32

A new day arrived…

No, it should be a new night. Shen Fengyue was sitting on the bed in a daze. After a while, he turned to the window and watched the sunset. The twilight could faintly be seen as he murmured, "It's already night…" His voice was low and hoarse, feeling pain whenever he made a sound.

He raised his hand to knead his neck while lowering his head and frowning as he felt the pain.

"Yeah, it's night, it's time to eat." The system said coldly, and seeing that he was in pain, it sneered, "What? It hurts? Now you know it hurts? What did you do last night? It's pretty hilarious you know. I persuaded you, but did you listen? Now enjoy your bitter fruit of having a dry and sore throat. This is what you get after insisting on being a tyrant last night!"

"…" Although he knew that the system was concerned about him, the tone it used was so unbearable.

Shen Fengyue got out of bed feebly, shook the quilt three times, and spread it flat over the bed before going to wash up.

When the system saw that he didn't reply, it became more and more smug, thinking that it was suppressing Shen Fengyue, "Don't you have anything to say? I was all for your own good. Do you think you can beat others by roaring all night? Weren't you being too reckless?"

"You…" Shen Fengyue was brushing his teeth, and the corners of his mouth twitched as he listened to the system's babbling.

The system said, "Do you want to bad mouth?"

Shen Fengyue, "…"

The system also said, "We should not be doing that, only women are suitable for that. As responsible big men, we should have our own unique vocabulary."

Shen Fengyue endured his anger and squeezed out three words, "What would that be?"

The system whispered and said, "rip off the crotch."

Shen Fengyue's face went black, and he tried his best to resist the urge to smack the system, persuading himself thinking that earnest words offend the ears. He is a wise monarch, and he can't just smack his loyal ministers who dare to admonish—even though his loyal minister's mouth is too cheap.

"Let's have fish for dinner today." Shen Fengyue walked to the windowsill after washing up, and as he walked, he told the system about the dishes for dinner. Before the system could remind him that the fish was stolen, Shen Fengyue had already reached the window and was looking at the empty window sill in silence, so it swallowed the words back into its stomach.

A breeze blew by, bringing the scent of the salty sea.

Shen Fengyue took in the wind and turned his head to look at the little seagull tied to the leg of the table. He stared daggers into it, as his killing intent became even heavier.

The little seagull fluttered its wings as it stepped back a few centimeters. It tilted it's head, and looked at him, squeaking while sending lovely light beams towards Shen Fengyue, trying to seem innocent.

Even though its loveliness touched heaven itself, Shen Fengyue wasn't affected, he kept staring, without moving his eyes away. So the little seagull fell to the ground with a squeak, strategically pretending to be dead.

"Tsk." Shen Fengyue knew that this little thing was very clever, and didn't bother to care about it any longer. He cooked a meal haphazardly and placed a small bowl next to it.

The little seagull sniffed the food, quietly peeked at Shen Fengyue through a gap in his left eye. And after seeing Shen Fengyue depart, he stood up to eat with confidence.

As time passed by, Shen Fengyue lived a happy fisherman's life by going out early to go fishing, and later coming back at night to sing folk songs with the merman. He didn't know if it was because he sang every night, but his lung capacity became much greater, and his voice also became louder. One can hear him clearly even if he shouted from 100 meters away.

Shen Fengyue had wanted to find a chance to catch that merman many times but was unable to do so.

There's a saying among Chinese people that if you fell before, there might be a chance that you'll fall again the next time.

March arrived quickly, and fishing had been banned. In order to ensure the ecological balance of the sea and allow marine fish to reproduce steadily, the government didn't allow fishermen to fish these past few months, so Shen Fengyue has been anxious during these months of leisure.

One day, Shen Fengyue was full so he went out for a walk. He took off his shoes and stepped barefoot on the soft sand. The seawater swelled over his ankles from time to time and then backed away.

Stepping in the shallow blue water, it seemed that one could merge with the sea. Shen Fengyue has been in this world and near this sea for so long, which caused him to feel a close connection with it both physically and mentally.

Unknowingly, he went farther and farther away, long deviating from their daily route. Shen Fengyue pointed towards the sea, looking into the distance, and said vigorously, "System, look, this is the country I laid for you!"

The system played along with him and said, "May we be like the stars and the moon, shining brightly together every night. This concubine only wishes to stay with the king."

Shen Fengyue was shocked when he heard this, and after stumbling on his feet, he stopped.

Suddenly the atmosphere became embarrassing.

"Uh, cough, ah, ah." The system reacted to what it said just now, hurriedly covered it with a cough, and changed the subject, "Well, I feel like vomiting after eating fish every day what do you think? "

The topic turned so bluntly and abruptly, Shen Fengyue saw through but didn't mention it, and smiled kindly, "Yes, it's a little tiring. But you don't have a mouth, so you can only smell, what are you even tired of?"

The system choked for a while, and recovered, "Heh, so what if I can only smell, can't I get tired of smelling it? By the way…hey, Shen Fengyue, do you think there's someone lying next to the huge boulder in front of us?"

"Tsk, lying without a plan." Shen Fengyue sneered and was unmoved, piling up a small sand dune on the spot with his feet.

The system interrupted him, "Stop making trouble, I'm serious. Go and take a look, I glanced and there seemed to be something lying there. Since the sky is getting dark, I could only see a black mass lying there."

Hearing this, Shen Fengyue set his eyes on the spot the system mentioned. His eyesight wasn't as good as the system's. At the moment, although the bright moon was hanging high, the backside of the stone happened to be shone on by the moonlight, and only its silhouette could be seen from a distance.

"You sure?"

System, "Well. You should go and take a look, in case something was washed up by the sea. Do you think it could be that merman?"

Shen Fengyue thought about it and felt that could be true so he discussed with the system, "Ok, I'll go and see. If it's that merman, we can catch it easily in case it's something dangerous, it would be better to retreat quickly."

Thinking this way, it was a witty plan. If they wanted to advance, they could attack, if they wanted to retreat, they could defend. Theoretically, it was foolproof.

So Shen Fengyue approached the stone. The thing beside it looked like a human, at least, the upper body was human-like. Confirming the upper body, Shen Fengyue felt excited and hurried to come closer. But when he approached, the first thing he looked at was the lower body of the thing, and the result was two white straight human legs, without any pants, clearly exposing two buttocks in the night breeze.

"…"

Seeing this situation, Shen Fengyue choked silently. This was really too unexpected.

In the end, he really couldn't stand it, so he took off his shirt and left his upper body naked as he threw it to the man's lower body, just to cover the two buttocks.

After solving the hidden danger that almost caused him to poke needles into his eyes, Shen Fengyue went to check up on the person. He squatted in front of the person, patted the person's bare arms, and asked softly, "This brother, wake up, wake up. Are you still conscious? Are you still alive? Hey…you, fuck!"

As soon as he started speaking, the man raised his head, making Shen Fengyue so scared that he thumped to the ground with a scream, and then moved back several steps very quickly.

"What the hell!"

This "person", to be precise, wasn't completely human. He was semi-humanized. Although his body was in human form, one could still see the small details on his body revealing its true features.

The first thing he saw was his ears. He had long, curly black hair entangled around his body like seaweed. It was originally covering his ears perfectly, but as he raised his head, part of his hair was pulled down and his ears eagerly broke through in between the hairs, exposing themselves.

They were pointy, like a small fan, with a faint shine on the top, and the fine scales on them brightly reflected the moonlight.

The pair of eyes exposed were spaced apart, with more black than white in the eye sockets. After coming in contact with the light, his eyes shrank sharply, turning into a small black dot. It then widened, finally becoming an appropriate size, and then moved in front of Shen Fengyue's eyes.

This kind of movement was difficult to describe. It is not the up and down kind, but the forward and backward one.

There were a few small scales distributed on his face, some clinging to the skin, and some restlessly cocked up at a corner. Shen Fengyue, who had a slight OCD, saw them and his hands felt itchy. He wanted to step forward to tear them off, but he didn't dare to do so.

Suddenly an even more bizarre scene occurred. His nose, which was only two holes, began to change, slowly bulging and creating the bridge of the nose like that of a mountain. And like that, a brand new nose formed from the collapsed flat two holes under Shen Fengyue's stare.

He raised his head, opened his mouth, and made a grunting noise at Shen Fengyue. Despite the dim moonlight, Shen Fengyue could clearly see three gaps on each side of his neck that were constantly moving: closing, and opening one after another.

Shen Fengyue guessed they should be his gills, closing and opening to filter the air.

This thing was really ugly to him. It was ugly before and it's still the same, hideous!

System, "Fuck! It's really ugly, except for the crazy woman from the last world, I have never seen such a fucking ugly thing."

The frightened system started to swear regardless of its professional ethics, and Shen Fengyue also agreed with it in his heart.

When the ugly thing raised his eyes, it happened to meet Shen Fengyue's white chest, and he immediately looked up shyly while grunting.

The system didn't look at it and urged Shen Fengyue to go quickly, "Let's go, let's go, it's so ugly. I can't stand looking at it anymore."

Shen Fengyue got up from the ground, patted the sand off his hands, and then off his body. He didn't even want to take his shirt back, so he turned and was about to go.

"Guruguru!" Seeing that he was leaving, the ugly thing hurriedly murmured for help.

Honestly, the sound from that ugly thing was very unpleasant, like rubbing a pen whose nib has been worn out, hard on sandpaper. He used this unpleasant sound to make a gurgling bubble sound. Although Shen Fengyue couldn't understand what he was saying, the sorrow and prayer contained in the sounds he made reached his heart and made him resonate with it.

Shen Fengyue paused raising his foot midway, and took a 180-degree turn, staring down at the ugly thing on the ground.

It should be stranded and calling for help. Shen Fengyue thought to himself.

Seeing that his attitude had changed, the ugly thing turned around, and his eyes suddenly burst into astonishing joy. He raised his head to look at Shen Fengyue, their eyes met, and the three gills on the thing's neck were closed horizontally, motionless.

Shen Fengyue looked at him and saw that his eyes were teary, and there seemed to be small stars hiding in them, shining brightly.

It was oddly cute.

A sudden evaluation rose from his heart. After he understood what he was thinking, he immediately shook his head violently and threw the hopelessly distorted aesthetics out of his mind.

What's this all about?!

"Tsk, let's do it, I'll help you, don't run aground stupidly in the future." Shen Fengyue was moved with compassion in his heart and warned him regardless if the ugly thing could understand him or not.

"Gurulu."

"Don't mess around, I'm helping you, by dragging you back."

"Gurulu."

He didn't know if the ugly thing understood human language, and he really didn't move, except for the occasional grunting sound, he quietly waited for his actions.

If there's a first, second, and other times, it's natural to become close.

Shen Fengyue grabbed the ugly thing's ankles and violently dragged him into the sea. When the ugly thing realized what he was going to do, he grumbled and stretched his both hands forward, as if reluctant.

"I told you not to move! You're still moving!" Shen Fengyue slapped him, and a soft and elastic touch came from his hands through the cloth. After realizing where he slapped, he hurriedly apologized, "I'm sorry, ah, I smacked your ass."

The ugly thing became more obedient after being beaten by him on the buttocks and was finally dragged back to the sea smoothly.

As soon as his body touched the sea, his legs instantly turned into a fishtail. He stood in the water, staring at Shen Fengyue, "…"

"Don't thank me, I'm leaving." Shen Fengyue swam to the land and said goodbye to him.

Seeing his leaving back, the ugly thing was so angry that he slammed the sea with his tail, startling the water splash, making pattering sounds endlessly.

Shen Fengyue thought he was thanking him, and then said, "Good boy, just go back. There's no need to thank me anymore, I already get it. My heart has received your gratitude!"

Ugly thing, "…"

With a flick of his tail, he leaped into the water and swam toward the deep sea, strangling many fishes along the way.

Ugly thing, This is too infuriating!