the glass: “This…take two.”

Bai Chunian: “? This is the aquatic section of the supermarket?” 

Rimbaud frowned: “Two.”

Bai Chunian: “I’ll buy two catties of scallops for you when we return home. We need a few millions to buy these. These are meant to be looked at, these cannot be eaten.”

Rimbaud gazed at Bai Chunian sympathetically: “No way, no way that you, haven’t eaten it before?”

Bai Chunian: “No, no matter how rich one is, one can’t eat the oceanarium shellfish.” 

Rimbaud’s look toward Bai Chunian became very pitiful, as if the prince of Dubai was looking at the slum child gnawing on dirt cake, sympathetic: “Little poor thing.”

Bai Chunian: “…”

Rimbaud was silently lost in thought and muttered softly, “Take you home…eat fourteen of them every day.”

Bai Chunian leaned over and tucked his blanket. He didn’t know why, but when Rimbaud said “take you home”, his heart was somewhat comfortable. The word “home” was so far away from Bai Chunian that the even pronunciation of the word sounded a little better than other Chinese characters. 

Rimbaud looked at him, and the alpha’s expression looked somewhat deeper than when he arrived, an appearance of having a lot on his mind.

“Randi.” He tugged on the corner of Bai Chunian’s coat. When Bai Chunian collected his thoughts and looked back at him, he tapped the glass gently. His mouth spat out a string of syllables resembling an order.

The tropical fish in the seafloor tunnel suddenly swam disorderly like they were frightened. Very soon, they regained order and concentrated beside Bai Chunian.

The small fish with shiny scales swam with their heads and tails linked and pressed close to Bai Chunian on the glass, arranging into a heart shape. 

Bai Chunian was startled, standing grimly in front of the glass with his hands inserted in his trouser pockets, but he couldn’t hide the faint smile in his eyes.

The tourists gathered over with novelty. But after a brief seven seconds, the heart shapes dissipated and the little fish returned to that state what they were doing just now.

But when he walked to the open viewing area, it was different. Rimbaud’s scent could be transmitted slowly through the water, so much so that whenever he passed, all the fish gathered and bowed their heads to Rimbaud like they were making a pilgrimage.

Rimbaud tried to fish one out from inside to eat, and Bai Chunian quickly pushed Rimbaud away to avoid all the open viewing areas. Fortunately, he had prepared somewhat in advance, tying Rimbaud to his wheelchair beforehand. Rimbaud’s addition made the difficulty of this mission skyrocket. 

Almost finished visiting the seafloor tunnel, Bai Chunian keenly caught a flashing image of a human face in his glasses. He tapped the touch screen button on the frame of his glasses to adjust back to the image he had just seen, and Chen Yuan’s face appeared in the scene.

“Target get.” Bai Chunian pushed Rimbaud’s wheelchair out of the seafloor tunnel and walked towards the performance building. The planned route was already reviewed many times in Bai Chunian’s mind. He was keeping the time in his mind. Just as he pushed his wheelchair to the closest accessible passage, Chen Yuan, a researcher of 109 Institute, walked in while pushing his child’s wheelchair, talking and laughing.

They brushed past each other. Bai Chunian made the key in his bag fall and picked it up with his head down, taking the opportunity to look sideways at the space under Chen Yuan’s child’s wheelchair. A piece of foam slightly shorter and thicker than a pencil was glued to the underside of the wheelchair seat. Looking at the size, it should be the AC enhancer prepared for this transaction.

Rimbaud’s thin tail tip secretly extended out from under the blanket and stuck the tracking microchip under the pedal of the wheelchair. 

Bai Chunian pushed Rimbaud and walked a long way.

Rimbaud was very unhappy because the tip of his tail was stepped on when he was sticking the tracker just now.

“I stepped on you ah.” Bai Chunian picked up the tip of his tail. Sure enough, there was a shoe print on it. He wiped it, blew on it, and rubbed it before coaxing the omega to take back the water in his eyes, regretting it but also wanting to laugh.

He gently lightly touched the glasses frame, and a red dot revealing their traces appeared on the lens, representing the location of Chen Yuan and his child. After all, the child was sitting in a wheelchair, and it was impossible for Chen Yuan to be too far away from the child. 

“Go.” Bai Chunian pushed Rimbaud in the direction of the performance building.

The current mission’s requirements were very demanding. The medicine had to be swapped with a fake without either side of the transaction noticing, so their conduct couldn’t be too impertinent.

According to the performance schedule distributed by the park staff member, there would be a mermaid performance, “Dancing with Sharks”, in the performance building an hour later. Normally, it would be like staff members wearing a fishtail skirt imitation, entering the display tank. Behind the glass, well trained sharks would be swimming and frolicking.

Basically, two omega staff members would be acting as mermaids together everyday here. When the two staff members were about to go into the water and perform, Bai Chunian used the associated ability “Pain Deception” on one of them. 

The omega suddenly covered their stomach. It was so painful that they couldn’t straighten their waist. They whispered a few words to the colleague beside them before hurriedly taking off the swimming goggles and mini ventilator, running to the toilet.

The other omega could only force himself to go into the water on his own and perform solo.

He had observed it many times beforehand. The only place with other display tanks possessing linked ports was the mermaid performance area, which was the only entrance to send Rimbaud into the display tank.

Bai Chunian immediately pushed the wheelchair and turned back. He controlled the strength of the Pain Deception. It was absolutely impossible for the omega to stand and walk to the bathroom. In the location of the surveillance blindspot, Bai Chunian increased the pain’s strength, and the omega hurt so much that they collapsed on the ground. 

He pushed his wheelchair around the surveillance blindspot, strolling calmly and unhurriedly to the side of the omega who was curled up on the ground in pain. He asked him in a gentlemanly manner, “You look like you’re in a lot of pain, what do you need me to do for you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he thoughtfully helped that omega onto the wheelchair, covered them with a blanket, avoided any surveillance direction that could capture the omega’s face as much as possible, pushed them into an accessible toilet cubicle, and locked the door from the inside. His palm suddenly hit the back of their neck, and the omega collapsed into his embrace.

Without any psychological pressure, Bai Chunian took out the prepared blonde wig from under the cushion, covered the fainted omega’s head with it, dressed them in the cat paw sweatshirt Rimbaud had taken off, put the hat up, blanketed them to cover up them a bit and pushed the person out nonchalantly. He strutted under the surveillance while continuing to stroll.

Just like he was still pushing Rimbaud. 

Another staff member who was a mermaid actor jumped in, entering the water. About a few minutes later, biting a ventilator and wearing swimming goggles, Rimbaud also jumped in.

The view in the seawater wasn’t as clear as it was ashore. The field of vision was very narrow, and more so, the two had their faces covered. The omega didn’t discover the one who jumped in wasn’t his colleague right away. He even breathed a sigh of relief, thinking his colleague came back after using the toilet.

Rimbaud didn’t swim downward. A beam was obscuring his position. He swam half a meter downstream before he submerged his entire body in front of the audience.

The omega saw that his partner was slow to come down and turned back to urge him to hurry up. However in the split second he turned back, he felt a sting on his skin. His eyes went black, as if a weak electric current had attacked him. 

After a second or two of his brief absent-mindedness, he saw only a few jellyfish glowing blue floating slowly in the water, not a soul in sight around him.

And in the audience’s perspective, they only saw a blue lightning bolt that snaked swiftly, disappearing in the water.