Chapter 20: The Jellyfish Ponders: Can Males Mate with Males?

As it turned out, acting pitiful had a very limited effect on the system.

After hearing his words, the system paused for a few seconds and then disappeared again.

Wen Chu, who had come away empty-handed: …

Sigh.

Life as a jellyfish is hard.

Wen Chu was genuinely starting to worry. He understood that Xiu’s desire to mate had been triggered by him, but he could also clearly sense Xiu’s wariness, which was why he had chosen to play dumb in the first place. Playing dumb would ensure Xiu didn’t become wary of him, but it also cut off all possibility of him mating with Xiu.

He already had a reaction because of me, so why is he unwilling to mate with me?

Wen Chu didn’t understand.

Xiu, on the other hand, relaxed considerably after realizing that Wen Chu had no idea what he had just seen. The unnatural reaction of his scales also subsided. He picked up Wen Chu and searched for a basin, reaching out to touch the rock at its edge. After confirming it was basalt, Xiu brought Wen Chu further down and, as expected, found an entire bed of shellfish remains in the basin.

These shellfish were already dead, leaving only their undecomposed black shells, which trembled constantly with the ocean current. Below them, tiny bubbles continuously emerged from crevices in the rock, alongside thin, tangled tube worms that resembled withered vines. Clusters of white crabs swayed gently beside the tube worms—their insides had already been decomposed by microorganisms, leaving only translucent empty shells.

“So many shellfish,” Wen Chu marveled.

“Yes, this is a cold seep,” Xiu explained concisely. “It’s a place where methane leaks out. There’s very little organic matter in the deep sea, so wherever there’s a cold seep, there will definitely be life.”

Shellfish could grow in other places, but Xiu couldn’t risk the one-in-ten-thousand chance of choosing the wrong spot and wasting Wen Chu’s lifespan. Naturally, he brought Wen Chu to a place where shellfish were guaranteed to be found.

Xiu looked at the black sediment in the basin and frowned. He didn’t put Wen Chu down, but simply held him closer to the shellfish.

“Transfer your lifespan.”

Xiu paused, then added, “Don’t transfer too much. In the current environment, even if you revive them, they won’t be able to survive. And I won’t save you again for this reason.”

“Okay,” Wen Chu replied obediently and extended a tentacle.

[Lifespan -10h]
[Remaining Lifespan: 24 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes]

The moment the jellyfish’s transparent tentacle touched the shellfish, white flesh grew within the empty shells.

An entire mussel bed once again displayed its entire life cycle, from birth to death, before Xiu’s eyes. It was still a radius of ten meters. Not only the mussels, but also the dead tube worms and crabs, and even a few small fish that might have come to feed, were instantly brought back to life, only to age and die again just as quickly.

A cold seep was like an oasis in the deep sea. Deep-sea creatures depended on it for life, only to die when the seep became blocked. They were buried by sedimentation, compressed, and over millions of years, formed methane, giving birth to the next cold seep and the next circle of life. This was how life was passed on in the deep sea.

Even though this was the second time he had witnessed such a scene, Xiu couldn’t help but be stunned into a momentary daze.

Wen Chu belatedly realized something was wrong.

[System, doesn’t transferring my lifespan heal them? Why did they die so quickly both times?]

As long as it didn’t involve Xiu, the system appeared quickly: [You only heal them; you don’t make them adapt to the ocean environment. After being revived, they are immediately near death again, and then healed by you again. When the lifespan you transferred is used up, what you see is their natural aging and death.]

Wen Chu had an epiphany.

Just as he was thinking about whether to explain it to Xiu, he saw Xiu had already naturally picked up a dead shellfish from the rock, peeled it open, and fed it to his mouth.

Wen Chu gobbled it down.

Xiu looked down at him, and only after confirming that he hadn’t shrunk again did he relax, continuing to pick up shellfish for the jellyfish. A jellyfish didn’t need to chew; it swallowed with an open mouth, straight to the stomach. If he didn’t peel them faster, he couldn’t keep up with the jellyfish’s eating speed.

Wen Chu ate the shellfish meat, then swam up with a push, landing on Xiu’s arm. He said stickily, “Xiu, these shellfish that died again…”

“They can’t adapt to the current ocean environment, just like the coral. As long as the ocean environment doesn’t improve, they won’t be able to live, even if you revive them,” Xiu said while peeling a shellfish. “Your ability is probably to transfer your own lifespan? When your lifespan is exhausted, it’s normal for them to die of old age. You don’t need to feel guilty.”

He then stuffed another piece of shellfish meat into Wen Chu’s mouth.

Wen Chu chewed it a bit and sent it to his stomach.

Oh, so Xiu had already figured it out. Right, Xiu knew so much about the ocean and was so smart; it was normal for him to deduce the system’s logic. No need for a lengthy explanation. Wen Chu simply focused on eating the shellfish.

“This is chewier than the shallow-sea shellfish, but it’s delicious,” Wen Chu commented.

A jellyfish seriously critiquing the taste of shellfish had a certain kind of deadpan humor.

Xiu looked at him with amusement and explained, “Because the temperature in the deep sea is lower, the growth cycle of shellfish is longer, so the texture is better.”

“Because the cold seep is cold?” Wen Chu remembered the cold seep Xiu had just mentioned and curiously extended a tentacle to touch the small bubbles coming from the rock crevices.

Smack.

His tentacle was slapped away hard by Xiu.

“Don’t touch it,” Xiu said quickly.

Wen Chu dazedly retracted his tentacle.

It was slapped away again. He wanted to say it hurt, but he had been the one to reveal he had no sense of pain, so now Wen Chu could only hold his slapped tentacle in a daze. He would definitely not tell Xiu he had no sense of pain next time.

After speaking, Xiu also realized his tone had been too harsh. He softened his voice and said, “That’s methane. If it’s punctured, it will crystallize quickly and trap your tentacle. It’s very dangerous.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Wen Chu said with understanding, forgiving Xiu without holding a grudge.

Xiu, however, glanced at him again. Seeing him still holding the tentacle that had been slapped, he fell silent for a moment, his tone softening even more. “Did I hurt you?”

Only after blurting it out did he remember Wen Chu had no sense of pain. Just as he was about to correct himself, he saw the jellyfish shake its head.

“It doesn’t hurt. I can’t feel pain,” Wen Chu said honestly. “I was just a little sad when I was hit, but I’m fine now.”

For a moment, Xiu had a vision of a child being hit for being disobedient. But Wen Chu was very obedient. Besides being a bit delicate and sickly, he had almost no flaws.

Xiu’s mind wandered inappropriately for a moment. Perhaps because Wen Chu had spent too long in a human laboratory, he acted too much like a naive human in his daily life, so much so that Xiu couldn’t help but imagine what Wen Chu would look like as a human.

If Wen Chu were human…

Well, a person transformed from a jellyfish might look rather bizarre, perhaps like a transparent slime person.

Xiu was disgusted by his own imagined scenario and gave up on the thought. Although it was very subtle, he preferred good-looking things. The fact that he could compromise so much for Wen Chu was partly due to the jellyfish’s cute appearance. If it were a person with an average appearance, with racial hatred between them… It’s not that he would abandon Wen Chu, but it might take more time for him to accept Wen Chu’s existence.

Thinking this, Xiu looked at the large jellyfish on his arm and reached out to touch its tentacle. “My mistake. I won’t hit your tentacle anymore,” Xiu said. “Open your mouth.”

He fed the jellyfish another piece of shellfish meat. While feeding the jellyfish, Xiu explained, “It’s called a cold seep because there are also hot vents in the sea formed by volcanic activity. It’s relative, not that it’s cold here.”

He explained the life cycles and ecosystems of cold seeps and hydrothermal vents to Wen Chu in detail. Wen Chu listened, stunned, and after a long while, said, “…Life is so hard for fish in the deep sea.”

“Actually, it’s alright. The real difficulty isn’t the environment,” Xiu said. He pointed to the black sediment at the bottom of the basin. “See that? That’s solidified oil from a leak.”

“Oil is a type of fuel. The seabed not only has oil, but also methane and various rare metals, so—”

While speaking, Xiu never forgot to feed Wen Chu. By now, Wen Chu’s stomach was full. Wen Chu only felt his scalp tighten, and he was lifted up by Xiu again.

Xiu carried him upwards, and after leaving the seafloor basin, the first thing Wen Chu saw was a giant pipeline. The pipes were extremely thick and numerous, tangled and intertwined like the tube worms he had just seen, spread across the seabed like the blood vessels of the ocean floor.

“—so, their biggest danger is the humans who come to the deep sea to extract mineral resources,” Xiu finished his sentence.

“This is…” Wen Chu asked in confusion.

“It’s a pipeline for transporting oil and natural gas to land,” Xiu said calmly. “There should have been abundant oil here once. If you look up, the giant shadow on the sea surface is their mobile drilling platform.”

Wen Chu looked up and, sure enough, saw a huge shadow. It was truly massive, several times larger than the narwhal. Below the shadow were four cables, steel cables firmly anchoring the platform to the seabed. Even with the raging storm on the surface, the drilling platform stood firm. In the center, the platform’s drilling rig extended deep into the seabed. The machine had now stopped operating, covered in a faint layer of green algae and rust.

Such an abrupt steel creation, devouring a piece of the sea.

“Can’t we dismantle them?” Wen Chu couldn’t help but ask.

“We can’t,” Xiu had clearly thought about this problem before and answered without hesitation. “Human extraction also follows environmental protection standards and performs some green treatments. Dismantling them would instead cause oil leaks, which would only make a bad situation worse for this area of the sea.”

As Xiu spoke, he seemed somewhat amused, finding such an environmental standard ridiculous.

“Let’s go. If you stay here too long, you’ll get sick again,” Xiu said, picking up Wen Chu and swimming away.

Wen Chu was still thinking. He was out of the hospital for the first time and had arrived in such a world. Every time he learned something new with Xiu, it brought him an indescribable feeling. Although he was a jellyfish now, he had been raised by humans. He felt he should also be considered human, which made him even more confused.

Humans needed to develop technology, so they needed energy. That wasn’t wrong. But the ocean, from which energy was endlessly taken, was also not in the wrong. It seemed like no one was wrong, so why did this world end up with all humans gone, leaving only this black ocean?

Wen Chu couldn’t figure it out. He was thinking so hard his brain was about to grow.

Wen Chu shook his head, throwing these thoughts away, and decided not to think about it anymore. He was just a jellyfish now. A jellyfish only needed to be responsible for eating its fill and saving up lifespan every day. Mermen had a lot more to consider.

Wen Chu stayed obediently in Xiu’s hand and glanced up at Xiu’s expression. Xiu’s expression hadn’t changed much. Perhaps because this time it was just oil extraction and no fish lives were endangered, the ripples in those clear blue eyes quickly calmed. After all, all of this was too common.

Wen Chu paused. He suddenly spoke up, “Xiu, the route we were taking before, have we been avoiding these places all along?”

“Yes,” Xiu did not deny. “The humans have been gone for a long time. These operating platforms are in disrepair and are prone to accidents.”

He and the narwhal would be fine, but Wen Chu— Xiu looked at the jellyfish he could lift with one hand. He felt a single steel bar could crush this jellyfish to death.

Wen Chu understood. Xiu thought he was too weak. In the end, it was still him causing trouble for Xiu. Wen Chu glanced at his panel, which was still decreasing at double speed. After a thought, he decided to postpone this not-so-urgent matter. It wouldn’t be too late to tell Xiu after he had saved up ninety-nine years of lifespan.

On the surface was a monstrous storm, but the seabed remained calm. The merman, carrying the jellyfish, left this area of the sea. Neither of them noticed that in the storm, the drilling platform’s cable swayed for a moment. Then, a crack appeared on the blowout preventer on the seabed.

---

On the other side.

After an expectedly long wait, the narwhal finally saw Wen Chu and Xiu return. She had been the first to suggest returning to the North Pole, but after embarking on the journey, she was the one in the least hurry.

Wen Chu called out “Grandma Narwhal” to greet her from afar. The narwhal replied good-naturedly, “You’re back. How is it on the surface?”

“It’s raining at sea,” Wen Chu said. “So Xiu and I went underwater. Xiu also took me to find shellfish, and we saw a drilling platform.”

Only then did Wen Chu remember. “By the way, I said I wanted to bring you back some shellfish, but I forgot after looking at the drilling platform.”

“It’s fine,” the narwhal shook her head. “It saves you the trouble, and I don’t eat them anyway.”

“Why?” Wen Chu was curious. “Do you not need to eat, like Xiu?”

The narwhal pondered for a moment and said uncertainly, “…Because I’m a vegetarian?”

Wen Chu didn’t understand. “Huh?”

Narwhal: “It means I don’t eat meat, or any food related to meat. Among humans, this is called vegetarianism.”

Wen Chu asked, “Then do you eat green algae?”

The narwhal thought for a moment and shook her head firmly. “No. They not only rely on photosynthesis, but also absorb some small molecules, and those small molecules might contain fish.”

It was the first time Wen Chu had heard such a concept. He didn’t understand for a long time, and only after a while did he ask, “Then is there anything you can eat? I can help you find it.”

“No need,” the narwhal said, shaking her yellowed long horn. “See the fat on my body? I can get nutrients from my fat.”

Wen Chu finally understood. “So you’re on a hunger strike.”

The narwhal corrected, “No, I just don’t want to eat any meat. There are too few fish now. I don’t want to engage in cannibalism, and most food happens to contain meat.”

“That’s a hunger strike. You can’t not eat. You’ll faint,” Wen Chu insisted.

“I’m just a vegetarian…”

“Alright, stop,” Xiu pulled Wen Chu away, putting an end to the endless dispute. “I checked the direction when I went to the surface just now. Let’s continue on our way.”

The moment Xiu picked him up, Wen Chu became obedient. It had almost become a conditioned reflex. He stayed quietly in Xiu’s hand and didn’t speak.

Xiu glanced at the narwhal but didn’t comment on her behavior, only saying in a light tone, “The storm outside won’t stop until at least tomorrow. We won’t go up to check the direction at noon today. We’ll go again tomorrow morning. Just half a day’s journey won’t deviate too much.”

“There are still ten days of journey to the North Pole.”

The narwhal lowered her head. Ten days…

---

It was another day of travel. Wen Chu, as the slowest member of the team, lay on the narwhal’s back as usual. Although he couldn’t fit in his shell nest anymore, he still insisted on bringing his little home with him.

Wen Chu lay next to the tightly bound little nest, rereading the bit of information the system had given him while feeling sleepy. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep.

When he woke up again, it was already dusk. After half a day, his lifespan had reached twenty-three days. By tomorrow, his lifespan would match the number he had reported to Xiu. Then he just needed to time it right, touch Xiu’s scale every two days to make up for the missing twenty-four hours.

He had perfectly hidden the fact that his lifespan was decreasing at double the speed.

Wen Chu looked at Xiu, who was preparing a bed for him, feeling a little proud. He pounced over and gave Xiu a big smooch. “Xiu, do you like me a little more today? Do you want to be my lover a little more?”

Xiu was caught off guard and got a face full of slime from the jellyfish. He frowned and pulled Wen Chu away. “No. Stop messing around. I’m making your bed.”

It was only when making his bed and kissing him that Xiu got a real sense of just how big Wen Chu had grown. He couldn’t find a shell that could hold such a large jellyfish now.

Alright, looks like Xiu doesn’t like me any more.

Wen Chu was disappointed. Then it seemed it wasn’t the right time to ask Xiu how males mate with males. He had studied it all afternoon and couldn’t find a single clue in the information the system gave him.

[Are you just going to hide it like this until the end? The lifespan matter.] The system couldn’t help but speak up.

[There are still nine days until you reach the North Pole. Your lifespan decay rate will double every five days. There are only two days left until the next doubling. What good does it do you to hide this from Xiu? It would be better to tell him early. It’s not like Xiu would abandon you over something like this.]

[But it will cause trouble for Xiu,] Wen Chu said matter-of-factly. [Xiu is already working so hard. He always says I’m troublesome. I don’t want to cause him any more trouble.]

The system fell silent.

Wen Chu didn’t understand the system’s silence. Seeing the system on a rare evening appearance, he seized the opportunity to ask:

[So, can males mate with males? How do you do it?]