The Little Merman mischievously sprayed Hao Ren's face with water—boiling water.
Hao Ren immediately leaped up with an "Ow!" Fortunately, his face had become quite sturdy after all the enhancements. Aside from being startled and feeling a little scalded, he hadn't been disfigured by the splash of boiling water. He held the pot lid and stared blankly at the Little Merman swimming around in the pot, feeling as if his brain had stopped working. It took him several seconds to realize that the egg had hatched: Lily had boiled it for ages, and it had actually hatched!
Life forms from another world really were different from those on Earth.
Lily curiously leaned over for a look, and her eyes immediately went a little vacant. Using husky logic, she thought for a long while before reaching a conclusion: "Oh, looks like it can't be eaten anymore..."
The Little Merman didn't understand what Lily and Hao Ren were saying. She merely gazed curiously at the world outside the pot—which, at the moment, consisted of nothing more than a ceiling and two enormous faces. She was a pink, pretty little thing, with a striking pale-red tail and light-brown hair. Her eyes were especially large, brimming with cleverness and curiosity. Hao Ren didn't know whether all members of the Mermaid Race were like this, but after hatching from the egg, this little one had immediately possessed an appearance almost that of an adult. Her body had merely been scaled down proportionally to half a foot in length. Shrinking Nangong May's mermaid form down to this size would probably have given people much the same impression. The little one floated belly-up in the water. After a while, perhaps feeling bored, she suddenly exerted herself and leaped out of the pot... straight toward the gas burner!