QWAPMP Chapter 76

Chapter 76: Merman Comes Ashore

This was Song Qiu Yi’s first time truly going to touch this merman. He approached the glass water tank and met Yan Ye’s eyes within. His lips parted silently, but before he could say anything, the water in the tank in front of him suddenly changed color.

Yan Ye narrowed his eyes slightly and fell asleep, his head heavy.

Song Qiu Yi’s expression changed, and he quickly turned back to look at Tan Fei, who had acted without authorization and pressed the release button for the drug. His voice rose, “If you act on your own again, you can roll back to wherever you came from.”

Tan Fei clicked his tongue, his fake smile slowly disappearing. “Professor Song, why are you so angry? If you want to catch the merman out, don’t you need to drug it? Or can you make it lie obediently on the operating table for us to research?”

Song Qiu Yi drained the water and opened the glass of the water tank. He came before the unconscious merman. The moment he extended his hand, another hand was faster than him.

With a smack, Tan Fei’s outstretched fingers were swatted away by Song Qiu Yi.

Tan Fei couldn’t help but get angry. “Song Qiu Yi, what do you mean?”

Song Qiu Yi lowered his gaze and said indifferently, “This is only the first stage of research. You want to take him to the operating table to dissect him already? He’s not like those lab rats you used before; you don’t call the shots.”

“Okay, since you say he can’t be dissected yet, can I at least extract a little blood?” Tan Fei advanced by retreating. This merman research was very important to Song Qiu Yi, but it was also very important to him.

When Tan Fei was selected as one of the merman research leaders, he received a secret order from above regarding the merman. They required him to research whether the merman had properties that could help humans achieve immortality, before Song Qiu Yi did.

This task was unknown to anyone else in the research institute except Tan Fei and the person who issued the order.

This was also the reason Tan Fei suddenly wanted the merman’s blood.

His request could be said to be not excessive, so Song Qiu Yi did not object for the time being. Tan Fei secretly hooked up the corner of his lips and left the water tank to get the container and syringe for storing blood.

Song Qiu Yi, who had been wanting to touch Yan Ye’s tail for a long time, finally extended his hand. This was the first time he had so carefully stroked this beautiful, strong tail, from the tail fin to the waist area. He was reluctant to miss a single spot.

The scales felt hard and smooth to the touch, and the sense of power was immense. It was precisely this merman that instantly gave Song Qiu Yi a strange possessive desire. Aside from him, he didn’t want anyone else to be able to freely touch this merman as he did.

His beauty, his mystery, should all belong to him alone.

The look in Song Qiu Yi’s eyes gradually became infatuated. As his fingers just paused in the middle of the fish tail near the waist, Tan Fei returned with the items.

His eyes immediately cleared up completely. As he withdrew his fingers, they brushed against a soft spot. A flicker of surprise flashed across Song Qiu Yi’s eyes. He used his fingertip to pluck off one of the merman’s few soft scales without hesitation, and then retreated.

Yan Ye was woken by the pain. Instinctively, his tail took an offensive posture, swatting Tan Fei, who had just returned and was about to take his blood, sending him flying.

Song Qiu Yi had witnessed the power of its tail and was not at all surprised that it could swat a living person flying.

Tan Fei lay on the ground, not even understanding what had happened. After calming down for a while, he covered his chest and crawled up, saying, “Cough, cough, Song Qiu Yi, how did it wake up?”

Song Qiu Yi felt somewhat guilty because he had just secretly plucked a scale from a sensitive area. He first put the scale into his lab coat pocket before calmly saying, “The drug’s effect on it isn’t strong!”

He completely failed to mention his own assistance. If he hadn’t plucked a scale from the merman’s important spot, Yan Ye might have woken up a minute later.

Yan Ye could still feel a burning pain in a certain area. Hearing Song Qiu Yi’s words, he made a move as if to lash out with his tail, but stopped when Song Qiu Yi gently closed his eyes.

Forget it, he would swat him later and let him know that certain parts cannot be plucked casually.

Tan Fei had originally seen the merman also about to swat Song Qiu Yi, and his gloating eyes had shown. “Why did it attack you?”

Song Qiu Yi instinctively felt he couldn’t stay in the water tank any longer. He scanned his work ID on an instrument and came out. To Tan Fei’s question, he gave an explanation, “Is it possible the merman doesn’t like you?”

Upon hearing this, Tan Fei’s face turned ugly. “Professor Song is really fond of jokes.”

Song Qiu Yi put his fingers in his pocket, his fingertips rubbing the scale. He suggested, “If you don’t believe me, you can try going in again?”

As Song Qiu Yi’s words fell, the merman’s tail heavily slapped against the glass, as if in anger.

The glass did not crack like it had on the ship, but the sound of the tail hitting was enough to intimidate Tan Fei.

Song Qiu Yi glanced at him sideways, knowing he didn’t have the guts, and walked to the side to refill the glass water tank.

Tan Fei’s face was gloomy, and he walked towards the other side. Song Qiu Yi’s indifferent voice sounded, “The drug’s effect on it isn’t strong. If you give it another dose now, do you think it might develop immunity to the substance? Then you’ll never be able to touch it again.”

Tan Fei stopped in his tracks, and the fingers covering his chest clenched into fists.

Having done nothing today but be attacked by the merman, the pent-up frustration in his heart couldn’t dissipate. His chest felt even more uncomfortable, and he couldn’t stop coughing.

Song Qiu Yi frowned slightly. “Professor Tan, if you’re sick, you should go out first, lest you infect it later.”

Tan Fei’s face turned the color of liver from anger. Didn’t Song Qiu Yi know why he was coughing?

Seeing that he still wasn’t leaving, Song Qiu Yi took out his phone and sent a request for leave.

He applied to the higher-ups for sick leave for Tan Fei, asking him to participate in the merman research again after recovering from his illness.

The higher-ups attached great importance to the merman research. As soon as they heard Song Qiu Yi say that Tan Fei was sick and feared he would infect the merman, they agreed without a word and personally sent a message to Tan Fei informing him to rest.

Receiving the message from the higher-ups telling him to rest, Tan Fei gnashed his back teeth and left Song Qiu Yi with a harsh threat, “Song Qiu Yi, we’ll see.”

The people above needed a healthy merman; its value was higher that way, which was why Tan Fei was temporarily called away.

Once Tan Fei was gone, a hint of joy finally appeared in Song Qiu Yi’s usually cold eyebrows and eyes. He curved his lips and took out the merman’s scale to examine it under the light.

It was too sudden at the time; he didn’t know which spot this scale had been plucked from.

Yan Ye’s eerie voice sounded behind him, “Does my scale look good?”

Why pluck there of all places? He just had to pluck his important spot.

Song Qiu Yi looked at the scale, which was half black and half colored/iridescent, and genuinely said it looked good. It was the most beautiful fish scale he had ever seen, better than any specimen fish scale in the lab.

A laugh escaped Yan Ye’s throat. “Before you, there was a guy named Mark who also wanted to pluck my scales, but you’re the first one to get one.”

His words implied that there would be a second, a third… person to get his scales.

Not many people had seen a merman. Mark should be one of those people from before. A cold light flashed in Song Qiu Yi’s eyes as he stared at the scale, lost in thought.