Chapter 27: Human Again! 

Wen Chu said urgently, “Yes, don’t move. Granny Narwhal, your condition is different from theirs. If it’s just a severe injury, I can…”

“No need,” the narwhal interrupted him gently.

“To be able to come this far, I am already very happy.”

Wen Chu was stunned, not understanding the narwhal’s meaning.
The landslide happened in an instant, and the roar had ceased by now.
Due to the narwhal’s protection, a vacuum zone formed around him and Xiu, surrounded by ruins and rocks.
Half of the narwhal’s body was crushed into a bloody mess, and she was already beginning to trance out from excessive blood loss.

“Even without the landslide, I could at most reach Atlantis and would die tomorrow or the day after,” the narwhal whispered.

“To protect you before dying, I am already very glad. No need to waste your life force to save me; that requires a price, right?”

“Wait until you reach the Arctic and confirm your safety before resurrecting me, Wen Chu. This is my request. Do not waste life force on me now.”

The narwhal’s skin turned a sickly gray.
She whispered finally, “Don’t quarrel.”

Get along well.

At the end of the Earth, all life was coming to an end. Whether Wen Chu and Xiu could successfully resurrect the entire ocean or not, the narwhal hoped they would cherish their final moments more.
No one could say if the last angry quarrel would turn into a parting last word.
If there was an ‘if’…
The narwhal thought, before secretly approaching Greenland to play, she definitely wouldn’t quarrel with her mother and say she was annoying.

The narwhal fell completely silent.

Wen Chu froze with his tentacle half-extended, unable to retract it for a long time.
He originally wanted to transfer Lifespan points to the narwhal regardless, but the narwhal’s “request” forced him to stop.
Because Wen Chu realized belatedly that this was a premeditated death.
Refusing to eat, clearly wanting to go to the Arctic most but not rushing at all, the conversations with Xiu… everything pointed to one reason—the narwhal never intended to reach the Arctic.

The third parting was brought to him by the narwhal.
Wen Chu thought, Granny Narwhal is so cunning, not even saying goodbye properly before leaving.
Even though he decided after the clownfish to say goodbye properly to every fish.

Xiu swam over from behind, not too surprised, just silently arriving at the narwhal’s side.
Wen Chu looked at him.
Xiu lowered his head, golden hair falling down. He couldn’t see the expression in Xiu’s transparent blue eyes clearly, but he had seen emotions surging there before.
Wen Chu guessed Xiu might not be calm right now either.
He whispered, “Xiu…”

Xiu turned to look at him, opened his mouth, and after a long time, spat out one word: “Sorry.”

If he had gone a bit further around, holding Wen Chu to dodge directly, Wen Chu might not have witnessed this parting in such a tragic way.
The falling debris couldn’t hurt him at all, but it also couldn’t stop a narwhal bent on dying.

Wen Chu shook his head vigorously and pasted himself to Xiu’s side. “It’s not your fault, Xiu. Wait until I save enough Lifespan points… no, if you are sad, I will resurrect Granny Narwhal right now.”

“No need,” Xiu rejected him.
He looked at the narwhal.

Wen Chu had never seen a whale before and didn’t have a clear concept of a whale’s body size, but he had seen one, so he knew clearly how abnormally skinny the narwhal in front of him was.

Xiu whispered, “This narwhal is very thin. From the beginning, I knew she was at the end of her strength and couldn’t possibly reach the Arctic alive, so I refused directly.”

Wen Chu was stunned. His memory was very good, and he could clearly remember the text on the system panel when he first met the narwhal.
It said the narwhal’s remaining life was one month.

“Why? She should still be able to live for a month. I saw remaining life around her when I first met her; it was written like that.”
Unable to say words related to the system, Wen Chu could only rephrase to ask Xiu.

Xiu glanced at him unexpectedly, seemingly not expecting him to have such an ability.
He didn’t answer Wen Chu immediately but asked, “Then can you see mine, and the Lifespan points of those clownfish we met before?”

“Yes, but only when meeting for the first time,” Wen Chu said. “Yours is a question mark; the clownfish’s was two months.”

Xiu understood. “Then what you saw should be the days they could live based on their physical condition at the first meeting. For example, those clownfish, if we moved them to a suitable place when we met, they could indeed live for two months.”
“But they returned to the nuclear leak pollution zone; their lives only had two weeks left at most.”

Wen Chu looked at the narwhal. The Granny Narwhal who was gently persuading him and Xiu not to quarrel just now was lifeless.
Fish have no eyelids, so the narwhal’s eyes were open. Those pitch-black eyes completely lost their luster, turning into dead silence.

“What about Granny Narwhal?” Wen Chu asked. “She didn’t stay in the nuclear sewage area either… Is it because she didn’t eat?”
Wen Chu became puzzled first as he spoke. “Why? Just because she’s a vegetarian whale? But if she ate, she could clearly live to the Arctic. Doesn’t she miss home?”

“Yes,” Xiu also looked at the narwhal. “I briefly asked about her situation. You were asleep then, so you didn’t know. Vegetarianism was just her teasing you; she couldn’t continue eating.”
“On her way to find me, near the shallow sea, she mistook rubber gloves for squid and ate a bellyful of rubber gloves.”

Xiu said slowly, “Narwhals are colorblind. They can’t distinguish colors and easily ingest floating objects by mistake.”
“If she ate normally, she should indeed have been able to live for two months.”

The truth turned out to be so absurd.
Wen Chu fell silent. Looking at the narwhal again, he only felt her spine seemed exceptionally prominent.
The narwhal said her fat could provide her with nutrients, but perhaps due to psychological reasons, no matter how Wen Chu looked, he felt the narwhal was so thin.
Thin to just a skeleton, not at all like the vast floating island that could prop up the sky in his memory.

“She chose death herself,” Wen Chu lowered his head looking at his tentacles, whispering.
“Because she actually didn’t want to live in the current ocean either?”

“Mn.”
Xiu’s platinum long eyelashes lowered, muttering to himself, “Am I a failure? In the end, I can only watch helplessly as the ocean turns into this, with no fish wanting to survive in the current ocean.”

“No,” Wen Chu interrupted him urgently. “Xiu is not a failure. Xiu is very amazing. Even now, you are looking for fish everywhere, helping them fulfill their wishes.”

Xiu chuckled lightly and didn’t answer.
The merfolk had a sharp and handsome appearance, but at this moment appeared incredibly lonely.
The suddenly dead narwhal, the silent merfolk, the collapsed mountain, and the lingering scent of blood around.
Wen Chu never felt anything bad about the jellyfish appearance, but at this moment, he felt powerlessness incredibly distinctly.
If only he were in human form.
In human form, he feared no harm and could reach out to hug Xiu at this moment.
But he was now a jellyfish.
A jellyfish could only lean over, wrap tentacles around Xiu’s waist, and whisper, “Don’t be sad.”

Xiu paused upon feeling the cold touch on his waist, tightened his abdomen, and pursed his lips, “I’m not sad.”

“Oh,” Wen Chu thought for a moment. “Then I’ll hug you; don’t be sad anymore.”

Xiu: “…”
Even changing the word, didn’t it express the same meaning?
He sighed, looking at the weak and clumsy jellyfish at his waist, and was finally pulled out of the emotional vortex by the jellyfish.

“Sorry, I was just feeling a bit emotional. I’m fine now.”
He was used to death, but the narwhal was somewhat different after all.
They traveled together for so long. He and Wen Chu caused chaos, and the narwhal was busy mediating. Such a past wasn’t fake; even a god would fall into a moment of sadness.

Now detached from emotions, Xiu could calmly handle the matter at hand. “Let’s take the narwhal away. We can’t leave her here alone. It’s not far from Atlantis.”

“Okay,” Wen Chu agreed without hesitation.

Xiu thus picked up the narwhal with one hand. Wen Chu’s shell nest was still tied to the narwhal, swaying, now stained with some blood.
Wen Chu swam over, cherishingly took down the shell nest, and curled it with one of his tentacles.
Although swimming like this would make his center of gravity unstable, he could barely swim.

Just as Wen Chu swayed and prepared to follow Xiu, Xiu, carrying the narwhal in one hand, returned first.
He extended a hand to Wen Chu: “Come here.”

Wen Chu placed a tentacle on Xiu’s hand in confusion.
The next moment, he was pulled over by Xiu.
Xiu placed him on his shoulder. The jellyfish’s tentacles thus pressed on his long golden hair. Wen Chu hurriedly grabbed Xiu’s neck to stabilize himself.

Feeling the wet and cold touch on his neck, Xiu turned his head uncomfortably. He didn’t look at Wen Chu, his words still harsh: “You’re too slow. I’m hurrying next; you won’t keep up. Lie on me.”

Wen Chu looked at Xiu, then at the surrounding high mountains, and agreed obediently, “Okay.”
At this moment, he realized Xiu’s tough-talking soft-hearted nature incredibly clearly.
Obviously worried he would be hurt by landslides again.

After Wen Chu stabilized, Xiu set off. The massive narwhal was like a light piece of paper to him. Even dragging the narwhal and carrying Wen Chu didn’t hinder his rapid advance.
The surrounding scenery became blurs, retreating rapidly.
Wen Chu quietly tightened his tentacles around Xiu’s neck, feeling the merfolk’s slightly heated skin from strenuous exercise.
If only he were a bit more powerful.
Then Xiu wouldn’t have to bear all this alone.

.
Without waiting for them specifically, Xiu doubled his speed again. Originally expected to take two days to reach Atlantis, they arrived by evening.

“We’re here.”
Xiu said, gently putting down the narwhal. Wen Chu swam down from his shoulder accordingly.
They finally exited the continuous mountain range. Before Wen Chu’s eyes was an open abyssal plain.
Located in the deep sea, under the blue-black ocean curtain like the sky, lay a lonely and vast plain. There were no buildings on the plain, only cold white withered bones.

In the center was a massive skeleton, fully over ten meters long, more than double the length of the narwhal. The skeleton was fan-shaped, slightly curved downwards, like a castle made of stacked bones.
Beneath the skeleton were unknown seaweeds still growing—they were an important part of corpse decomposition.

“Is this the Submarine Graveyard?” Wen Chu turned to look at Xiu.

Dragging a whale weighing several tons and carrying a jellyfish, even Xiu was somewhat exhausted. He found a random stone to sit on, fish tail curved, and nodded, “Mn, you can also call it Atlantis.”

Wen Chu was stunned: “This is Atlantis?”
He always thought Atlantis and the Submarine Graveyard were independent existences. He never imagined the prosperous city in the mouths of the narwhal and Xiu would be like this.

Xiu explained, “After Atlantis collapsed, I cleared all the garbage here and used it to bury the fish that died in the collapse.”
“Later, more and more fish came, and it became what it is now.”

Wen Chu felt a bit uncomfortable listening.
Even seeing ruins or broken walls would be better than leaving only a ground full of withered bones to tell of the prosperity back then.
He felt this way as a later bystander; Wen Chu couldn’t imagine how Xiu felt watching Atlantis built and then collapse with his own eyes.

Wen Chu swam to Xiu’s side and whispered, “Are you really not sad? If you want to cry, I won’t laugh at you.”
Like Xiu.
Want to do something for Xiu, even if it’s just a small thing like comforting him.
Xiu could lean on the jellyfish’s broad chest to cry.

The originally somewhat heavy atmosphere was interrupted by Wen Chu’s question. Xiu looked at him amusedly, “No, I don’t want to cry. If crying could solve problems, the world wouldn’t have become like this.”
He reached out, pulled the jellyfish to his side, holding Wen Chu, sitting facing the withered bones: “Actually, in the beginning, I did doubt myself, watching helplessly as all fish left while I had no ability. But after seeing too much, I don’t have so many thoughts anymore.”

“But I am a little sad,” Wen Chu put his hand on Xiu’s arm. “Xiu, when the clownfish left, I was a little sad. When Granny Narwhal didn’t let me heal her, I was also very sad.”

“Sadness is a normal emotion,” Xiu stroked the withered jellyfish’s umbrella cap.
He patiently guided, “This is a good start, showing you are possessing more delicate emotions. Didn’t you want to know what love is? Love is also such a delicate emotion.”

Wen Chu was indeed attracted, asking, “So what is love?”

Xiu blinked, “That requires you to experience it yourself.”
“Only Wen Chu, we can’t just immerse ourselves in sad emotions.”
“In the apocalypse, parting is also a compulsory course. We cannot stop the passing of any life. Instead of repeatedly sinking in past pain, it is better to look forward, look at the present, and cherish the final moments with the life in front of us.”

As Xiu spoke, he remembered the narwhal persuading him and Wen Chu not to quarrel again and again, suddenly understanding the narwhal’s intention.
Indeed, they shouldn’t have quarrelled. He and Wen Chu wasted too much time.
Xiu touched Wen Chu with feeling, muttering to himself, “Must cherish…”

Looking back now, the experiences with Wen Chu were so clear scene by scene. Xiu could almost sort out the entire process from impatience to step-by-step concessions.
Conceding until now, he suddenly realized he seemed to really like Wen Chu a little.
He fell in love with a jellyfish.
Only before, he cared too much about the species difference between him and Wen Chu, and was interrupted by Wen Chu’s messy “lover” remarks, focusing most of his attention on how to guide Wen Chu to establish a correct view of love, selectively ignoring his own feelings.

Wen Chu’s umbrella cap was slightly dented by Xiu’s touch, then restored.
He looked at Xiu, feeling the other suddenly became much gentler after the narwhal left.
Wen Chu pondered Xiu’s words carefully and asked, “So that’s why you searched for remaining fish in the ocean to fulfill their wishes? You wanted to cherish their final moments?”

Xiu nodded, “Yes.”

So stupid.
Although always called stupid by Xiu, Wen Chu felt the stupidest one right now might be Xiu.
Busying for so long, talking about cherishing final moments, yet never cherishing himself.

“Then Xiu, what is your wish?” Wen Chu asked softly. “You have a wish too, right? I want to help you fulfill it.”

Xiu was stunned for a moment, looking at the jellyfish in front of him as if knowing Wen Chu for the first time, then said, “My wish is…”
“Hoping this ocean can return to its original appearance.”

“Okay,” Wen Chu agreed seriously. “I will definitely help you realize it.”
“When the time comes, Granny Narwhal, the clownfish, the parrotfish will all resurrect. We can go to the Arctic to eat shells together.”
The jellyfish had never seen the original ocean. His imagination of a “normal ocean” was limited to endless shells.

Xiu was amused by him, “The narwhal would starve to death eating only shells. She needs to eat at least hundreds of pounds of fish a day.”

“Ah,” Wen Chu was stunned. “How many fish is that?”

“Several hundred,” Xiu said casually.
Now the entire ocean might not even find several hundred fish, but Xiu’s tone was as if a whale eating several hundred fish was just a normal matter of survival of the fittest.
Then weren’t there terrifyingly many fish in the original ocean?
How much Lifespan would he need to resurrect the entire ocean? Would ninety-nine years not be enough?

Wen Chu realized this serious problem for the first time and immediately poked the system: [System, if I want to resurrect the entire ocean, how much Lifespan do I need?]
The system hadn’t responded since being angered away by him this afternoon. His request to turn human had no response, so Wen Chu wasn’t sure if the system was there.

But unexpectedly, the system actually answered him: [Ninety-nine years, I guess. If you want to resurrect the ocean, you need to save double the Lifespan points. But what you should worry about most now is whether you can save enough for the first ninety-nine years.]

Ninety-nine years again.
Wen Chu couldn’t help asking: [Does the number ninety-nine have any special meaning?]

[No, just rolls off the tongue easily.] The system said casually. [I was a bit busy this afternoon. Did you look for me once before? Let me check the message log—Turn into a human?]
The system seemed to laugh.
[Turning into a human at this time, the atmosphere is indeed nice. You were smart for once.]
[Fine, helping you restore human form. As compensation for being late, plus seeing how miserably your Lifespan dropped, I won’t take your ten-times Lifespan points for now.]

Wen Chu: ?!
How long ago was that? It’s too late to turn into a human now!!
[Wait…]

Before he could finish speaking, hearing only a splash of water, Wen Chu’s vision suddenly rose a section.
The shell nest originally curled by tentacles moved to his hands. A semi-transparent white gauze appeared on his head again, blocking his vision momentarily.
Wen Chu reached out to adjust the gauze, really not understanding why there was gauze on his head. Looking down, sure enough, he saw familiar tentacles.
Hideous, massive transparent jellyfish tentacles replaced his entire lower body.
Since he was sitting on Xiu’s fishtail, turning into a human so suddenly, his tentacles naturally wrapped around Xiu’s tail.
Forearm-thick transparent tentacles wrapped around the merfolk’s tail like vines, while he himself leaned against Xiu’s broad chest.

Xiu was startled by this sudden change, looking at the beautiful youth in his arms in disbelief, almost suspecting he was dreaming.

“Wen Chu?” Xiu examined the youth’s exquisite face, then looked at the familiar transparent tentacles on the youth’s lower body, asking uncertainly.

Wen Chu: …
Help.
I really want to escape.

---

Author’s Note: Chu: Really want to escape, but can’t escape.