Chapter 1: Turned into a Jellyfish, Has to Cling to Survive?

[Class: Turritopsis dohrnii]
[Remaining Lifespan: 4 days, 23 hours, 55 minutes]
[Hint: You are very hungry. The water quality here is poor and will soon accelerate the reduction of your lifespan. Please proceed to a safe place with sufficient food to grow as soon as possible.]

In the pitch-black seawater, Wen Chu lay on a white coral, looking at the light screen before him, feeling a bit troubled.

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand,” Wen Chu slowly organized his words.

Ever since he could remember, he had been shuffled between different hospitals. The doctors in white coats walked with hurried steps, and few were willing to stop and talk to him. Because of this, he was not very good at conversing with others.

Wen Chu’s tone was very slow. “Do you mean that I have now become a jellyfish, and I need to find a place with good water quality, have physical contact with the mission target to increase my lifespan, and then be resurrected?”

[It’s increasing your lifespan to ninety-nine years. As your lifespan increases, you will grow larger.]
[There are four worlds in total. You won’t necessarily always be a jellyfish. You need to succeed three times to be resurrected.]

“Oh… grow larger.” Wen Chu repeated the system’s words, then asked, “How big can I grow?”

As he spoke, he looked down, moving his thin, soft, thread-like jellyfish tentacles with a sense of unfamiliarity—he had hundreds of such tentacles.

The tentacles were wet and sticky, equipped with stinging cells capable of injecting irritating toxins into prey. These hundreds of tentacles were undoubtedly a perfect tool for tightly entangling prey, making escape impossible.

If only he weren’t the size of a palm right now.

System: [Generally speaking, there is no upper limit. As long as your lifespan increases, you will grow accordingly and gradually become stronger.]

Wen Chu began to imagine: “Can my tentacles become as thick as my arm? How much lifespan is needed to grow that big?”

When Wen Chu mentioned “as thick as my arm,” the light screen flickered strangely.

Then, perhaps realizing it had overthought, the light screen stated concisely: [Ninety-nine years.]

Wen Chu pressed on, “How long is ninety-nine years?”

He didn’t have a strong concept of time.

A single word slowly appeared on the system’s light screen: [Stupid.]

He had made someone angry again.

Wen Chu silently shut his mouth.

This was why he was so bad at talking to people.

He didn’t want to anger the system again, so he simply stopped asking and clumsily controlled his unfamiliar tentacles to swipe the light screen.

On the second page of the light screen was a photo of the mission target.

The person had long, golden hair and eyes that were an almost transparent blue. He had a high nose bridge and deep-set eyes. His upper body was bare, revealing smooth, meticulously sculpted muscle lines, like a god from ancient Greek mythology.

[This is a Siren, the master of the ocean. This is the third year the ocean has been completely polluted. He is searching for the last remaining life forms to fulfill their final wishes. As the last jellyfish, you can take this opportunity to approach him, present your wish, gain his trust, and have intimate contact with him.]

Wen Chu didn’t know about ancient Greek mythology, nor did he know what a “Siren” was. He just stared at the other’s massive fish tail, then at his fierce and aggressive brow, and then looked down at his own thin, soft tentacles, feeling a trace of doubt about the system’s words.

Could such a fierce-looking person really be approached?

Wen Chu voiced his question: “Will I really not be slapped to death by his tail?”

System: [Probably not?]

Wen Chu: QAQ?

System: [If you act pitiful, there probably won’t be any major problems.]

Wen Chu said in a small voice, “What does ‘act pitiful’ mean?”

System: […]

System: [Just shut up and get going. I’ll make the arrangements for you.]

As it spoke, the system directly turned the light screen into an arrow, pointing to Wen Chu’s front-left.

The faint blue light from the system screen illuminated a small area in the pitch-black ocean, the meaning couldn’t be clearer—get a move on.

It had the air of being ready to beat up a jellyfish if he didn’t leave.

Wen Chu was in a jellyfish state now and couldn’t take a beating. He strenuously moved his body, wanting to get off the white coral.

The coral was rough, and the jellyfish’s tentacles were numerous and dense. It was his first time being a jellyfish, and he had no idea how to control them.

In the process of crawling off the coral, one of his tentacles got stuck in a crevice and subsequently got tangled with the tentacles behind it.

At first, only two tentacles were tangled. Wen Chu turned back to untangle them, but in doing so, two other tentacles got tangled. He had over a hundred tentacles in total, and the situation immediately spiraled out of control.

The tentacles on the left got tangled, the ones on the edge got tangled, and the ones on the inside got tangled too. His tentacles became a chaotic mess, and he himself turned into a jellyfish ball, rolling off the coral with a gurgle, landing heavily on the gravel, and continuing to roll forward.

Waaah—

This seems much faster than crawling?

Wen Chu steadied himself and paused. He didn’t notice the arrow slowing down to turn back and help him untangle his tentacles. With a sense of giving up, he started rolling again.

Roll, just roll. Anyway, since he gained consciousness, he hadn’t seen any other creatures in the sea. Rolling wasn’t embarrassing.

System: …

The system retracted an arrow that was about to turn back and continued to coldly guide Wen Chu.

Under the system’s guidance, Wen Chu successfully rolled out of the white coral area, rolling all the way toward the even darker deep sea.

The further he rolled, the darker it became. Initially, the seawater could still let a little sunlight through, but in the end, there was only pure darkness.

Perhaps because he had become a jellyfish, Wen Chu adapted well to the darkness, flexibly dodging all sorts of bone fragments, dead seaweed, and floating trash like a nimble, transparent bouncy ball.

The kind of transparent bouncy ball with an orange-red core.

Just as he had gotten used to his current speed and was about to ask the system how far he was from the mission target, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a silvery-white figure in his peripheral vision.

It was right above him, speeding towards him.

Wen Chu thought it was some kind of large piece of trash and was about to speed up his rolling to dodge it when he looked up and met a pair of pitch-black, murky, hollow eyes.

This was a fish countless times larger than him.

Its body was flat and gaunt, covered with wrinkles and greenish, rotten seaweed. Its two eyes were embedded on opposite sides of its flat body, staring straight at him. As it rapidly approached, it opened its mouth, revealing small, jagged teeth.

!!!

Wen Chu immediately had no time to examine the fish. He rolled forward at high speed. The rough deep-sea rocks left scrape after scrape on his soft body. He subconsciously cried out to the system for help.

“A monster is trying to eat me!”

The system timely attached a light screen to the monster fish.

[Class: Sunfish]
[Remaining Lifespan: Three days]
[Main Food: Plankton, mollusks, small fish, seaweed (Of course, it is very hungry now and doesn’t mind eating a jellyfish)]

Wen Chu: “I know it’s a sunfish!! It’s trying to eat me!!”

System: [Then run faster. This is also part of acting pitiful.]

Easier said than done. He didn’t have a single leg on his body, how could he run?

Wen Chu desperately rolled and hid, but having left the white coral reef, there were only dark rocks here. A transparent Turritopsis dohrnii with an orange-red core was extremely conspicuous. No matter where he hid, the sunfish’s shadow followed him from above like a ghost.

He was simply too small. Ten of his rolls couldn’t compare to one swim of the sunfish.

Seeing the sunfish’s large mouth about to descend, Wen Chu couldn’t care about anything else. For the first time in his life, he spoke at a rapid pace: “I’m sorry, I haven’t learned how to act pitiful. My first mission is a failure. I’ve caused you trouble.”

The system’s light screen visibly froze for a moment, as if it hadn’t expected Wen Chu’s first reaction in this situation to be an apology.

But Wen Chu didn’t notice the system’s change.

Because at this moment, a yellowish, sharp, spiral-shaped long horn suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Like a baseball bat, it struck the sunfish, sending it flying three meters away.

The sunfish spun several three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circles before floating in the sea, whether it was knocked out or dead was unknown.

Wen Chu was stunned by this sudden turn of events and stiffly followed the long horn downwards with his gaze.

Then, his eyes met with a fish more than three times the size of the sunfish.

This fish slightly opened its wide mouth at him.

Wen Chu scrambled with all his tentacles and fled.

“Ahhhh, why does a fish have a horn!!!”

System: [Because it’s a narwhal.]

As if afraid he wouldn’t see it while fleeing for his life, the system considerately placed the light screen in front of him this time.

[Class: Narwhal]
[Remaining Lifespan: One month]
[Main Food: Cod, halibut, shrimp, cephalopods]

Wen Chu: “Is this also part of acting pitiful?”

System: [Yes.]

Wen Chu was very moved, and so he rolled even faster.

He didn’t recognize any of the animals listed by the system, but he had a head and feet, so no matter how he looked at it, he should be on the narwhal’s menu.

Perhaps Wen Chu’s act of rolling to escape was too unconventional, as the narwhal actually froze in place for a moment, then let out a sharp, whistle-like cry.

By this time, Wen Chu had already rolled ten meters away.

He had no time to listen carefully to the narwhal’s cry. After living in a hospital for eighteen years and being thrown into the dog-eat-dog world of the ocean for the first time, Wen Chu’s primal survival instincts were fully activated. He used almost all his strength to roll forward desperately.

After a brief daze, the narwhal also cried out and chased after him.

Its swimming stirred the seawater. Under the impact of the current, Wen Chu felt his rolling body suddenly become light.

Looking down, he realized he was floating.

He could drift with the ocean current.

This undoubtedly sped up his escape. Under the scouring of the current, his tightly knotted tentacles even began to loosen one by one, gradually turning him from a bouncy ball back into a jellyfish, propelling himself forward with the pulsation of his bell.

All the scenery rapidly receded as he fled. Almost all the sights in the deep sea were identical.

Thanks to the system, which had been dutifully pointing the way, he didn’t get lost in his frantic escape.

Before Wen Chu could finish this silent thought of gratitude in his heart, the blue fluorescent arrow that had been guiding him suddenly disappeared, revealing the giant fish tail it had been obscuring.

Eh?!?

Wen Chu didn’t have time to brake. He could only swim upwards with all his might, trying to avoid the fish tail.

And then.

Splat.

With a wet, sticky sound, he crashed into a soft, extremely elastic wall.

The wall bulged slightly, like a small hill with a small peak in the middle. Wen Chu, as a whole jellyfish, could just barely hold on tightly with all his tentacles spread out.

But why was the wall flesh-colored?

At this time, Wen Chu still didn’t know that a jellyfish’s tentacles contained countless stinging cells. In a state of stress, the nematocysts fired their toxic barbs the moment they touched prey, causing an irritating sting.

He only felt the wall tremble slightly.

Then, a strand of long, golden, sun-like hair hung down, and the transparent bell of Wen Chu’s body tightened.

He was grabbed by the bell and pulled off the wall.

[Lifespan +1h]

The system panel appeared, and Wen Chu, who was being held up, finally saw the full view of the wall.

This wasn’t a wall, but a person’s well-toned chest muscle. Because he had been attached to it for a moment, a circle of overly bright red, inflamed wounds appeared on the sculpture-like porcelain-white skin.

“Where did this jellyfish come from?”

A cold and impatient voice sounded. As he was lifted, Wen Chu met the blue, almost transparent eyes under the long golden hair.

Long golden hair, blue eyes, a massive fish tail, this was—

[Class: Siren]
[Remaining Lifespan: ???]
[Hint: He is the master of this sea. Perhaps he can save you.]

---

Author’s Note:

The novel has begun.

Important emphasis: Wen Chu is the gong (top), Xiu is the shou (bottom), 1v1 quick-transmigration, no switching/reversing roles. The gong loves the shou enough to die for him, and vice versa.

The main story is as the summary describes. I want to write a story where a sharp-tongued but soft-hearted shou thinks the gong is a little pitiful thing and casually raises him, only to find that he raised a monster he can’t resist (did he really resist?) and gets overturned and… eaten. The shou’s “pitiable little thing” filter for the gong is 800 meters thick.

The gong starts as an ignorant non-human and gradually becomes a bai qie hei (white on the outside, black on the inside). He goes from being naturally black-hearted and naturally cute to deliberately acting pitiful to soften the shou’s heart. What doesn’t change is his natural non-human feel.

After the gong realizes his face has a miraculous effect on the shou, he will start to become flamboyant / a green tea master / an ultimate vinegar jar. If he becomes a black-hearted sweet dumpling and still looks weak at times, then there’s no doubt he’s faking it for the shou (was he even normal during his early naturally-black-hearted phase?).

I love writing nianxia (younger top), writing cute but naturally black-hearted gongs with cool, handsome shous, or beautiful and scheming gongs with cool, handsome shous. Lovesick ghost gongs with cool, handsome shous are also delicious, I love them all… the gong will just cling to the shou for a lifetime…