QWAPMP Chapter 86

Chapter Eighty-Six: Mermaid Comes Ashore

The next day, Song Qiuyi weighed anchor and had the steamship set sail again, heading towards a more distant ocean, continuing their aimless journey.

Seabirds circled overhead, letting out cries, flapping their wings, and flying away.

Yan Ye swam up onto the water tank, pulling back the curtain-like thing for the first time. The endless sea surface came into his view. The morning sun was both dazzling and warm. If he were still a human, he might have pulled Song Qiuyi onto the deck with him to admire the sunrise over the sea, and in the evening, they could watch the sunset glow.

Thinking of Song Qiuyi, Yan Ye recalled how exhausted the man was last night, almost falling asleep in the water tank. In the end, it was he who carried Song Qiuyi back to bed to sleep and then changed his own water.

Yan Ye propped his head up and watched the seabirds forage, and then watched those silly fish always jumping out of the sea to be caught by the birds. He became a little interested and wanted to ask Song Qiuyi if he had a fishing rod; he wanted to fish.

Today, Song Qiuyi was very unusual. Yan Ye waited for him for two hours but didn’t see him come in.

Just as he was about to go out to look for Song Qiuyi, as he jumped out of the water tank, Song Qiuyi appeared at the doorway, “Where do you want to go?”

Yan Ye was stunned for a second, then looked carefully around the entire room, discovering something he hadn’t noticed yesterday.

Song Qiuyi had installed a camera in this room, which is why he immediately rushed over as soon as he jumped out of the water tank.

Since there was a camera, it must have been installed a long time ago, and wouldn’t everything they did in the water tank yesterday have been recorded?

When Yan Ye thought of this, his smile gradually became meaningful. He didn’t question Song Qiuyi about why he installed the camera, “You haven’t been here all day, so I wanted to go out and find you!”

Song Qiuyi’s eyes flickered, “Why are you looking for me?”

“Do you have a fishing rod? I want to fish.”

Song Qiuyi nodded, told him to wait, and went out.

Before long, he returned with the item Yan Ye wanted.

Song Qiuyi gave him the item, and then belatedly asked, “Do you want to fish outside?”

Yan Ye nodded and said, “Staying in the water tank all day gets boring too, it’s better to go out and get some air.”

Song Qiuyi felt a slight hesitation, “Then I’ll go with you.”

Song Qiuyi saying this was also within Yan Ye’s expectation. He didn’t refuse. Outside on the deck with the fishing rod, after Song Qiuyi knew he wanted to fish, he went to get some bait and came back.

Yan Ye hung the bait on the hook, used thirty percent of his strength to cast the hook out, and then quietly waited for the fish to bite.

Song Qiuyi truly just accompanied him, standing not far away, watching the direction of the fishing line very seriously, as if he was waiting for a fish to bite.

Yan Ye didn’t disappoint him either. The fishing line suddenly twitched, and the other end of the line was constantly pulling; that was a fish struggling to escape.

Song Qiuyi looked back at Yan Ye, and without him needing to speak, Yan Ye started reeling in the line. He reeled in the rod quickly, and a bluefin tuna hooked onto the fishing line appeared on the sea surface, finally being heavily tossed onto the deck.

Seeing the size of the fish, Song Qiuyi couldn’t help but be surprised by Yan Ye’s strength.

This looked like a fish weighing over a hundred pounds, and Yan Ye had just tossed it up so easily, his expression calm as usual.

“How about sashimi today?” Yan Ye asked him.

Song Qiuyi didn’t like sashimi. He missed the egg fried rice Yan Ye made for him yesterday, “I want to eat egg fried rice.”

Yan Ye unhooked the fish and agreed to make egg fried rice for Song Qiuyi, on the condition that he help by butchering this tuna, leaving only the meat from the belly area.

Song Qiuyi also agreed to Yan Ye’s request. He couldn’t make egg fried rice, but he could butcher various creatures from the sea.

The tuna was dragged away by Song Qiuyi to be dealt with. Only then did Yan Ye cast the fishing rod back into the sea, humming a strange tune in his throat.

Song Qiuyi dragged the tuna onto the workbench. Just as he was about to put on gloves, his ears caught a melodious singing voice. He was stunned for a moment, and when he came back to his senses and went out to see where the sound was coming from, the voice had already disappeared.

He had used the radar in the morning to check the surrounding area and hadn’t found any other ships. So where did this sound come from?

Song Qiuyi suspected that he might be experiencing auditory hallucinations, but it wasn’t until Yan Ye brought a plate of fragrant egg fried rice in front of him and spoke that he suddenly realized the voice seemed very similar to Yan Ye’s voice.

Song Qiuyi lowered his head to eat the egg fried rice, his mind completely focused on the voice. It wasn’t until he bit into something crispy in his mouth and used his spoon to stir the egg fried rice in the plate that he discovered today’s egg fried rice was different from last night’s; it had added shrimp meat.

Song Qiuyi’s gaze fixed on the merperson eating sashimi, and a strange emotion stirred in his heart. He still didn’t understand this emotion right now.

Yan Ye watched him finish the plate completely clean again, and a sense of satisfaction arose in his heart.

Song Qiuyi finished tidying the kitchen and came back yawning. He hadn’t slept well last night and was now a little sleepy, wanting to take a nap.

As for what happened last night, neither of them mentioned it again.

Half a month later, in the deep sea, a blue, injured merperson was constantly swimming towards the steamship, leaving behind a trail of blood, indicating its severe injury.

Kelisi didn’t slow down until she swam out of that sea area. However, her injury was too severe. By the time she looked up and discovered a huge steamship, she was already exhausted and had no extra strength to swim away again.

Just over ten hours ago, Kelisi was caught in human fishing nets again. Fortunately, since she had seen Yan Ye use a fishbone knife to cut the net ropes last time, she carried one with her.

By the time she cut the fishing net ropes, the humans also discovered her and tried to spear her with harpoons when they saw she was trying to escape.

Unable to dodge in time, Kelisi’s fishtail was speared by a harpoon, and she almost fainted from the pain. The thought that if she fainted and was caught by humans, she would be just like the mermaids in the mermaid stories Yan Ye had given her! Either turning into foam, or being forced to cry pearls every day for them to trade for money, and possibly even being sold for experiments.

Kelisi felt a wave of fear, gritting her teeth and pulling out the harpoon. Regardless of her bleeding tail, she had only one thought: she would be fine if she swam out of here.

The steamship that was capturing her discovered she had escaped, turned around to chase her, and cast fishing nets like a blanket over the sea. Kelisi was afraid of those nets and plunged into the deeper, darker seabed to evade human capture.

“Am I going to die?” Kelisi murmured weakly. This sentence seemed to be asking herself. After saying it, she closed her eyes tiredly, her body falling downwards.

Yan Ye was originally napping, just like Song Qiuyi, until he sensed a faint aura of his own kind. Only then did he suddenly open his eyes, his gaze fixed deeply on the sea surface.

Song Qiuyi heard the movement and woke up. Seeing the merperson about to leave, he opened his mouth to ask, “Where are you going?”

Yan Ye’s expression was solemn, “I’m going to save a friend!”