Chapter 15: The Jellyfish Has an Epiphany: A Male Can Also Be a Wife…

Saving up lifespan was a matter of utmost urgency. After finishing the green algae, Wen Chu went to feed on the tip of Xiu’s tongue again.

Because he had shrunk, Xiu refused to proactively stick out his tongue for him to eat, leaving Wen Chu to dive in and get it himself.

The merman curled up on the black reef, his upper body entwined by the translucent jellyfish, his divine face flushed with the red of desire.

【Lifespan +12h】
【Lifespan +12h】
【Lifespan +12h】

“Mmph… cough, cough!”

Wen Chu’s lifespan was already on the verge of making him grow. After reaching twenty days, he abruptly expanded a size.

His tentacles lengthened along with him.

This time, he truly reached the very back of Xiu’s hot throat. Xiu, thinking he was about to be eaten through, gagged violently, his throat constricting around the foreign object.

The pressure was uncomfortable for Wen Chu. He whimpered and tried to retreat, which in turn caused another shudder from Xiu.

He couldn’t go forward, and he couldn’t go back.

Wen Chu was conflicted for a moment, then chose to take another bite of Xiu.

【Lifespan +12h】

Since it’s come to this, I’ll just eat Xiu first.

If he saved up enough lifespan, no matter how tattered he left Xiu, he could always restore him.

Once he figured this out, Wen Chu no longer hesitated and continued to eat, clinging to Xiu’s neck.

With his longer tentacles, the jellyfish could now bind the upper half of the merman’s body. As he was pierced on the reef, a blush rose to the corners of the merman’s eyes.

It was clear that Wen Chu had crossed a line.

Xiu, concerned for Wen Chu’s frail condition, had wanted to gently push his tentacles away and get him to stop. But when his first attempt to reach out was forcefully pushed back by Wen Chu’s tentacles, Xiu finally realized something was wrong.

Wen Chu was getting a little beyond his control.

The comfortable dynamic of giving from a position of power was turning into a vague crisis of potentially being plundered. Xiu’s scalp tingled for a moment, and he recklessly tore Wen Chu off him.

The tip of his tongue was numb from being eaten. His lips trembled, and it took him a long while to form a complete sentence. “…Enough.”

His voice was hoarse and broken. Every accidental brush from Wen Chu’s tentacles sent an involuntary shiver through him.

Xiu was calling a stop earlier and earlier these days.

Wen Chu regretfully retracted his tentacles and glanced at his lifespan panel.

【Remaining Lifespan: 22 days, 03 hours, 27 minutes】

Dropping at double the speed, by this time tomorrow he would shrink a size again.

This frequent growing and shrinking would definitely make Xiu suspicious.

With this in mind, Wen Chu carefully asked, “Can I still kiss you tomorrow?”

Xiu was still breathing heavily, his chest heaving. He gave the newly enlarged Wen Chu a thoughtful look, then said, “No.”

“I’m going to help the clownfish set up road signs tonight. I’ll try to finish before noon tomorrow. We might be delayed by half a day tomorrow. We should hurry on our way. Your lifespan should be enough, right?”

It’s not enough.

Wen Chu was melancholic, but that didn’t stop him from transferring ten hours of lifespan to heal Xiu.

【Remaining Lifespan: 21 days, 17 hours, 25 minutes】

Xiu’s once-crimson lips instantly returned to their normal color, and his voice was no longer hoarse.

Feeling the pain in his throat dissipate, Xiu looked down at Wen Chu and said coolly, “I told you not to waste your lifespan.”

“I don’t want to cause you trouble,” Wen Chu said, rubbing against Xiu.

Xiu was somewhat amused. “Don’t you think just seeking me out for a kiss every day is troublesome enough?”

Ah, so that’s how it is?

Wen Chu grew thoughtful, genuinely starting to consider the possibility of not kissing Xiu every day.

If it was just about earning lifespan, maybe he could take it himself at night while Xiu was asleep?

Letting Xiu’s scale eat him a little would give him a full day of life.

“Then I’ll try to kiss you less in the future?” Wen Chu ventured.

Xiu didn’t say yes or no. He just picked him up and swam back. “You kiss me when I tell you to. Less nonsense.”

His tone was fierce, but his words were indulgent.

“Okay,” Wen Chu replied obediently.

After a moment, he asked again, “But wouldn’t that be troublesome for you?”

The waves lapped past the merman’s ears, lifting his long, golden hair.

Wen Chu saw Xiu’s bright red ears under his golden hair.

“Shut up.”

Alright, I’m being annoying again.

He made Xiu so angry his ears turned red.

---

With the nuclear power plant leak ahead, they couldn’t proceed along their original route. Plus, he had to help the clownfish seal off the area, so Xiu didn’t continue traveling with Wen Chu that afternoon.

Wen Chu was left with the narwhal, far from the nuclear leak. Xiu left a few clownfish behind to send messages in an emergency, then departed with the rest of the school.

Wen Chu actually wanted to follow, but a nuclear leak was no joke. If he went along, he might actually drop dead, so he had to give up the idea.

He drifted back to his little shell nest for a visit, then swam back.

He had been left behind, and he couldn’t find Xiu now. With this rare moment of solitude, Wen Chu decided to fish for some useful information.

He put on a curious expression and sidled up to one of the clownfish.

This clownfish was also one whose colors hadn’t faded much. When he had snatched their leader earlier, this one had cried the loudest.

Wen Chu approached curiously and asked, “Do you guys really become female?”

“We do,” the clownfish said, giving him a strange look. “You really don’t know? A lot of fish can, like groupers, parrotfish…”

Wen Chu was even more stunned. “Parrotfish can change too?”

The clownfish gave this ignorant jellyfish another look. If he hadn’t personally witnessed Wen Chu turn into a monster, he might have actually been fooled by the jellyfish’s soft, clueless appearance.

He explained, “Yes. At a certain age, a female parrotfish will become male. The rules for transformation are different for different species of parrotfish.”

“It’s simple for us clownfish. The strongest fish is the female, the second strongest is the male, and all the rest are backup non-breeding males. Only the two strongest fish can be together and have the right to reproduce.”

The clownfish puffed out its chest. “I’m the second strongest fish. I’m the male.”

Wen Chu mulled over the clownfish’s words, then asked, “What if the female dies?”

“Then I’ll become the female, and the strongest of the backup non-breeding males will move up to become the male.”

The clownfish then stared resentfully at Wen Chu. “Even though I might be someone else’s wife tomorrow, your act of kidnapping my wife to threaten me was immoral.”

Wen Chu: …

Wen Chu felt that while he might be immoral, the clownfish certainly didn’t conform to human ethics.

But that made sense. They were fish. He couldn’t hold fish to human standards.

“Only the strongest fish have the right to reproduce…” Wen Chu repeated the clownfish’s words. “So as long as I get strong, I can have a lover?”

“Lover? That sounds like a word humans would use.” The clownfish shook its head and tail. “As long as you’re the strongest fish, you can reproduce together. That’s how you produce high-quality offspring.”

The narwhal had been listening from the side and voiced its agreement. “That’s right. Only the strongest fish can produce high-quality offspring. My mother was the leader of the whale pod, and my father was the male with the longest and thickest horn at the time.”

“Procreate, don’t talk about love,” the narwhal said, feeling very philosophical. “But I’ve seen a lot of human TV shows at the aquarium. Although humans aren’t great, their love is truly moving for a whale.”

“So that’s how it is,” Wen Chu listened blankly.

So this wasn’t the way to become lovers either.

Seeing his disappointment, and connecting it to Wen Chu’s earlier chase after Xiu and his shocking “puppy” declaration, the clownfish guessed what was going on.

This must be one of Lord Siren’s fanatical pursuers.

The clownfish flapped its pectoral fins, patting Wen Chu’s tentacle like a good buddy, and offered its own experienced advice. “It’s okay. Chasing Lord Siren is hard. Work on getting stronger. If you become the second strongest male, you can take him away and make him your wife!”

“Also, don’t just be a puppy for any fish. Have some self-respect.”

“Make him my wife?” Wen Chu’s attention was on the first half of the clownfish’s sentence. “Can a male also be a wife?”

“Of course! That’s what humans call their partners,” the clownfish said, shaking its head smugly. “I learned it from humans before. It’s very chic, right?”

Wen Chu nodded thoughtfully. “You’re very familiar with humans?”

“So-so,” the clownfish said modestly.

Wen Chu asked, “Then do you know what ‘pretending to be good’ means?”

The system had mentioned that phrase.

Based on “playing pitiful,” he could infer that “pretend” was a verb. The meaning of “pretending to be good” could probably be analogized to playing pitiful, meaning to feign obedience.

But he wasn’t sure and wanted to confirm it with a fish.

“Pretending to be good is… well, pretending to be good! Acting like you’re obedient!” The clownfish couldn’t quite explain such a conceptual problem and gestured wildly.

Just as I thought.

Wen Chu said sincerely, “Thank you. You’re a really good fish.”

The clownfish became embarrassed. “Well, I’m just so-so!”

After getting the information he wanted from the clownfish, Wen Chu didn’t say much more. He praised the other until it didn’t know which way was up, then ended the conversation.

He went to poke the system: [System, am I a puppy jellyfish or an immortal jellyfish?]

The system didn’t speak, simply pulling up his panel.

【Category: Turritopsis dohrnii (Immortal Jellyfish)】
【Remaining Lifespan: 21 days, 17 hours, 03 minutes】
【Hint: You are in a polluted state, therefore lifespan decay rate is x2. Please proceed to a location with good water quality quickly, or the decay rate will continue to accelerate.】

This was the information the system had given him at the very beginning.

Wen Chu wiggled his tentacles.

His memory was excellent; he wouldn’t forget his own species.

Although Xiu’s words at the beginning had made him doubt for a moment if he was a puppy, seeing the reactions of the narwhal and the clownfish, Wen Chu could guess the truth.

His jellyfish form provided a natural camouflage. If he were in his human form, the system would have probably noticed the sly smile under the youth’s round eyes from the very beginning.

The jellyfish, under its harmless exterior, was slowly leading the system into a trap.

[Xiu lied to me,] Wen Chu accused.

System: […]
System: [You’re the one who’s stupid.]

Wen Chu continued to press: [Then what’s a polyp? The clownfish said I can be resurrected after I die. What’s that? And what are clownfish? Are there other types of jellyfish besides me?]

He had too many questions.

The system was at a loss for where to begin explaining. It simply asked: [Can you read?]

[I can. The doctors taught me,] Wen Chu replied.

The system directly pulled a book on basic ocean knowledge from the bookshelf, extracted the text, and projected it as a document onto the light screen in front of Wen Chu.

[Then read it yourself. You have nothing to do while waiting for Xiu anyway. Learn some ocean basics so you don’t believe everything people tell you.]

Wen Chu looked down at the light screen. The first line of text was:
[Jellyfish cannot change between male and female, and neither can mermen.]

It was specially bolded, enlarged, and highlighted in red.

As if a certain system was too embarrassed to say it out loud and had to type it on the screen for him to see.

His goal achieved, Wen Chu didn’t call out the system. He just extended a tentacle and quietly began to browse the screen.

[“Immortality” of the Turritopsis dohrnii: When the immortal jellyfish encounters threats such as starvation or injury, the somatic cells of the adult medusa will de-differentiate into undifferentiated cells and redevelop into a juvenile polyp. However, this is not true immortality, as the vast majority of immortal jellyfish die from predation, environmental changes, etc., before they can reverse-age…]

…

With the materials provided by the system, Wen Chu was quiet for the entire afternoon, either reading the information or thinking about something.

This prompted the system to check on him several times in surprise. It reviewed the materials it sent Wen Chu, and after confirming it hadn’t sent anything inappropriate, it left, still baffled.

The narwhal, however, was very understanding of Wen Chu’s silence—he’s thinking about his crush, it’s normal.

The sun set in the west.

To avoid delaying their journey, Xiu was pulling an all-nighter and wouldn’t be back tonight.

On the first night without Xiu, Wen Chu hugged his shell nest and quietly lay beside the narwhal.

Without Xiu, he didn’t cry about pain or cold. He just curled into a ball and went to sleep, with the clownfish taking turns to patrol nearby.

The shell nest couldn’t fit him anymore, so Wen Chu used it as a pillow, hugging it to sleep.

The shell was tightly closed, but Wen Chu couldn’t fall asleep for a long time.

He was worried.

He had given Xiu ten hours of his lifespan. After he woke up, with the doubled decay rate, his lifespan would drop below twenty days.

And Xiu had said he couldn’t kiss him tomorrow. How on earth was he going to explain to Xiu why he had shrunk a size again for no reason?

Wen Chu hugged his shell nest and tossed and turned melancholically.

He was still awake when the first light of dawn appeared.

He turned over again.

As he turned, he saw a faint figure in the distance.

They were resting near the continental shelf, where the water wasn’t deep. It was early morning, and the grey-black sky was slowly brightening as the sea’s surface was illuminated by the weak sunlight.

In this faint light, Wen Chu could clearly see that bright splash of gold.

Without hesitation, Wen Chu dropped his shell nest and, to the panic of the patrolling clownfish, shot out with a “swoosh.”

“Xiu.” The jellyfish swam quickly towards the merman.

A half-day’s absence felt like three autumns. Although Xiu looked no different, not even having dark circles under his eyes, Wen Chu still felt that he looked tired and haggard.

He rubbed against Xiu, feeling sorry for him, and circled around him several times. Only after confirming that Xiu had no visible wounds did he retract the tentacle he had ready to transfer lifespan and carefully settle into the crook of Xiu’s arm.

“Xiu.” Wen Chu extended a tentacle and slapped it onto Xiu’s chest. “I’ll work hard to grow up and become the second strongest, and you can be my wife, okay?”

Xiu, who had rushed back overnight because he couldn’t stop worrying about Wen Chu: ?

His expression, which had softened halfway at the jellyfish’s cute antics, froze. His platinum lashes blinked as he let out a single, confused syllable.

“Hm?”

In all his long years, what Xiu had seen most was fear. Forget propositions of love; no fish even dared to call him by his name.

He had thought Wen Chu clinging to him and asking to be his lover was already outrageous enough. How had it now jumped directly to “wife”?

Wen Chu, however, was full of fighting spirit. “If you’re not willing, then I can be your wife too.”

Xiu: “…Huh??”

What on earth has Wen Chu been learning?

The clownfish who had hurriedly chased after them: …

The system, who had been expecting some mischief after Wen Chu studied the documents all afternoon: …

---

Author’s Note:

• Regarding the introduction to the immortal jellyfish, it is summarized from “The Immortal Jellyfish That Can Reverse-Age” by Science Popularization China.
  
• Also, it’s the end of the month. If you have any expiring nutrient fluid you can’t use up, please send it my way. Just think of it as feeding the chickens, cluck cluck cluck [Lop-eared bunny head emoji].