MASG chapter 104

 

Seagulls flew past Talos’s ship on the sea surface from time to time, drawing everyone’s attention with their cries.

“Why are they calling again? Didn’t I already feed you?” Wearing a sun hat, Mi Dou looked up at the blue sky and white clouds.

“These seagulls have endless appetites. Do you want to feed them until they’re full?” Talos had a pipe in his mouth and was carrying a plate full of breakfast as he walked out and sat down directly beside Mi Dou. He pointed at the aquarium on the table. “Has this little thing eaten?”

The Blue Jellyfish inside the transparent aquarium clearly didn’t like Talos. When Talos pointed at it, it floated farther away.

“Haha, it’s really smart.” Talos laughed loudly.

“Don’t bully it. Drawing venom every day is hard work enough. You have to coax Little Blue,” Mi Dou said affectionately. This wasn’t just a pet; it was also part of Xia Yu’s clan. “I feed it on time every day, and sometimes it’ll even try some breadcrumbs. Don’t you think it’s grown? It’s as transparent as Xia Yu.”

Talos bit into an egg pancake and nodded repeatedly. “I noticed. It’s grown to about twice its original size. I heard that Blue Jellyfish grow extremely fast and are a rare infinitely growing organism in nature. As long as you give them enough space, food, and time, they can grow to a hundred meters.”

“That’s impossible. Biology has to be scientific, too. If they really wanted to grow to a hundred meters, they’d need enough energy. Judging by how slowly the Blue Jellyfish moves, it’s hard for it to catch enough food, so the largest recorded sighting is only dozens of meters,” Mi Dou said, speaking based on facts. Then he changed his tone. “However, anything is possible. If they were in an artificially cultivated environment with enough food, then maybe it could work.”

As he spoke, he placed his hand against the outside of the aquarium.

The little jellyfish clearly had no eyes, yet it sensed the familiar hand through the glass and pressed itself against the inside of the aquarium.

“Look, it recognizes me,” Mi Dou said, smiling. “This is a very ancient organism, perhaps older than mermaids, even earlier than Haisiruola. It’s a lifeform that emerged shortly after the formation of Earth’s oceans. They have their own life systems and spiritual perception. To be honest, I want Little Blue. to help me find Xia Yu.”

“You really are… a little scientific maniac. Having a student like you, Lao Gui has really struck gold in this lifetime,” Talos said. Even though he didn’t believe it, he strongly encouraged Mi Dou’s research. Who would have thought that the little bear man who once randomly blew up his lighthouse would turn out to be so capable? Mi Lian truly knows how to nurture talent.

“But it’s very hard,” said Mi Dou, still smiling but not blindly optimistic. “Look. Since I started dripping blood into the sea, two months have passed, and Mo An still hasn’t come back.”

“You drip it every day?” Talos asked.

Mi Dou hummed. “Yes, Silver Fang helped me take out several test tubes. The blood samples will only last until the day after tomorrow. Every day, I extract some venom, mix it with the samples, and release them into the ocean. If they really run out, we might have to go down and get more. This time, we’ll take more and try to empty the entire sample room.”

“By rights, it shouldn’t be like this. Did Mo An not sense it? If he did, he would definitely be able to find his way back. Xia Yu was the only person he ever bit when he hatched,” Talos said as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, tore the unfinished toast into small pieces, and tossed them into the sky.

A large group of seagulls landed on the horizontal mast of the sail. Sensing food being thrown, they displayed an appetite far beyond the usual. Their white wings spread open in midair as they circled together, sometimes snatching the bread Talos threw and sometimes flying low over the sea surface. The scene was extremely lively, making the entire area noisy and bustling.

The noise was endless, as if this flock of seabirds could quarrel forever. So, when they suddenly fell silent, it sent a shiver down one’s spine, like an abrupt power outage.

In an instant, all the seagulls stopped calling. They folded their wings as if they’d never been open and flapped noisily toward the sail mast. Mi Dou and Talos stood up at the sound, confused by what had happened—but it definitely wasn’t good!

They didn’t look like they were flying back because they were full; they looked like they were fleeing for their lives.

Damn it! Was it an undersea earthquake? Or a tsunami? Or some other disaster they’d never heard of? Mi Dou immediately opened the aquarium. If the ship really capsized, at least cute Little Blue. wouldn’t be trapped inside a glass box. Right after that, he clipped the safety rope on the deck to his belt and waited for the unknown calamity to hit.

Talos had already returned to the control room and was looking at the detection instruments. But the instruments showed no fluctuations—the ocean was fine. Then, the only answer was…

This could only be the answer! Talos rushed out of the control room and headed toward the bow. He grabbed Mi Dou’s hand, and they stumbled as they ran to the bow’s highest point. Countless splashes appeared on the surface of the sea, forming straight white lines one after another, heading toward their ship.

“What is that?” Mi Dou asked, sounding both curious and shocked.

“It’s a mermaid! The mermaids are coming!” Talos couldn’t see how many mermaids there were or what kind they were, but based on his knowledge of Meng Qingqing, the only kind that liked to be active at depths of about a thousand meters and near the surface were the Sirens. The Sirens were also the only ones who could swim at this speed. Large numbers of Sirens were rushing toward their ship, cutting through thorns and brambles—unstoppable.

Fearless.

Nothing could stop the sirens’ advance anymore. Wind and waves were easily flipped aside by their elbow fins. White spray was no longer exclusive to the ocean. Black tail fins leapt and rose on the surface of the sea, producing ridged ripples that made the water appear solid. From afar, the entire stretch of seawater turned reflective black.

“Is it them? Meng Qingqing and the others?” Mi Dou finally saw clearly and asked tremblingly. They had come back—did that mean they were bringing bad news?

“It’s them!” Talos looked at the sea surface. He couldn’t explain this superpower, but he could always recognize Meng Qingqing at a glance. Mi Dou turned his head back toward the ocean, anxiously waiting for the final answer. But, strangely, when the waves reached about a hundred meters from the ship, they vanished without a trace.

Like a dream, it disappeared immediately.

“What’s going on? Where did they go?” Mi Dou looked left and right anxiously, afraid that what he had just seen was a dream. Had he been at sea for too long and started having hallucinations? That was possible; sailors who stayed out too long experienced that. Could it be that he also…

However, the next sound from the sea shattered that thought. Countless black figures leaped up at once and landed on Talos’s ship, transparent water droplets clinging to them. The hull swayed slightly. Seawater splashed everywhere, some of it wetting Mi Dou’s face and clothes directly. He stood completely still, staring, his eyes forgetting how to blink.

He didn’t blink at all.

Then, Mi Dou dashed forward in one burst and threw himself at that familiar yet unfamiliar broad back.

“Mo An!”

It was like being hit hard by someone. The bear-type synthetic human’s strength made Mo An sway twice. His black fishtail tensed into a strong, curved bow that replaced his legs as he stood on the deck. When he turned around, he opened his arms and pulled Mi Dou, his good friend, into a hug. Both of them were soaked at the same time.

“Mo An!” Mi Dou lifted his head as if to confirm it.

Mo An was a bit different from before. He had gotten much thinner. In the six months he had been missing, his hair had grown long. It used to be a neat, short cut—more convenient for training and traveling at the control center—but now it reached his shoulder blades. His silver hair dripped with water, stunningly beautiful. However, the huge scars on his chest and lower back exposed the truth—Leviathan had almost killed him.

“Mo An.” Mi Dou choked for two seconds. “Why did you only come back now?”

His nose turned sour so quickly that his whole face began to go numb. The skin under his freckled eyes twitched twice, and Mi Dou threw himself into Mo An’s arms and cried loudly. He could finally cry, releasing all the anxiety and grief of the past six months. During the months when he hadn’t found his companion, he hadn’t dared to cry.

The crying carried far across the sea, very far.

“I’m sorry. I swam a bit slowly,” Mo An said hoarsely as he returned to land. The aquamarine pendant was still around his neck, and now there was an extra rope tied around his waist to a transparent glass bottle. The bottle was filled with pink diamonds, each one carefully preserved.

Mo An couldn’t bear to throw them away. He had tried very hard to control his emotions, but he still cried many times on the way back. From the day he recovered his memories, he had swum day and night, following the scent of Xia Yu’s blood. Yet it still took a month.

All things considered, he had actually been without his memory for that long.

“You were too slow. I almost thought…” Mi Dou was still crying and couldn’t say anything else. Although they had only found one companion, this was the best sign, telling him that they hadn’t lost in their confrontation with Nuwa and that their lost companions would return.

“How could I lose my memory for so long? I really was too slow. I should have come back immediately,” Mo An said, shaking his hair. It had been a long time since he had basked in the sun like this. The sunlight falling on his skin again felt very unfamiliar. Mermaids weren’t used to sunlight, but he was an exception.

He was a fish raised by Xia Yu and always lived on land, following Xia Yu everywhere.

Talos didn’t want to disturb their reunion. He quietly walked over to Meng Qingqing’s side and helped her up. “Why didn’t you send your sisters back to tell us?”

“There wasn’t time,” said Meng Qingqing, who had also grown much thinner. “I followed Mo An’s route the whole way, but I was always one step too late. The others said that a male Siren wearing a crystal necklace had just left. Then, halfway through the journey, we encountered them turning back, along with other compatriots, and only then did we regroup.”

“God.” Talos shook his head. This journey had been far too difficult—the ocean was absurdly vast.

“Thanks to Xia Yu’s blood,” Meng Qingqing panted. “Mo An said that if it weren’t for Xia Yu’s blood helping him recall the final details, he wouldn’t have remembered so quickly. What about you? Any progress?”

Talos shook his head. They had made no progress at all.

Mi Dou’s crying lasted for half an hour, on and off, sometimes loud, sometimes soft. Sometimes they thought he was about to stop, but after taking a breath, he would start crying loudly again. Mo An, on the other hand, was much more mature and steady than before. He didn’t laugh at Mi Dou; he kept comforting him.

“Stop crying. I’m back already,” Mo An said, handing Mi Dou a towel to wipe his face.

“Okay, I won’t cry anymore,” Mi Dou said, though he didn’t really mean it. Tears were still falling. “Can you put on some pants first?”

Mo An looked at the legs he had just changed back into and stood there naked in front of him. “I’m not used to having legs anymore. I always feel like a tail is more comfortable. It’s not that I don’t want to wear them; Talos’s leather pants don’t fit me.”

“Whose fault is it that you grew so tall?” Talos finally dug out one of Meng Qingqing’s skirts. “Just wrap it around your butt first!”

Mo An helplessly pulled the skirt up. The scene was reminiscent of one from his childhood—once again, he was wearing a skirt.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t find the others,” said Mi Dou, who had mostly finished crying. He took a big gulp of honey water. “Especially Xia Yu. There’s no news at all. I’m a useless little bear.”

“Of course not. If it weren’t for your idea about the blood sample, I’d still be stuck in the ocean,” Mo An said, sounding even more anxious than him. His xla was missing. “What about 107 and Xi Ban? Xiang Xing?”

“It seems everyone has gotten separated,” Mi Dou said softly.

Mo An reached out and rubbed his curly hair. “It’s okay. I’ll go look for them. I’ve already told my companions from the other branches to keep an eye out for injured double-tailed ones and white sirens.”

“You were really hard to find. Thank goodness,” Talos sighed. What he saw before him felt like a miracle. “It’ll be much easier next time. As long as we can bring one back, we’ll definitely be able to bring back the others.”

“Yes, definitely. Nuwa can’t kill Xia Yu. He is her bargaining chip,” said Mo An, standing up and desperately hiding his anxiety. Suddenly, he turned and pointed at the aquarium on the table. “That is…”

“Oh, it’s Little Blue, one of the Blue jellyfish. It’s been providing me with jellyfish toxin these days. It already recognizes me. They’re intelligent!” Mi Dou walked over to the table and pressed his hand against the glass. But this time, he was disappointed. Little Blue didn’t seem to recognize him and didn’t swim over.

“See? I told you it doesn’t recognize people,” Talos said.

“Little Blue…” Mo An walked over and curiously pressed his arm against the glass. Again, a miracle happened. Little Blue swam to the inside of the glass and kept hitting it, looking more anxious than ever.

“It…recognizes me? When I was in the sea, I saw a whole group of blue jellyfish. They didn’t hurt me. It was as if they had come specifically to find me,” Mo An said, recalling the scene in the Black Siren Trench. “Little Blue, do you want to tell me something? Do you…recognize me?”

The little jellyfish that couldn’t speak slammed into the inside of the glass again. Its soft, semi-transparent, gelatinous body was almost broken.

“It really does recognize me.” Mo An confirmed his suspicions and boldly reached his hand into the aquarium.