The Handsome Merman
Yuqing gazed, a little dazed, at the fantastical blue fishtail. At some point, a gray-blue dolphin had silently swum up in front of her. "Gua~"
"What the heck?!" Startled, Yuqing sprang straight to her feet. The blood rushed downward, and her vision went black. The world spun around her, her balance shifted, and she fell toward the pool. "Ah!"
[Host, careful!]
01010 was so frightened that its code froze for a moment. It instinctively tried to catch her, but it had no physical form and could only watch helplessly as Yuqing fell into the water.
At the last possible moment, the merman resting against the side of the pool moved.
His azure-blue tail swished nimbly through the water, sending a fine spray of pale blue droplets into the air. He thrust out a strong arm, caught her slender waist with precision, and pulled her into his embrace with a little effort.
In her panic, Yuqing instinctively grabbed something with both hands and squeezed twice... It was pretty soft?
"Miss Guide, have you squeezed enough?" A low, husky chuckle came from above her, carrying a hint of casual amusement. Warm breath brushed the top of her head.
Yuqing blinked blankly, then turned to look at what her left hand was squeezing...
One second... two seconds... three seconds...
"S-sorry!" Yuqing's face turned scarlet in an instant. She jerked her left hand away as if she had been shocked.
"It's all right. If you like it, Miss Guide, you can keep touching." The handsome merman looked at the guide's little face, red with embarrassment, and his lips curved upward. A guide this innocent really was a rare sight these days.
"N-no, that's all right." She tried to scramble out of his arms, using both hands and feet. In her haste, her calf brushed against his tail. The cool, slippery scales pressed against her skin, and the strange sensation made her a little reluctant to move away.
"Would you like to touch my tail, Miss Guide?" His arms were suddenly empty, and the faint, sweet scent of Guide Pheromone drifted away with her. Han Yu's blue eyes darkened for a moment, and the tip of his tail curled unconsciously.
He didn't stop her. Instead, he bent his knee slightly and placed his impossibly beautiful tail in front of her. Its scales shimmered like tiny jewels under the light, in unmistakable invitation.
"Gulp." Yuqing swallowed, unable to help herself. He was surprisingly nice. "C-can I?"
[Host, he's a fat sheep! Hurry and fleece him, ahhhh!] 01010 was even more excited than Yuqing. It could sense an extremely rich aroma of Spirit Toxins, even stronger than the toxins in Ers's mental world before.
"A fat sheep? What fat sheep?" Yuqing still hadn't caught on.
[The dolphin in the pool is his Spirit Entity. When a sentinel's contamination level gets too high and reaches the critical point of collapse, the sentinel's body takes on a "beast" form to slow the toxins' erosion.]
[The sentinel in front of you is already on the verge of collapse. His Spirit Toxins are a great tonic!]
[Haven't you noticed he's deliberately tempting you?!]
"Is he?" Maybe he was simply inviting her to touch his tail?
01010: ...
"Meow~" Bai Ze was resting in Yuqing's Mindscape, so it naturally heard the conversation between Yuqing and the system in her mind.
After helping Ers with his mental state last time, its appetite had opened like a floodgate. Its stomach had been growling with hunger for the past two days, and it had long been craving Spirit Toxins. Now that it smelled such a rich aroma, how could it hold back? With a yowl, it forcibly leaped out of Yuqing's sea of consciousness.
"Is this your Spirit Entity, Miss Guide? How cute..."
Before he had finished speaking, an extremely gentle yet powerfully penetrating surge of mental power suddenly struck straight at his sea of consciousness. Han Yu's gaze sharpened, and he instinctively raised a mental barrier to defend himself. But the mental power was as soft as water. It seemed gentle, yet it could slip through any opening. Before he could react, it had slipped through a gap in his barrier, moving with the ease of someone returning home.
The next second, Yuqing's world turned upside down.
Ink-dark waves churned, thick and impenetrable, battering the underwater rock walls covered in jagged cracks. A pungent smell filled the air, and "Yuqing" felt waves of pain through her body, as if countless fine needles were pricking her. Countless broken mental fragments floated on the surface of the sea like glass shattered by a gale. One misstep into the water, and she would be stabbed like a pincushion.
The moment Bai Ze stepped into the Spiritual Sea and smelled the overflowing aroma of toxins, its eyes lit up.
It gave an excited cry and plunged into the black waves, taking great bites of the thick, dark toxins until its cheeks bulged.
"Tongtong, is it really okay for it to eat like that?"
[Host, Bai Ze will stop on its own once it's full. You can use your water ability to nourish this land. Tackling it both ways will be more efficient.]
"Okay, I'll try."
Pale blue mental power with a warm, soft glow flowed from the depths of her consciousness, turning into a gentle stream that slowly spread along the gullies in the Spiritual Sea.
Wherever the water passed, the churning black waves gradually subsided. The residual toxins clinging to the rock walls were gently enveloped and peeled away by the current.
In the real world, Han Yu's entire fish body went rigid in the repair pool.
He remained half-reclined against the pool wall, his azure-blue tail forgotten and still. His silver hair clung wetly to his shoulders and neck, and his blue eyes were wide and full of disbelief.
In the water, the scales at the tip of his tail trembled faintly of their own accord. The pale black markings once hidden between them were losing their dull darkness bit by bit, changing back to a translucent azure blue at an extremely slow pace.
He didn't dare move, and even kept his breathing as light as possible, terrified that the slightest effort would shatter this sudden, beautiful dream.
[Is the little one full?]
Bai Ze gave a babyish burp, wobbled its round belly, and paddled back to Yuqing's little mental figure. It rubbed its head against her, its golden eyes narrowing to slits. It had clearly eaten too much.
"Hey, it's grown horns." Yuqing raised a hand to pet the cat, only to feel something cool and protruding. Looking closely, she saw that the tiny horns that had been hard to spot before had grown a little.
[Once it slowly digests and absorbs the toxins it ate today, it'll be even stronger.]
[All right, that's about enough. Although only thirty percent of the toxins have been cleared, Han Yu's life won't be in danger for the time being.]
Yuqing slowly opened her eyes. The moment she withdrew her mental power, a rush of hurried, chaotic footsteps came from outside. The door was flung open, and Shang Yu, at the front, looked anxious as he roared, "Han Yu, where did the guide go?!"
The sentinels froze, especially Shang Yu, that bristling fox, who was still comically holding his pose from pushing the door open, as if he had turned to stone.
The merman before them had collapsed limply on the floor, the corners of his eyes red, reduced to a flattened fish pancake. The dolphin Spirit Entity in the pool was belly-up, looking utterly blissed out.
Yuqing, on the other hand, had gone from deathly pale to rosy-cheeked, looking for all the world as satisfied as someone who had eaten and drunk her fill.
The water in the repair pool still rippled gently, reflecting the two of them. The atmosphere was a little awkward for a moment...