The Fallen Merman

Between the two different languages, even if translated word by word, the emotions conveyed through the same word could be completely different.

After Rimbaud finished speaking, he affectionately nuzzled the tip of his nose against the tip of the alpha’s nose. However, Bai Chunian’s eyes darkened. He pushed Rimbaud’s face away and buried his head in the crook of his arms. His heart ached. 

Rimbaud was driven away, so he froze in surprise and stopped releasing soothing pheromones.

In the damp and dark abandoned factory building, the fragrance gradually disappeared. The restlessness in the alpha’s body that had just been suppressed by the inhibitor boiled again, and the scalding heat that leaked from every blood vessel made Bai Chunian miserable.

With trembling fingertips, he pulled out the car key from his pocket. The car lights lit up, the doors unlocked, and he threw the key to Rimbaud, urging impatiently, “You drive. Let’s go.”

Rimbaud frowned, took the car keys from his hand, grabbed Bai Chunian’s collar and dragged him to the front of the car. “Are you…sick?”

Bai Chunian grabbed Rimbaud’s slender bandaged wrist and pried it off his collar. “Yes I am. Can’t you see that I’m in a rut? You can make me feel better by staying away from me.”

Rimbaud stared at him in astonishment.

“What is that expression supposed to mean? As if I wronged you. I have always done what you want but how do you treat me?”

“Like that time you said you only attempted to kill me in order to send me out.” Bai Chunian’s index finger hooked onto his collar and pulled it down, revealing the scar left by the severe infection for Rimbaud to see. “You lied to me. If that’s the case, how come you would avoid looking at this? You’re not telling the truth at all. So why the heck did you do it?” 

An alpha in their rut had a tough time controlling their sensitive emotions. He pinned Rimbaud down and trapped his hands behind him. “I know you are the king of your clan, but so what? Do you think you’re so invincible? I don’t want to hurt you but that doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Rimbaud was restrained on the ground, his hands folded on his back. The alpha’s firm and powerful hands gripped his bones and joints with a clanging sound. His tail wriggled and struggled on the floor. The slender tip of his electrified tail lashed against the nearby iron frame and the alpha’s broad back. Red whipping marks were imprinted on Bai Chunian’s fair scapular skin.

Crack! Rimbaud’s shoulder made a fleeting crisp sound. His joints were wrenched until it was dislocated by the alpha in his rut, who didn’t consider the strength of his hands.

He screamed sharply, fighting hard. He overturned Bai Chunian from on top of his body and flung Bai Chunian into a wall three meters away with his fish tail. Bai Chunian’s back was harshly slammed against the wall. He supported himself using the wall with one hand and touched his face. 

The dislocated right arm hung limply by his side. Rimbaud didn’t know how to set his bones, so he awkwardly raised his left hand and tried to adjust his right arm back to its original position, but what he got in return was only severe pain. He slumped on the floor in a daze and didn’t know what to do next.

Bai Chunian stood against the wall, gritted his teeth, and stared at the distracted omega sitting on the ground.

Breathing could be heard in the silent abandoned factory building, and the sound of exhaling was particularly clear.

Qlat j rwjii mijcx rbecv, j gbecv yijmx qfjgi klat yief qbijglhfv iluta gbiifv ab Djl Jtecljc’r offa. 

Lf bynlberis vlvc’a kjca ab wbnf, yea tlr tjcv pera gfjmafv bcf rafq jtfjv bo tlr ygjlc. Lf qlmxfv eq atf qfjgi jcv tfiv la lc tlr qjiw. Ktfc tf tfjgv j rfglfr bo mijmxlcu rbecvr.

Bai Chunian pursed his lips and walked over, squatting beside Rimbaud and wiping his face. “You’re always like this, always like this.”

He held down Rimbaud’s dislocated shoulder and proficiently jostled it with force. The bones were nudged back into place. Rimbaud shivered while bracing his shoulder. He shoved Bai Chunian away from him, and his tail switched from blue to red; he was also suppressing his anger.

Bai Chunian lowered his head, crouched down on the ground, collected the pearls one by one, and tucked them in his pockets. 

Suddenly, he noticed something, swiveling sideways to listen.

There seemed to be some almost imperceptible, crackling sounds. His hearing was very keen, so he was certain that there were other people besides them inside this abandoned factory building.

The layout of the abandoned factory was identical to that of the previous seafood factory. It was three stories high; there was an open space between the first and second floor, and there were iron racks nearby which could store goods and allow people to walk.

Bai Chunian reached the iron shelf with light steps and searched silently in the darkness. 

In a mess of empty boxes, he found three bodies. The corpses were still fresh, but their surfaces were burnt and smelled like they had been struck to death by lightning.

Bai Chunian rummaged around them for a while. He detected a constant temperature refrigerator, several ice packs, portable lighting equipment, some anesthetics, hemostatic gauze, and a scalpel.

He once again heard the weak breathing from earlier.

Bai Chunian followed the sound, cautiously walking over. He discovered a tightly bound man on the ground. His mouth was also covered with tape, and he had been injected with anesthesia. His eyes could still move, indicating that the effect of the drug was wearing off. 

Bai Chunian stooped down, tore the tape off the omega’s mouth, exposing a familiar grim face—the one who gave them the final blow before dying in the previous ATWL exam. The greyhound omega Xiao Xun.

Xiao Xun’s body was paralyzed, and he couldn’t even move his fingers. Bai Chunian checked his body and saw that there was an incision on the gland on the back of his neck.

After working in the secret service for so long, he had a good understanding of the market’s criminal behavior. He could guess from this posture that the gland hunters had restrained Xiao Xun and sought to remove his glands to sell them on the black market.

Xiao Xun only displayed his J1 differentiation ability in the exam, but judging from his performance during the exam and his final ranking, his gland might not cease at J1-grade. 

These gland hunters who prepared surgical tools further confirmed Bai Chunian’s guess: only glands above M2 were worthwhile for them to take such a risk to sell.

After about two minutes, the anesthetic effect dissipated slightly.

Bai Chunian patted his face in an attempt to wake him up. “Can you speak?”

Xiao Xun’s tongue was numb, and he answered, garbled, “Thank you.” 

Bai Chunian stood up and glanced down at Rimbaud. He bowed down and held Xiao Xun princess-style, then slowly descended the iron ladder.

Rimbaud calmed down for a while before his tail reverted to blue. When he turned around, he suddenly saw Bai Chunian carrying an omega back from nowhere. His tail was an even deeper shade of red than before. Even the gills hidden by his cheeks turned red from his anger, becoming a red fish.

“Kivi noliya bigi ofhacadpqfjdasndhiqoenfcds (incoherent and untranslatable content)!”

“Ah, what are you saying?” Bai Chunian deliberately shifted Xiao Xun up and even untied the jacket around his waist to drape it over Xiao Xun’s body. 

Xiao Xun broke into a cold sweat. He didn’t want to participate in this war that smelled of gunpowder, but the anesthesia’s effect had not completely passed, preventing his movement.

Rimbaud snatched Xiao Xun from Bai Chunian’s arms, carrying Xiao Xun himself, and glared at Bai Chunian. “Kivi ddhdhdsioajsdpascaociehnfnslkvn (still untranslatable, can be understood as swear words)!”

Rimbaud used the tip of his tail to open the car door and threw Xiao Xun in the back seat. He then pounced on Bai Chunian and raised his fist to strike him.

Bai Chunian caught his left fist but the right one couldn’t be avoided. He was bashed on the chin, beaten to the ground by the mad fish. Rimbaud wrapped his body around the alpha, biting and gnawing at him, almost wanting to tear a piece of flesh off Bai Chunian’s body. 

Bai Chunian was lying on the ground. In fact, he didn’t resist much like a cat willing to show its belly to others. It was only when Rimbaud’s fist would fly askew and his knuckles would pound the concrete that Bai Chunian would catch his fist.

“You’re so strong.” Bai Chunian licked the corners of his lips that were bruised and bleeding, as he smiled lightly.

Rimbaud got tired, laying atop the alpha’s chest and panting. Bai Chunian’s neck and chest were full of green and red marks. The blue fish mark became a mess.

Bai Chunian sat up with Rimbaud in his arms. Holding his hair, he kissed Rimbaud’s hair, then opened the passenger’s door and laid him inside. 

It was quite pathetic to say this, but although he was plastered in bruises, it was better than Rimbaud’s lukewarm and indifferent attitude. He could feel a faint sense of being cared for from these wounds.

He realized he was easily satisfied, and what he wanted wasn’t much.

Bai Chunian sat in the driver’s seat and backed out of the unlit factory building. Rimbaud was still annoyed. He kept silent and curled into a ball on the co-pilot seat and didn’t move.

Xiao Xun sluggishly moved over, sitting in the corner of the back seat. He threw Bai Chunian’s jacket that was swathed around him to the other side of the seat, staying far away from it even though the infused alpha pheromones could assuage his injured body. 

Bai Chunian drove while talking, “You’ve heard a lot of things you shouldn’t have. Whether you are silenced by me or come with me, I definitely won’t let you go home either way.”

Xiao Xun’s indifferent voice was still a little feeble, “Up to you, I don’t have a home anymore.”

Bai Chunian: “What happened?”

Xiao Xun wasn’t very talkative, and he didn’t like to socialize much to begin with, but Bai Chunian had no choice than to get to the bottom of things and roughly sort out the situation. 

After the ATWL exam, Xiao Xun’s status in the family rose slightly higher. Some elders were willing to acknowledge his ability and taught him to run a small, simple family business.

His days were better than before, but the jealous crowd of people increased even further. The madam of the family urgently needed to establish a business connection through marriage, and as an omega, Xiao Xun was naturally brought out as a bargaining chip.

Xiao Xun firmly refused.

He hadn’t graduated from school yet. He aspired to join the army. He didn’t want to be trapped in a rich family’s expensive courtyard as a pitiful canary who served his husband, kids, and in-laws. 

Everyone knew that the Greyhound family valued ​​alphas and scorned omegas. His eldest brother and second eldest brother disliked him since childhood. And following the ATWL exam, Xiao Xun had been regarded as their number one enemy. Behind their family’s back, they cooperated with the gland hunters to organize this kidnapping.

As long as Xiao Xun lost his glands, even his usefulness to bear children for the Greyhound family would be gone. No one would stand up for him, let alone be able to pursue the few alpha young masters that the family appraised as the apples of their eyes.

“Did you kill those few gland hunters just now?” Bai Chunian stared intently at the road ahead and asked him teasingly.

Xiao Xun shook his head, “They brought me there to acquire the gland, but then you two came in. They stopped what they were doing and tried to kill you guys first.” 

“Then?”

“Both of you immortals were fighting, and he…” Xiao Xun looked at Rimbaud, “he suddenly unleashed electricity. Those people were standing on the iron frame so they got electrocuted to death immediately. They strapped me on an insulation board for surgery, so I was fine.”

“Oh, your luck is not bad.” Bai Chunian turned on the communicator and sought out Han Xingqian.

Han Xingqian: “I just detected that your mood swings are extremely violent. Did you go bungee jumping?” 

Bai Chunian: “I’m coming back right now. You’re nagging like a mom. I’ll receive the injection when I return.”

Han Xingqian: “Alright.”

Bai Chunian: “Oh right, Han-ge, I picked up a little stray dog. He’s in my car, and his gland is injured. Have a look.”

“His gland is injured? What’s the degree of injury? The cause?” 

“Ai, I’m driving right now, I’ll let him talk to you.” Bai Chunian took off the communicator and handed it to Xiao Xun.

Xiao Xun held up the device but didn’t know what to say.

A gentle voice came from the headset, “Hello, can you speak?”

Xiao Xun stammered unconsciously, “Mn…can.” 

He heard the scritching sound of a pen writing across the communicator. Han Xingqian inquired, “How did you get wounded? What reactions are you having right now?”

Xiao Xun’s voice was getting softer and softer, “An incision…probably 2 cm long. While trying to extract the gland… It’s bleeding, it hurts, mhm…not that painful.”

“Okay, it doesn’t sound too serious.” Han Xingqian noted down a few details, then patiently explained, “Find a soft, clean cloth and cover the abrasion to stop the bleeding, then relax your body. Don’t you use your gland’s energy to deliberately keep you conscious. In a bit, have Xiao Bai bring you here, I’ll take care of it. You just need to keep the wound clean. No need to panic, the wound isn’t grave.”

“Okay…” Xiao Xun listened earnestly. The alpha’s tone was tender and calm. Perhaps it had something to do with his occupation, but he naturally exuded a kind of soothing ability. 

When the call ended, Bai Chunian stretched out his hand to retrieve his communicator, but Xiao Xun didn’t give it back. Bai Chunian turned around to look at him—he was in a trance while holding the earpiece. It wasn’t until Bai Chunian made a sound to remind him that he regained his senses and returned it to his palm.