The Fallen Merman

The rapid inertia caused by the brakes threw Rimbaud forward. His body curled instinctively into a fish ball to evade danger. The translucent sphere squeezed past the gap between the driver and the co-pilot seats, and fell into Bai Chunian’s arms.

Bai Chunian maneuvered the car with one hand, gradually slowed it down, and wrapped his right hand around the fish ball to keep him from rolling around in the car. 

Once the speed had stabilized, Rimbaud unfurled his body and wrapped his arms around Bai Chunian’s neck.

Bai Chunian’s mind was full of that transparent jelly textured pink hole, and stumbled over his words, “Don’t… don’t you casually show it to others. The front one is not allowed either.”

Rimbaud held his shoulders and looked at him confusedly, “This is the place that connects to the sea, communicates, and is sacred, so I cherish it very much. Are you… disgusted?”

Bai Chunian took a deep breath and exhaled, “I can’t clearly tell you why.”

“Randi is cute.” Rimbaud showed a harmless smile.

Bai Chunian parked the car by an abandoned factory 200 meters from the port’s seafood processing factory. He asked Rimbaud to get out of the car first, sat himself in the driver’s seat, and closed his eyes for a while.

He held the real Ac agent that had been swapped in his pocket and was tempted to immediately give Rimbaud a dose.

However, this thought only momentarily arose for a moment before he snuffed it out. He fished out a tube of inhibitor from the glove compartment, bit open the cap of the syringe needle, and bent his forearm to puncture it into his vein. 

A tingle that rose from his bloodstream made him extra awake. He leaned back against the headrest for a moment, waiting for the agitation stirring within his blood vessels to pass before getting out of the car.

As his susceptibility period approached, his body became incredibly sensitive and even psychologically fragile. Bai Chunian did not like this feeling of being unable to fully control his own body, but he could do nothing about it.

He pushed open the door and saw Rimbaud sitting boredly on the front hood of the car waiting for him; his fishtail curled altogether like a human sitting cross-legged. It was completely dark, there were no streetlights around, and Rimbaud sat hunched over, playing with the lighter he took from his pocket. The lighter was shaped as a skull with its mouth closed; his thumb flipped its closed jaw open, and a green windproof cold flame emerged from the skull’s eyes, reflecting on Rimbaud’s side profile to the point of illumination.

Bai Chunian held the car door and stared at him. He suddenly walked over and retrieved the lighter back from him, then raised one leg to kneel on the front cover of the car, bowed his head, and kissed him. 

The alpha’s breath smelled of his pheromones, the beast gland’s pheromones carried their own irritability and aggression, even the soothing pheromones were also forceful and coercive reassurances. Even if he tried his best to act like a clingy kitten, the nature engraved in his genes could not be changed.

“Don’t… don’t do that.” Bai Chunian held Rimbaud’s face and forced him to kiss himself, “I don’t want to go to jail.”

From Rimbaud’s perspective, the black strands of hair that fell with the alpha’s movements swept the side of his own face, the outline of his brow and eyes deeper in the darkness, and his dark eyelashes were thick and long. He did grow up and had become much better looking than when he was a kid.

Rimbaud was slow to perceive his feeling of loss. 

He reached out, clung to Bai Chunian’s arm that was embracing him, and his sharp claws sank deep into the alpha’s skin.

“You’re always coming down hard on me.” Bai Chunian released the mouth he was kissing; his lips slightly open, licked up the saliva with the faint scent of musk rose from the tip of his canine. He did not move, did not reprimand or even avoid Rimbaud’s harming. His left arm was gouged open with three scratches from Rimbaud’s fingernails which exposed his bone and inner flesh, and then healed as before.

“If it’s only to this extent, you can punish me as you like.” Bai Chunian yanked him off the front hood of the car and held him with one arm as he slowly walked forward, “But don’t be too rough, I’ll get an infection.”

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The Technology Department sent the footage Bai Chunian delivered from his eyeglasses to the top management—Han Xingqian included.

After part of the footage was played, the higher-ups sought Han Xingqian’s opinion, because the mission was initiated by him, and he had the right to speak concerning the follow-up action.

Han Xingqian sat in the conference cushioned chair. He had come from the lab with his white uniform still on, twirling a pen between his fingers, and said after some contemplation, “My opinion is to go directly to the factory, check the seafood storage freezer, and determine the type of experimental subject they intend to inject the Ac agent with, so that we can predict their next move.” 

Bai Chunian, “By my visual estimate, there are many members of the Red-Throated Bird Organization inside the factory; there’s a possibility to be discovered.”

Han Xingqian, ”It doesn’t matter since the agent has been exchanged, there’s no need to be particularly stealthy. Instead, they will think that it is normal to be hindered.”

The Alliance executives accepted Han Xingqian’s suggestion and sent the second phase of the mission titled, ‘Inspection of the factory storage freezer’ to Bai Chunian.

“Got it.” Bai Chunian turned off the communication feed, carried Rimbaud up the elevated path, and entered the seafood factory through the vent. 

This seafood factory had been in the export business for a long time and built up a good reputation for quality. Bai Chunian stood on an elevated platform looking out over the cargo ships at the dock. Employees were already loading goods and going through the storage freezer, if they were to go check the cargo now, they would inevitably be caught.

The Red-Throated Bird Organization took the operation with great importance. In addition to the factory employees, numerous armed mercenaries were placed on patrol to guard various parts of the factory’s interior.

There were three floors in the seafood factory; the first and second floors were remodeled to become a large open space. The middle partition was divided into different functional areas: from the salvage receiving area, cleaning area, processing and curing area, can packing area, all the way to the loading area assembly line operations—three meters from the ground, each floor was installed with iron framed bridges and structures to facilitate quality inspection allowing people to walk on it.

For each interval distance on these iron frames, a group of mercenaries monitored in all directions, and each individual was armed with a weapon. 

Rimbaud quietly surveyed the factory in the gap between the fan blades of the vents, roughly gauging the number of opponents within. He softly said, “Only, seventy or so, mercenaries.”

“But there’s only two of us.” Bai Chunian bit his lip and glanced at Rimbaud’s fishtail, “Well, 1.5.”

“We don’t even have a pistol.” He didn’t apply for firearms for the previous mission, and it was impossible to rush back now to get them.

Bai Chunian roughly scanned the terrain of the factory and drew a few routes in his mind, “Do as I say.” 

Rimbaud climbed down from the elevated platform after Bai Chunian, moved to the edge, and fell directly into the seafood truck waiting to enter the factory, penetrating the large plastic tank full of sea fish.

Bai Chunian nimbly climbed to the top of the mount. He scaled with both hands out of the ventilation window about 10 meters above the ground and gave commands to Rimbaud to move through his communicator.

Rimbaud landed in the seafood container and quickly buried himself with live fish.

Bai Chunian, “How is the situation?” 

Rimbaud, “The fish isn’t really fresh anymore.”

Bai Chunian, “I’m asking about your situation…”

Rimbaud, “Full.”

Bai Chunian, “…” 

Rimbaud hid amongst the saltwater fish and entered the cleaning area, where the water repeatedly rinsed the fish and then sent the cleaned products to the processing and curing area.

The seafood landed on the conveyor belt with a dumping tumble. Rimbaud lay inside, hearing Bai Chunian say, “Ten seconds to the cutting and processing area, stand by.”

Rimbaud silently counted and when the time approached, he cocked his tail tip. A strong current entered the motherboard of the cutting machine, causing a short circuit. The cutter suddenly stopped and sounded its alarm. Rimbaud took the opportunity to drill into the other end of the blade from the gap, climbed down the conveyor belt, and restored the machine’s circuit.

Several factory employees heard the machine alarm. They rushed to check and determined that the machine was working properly again before leaving with relief. 

Rimbaud successfully passed through the processing and curing area, and crawled quickly under the conveyor belt into the canning and packing area.

Bai Chunian had been observing the trajectory of the employees in the packing area, basically confirming the patterns. Thus, he commanded Rimbaud, “Go to the second container on the left in the fourth row; the staff who packed this box will change shifts. The staff who comes to take over should not know how much canned food was packed. You take out the extra cans, go in, and block yourself with the cans.”

Rimbaud did as he was told and got into the container of cans. The opening of the container was then closed, and Rimbaud was pushed onto the docked ship along with the container.

Once inside the cargo ship’s storage freezer, Rimbaud scratched open the container with his fingernails and climbed out, searching for odors at the side of every suspicious freezer. 

He stopped at a water container piled high with ice, which held fresh octopus.

Rimbaud rummaged over the edge of the container, but it was nothing but octopus— obnoxious suckers clinging onto Rimbaud’s arm. He impatiently plucked the stout octopus tentacle off his body.

Bai Chunian avoided patrolling mercenaries and flipped softly from the outside window to the inside of the factory. He saw several invoices placed in the control room from the window, so he planned to reach in and take a look.

“Did you find anything?” Bai Chunian took out his glasses and put them on. He photographed the contents of the invoice file and passed it on to the Technology Department. Meanwhile, he simultaneously paid attention to Rimbaud’s side. 

Rimbaud replied, “There’s a smell. But only, octopus.”

“I got it.” Bai Chunian was well aware of the situation. He then placed the invoices in their original positions. “Come out and meet me, we’ll withdraw.”

“En.”

Bai Chunian flipped back quietly to the ventilation window he had entered through. He walked without making a sound and was extremely good at avoiding obstacles, climbing, and jumping from heights without injury—having all the gifts of a feline gland. 

He silently jumped off the raised platform and approached the dock to meet Rimbaud. Suddenly, a keen sense of danger made him stop and snap back.

A mercenary with a silenced pistol stood a short distance away, gun pointed at his head, sneering and threatening, “Brother, put your hands up and let’s talk.”

Bai Chunian narrowed his eyes and saw the other person’s name tag on his chest: Li Bixi.

There was something particular about that name; Bai Chunian remembered that he was on the list of names retrieved from En Ke’s group of mercenaries in the pyramid cabin. 

He seemed to be a jiangshi tit bird alpha.

“Ai, I’m such a failure that I got caught.” Bai Chunian didn’t have a gun, so he had to do what the mercenary leader said, put his hands up, and walked slowly over to him.

Li Bixi approached with his silenced pistol raised, muzzle against the back of his head, and his left hand fumbled over his body to search him.

“I got goosebumps from an alpha groping me here and there.” 

“Stop talking nons…”

Bai Chunian slightly inclined his head, swiftly bent down, and dodged a bullet that nearly blew out the back of his head. His palms propped up on the ground and he swept his long powerful legs across the air, and knocked the gun out of his hand with one foot.

The silenced pistol spun in the air as it flew up. Li Bixi leapt up and reached out, wanting to catch it, but Bai Chunian flipped and kicked, sweeping him three or four meters away thus catching the pistol with ease.

Bai Chunian picked up the gun, loaded it, aimed then fired in one fluid motion, so fast that his head wasn’t able to keep up with his movements. 

The list recorded the skill names of the members of the Red-Throated Bird, and he vaguely remembered the line for Li Bixi that read, “Jiangshi Tit Bird Alpha, J1 Ability: Damage.”

Damage?

Before he had time to think more about it, the firing of the gun in his hand had been completed a step earlier, the muzzle of the gun was aimed at the center of Li Bixi’s eyebrows, and a burst of gunfire sounded.

Bai Chunian knew that this was not the sound of gunfire with a silencer installed. 

It was a full blast.

Jiangshi Tit gland’s J1 Ability, “Damage”: Allows touched instruments to be quickly consumed to the limit of their useful life.

Bai Chunian saw a cruel sneer on Li Bixi’s face, and the pain then spread from his left hand to his whole body.

He staggered two steps before he could steady his body, which was shuddering from the excruciating pain, as blood and flesh splattered at his feet. 

Bai Chunian’s left arm hung powerlessly. The part below his wrist was blown to pieces, charred shreds of flesh hanging from the bones of his shattered hand.

Hearing the sound of gunfire, a large number of mercenaries rushed out of the factory and surrounded Bai Chunian, with guns pointed at his head.

“… It hurts.” Bai Chunian held up his mangled left arm and slowly straightened himself up, his chest heaving quickly. He tremblingly laughed.

An ordinary person would have already fainted from the pain of having one hand rendered useless by the blast. Looking at Bai Chunian who was darkly smiling in front of him, Li Bixi did not intend to risk capturing him alive and gave the order to shoot him dead immediately. 

The moment he made a shooting gesture, the mercenary’s muzzle pointed at Bai Chunian and pulled the trigger.

Several bullets flew, and upon impact, Bai Chunian’s skull would burst into pieces.

The dock suddenly experienced gigantic waves for no reason, a sinuous ray of lightning rushed out of the water, and in an instant had flown in front of him. A translucent blue charged ball blocked in front of Bai Chunian, the bullet hit the transparent ball created out of dazzling sparks, but could not destroy it.

Rimbaud’s associated ability, Rupert’s Tear—when he entered the state of the self-protecting sphere, no external force could break through the outer walls of the ball. 

The bullets bounced off as far as they could go, and the ball of charged electricity uncoiled its body as Rimbaud landed next to Bai Chunian. The tip of his tail curled around the iron frame to support his body. He coldly gazed at the enemies around him, his fishtail became insanely bloody, turning into an angry blood-red color.

“Merman!” Li Bixi froze, “Where did you guys come from?”

Bai Chunian moved his neck. His pitch-black eyes gradually revealed a gray-blue undertone. His pupils narrowed, like a pair of lion’s stern eyes glaring ahead.

“What’s the point of telling you? You can’t afford to mess with him anyway.” He grinned, his sharp teeth peeking cutely out of his upper lip as he lifted his left arm to his face, the bones growing fast in full view of everyone. Blood and sinew crawled close to the white bone as the skin grew and healed. 

Amidst the shocked and horrified eyes of the crowd, Bai Chunian clenched his left hand and patted the Jiangshi Tit Bird alpha on the shoulder.

“The worst thing that could happen to you is for me to know your name.” Bai Chunian said as he intimately hugged his shoulder, “Li Bixi.”

When his words fell, the Jiangshi Tit Bird alpha suddenly vanished.

And Bai Chunian had an extra marble in his hand.