The Fallen Merman

The abandoned factory’s former tranquility was restored after the car left.

The small explosion in the seafood factory attracted media attention. The news spread early in the morning, and reporters arrived at the scene of the accident to report the news first-hand. The employees in the factory were unscathed, but some mercenaries were killed in the explosion. Even so, the goods were undamaged; a cargo ship laden with seafood and canned food left the dock long before the explosion. 

The police set up a cordon around the factory, and many people observing the lively spectacle came to watch. Fortunately, this was not a downtown district, and not many people gathered.

An omega with tousled, black, semi-long, curly hair squeezed past the crowd, he had on a cumbersome outfit with a large hood, holding a small delicate notebook and a voice recorder in his hand.

He ran to an officer who was instructing the police to search and collect evidence, narrowed his eyes then asked with a grin while clutching his notebook, “Sir, do you have any guesses about the murderer who caused the explosion was?”

The officer glanced at him: “Are you a reporter?”

The corners of the omega’s eyes were raised, and when he smiled, his eyes curved into crescents: “No, no, I’m a writer and I’m very curious about this case.”

“Idlers stay away!” Sure enough, the commander drove him away.

The writer was not annoyed either, he headed off in a good-natured manner and wandered around. He picked up a marble from the ground and studied it under the light. The inside of the marble was cloudy and seemed to be of poor quality.

“Ah, I found it.” The writer joyfully held the marble and twirled it, strolled leisurely through the crowd with his hands clasped behind his back, and then entered the abandoned factory building. He walked around the iron rack and found three corpses scorched by electricity on the iron rack. 

“Blech.” He kicked the corpses that were beginning to emit a foul stench, flipped over the iron rack with his right hand, and landed on the ground leisurely and steadily, probing every corner meticulously.

There was a shiny round bead wedged within a crack in the cement floor. The writer foraged using his fingers with his butt raised and sprawled on the ground. After a long time, he pulled out a black pearl with blue polarized light from the clift.

A flat and steady voice sounded from the micro communicator in his ear:

“Domino, have you found anything?” 

The writer grasped a bead in each hand and lifted his eyes to the sunlight to observe: “Ai, you will like it.”

A pure black Bentley slowly pulled over on the side of the road. The writer waved enthusiastically and rushed over, hopped into the co-pilot spot, and fastened the seat belt.

There was an alpha donning an elongated black trench coat in the driver’s seat. His long slender fingers rested on the leather sheath of the steering wheel. On his index finger was a Kashmir sapphire ring. The rich blue color matched perfectly with his superior and delicate temperament.

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The alpha in the black trench coat tapped on the steering wheel with his fingertips and looked ahead: “What’s the other one?”

“This right here is the most powerful. But few people know about it in the circle. Real good quality things are often ignored by businessmen who follow the trend.” The writer’s antennae lightly brushed the marble he picked up. He closed his eyes and replied, “9100, the Divine Envoy. Why didn’t we snatch him when he was at his lowest? Sir, you should reflect on your short-sightedness, haha.”

“Domino.” 

The writer laughed: “Sorry sir, I’m always accidentally telling the truth.”

The alpha’s eyes fell on the car monitor, which displayed the edited footage that was pieced together into a complete video.

The scene depicted a large ecological box. The glass walls of the ecological box were drenched in blood, and the creatures inside were brutally mutilated; one by one falling into a pool of blood.

It could be seen that the two strongest experimental subjects have settled upon a cooperation and stood back to back. In this battle of life and death, it was undoubtedly the biggest advantage to have a reliable teammate. 

The camera zoomed in on the two scarred survivors in the ecological box—Bai Chunian and Rimbaud.

The alpha, who had entered the maturity stage, had obviously protected the omega in its cultivation stage the whole time, and held him in his arms to manage the omega’s situation as fast as possible.

The wounds on Bai Chunian’s body were so dense that it took a while to heal individually, but there were almost no wounds on Rimbaud’s body, and he was well protected from beginning to end.

But just as he was about to leave the ecological box, Rimbaud suddenly turned around, and his sharp claws plummeted downwards, bringing blue light afterimages with them. 

Bai Chunian was already exhausted and approaching his limit, and because Rimbaud was carefully guarded, his current physical strength far exceeded that of the alpha. Bai Chunian had almost reached his most vulnerable state when he was struck in his vitals. A remarkably deep gash was cleaved from his chest to the side of his waist. At that time, his internal organs and intestines were oozing out of the wound and mixed with the dirt on the ground.

There was no sound in the video, and only the alpha could be seen lying on the ground dying, reaching out to Rimbaud desperately, but Rimbaud climbed into the Institute’s transport box without looking back. The researchers applauded for this wonderful duel, congratulating the Institute for harvesting one of the strongest experimental subjects.

Everyone thought that Bai Chunian would also die like the other experimental subjects in the ecological box, but he didn’t. Although he was critically injured, he was still breathing.

It was widely known that the cost of cultivating a capable experimental subject was tremendously lofty, hence why the researchers were reluctant to give up on him so easily. So they stepped in to rescue and stitch him up. 

The Research Institute was most optimistic about Bai Chunian. They did not expect this outcome. If he could be salvaged, the Institute would definitely be willing to pay a hefty price, but the infection was so grave that it even affected his future combat evaluations. That being the case, he was eventually abandoned and sold at a low price to an interested merchant, stranding him to fend off for himself.

The video came from the Institute’s monitoring. The last shot showed Bai Chunian, who was bound by his neck and limbs with iron chains and trapped helplessly in an iron cage. His wounds were still festering. Because the researchers relinquished his medical treatment and let him fight for himself, the wound started to rot, and scavenging maggots squirmed on his stitched infected skin.

Later, it was said that a boxing businessman who went to procure boxers spent less than two hundred dollars to nab Bai Chunian, because recently there had been guests who wanted to watch slaughter performances. This kind of project could only target individuals who were already dead to society, like homeless people. Because Bai Chunian was good-looking, the guests preferred to see him more, which meant they were willing to spend money, believing that it didn’t hurt to pay a higher price.

But nobody expected that the winner of that slaughter performance would be Bai Chunian. 

Although he was terribly wounded, no opponent could kill him.

The boss of the boxing ring was so overjoyed that he used Bai Chunian as a gimmick and threw him into various arenas. The audience’s morbid aesthetic made it so that they liked to watch the pale and feeble beautiful boy contend with the opponent, and the applause made Bai Chunian worth double. In order not to let him die too prematurely, the boss was very willing to spend money on anti-inflammatory treatment for him, and Bai Chunian lived on the limited anti-inflammatory medicine the whole time.

It was at that time that Feiying Group’s Lu Shangjin was invited to attend the banquet. There was a business partner who enjoyed such things and brought him along to appreciate it. Lu Shangjin frowned after witnessing the show, and then opened his mouth wanting to buy Bai Chunian. Those who had precious children at home really couldn’t stomach such a performance.

At first, the boss held onto the cash cow and didn’t want to sell him. Lu Shangjin was annoyed by him, so he purchased him together with the boxing ring and fired the boss. 

In the early morning, the leaves of the maple trees outside the window were swaying, a few sparrows were singing amidst the branches, and the moist air flowed in from the window, which faintly dampened the quilt.

Bai Chunian woke up. The chandelier on the ceiling was not the fat blue fish he had embellished with crystals, but a simple and practical long tube lamp.

He was resting on the hospital bed with a bottle of soothing agent hanging from the IV pole. About a third of it was left.

Bai Chunian sat up and saw that there was no one in the ward, kneaded his aching head, pulled out the infusion needle from the back of his hand, and intended to go to the toilet. 

He patted his pocket, pursed his lips, and turned over his pant pocket to notice that there was nothing but toilet paper in it.

“…Did it fall out?” Bai Chunian recalled the details of last night, but he didn’t remember specifically when he lost the glass ball. He was in a pitiful state and was in his rut the previous night. Thereby, he could have made a mistake.

Before he could exit the room, Han Xingqian came in with the ward round dossier, saw the needle dripping beside the bed, and pushed up his glasses: “Who asked you to pull it out, come back and finish the half empty bottle.”

“No need, I’m fine, I’ll go home.” Bai Chunian said perfunctorily. Just as he opened the door, Rimbaud suddenly appeared hanging upside down from the ceiling. 

There were no railings on either side in the Medical Association’s corridors, and Rimbaud had no place to crawl, so he could only crawl over via the electromagnetic adsorption of the steel pipes in the ceiling.

Rimbaud stopped using his ability and dropped to the floor. He supported his body with his tail and stood in front of Bai Chunian, clutching a thermal bag in his hand.

Bai Chunian’s eyes lit up: “Where have you been?”

Rimbaud raised the thermal package: “Cooking.” 

He wrapped onto the alpha, naturally depending on Bai Chunian to bring him inside the ward. When they reached the bedside, Rimbaud looked up at the remaining third of the soothing agent: “It’s not finished yet.”

Bai Chunian grabbed Han Xingqian and said, “Can’t you see? Put it on me.”

“Oh, I came at a bad time.” Han Xingqian replaced it with a new infusion needle. He slipped on gloves and pulled Bai Chunian’s hand, sterilized it, tied it with a rubber band, inserted the needle, and then picked up the ward round logbook and left.

Bai Chunian stopped him: “Where’s the puppy I brought back?” 

Han Xingqian: “Next door. He’s okay, I’ll go and see him.”

Bai Chunian calmed down: “Lock the door, don’t let him run away. Watch him.”

“Take it easy.” Han Xingqian closed the door when he took off.

Rimbaud sat on the bed and retrieved the lunch box from out of the thermal bag. 

Jellyfish scrambled eggs, jellyfish lean meat porridge, cold jellyfish—every dish had a bluish hue.

Looking at these three otherworldly dishes, Bai Chunian swallowed nervously.

He questioned, “Will you feed me?”

Rimbaud turned his face to one side, with an still angry attitude. 

Bai Chunian rolled his eyes and held a bowl to eat.

It was not unpleasant to consume; the jellyfish itself had no special taste except for the saltiness, and it was crunchy to chew.

Rimbaud gripped the lid of the lunch box and sat with his back to the alpha, unwilling to turn around.

Bai Chunian gently tugged at his shoulder: “I’m receiving an infusion, my hand hurts, can you feed me one bite, just one bite.” 

Rimbaud turned around slowly, awkwardly scooped a piece with a small spoon, and handed it over, spilling half a spoonful and smearing it on Bai Chunian’s mouth.

“You really haven’t served anyone at all…” Bai Chunian picked up the dropped egg and stuffed it into his mouth, skimmed a piece with his spoon, blew it tentatively, and proceeded to feed it to Rimbaud with a steady hand, “Like this, have you learned it now?”

Bai Chunian didn’t want to mention the conflict from last night, and didn’t want to recall the details either. His mind was focused on the meal that Rimbaud fed him.

“I still want to eat.” Bai Chunian looked at his hand holding the spoon and announced. 

Rimbaud handed him the bowl, but he didn’t take it and just opened his mouth. Rimbaud then continued to feed him, finishing all three dishes. Usually, Bai Chunian wouldn’t eat so much.

Rimbaud packed up the empty bowls, turned to put things on the table, and was then hugged by the alpha from behind. The alpha embraced him in his arms, enveloped his arms around his waist without lust, rested his chin on his shoulder, and gently pressed their cheeks together.