.12 – Wenwen is the person that you’ve been looking for?

translator: xiin

editor: alamerysl

The door slowly opened, and Xue Ling had a cold expression on his face as he looked outside, saying, "Come out then. There’s no point in hiding in the dark."

It was dark outside the car, and there was only a weakly shining street lamp casting down some fractured lighting. A rather slender figure appeared in front of the two. Lou Cen stretched out his hand to push Xue Ling behind him for protection, but Xue Ling slid out from behind the arm that was stuck out in front of him. He opened his mouth to say, "Don’t worry. He doesn’t have any ill intent towards me." Deep-sea merfolk had always been ruled by their bloodlines, and they dedicated themselves to their king. The bloodline in his body was more than enough to make the person in front of him obey him thoroughly as long as he willed it.

“It seems that Your Highness already has some understanding towards us.” When the visitor spoke, his voice carried a trace of amusement, and he stepped out to show his handsome face. He wore a pair of glasses, and looked very refined. When he curved his lips and smiled, that gentle-as-jade feeling made those who were interacting with him unconsciously relax. His body still carried a faint scent of the ocean, it was very light, but Xue Ling could clearly sense it. "This is really great. I thought it would take quite some work to convince you to go back with me."

“I don’t have time to discuss the question of whether or not I will go back with you right now." Xue Ling currently had no strength or time to discuss the matter of his identity with this person who was clearly a deep-sea merperson. He had even less time to explain these messy and cluttered incidents that stacked up one after the other. "If there’s really something, then come to the Duke’s Palace with him tomorrow. By then, you will have a very long time to take care of me."

This short conversation allowed the person across the street to immediately realize that Xue Ling was currently in bad condition. His expression was heavy as he guessed, "Your Highness’ maturity phase has come ahead of schedule?"

“Can’t you already sense it?" Xue Ling laughed shortly, closed the door to the suspension car, and set the destination as the Duke’s Palace. He reached out and hugged Lou Cen, tilting his head and kissing him on the cheek. "I can’t explain too much to you now. I’ll tell you the answers to everything you want to know when I wake up, okay?"

“Maturity phase?”

“Yes. While I haven’t fallen asleep yet, take me back to the Duke’s Palace. I can help you avoid detection."

Lou Cen’s expression was cold. Although the person in his arms had constantly been doing some actions to comfort him, he was currently still in a very bad mood. Xue Ling had concealed too much from him, and Lou Cen did not dare to imagine what kind of situation he would be facing tomorrow if he had not shown up in this place tonight.

Perhaps Xue Ling would have followed the person who he had just spoken with and left, or perhaps he would have received news that his little merman was ill when he woke up tomorrow. He would also blame himself, thinking that his deep sleep had something to do with him taking him to the underground city yesterday.

It was true that they were related, but it was not a connection that Lou Cen could control.

Lou Cen still had no clue what had happened in the underground city. It was not until he received the news the next day that he was finally clear on why Xue Ling would unhesitatingly reveal his last cards to him last night, and also hurriedly bring him away.

The underground city was sealed up. Basically everyone who had been present last night were still being kept inside, and their identities would be investigated in full detail. The he identity that he had used to enter the underground area had already been completely destroyed, and there would be no way that anything could be traced back to him, let alone, that identity had had no time to commit any crime.

Every year, the underground city would have some discarded identities, and those two identities were only two out of tens of millions.

Early in the morning, the Duke’s Palace was unexpectedly busy. Yan Zhaiyan was to leave home for the border this morning, but Yan Qingjun discovered that Yan Qiwen had not come down to say goodbye to their second brother. They had already spoken about it, and Yan Qiwen was not the type that would avoid Yan Zhaiyan just because the other person had some feelings towards him.

Yan Qingjun knocked on Xue Ling’s door, and then the entire Duke’s Palace burst into a frenzy of activity.

Yan Qiwen had fallen into a coma. Several merfolk doctors came, but none of them could find out what was wrong with him. His body was very healthy, and the instruments could not detect anything wrong. He appeared to simply be sleeping, but could not be woken up.

This gave the people of the Duke’s Palace some headaches. It was only when the merfolk doctor asked them if there had been any indicators yesterday that they recalled who Xue Ling had gone out with. But even before they could get in touch with Lou Cen, Lou Cen came to visit the Duke’s Palace on his own.

Other than him, there was another person by his side. He claimed to be Yan Qingjun’s friend, and came to find him because he had heard that he’d found his real family.

The Duke’s Palace became lively all of a sudden.

Lou Cen had watched Xue Ling fall asleep with his own eyes last night. Although he had explained to him that this was a normal symptom of the maturity phase, he was still worried. He found an excuse to come over this morning, and then bumped into the man that had been outside their car last night at the door.

After closer observation this time, Lou Cen noticed some details that he had not noticed last night. This man’s figure was very well proportioned. His pair of legs were long, and he appeared to be just an ordinary person as he did not have the same width as a breeder, but strangely, Lou Cen could sense that he was very dangerous. This man and Xue Ling were very similar when they had legs, and the feeling that the two of them gave off was very unified. And considering the way he had addressed Xue Ling last night, Lou Cen guessed that him and Xue Ling should both be merfolk, but they had an ability that other merfolk did not have - the ability to turn their tails into legs.

Then the questions also came up: Were they human or fish? Where did they come from? How long would his little cutie be in a coma for? What kind of changes would occur after he woke up?

... Oh, speaking of change. That little cutie had really let him see the real face hidden under his silly, sweet, and coquettish mask. If those thirty odd lives were not enough to let Lou Cen understand that the little merman of the Yan family was obviously not some weak and frail little child, then he might as well give up his position as General.

All the people of the Duke’s Palace were downstairs, and each of them was full of worry. Yan Qingjun was a little surprised upon seeing the face of the man who came in behind Lou Cen. "Lan?"

In the original plot, after Yan Qiwen’s death, the deep-sea merfolk had completely lost their Emperor. They were unable to accept such a result due to their long-standing discontent with human beings, and therefore raised the flag of revenge against humansand started a war.

It was a very tragic war. Human beings had a completely new understanding of the so-called mermaid, and understood what dominating the ocean really meant.

Finally, the reason two sides were able to put aside their hatred of each other and talk calmly for once was because of Yan Qingjun and his good friend Lan’s influence.

Lan was one of the deep-sea merfolk who had been sent to the human world to find their ’emperor’. He had been going back and forth between the land and ocean these years, and the place where he came ashore was near the courtyard where Yan Qingjun used to live, so he and Yan Qingjun who had been adopted by a fisherman and his wife, had been good friends for many years. This time, he had come to the capital because he had heard news that Yan Qingjun had found his birth family, and had not expected to meet their ’emperor’ by chance.

Although he was still a juvenile, and although he was still young and immature, the ability to dominate the entire ocean could not be mistaken.

Some small chit-chat was always necessary when good friends met again. While the two of them shook hands and chatted, Lou Cen had obtained permission to go upstairs to see Xue Ling. He also could not say why Xue Ling was now in the state that he was in, and the Duke’s Palace could not do anything to him based on a baseless assumption, so even though they were not in a good mood, they did not make things too hard for him.

“If you are talking about the little gongzi upstairs who is in a coma," Lan began as he heard that they wanted to go upstairs, his smile wide as he interjected, "I may have an explanation."

Suddenly, everyone’s eyes fell on him. Yan Qingjun’s expression turned strange, because he remembered Lan’s identity, and his magical ability to transform his fishtail into legs.

“Qingjun, do you remember?” Lan smiled as he spoke to Yan Qingjun, “When we met the first time, I told you that I had come out to find our missing prince?"

A scene flashed through Yan Qingjun’s mind as he recalled the storm that had happened when he was four years old. The sound of the ocean’s sorrow had been ringing in his ears, so he had snuck out for a look without telling his adoptive parents. He saw more than a dozen merfolk coming up to the shore from the depths of the ocean.

They were not the same at all compared to those little merchildren that had been raised up from birth. They were very strong, and even during the storm, they managed to fight against the surging tide and rush towards the shore.

It was that day that Lan came to him. According to him, their little prince had been stolen by the hated human beings. Their clansmen had constantly been trying to find him, but there were too few clues, and the coastline was too long, and they had no direction from which to start looking. After searching for several years in the ocean, they think that their little prince had entered the human world.

They wanted to come ashore to search.

It was precisely due to years of contact with Lan that Yan Qingjun’s thoughts were different from most merfolk in the Empire. He had his own pursuits, and knew what he was doing. His self-confidence and perseverance were all brought about by Lan.

Yan Qingjun nodded and suddenly understood Lan’s meaning. “Your meaning is...?”

“That’s our little master. Perhaps you are our lucky star. There has been no news for so many years, but because of the change in your destiny, he also appeared."

The look on Yan Qingjun’s face was really too strange. The Duchess finally responded to Lan’s words. "Your little master was stolen? By the seaside?"

“Perhaps it was also in the same year that the Duchess lost Qingjun by the ocean?" Yan was still smiling faintly. Although he was truly very happy to have found their emperor, after so many years wandering through the human world, it had already become a habit to hide his emotions. "Who knows. Some things are just that coincidental. If that little merman’s tail is black and gold, and his scales are black with golden edges, then that is our little master. Under the heavens, he is the only merman who can match with that kind of tail."

At last, the Duke came to a realization. As a member of the upper echelons of the Empire, he had access to many secrets, and even the chaos at the Imperial Research Academy this morning was within his jurisdiction. Although Lan’s words were vague, he still understood the implications, because information about that mysterious species had always been suppressed, and they had always troubled the upper levels of the Empire. In this moment, the information revealed in Lan’s words completely supported his speculations.

“Are you from the deep sea?” The Duke asked.

“Yes.” Lan felt no pressure admitting this. He had already sent out news regarding the discovery of their emperor, and within two days, all the deep-sea merfolk that were onshore would gather together. By then, even the humans’ SS-class powerhouses would not be able to do anything to them. They had sufficient fighting power, and were completely different from those fragile merfolk of the Empire.

Those were spoiled fish that had been raised up incorrectly.

“Wenwen is the person that you’ve been looking for?”

“Yes.” Lan calmly added another sentence. "If anything happens to him, our clan and you humans will truly be unable to resolve our differences."

Having already spoken to this point, Xue Ling’s identity was no longer a secret. "He really is a deep-sea merperson. He’s going through the maturity phase now, and for the next half month, he will be in a state of deep sleep as the scales on his tail fall off and regrow. He will be fine as long as he is soaked in water."

Everyone present looked at each other speechlessly. Although this method was strange, Xue Ling’s situation was also truly inexplicable. This method would not hurt Xue Ling, and if they adopted it for the time being, there should not be any problems.

Although Xue Ling’s identity had been thoroughly exposed, it seemed to have little influence on him. After all, the Duke’s Palace did not seem to care too much about his identity, and was only worried about his health. Lan found their attitude very useful, and as long as they did not have any thoughts that they shouldn’t have about Xue Ling, Lan seemed to have no intention of taking Xue Ling away .

Oh, if he wanted to take him away, he would still need Lou Cen’s approval.

Xue Ling woke up from his coma after half a month. The first thing he saw when he woke up was Lou Cen’s rather surprised, and then ecstatic eyes. He had not even opened his mouth to speak when his lips were blocked by General Lou, who had acted faster than expected.

Xue Ling: ???

Xue Ling: ???

alamerysl: ^_^