Chapter 17: Should Be Called Husband

After asking, Wen Chu waited for a long time but received no reply from the system.

[System?] he called out again.

The panel displaying his lifespan flickered once.

Then, after several more seconds, the system’s voice finally sounded.

[…It won’t break.]

The system only answered the second half of his question. Its voice was soft and rushed, disappearing almost the instant the last syllable fell.

Wen Chu called for the system a few more times, but this time, it wouldn’t come out no matter how much he called.

Alright, maybe the system is busy too.

In any case, as long as he knew it wouldn’t break, that was enough. He had almost thought he’d broken Xiu’s scale last time.

Wen Chu gave up on calling the system and started to ponder how he could touch the scale without Xiu noticing.

His current lifespan could barely last through the day.

Maybe he could find more opportunities to stick to Xiu’s chest during the day, and then at night, just like last time, sneak over to touch Xiu’s scale?

Wen Chu thought this plan was feasible.

Feeling happy, Wen Chu swam over to rub against Xiu again, forming a heart with his tentacles.

“I love you.”

Xiu looked down at the little heart-making jellyfish, his gaze landing on Wen Chu’s empty stomach.

He didn’t answer the question directly, only saying, “Let me take you to eat something first.”

---

The narwhal had been startled awake the moment Wen Chu leaped up to find Xiu.

Unlike the clownfish who had chased after them, the narwhal was self-aware enough to know she was a third wheel. She didn’t follow but continued to feign sleep on the spot, planning to wait until Wen Chu and Xiu finished their chat.

Unsurprisingly, she waited for a full two hours.

The narwhal was already used to it.

She watched Wen Chu and Xiu return and pretended to have just woken up, asking, “Are we leaving now?”

Xiu, holding the well-fed little jellyfish, said, “Let’s go. We just can’t continue along the coast of Southeast Asia anymore. The nuclear leak ahead is too dangerous.”

The narwhal understood. After all, she had personally seen the unconscious Wen Chu being carried back by Xiu yesterday.

Wen Chu hadn’t slept all night and had been nodding off in Xiu’s arms. Hearing this, he perked up and asked nervously, “Then what do we do?”

“Cut diagonally across the Pacific, straight to the Bering Strait,” Xiu said, holding the jellyfish and looking up towards the North Pole. “The route I mentioned at the very beginning.”

“The route that passes through Atlantis?” Wen Chu recalled the path.

Xiu’s expression was calm as he nodded. “Yes, Atlantis.”

At this point, there was nothing that couldn’t be mentioned. That faint trace of sadness finally turned into a light-hearted invitation. “If you’re curious, I can take you for a tour when we pass by Atlantis.”

Wen Chu was surprised. “Can I? I want to go.”

“Of course,” Xiu said with a hook of his lips. “Just don’t get scared.”

Scared? What on earth has Atlantis become?

Wen Chu grew even more curious.

The narwhal, however, was a little worried. “The middle of the Pacific is full of undersea mining fields. It’s easy to encounter cave-ins and underwater landslides.”

“Landslides are safer than nuclear wastewater,” Xiu said.

The narwhal nodded, convinced by Xiu. “You’re right.”

Speaking of nuclear wastewater, Wen Chu remembered the school of clownfish. He looked around, but the clownfish that had been on patrol last night were long gone.

Wen Chu tugged on Xiu’s arm. “What about those clownfish? Are they really not coming?”

Although he still held a bit of a grudge, he wasn’t angry anymore and wouldn’t have minded at all if the clownfish came with them to the North Pole.

“They’re not going. They’ve returned to the sealed-off zone of the nuclear wastewater,” Xiu said.

Wen Chu was stunned. He whispered, “They really went back…? Isn’t that just waiting to die?”

He had merely touched the edge of the nuclear wastewater and his lifespan had started to decay faster. Let alone that group of clownfish staying directly inside the sealed zone.

Xiu looked deeply at Wen Chu with his clear blue eyes. “I think, no fish would want to live in the ocean of today.”

That was why he had been shocked time and time again by Wen Chu’s unscrupulous, offensive actions just to survive.

This stupid jellyfish was probably one of the few sea creatures left that wanted to live.

Wen Chu couldn’t understand Xiu’s words. In his view, living was more important than anything. In the end, he could only apply the knowledge he had learned. “Are they like the parrotfish, wanting to be with their home forever?”

“Not entirely,” Xiu sighed. “That wasn’t the clownfish’s habitat. They just accidentally strayed into the polluted area during their migration and settled there ever since, driving away any fish that got close.”

“That’s why they tried to drive you away too. I think, more than being with their home forever, they probably want every fish to be able to return to their own home safely.”

Wen Chu was baffled. “What is nuclear wastewater anyway? If it’s so influential, why is it still being discharged?”

“It’s not still being discharged; it’s a nuclear wastewater leak,” Xiu corrected.

“Nuclear wastewater is the waste fluid produced during power generation at a nuclear plant. When the humans left, they didn’t shut down the nuclear power plants. Without humans to cool them, the plants successively exploded from overheating after the last of the supercooled water was used up. The radioactive materials inside leaked into the ocean, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake. Strictly speaking, this is a subsequent effect caused by humans.”

Just like the fishing boats.

Wen Chu silently added in his heart.

So it was that serious. No wonder his lifespan decay had accelerated, and the clownfish had been so fierce at first.

Although his encounter with the clownfish had not been pleasant, Wen Chu now missed them a little.

Looking at the empty ocean, he remembered the clownfish that had patrolled around him last night, encouraging him to chase after Xiu. A very faint trace of melancholy rose in his heart.

He should have said a proper goodbye to the clownfish just now.

Wen Chu couldn’t help but ask, “Why do they do this? Is it also because of love?”

“I suppose so,” Xiu said, glancing in the direction the clownfish had last left. “It’s just that their love is greater.”

Even at the end of their lives, they still loved this ocean, trying to save the remaining life within it.

It was also because of love that they were unwilling to live in the ocean as it was today.

Wen Chu was even more confused.

Love has different sizes?

“Then what about my love for you?” Wen Chu asked. “Is my love for you big?”

Xiu couldn’t help but laugh. “Very small. Exceptionally small.”

Disappointed, Wen Chu said seriously, “Then I’ll work hard to grow, and try to make my love for you a little bigger.”

Xiu waved his hand helplessly. “No need. Just be good and follow me to the North Pole. Let’s get the narwhal home first.”

Home.

Home again.

The clownfish had a home, the parrotfish had a home, and the narwhal had a home too.

“Then what about Xiu’s home?” Wen Chu asked.

“My home…”

Xiu pondered for a moment, then revealed an extremely faint, almost self-deprecating smile.

“It’s in Atlantis, I suppose.”

Wasn’t he, too, just a displaced fish?

Looking at Xiu’s expression, Wen Chu suddenly felt like he had said the wrong thing.

He swam up from Xiu’s arms and touched the corner of his lips with a tentacle.

“Don’t be sad,” Wen Chu said. “When we get to the North Pole, I’ll help you rebuild Atlantis.”

A sticky, watery mark was left on the corner of Xiu’s thin, cold lips by the jellyfish’s tentacle.

He couldn’t help but tilt his head back, his words still cool. “I’m not sad. You should focus on staying alive first.”

“Don’t go around showing sympathy for others when you can’t even find your own home.”

“I have a home,” Wen Chu said matter-of-factly.

Xiu raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Hm?”

Wen Chu swam down, picked up his little shell nest with his tentacles, and swam back up.

The shell nest was still a bit heavy for him, and Wen Chu swam unsteadily.

“This, Grandma Narwhal, and you.”

“You all together are my home.”

Wen Chu’s logic was simple.

Doctors went home from work to eat and sleep, so a place where you can eat and sleep is a home.

The silent narwhal nearby was a little touched. “Am I really considered a part of this family?”

Wen Chu said matter-of-factly, “You are a home.”

Narwhal: ?

The narwhal looked at her huge body, remembered how she usually carried Wen Chu and his little house forward, and sensed that something wasn’t quite right.

After knowing Wen Chu for so many days, she had a rough idea of how little common sense this jellyfish had.

She felt that Wen Chu’s “home” most likely didn’t mean “family.”

He was literally treating her as a home.

The kind of home that was a mobile house.

Narwhal: “…”

She was moved too soon.

Xiu was also momentarily stunned by Wen Chu’s words, but after hearing Wen Chu’s explanation to the narwhal, he couldn’t help but smile.

The shock of that moment dissipated, and with it, all his previous feelings about Atlantis. Xiu looked down at Wen Chu.

The immortal jellyfish had grown a lot, from the size of a palm to now half his body size. He had fed it and raised it himself.

Before meeting Wen Chu, he had never thought he would form such a bond with a jellyfish, let alone be considered a home by one.

To be honest, Xiu didn’t dislike this kind of dependence from Wen Chu.

He gently tapped Wen Chu’s head. “Silly.”

Wen Chu: QuQ?

Sob? Did I say something wrong again?

---

After confirming the new route, they set off again.

Wen Chu lay on the narwhal’s back as usual, his little shell nest tied to the narwhal’s tail with seaweed.

He hadn’t slept all night, and the sound of the waves during their journey was hypnotic. It wasn’t long before Wen Chu felt sleepy.

After almost falling off the narwhal’s back for the third time due to drowsiness, Wen Chu decided to find something to do to wake himself up.

He swam off the narwhal’s back and pounced onto Xiu’s shoulder up ahead.

“Xiu, you said you were going to teach me how to tell directions. Can you take me with you when you go to the surface to check the direction later?” Wen Chu tried hard to hold onto Xiu’s shoulder.

He was too big now; Xiu’s shoulder couldn’t fit him.

Xiu reached up to steady the nearly-falling Wen Chu and, after a thought, said, “Alright, I’ll take you up now.”

Previously, they had been following the continental shelf, so just checking the direction in the evening while feeding Wen Chu was enough. Now that they had no reference point, they did need to check more often to avoid going off course.

Wen Chu was energized. He happily said goodbye to the narwhal, expertly burrowed into Xiu’s arms, and went up to the surface with him.

The narwhal watched the two of them leave and shook her head.

Forget it. I’m used to it. I’ll just go back to counting sand.

Thinking this, the narwhal’s peripheral vision caught sight of the small shell nest tied to her tail.

She looked at the three inner and three outer layers of seaweed wrapped around the shell nest and felt a flicker of confusion.

Why did Wen Chu wrap his nest so tightly today?

She didn’t suspect much, just assuming Wen Chu was afraid of losing his house during the journey. She quickly put the thought aside and went back to counting sand.

She bet that Wen Chu and Xiu would take more than two hours to come back this time, too.

On the sea surface.

Wen Chu was listening intently to Xiu’s lesson.

“…To save energy, we were following the ‘Kuroshio Current’ northwards before. Now that we’re changing routes, we need to go against the Oyashio Current to enter the Sea of Okhotsk.”

“An ocean current is what I just told you about—”

“An ocean current is the exchange of seawater caused by density differences; it’s the movement of water,” Wen Chu answered before he could finish. “Because of the influence of the Coriolis effect, the current turns during the exchange process.”

After speaking, he looked up to meet Xiu’s somewhat surprised gaze and proudly puffed up his bell. “I’m very smart.”

The materials the system had sent him before also contained some geographical knowledge about the ocean. He had learned it all, so what Xiu was teaching was very easy for him to understand.

“You are very smart,” Xiu said, not stingy with his praise.

He had only explained it simply once, yet Wen Chu was able to remember everything.

“To tell direction, besides what I just said about surfacing to see the sun rise in the east and set in the west, you can also use the ocean currents.”

“You can use your statocysts to sense the water flow and gravity.”

As Xiu spoke, he lifted the jellyfish and traced the edge of its bell.

“It’s right here.”

Wen Chu shivered from the touch and subconsciously tightened his bell, swallowing Xiu’s hand.

Xiu patted him lightly. “Stop fooling around. I didn’t tell you to eat.”

Wen Chu obediently let go.

“I didn’t mean to eat. I just couldn’t help closing up when you touched me,” he explained earnestly.

Only then did Xiu suddenly realize how intimate his action had just been. He looked away and stiffly changed the subject. “This is your statocyst.”

“When the water flows past the statocyst, the cilia on it will bend, and the statolith inside will also move. Try to feel it carefully.”

Xiu then placed Wen Chu in the water.

Wen Chu tried to focus his attention on the edge of his bell.

He wasn’t a real jellyfish, after all, and knew next to nothing about his own body structure. He had just been drifting along with the current this whole time.

Fortunately, Xiu’s explanation was detailed enough that Wen Chu wasn’t completely clueless.

The jellyfish floated on the surface, like a large, transparent flower with a red pistil, swaying with the current.

Wen Chu concentrated and finally sensed a faint impact on the edge of his bell.

“The current is coming from the left. I can feel it more clearly on my left statocyst,” Wen Chu said.

Xiu said, “Contract the right side of your bell and adjust your direction to face the current.”

Wen Chu did as he was told.

The next moment, he was swept away by the advancing ocean current.

Wait—Xiu didn’t say it would be this fast!?!?

Wen Chu flailed about, using all hundred of his tentacles to thrash in the water. It took him a long while to remember that he was supposed to swim by the propulsive force of his contracting bell.

He contracted his bell sharply, using the thrust to launch himself directly into Xiu’s arms, and extended his tentacles to firmly anchor himself to Xiu’s waist.

“I almost drifted away,” Wen Chu accused.

Xiu’s waist muscles twitched sensitively as the jellyfish’s cool tentacles clung to him. He bit his lower lip and said nonchalantly, “You wouldn’t have. I was watching from the side.”

The jellyfish was a bit too big.

He was just hugging his waist to act spoiled, but his remaining tentacles were so long that they kept invading his fishtail.

Xiu’s tail swished back, but the jellyfish’s tentacles were soft and light, clinging to his tail as the current washed over them.

Xiu endured it for a moment, but finally couldn’t take it anymore and peeled Wen Chu off his body.

“Alright, stop touching me. Did you remember what I just taught you?”

“I remember,” Wen Chu nodded.

He was good at applying what he learned and quickly connected what Xiu had taught him. “So the correct direction for us to go now is against the current?”

“Correct,” Xiu said, holding Wen Chu. For the first time, he felt that Wen Chu could actually be easy to deal with.

If there were still society and civilization on Earth, Wen Chu would probably be the first jellyfish to take the college entrance exams.

Xiu was amused by his own sudden thought.

He then became serious. “In the future, if you get lost again, wait for me where you are first. If you still haven’t seen me after a day, follow the route I told you. I will definitely wait for you on the way, understand?”

“Understood! Teacher!” Wen Chu raised a tentacle and saluted Xiu.

Xiu smiled. “You even know the word ‘teacher’?”

“The doctors said it. They called other people ‘teacher’ too,” Wen Chu said, then added with some confusion, “Is there a difference between ‘teacher’ and ‘wife’?”

The two words sounded similar. Why did Xiu not accept him calling him “wife,” but accepted him calling him “teacher”?

Xiu: “…”

Wen Chu was still the same stupid jellyfish.

“‘Wife’ is what humans call their female partners,” he explained to the jellyfish in the simplest terms possible. “Whether you call me wife or I call you wife, it doesn’t match our genders.”

“Then what about male partners for humans? There’s a term for that, right?” Wen Chu pressed.

“There is. It’s called ‘husband’,” Xiu replied instinctively.

The moment he answered, he quickly realized what Wen Chu was about to do.

“Don’t you say—”

“Husband!”

Wen Chu called out cheerfully.

“I didn’t get it wrong this time, right? Xiu…” Wen Chu looked at Xiu’s tightly pressed lips and quickly corrected himself, “Or you can call me husband, too.”

He didn’t mind being Xiu’s husband either.

Xiu’s entire ears turned red. In his embarrassment and anger, he let out a cold laugh.

He let go, and the nonsensical jellyfish fell into the sea with a “plop,” once again becoming a large flower floating in the water.

Wen Chu swayed dizzily for a while before bumping his head into a soft wall.

It was Xiu’s abs.

“Wen Chu,” Xiu called out coolly. “If you talk nonsense again, don’t blame me for…”

“Eating me?” Wen Chu finished.

As he spoke, he proactively offered his tentacle to Xiu’s mouth. “Then eat.”

It was just a few bites from Xiu. It didn’t hurt. If it could make Xiu agree to be his lover, that would be even better.

Either way, Xiu was either his wife or his husband. He wanted to be lovers with Xiu.

Xiu looked at the impervious jellyfish and the tentacle extended to his mouth, experiencing for the first time what it meant to be helpless.

The jellyfish simply couldn’t read the room, sticking to him like a gooey plaster whenever it had the chance.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to hit it or scold it.

Wen Chu’s tentacle brushed past his lips, leaving a moist, cool sensation.

Xiu ground his teeth, wanting to teach this presumptuous jellyfish a lesson.

He bit Wen Chu without hesitation, leaving a neat set of teeth marks on the transparent tentacle.

Wen Chu felt nothing. He didn’t dodge at all, happily thinking that Xiu was finally eating him, and waited for Xiu to bite his tentacle off.

But after waiting for a long time, there was no further action from Xiu.

“Aren’t you going to chew?” Wen Chu looked up blankly and met Xiu’s clear blue eyes.

By now, Xiu had realized what he had just done. He was blushing from his ears to the base of his neck.

He grabbed the tentacle he had bitten, both angry and self-reproachful. “Are you stupid? You don’t even know how to dodge?”

“But I wanted you to eat me,” Wen Chu said, not understanding. “At the beginning, you said you wanted to eat cold-dressed jellyfish. I thought you really wanted to eat me.”

“I was scaring you. I have no interest in eating jellyfish,” Xiu said coldly.

The realization dawned on Wen Chu, followed by sadness. “So you don’t want to eat me at all?”

Xiu: …

Was that something to be sad about?

He took a deep breath, barely managing to steady his emotions. He held the jellyfish’s tentacle and frowned, examining the injury.

Fortunately, although he was angry at the time, he still remembered to hold back, only leaving a set of teeth marks on the slender tentacle.

“Don’t do this again,” Xiu said stiffly. “I’ll go find some medicine for your wound in a bit. You are not allowed to talk to me this afternoon.”

Wen Chu’s world came crashing down. “Why?”

Xiu picked him up, the corners of his mouth turned down, his tone harsh. “Because you have no awareness of how fragile you are. You’re always looking for death.”

It was the same two days ago, sneaking over to play on his tail while he was asleep in the middle of the night, not even knowing his tentacles were being cut off.

Xiu now completely understood why he had been so angry two days ago.

“Wen Chu, I know you don’t feel pain, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself like this. That’s also why I was angry with you before, understand?”

Held by Xiu, the entire jellyfish hung limply, like a small animal caught by the scruff of its neck after causing trouble, looking unexpectedly obedient.

“Understood,” Wen Chu answered in a small voice.

He didn’t feel like he was hurting himself. Even if he were chopped to pieces, he could grow back.

But if Xiu said so, then so be it.

Although he felt Xiu’s words were unreasonable, at least now he finally understood the reason for Xiu’s anger.

The benefit of his jellyfish appearance was on full display at this moment. Even though Wen Chu wasn’t entirely convinced, the combination of the soft jellyfish and the youth’s pitiful voice made him look exceptionally sincere.

Xiu sighed, ultimately unable to bring himself to say anything harsh, and let him off lightly.

“Alright, let’s go back. The narwhal must be getting anxious.”

Just as Wen Chu was about to follow Xiu back, he saw the golden-haired merman, as if remembering something, turn around mid-swim and look at him seriously. “Also, no more of those ridiculous titles. We agreed before. We’ll consider the matter of becoming lovers when we get to the North Pole.”

This was indeed what he and Xiu had agreed on.

Wen Chu nodded obediently. “Okay.”

Although Wen Chu was absurd, he was still true to his word. Seeing him agree, Xiu said no more and turned to swim back.

Wen Chu propelled himself forward by contracting his bell and caught up to Xiu.

He stuck close to Xiu. “Can I still call you Teacher?”

Xiu thought about it and felt there was nothing wrong with that title, so he nodded. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay!” Wen Chu replied happily.

They hadn’t swum far, and with Wen Chu having learned to use the currents, it only took three or four minutes to return to the seabed.

The narwhal was still waiting where they left her, a small pile of sand already built up in front of her.

Wen Chu started greeting the narwhal from afar. “Grandma Narwhal, we’re back!”

The narwhal looked up and replied gently, “You’re back? How did the lesson go?”

Wen Chu quickly swam back, chattering away. “I learned how to tell the direction of the currents, and Xiu also taught me about the Coriolis effect and the sun’s trajectory.”

The narwhal nodded. She didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop her from praising him. “Very impressive.”

Wen Chu proudly waved his tentacles. “Xiu is impressive too. Xiu is my Husband Teacher.”

Narwhal: “That’s right… huh?”

She realized something was wrong halfway through her agreement.

“What teacher?” The narwhal suspected she was hearing things.

“Husband Teacher,” Wen Chu said matter-of-factly.

The moment the words left his mouth, he felt a tightness on his scalp.

Then, his entire jellyfish body was lifted up again.

“Wen Chu,” Xiu said softly from behind him. “What did we just agree on?”

Wen Chu: “You said I could call you Teacher…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence before Xiu grabbed two of his tentacles, wrapped them around, and tied them in a dead knot.

Xiu had packaged him into a jellyfish ball with two of his own tentacles.

The red on the merman’s ears was almost impossible to hide. He squeezed the words out, almost one by one.

“Shut. Up.”

Wen Chu stopped talking.

Xiu, holding the jellyfish ball, explained concisely to the narwhal, “Kids talk nonsense. Don’t mind it.”

The narwhal nodded dumbly.

Wen Chu: “Husb—”

Xiu glared at him.

“…and Teacher,” Wen Chu slowly added the last word.

“What is it,” Xiu said irritably.

“If I’m tied up like this, I can’t swim,” Wen Chu said, wiggling his spherical body.

“It’s fine. I’ll hang you on the narwhal,” Xiu sneered. “Don’t appear in front of me this afternoon.”

“Okay,” Wen Chu replied obediently.

The jellyfish was extremely harmless in Xiu’s hands, looking as if it could be kneaded and squished at will. Even the narwhal couldn’t help but feel her heart soften, quietly trying to persuade Xiu, “He just doesn’t understand.”

Xiu shot a cool glance at Wen Chu, but in the end, he untied the knot in the jellyfish’s tentacles.

“Get ready to leave. You stay properly on the narwhal.”

“Okay.” Wen Chu obediently swam onto the narwhal and lay down, waiting to depart.

He looked at the merman in front of him, who had his back to him, and thought to himself that Xiu seemed to be particularly reactive to this title.

And the red ears probably didn’t mean he was angry.

Then what was it?

Wen Chu couldn’t figure it out. His probing stopped here. If he pushed any further, he was afraid Xiu would really turn him into a jellyfish ball.

Xiu was probably quite angry with him. After they set off, he didn’t look back at him once.

Wen Chu hadn’t slept all night and had been active all morning. It wasn’t long before sleepiness washed over him again.

He lay on the narwhal’s back, listening to the sound of the surging waves, and fell completely asleep.

At the same time, Xiu, who was leading the way, seemed to sense something and turned his head to look.

The little jellyfish had already melted into a pancake in its sleep.

Xiu slowed his swimming and silently signaled to the narwhal.

The sound of the waves quieted down.

---

He slept until night. When Wen Chu opened his eyes again, Xiu and the narwhal had already found a place to rest for the night.

They had traveled into the deep sea, so they could no longer rest in the coral reefs of the continental shelf. Xiu and the narwhal found a relatively flat rock, laid down some seaweed, and rested there.

Wen Chu’s little shell nest was placed on the seaweed.

Wen Chu was still groggy from sleep. He swam up from the narwhal’s back and almost lost his balance and tumbled over in the water.

He hurriedly steadied himself, and upon looking down, he found a piece of seaweed tied to one of his tentacles.

Xiu said without looking up, “I bandaged your tentacle. Don’t move it around.”

Wen Chu curiously lifted his injured tentacle to examine it.

The narwhal added in a timely manner, “Lord Siren just got back. He made a special trip to the shallows to find sea whip coral to bandage you.”

“Sea whip coral? Didn’t you say the corals were dead?” Wen Chu was confused.

The narwhal explained, “It’s a type of coral. Its mucus has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. Coral isn’t completely extinct; there are still a few scattered around, they’re just hard to find…”

“So cause me less trouble in the future,” Xiu said, feeling uncomfortable and cutting off the narwhal.

But he was too late. Wen Chu already knew the whole story.

With a “swoosh,” he swam to Xiu’s side, wrapped his tentacles around his face, and gave him a big smooch.

“Thank you, Xiu. You went through so much trouble.”

Xiu’s face was covered in slime. He frowned and turned his head to the side. “Don’t kiss me.”

“I’m not kissing you, I’m eating you,” Wen Chu said seriously.

“Then don’t eat me,” Xiu said, pulling him off. He pursed his lips, extremely uncomfortable. “It was just a small thing. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“But this is the first time someone has been willing to bandage me,” Wen Chu said in a small voice.

His regenerative ability was very strong. The tentacles that had been severed before could grow back on the spot. Wen Chu didn’t believe that Xiu hadn’t seen his fully healed tentacle when he bandaged it.

Invisible wounds are never cared for. At least, in all his time at the hospital, no doctor had ever bandaged a wound for him.

“That’s because you’ve only ever lived a wretched, miserable life,” Xiu said, picking him up and placing him on the shell nest.

The merman’s usual sharp tongue and soft heart: “Alright, stop messing around. It’s time to rest.”

Wen Chu looked at Xiu with pleading eyes, waiting for Xiu to invite him to sleep together.

But clearly, Xiu had no such intention. After putting him down, he turned and left.

Wen Chu: quq

It was probably late at night now. After putting him down, Xiu went to sleep not far away, and the narwhal also swam off to rest.

Wen Chu hugged his little shell nest and lay on the soft seaweed, wide awake.

He had slept for half the morning and wasn’t sleepy at all now. He began to repeatedly admire the bandage Xiu had tied for him.

The seaweed Xiu chose was so neat, the knot was so beautiful. It looked good from every angle.

He would wear this seaweed forever. It was a little outfit for his tentacle.

Right, he seemed to have forgotten something.

—Lifespan.

The moment Wen Chu suddenly remembered, his entire jellyfish body shrank a size. The seaweed he had just been thinking of wearing forever floated off as his tentacle thinned.

Wen Chu looked at the system panel beside him.

[Remaining Lifespan: 19 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes]

As expected, his lifespan had dropped below twenty days, and he had shrunk again.

Wen Chu didn’t dare to make a sound, afraid that Xiu would discover he had shrunk. He quickly curled into a ball.

After confirming that his surroundings were still quiet, Wen Chu carefully peeked out from behind his shell nest to observe the situation.

The narwhal was too large and was resting far away, so she probably couldn’t see him.

The golden-haired merman, however, was sleeping not far away in a protective posture.

Xiu had been working nonstop for a whole night, traveled for a whole day today, and then worked overtime to find sea whip coral for Wen Chu. He had fallen into a deep sleep, completely unaware that a certain jellyfish was plotting against him.

That massive blue tail was stretched out unguardedly, its scales glinting with a cold light.

Wen Chu knew those were scales sharp enough to sever his tentacles.

But it was okay. He would remember to clean up the scene this time.

He would be very careful and gentle when he touched Xiu’s scale.

After he was done touching, he would clean up the tentacles and give Xiu a healing treatment. As long as Xiu didn’t find out he was injured, Xiu wouldn’t be angry.

With this thought, Wen Chu quietly extended a tentacle.

And then another tentacle.

The jellyfish, clutching the seaweed bandage Xiu had given him, sneakily crawled towards the merman’s tail.

---

Author’s note: Sneakily.jpg