Shu Tang was carried all the way into the fortress.
Throughout the journey, the mermaid gave no reaction to Shu Tang, resembling an indifferent, taciturn murderer, silently carrying her forward. His movements were a bit stiff and slow, not like a normal person would walk, which seemed very eerie. But whenever Shu Tang tried to think about what was wrong, she would be distracted by his pleasant scent;
After several times, Shu Tang gave up thinking and simply let her head sway emptily in his hand.
It was fatal, really fragrant.
Soon, they arrived.
The “Bastille” was pitch dark inside, a small window letting in a sliver of light. There was still no electricity, nor any decoration, cold and dark.
The stone door slammed shut behind them, making the surroundings even darker.
After the mermaid brought her into his “lair,” he placed her next to him.
She looked around and saw that both the sofa and the coffee table were made of stone, and the door was an iron one—the kind with bars like in prison cells, with a rather unique architectural style.
However, despite the hardships, the process finally returned to matchmaking.
Shu Tang sat opposite the mermaid, facing him.
Before the matchmaking, she knew his mental power was impaired, but she hadn’t heard that his eyes were all black;
Moreover, she knew he was a frail omega who couldn’t take care of himself, she hadn’t heard that he was so much taller than her and immensely strong.
But then, Shu Tang thought, her profile also claimed her as a top graduate from Hua University, with a rare, triple-S mental power.
It turns out that mutual deception is a basic operation in matchmaking.
Shu Tang quickly came to terms with it.
Shu Tang: “Do you still remember me?”
Shu Tang: “My name is Shu Tang, the alpha matched with you.”
Shu Tang: “We had arranged to meet for a blind date this morning.”
The fortress appeared extremely gloomy in the pouring rain, with only a faint light near the windows.
The mermaid’s dark, deep eyes stared at Shu Tang as if he were a wild monster returning to its nest. He placed Shu Tang within an arm’s distance of himself and then slowly closed his eyes. There was no electricity in the fortress; the light from the narrow window cast a pale glow on the silent mermaid’s face, making him look like a mysterious and beautiful statue on a rainy night.
—Wait, why did he start sleeping!
Shu Tang tried to communicate, but the mermaid remained motionless.
Once he fell asleep, Shu Tang also felt sleepy, having worked a night shift the previous day and severely lacking sleep.
She sighed, mustered her spirits, and looked around.
Shu Tang was a therapist. She soon realized that this fish might not be merely suffering from a simple psychic injury. She decided to set aside the matter of breaking off their match for now, and first check his current physical condition.
Patients at the Cape Sanatorium were supposed to be under nurse supervision, Shu Tang thought she could just ask a nurse.
But Shu Tang was sure that in this empty “Bastille,” only she and this fish were present, quiet like a real prison.
The cleaners and nurses of Zone 01 had all skipped work, which Shu Tang envied a bit.
But she had a way: usually, all the wards in Cape Sanatorium had medical records hung on the wall, even the isolated wards, to facilitate the therapist’s rounds.
Shu Tang stretched her neck and quickly spotted the medical record book hanging on the stone wall. She got up and walked towards the records.
However, she had only taken two steps—
In the next second, Shu Tang was grabbed by the back of her neck and pulled back.
The mermaid, who had been sleeping just moments ago, had opened his eyes at some unknown time. His pitch-black eyes stared at her in the dark, and he lowered his head, slowly approaching Shu Tang.
The fierce monster’s black eyes coldly and dangerously watched her, like a ruthless deep-sea butcher in the dark ocean, targeting its prey, baring its fangs.
Shu Tang instinctively stepped back, but she was in his grip, with no way to retreat.
The deep-sea butcher approached her most vulnerable neck and by her ear, he emitted a threatening hiss.
—Similar to the hiss a wild monster makes when warning its prey.
In an instant, an innate fear of danger made all of Shu Tang’s hair nearly stand on end.
After a standoff, the terrifying deep-sea butcher made no further moves; he merely gazed at her coldly in the darkness.
Three minutes passed, and the mermaid slowly released Shu Tang, putting her back in her original position.
Shu Tang’s hair gradually smoothed down, and she looked back at the large monster beside her, noticing that he had closed his eyes again.
Logically, Shu Tang should have realized by now that she was the protagonist of a horror film and stayed still where she was, but a guess had formed in her mind.
Shu Tang was quiet for a while but couldn’t hold back any longer.
They say curiosity killed the cat, but cats are really curious!
Shu Tang began to act like cannon fodder in a horror movie, who would die within three minutes; not only was she not deterred into silence, but she also tried to walk away several times, eventually figuring out the pattern:
- Her activity radius was within two meters of the mermaid.
- The mermaidwould hiss at her but do nothing else.
However, the medical record book was positioned against the wall, over ten meters away—well beyond two meters.
What sets humans apart from animals is their ability to adapt.
Shu Tang moved closer and grabbed the mermaid’s hand.
The monster simply shifted his gaze to her hand and did not react otherwise.
—Shu Tang dragged the mermaid towards the direction of the medical record book.
The mermaid quietly watched her; this time he did not hiss but tilted his head.
But Shu Tang’s strength was too meager for the mermaid; she wiped sweat off her brow as she dragged him: “Come on, move a bit!”
She had no hope that he would cooperate, but as her words fell, the mermaid, who had been staring at her, suddenly mercifully moved.
Shu Tang was overjoyed.
She took a step forward, and the mermaid followed her step.
But once Shu Tang stopped pulling, he stopped too.
Shu Tang: “Can’t you deduce a bit?”
But at least, Shu Tang was sure he understood her.
So she pointed at the wall: “I need to get that medical record book. Can you wait here for me?”
The mermaid quietly watched her, tilting his head again.
Shu Tang believed that this time he understood, and she stepped out of the two-meter radius—
The mermaid reached out and “swooshed” her back to him.
He then menacingly closed in on Shu Tang and continued to hiss at her.
Shu Tang: “……”
Wait, could he actually understand her or not?
In the end, Shu Tang had no choice but to drag the fish for several meters using the method of the Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains, finally getting hold of the medical record.
Shu Tang wiped off her sweat and sat down on the ground to rest.
This was the first time she realized that communicating with someone could be more exhausting than running a marathon.
Using the dim light coming through a narrow window, Shu Tang opened the medical record.
She had already realized that the mermaid’s condition was not as simple as a mental impairment, so she urgently needed to check his medical records to understand his situation.
Although Shu Tang was just an intern in the emergency department and had systematically studied, reading medical records was easy for her. But when she opened it, it was blank.
She flipped through more pages, still finding nothing.
The slight irritation Shu Tang had felt from exertion quickly dissipated, and her heart sank:
There was only one possibility for this scenario; since being admitted to the sanatorium, no treatments had ever been conducted, which is why there were no treatment records.
A speculation surfaced in Shu Tang’s mind:
Due to the advent of polluted zones, humanity had been plunged into a long period of survival crisis, during which weak and valueless humans were abandoned by families and groups to allocate more resources to stronger individuals to ensure the survival rate of humans.
Although much time had passed since then, this habit had persisted.
If a family had several children, they would only choose to nurture the one with the most promise.
And an omega with impaired mental power, already devoid of any value in alliances, being abandoned by family wasn’t too strange a thing.
Shu Tang sighed.
She turned around and saw that the fish had quietly settled next to her in a dark corner, its legs unknowingly turning back into a fish tail, enclosing Shu Tang inside, occasionally flicking it.
Her gaze was drawn to the swaying fish tail, and she watched it for a while.
The irritation she had felt from his earlier antics slowly dissipated.
— Ah, still foolishly flicking his tail.
She asked the mermaid, “When was the last time you were injected with medication?”
Shu Tang asked, “Before coming to Cape Sanatorium, did any doctor prescribe medication on time?”
Shu Tang thought about it and then dismissed the question as pointless.
She suspected there might be something wrong with his throat, so she leaned in to check.
Shu Tang said, “Ah—let me check your throat.”
Just as Shu Tang’s hand was about to touch the mermaid’s Adam’s apple, the mermaid opened his eyes.
In that instant, she felt a terrifying sense of oppression.
Shu Tang immediately withdrew her hand.
She fumbled along the wall, found a pen, and opened a blank medical record book.
As she wrote the first line, Shu Tang decided to give him a code name.
She sneakily glanced at the mermaid. His tall figure was hidden in the darkness, and his long eyelashes cast a shadow over his pale face.
The first time she saw him, Shu Tang thought he looked like a lush blue rose from Zone 01, even the silver-white tips of his hair had a faint blue tint.
Hesitating between “Lemon Fried Fish” and “Blue Rose,” Shu Tang wrote down on the medical record: “Observation Record of the Blue Rose.”
—Mainly because Lemon Fried Fish sounded like a recipe.
Shu Tang noticed that the mermaid’s voice was hoarse; he didn’t speak but only emitted a monster-like hoarse threatening sound from his throat, likely not a vocal cord issue.
Shu Tang recorded: Quiet personality, not talkative.
She thought of the tall mermaid who liked to stay in dark corners, his dark, hollow eyes staring blankly at her.
Shu Tang recorded: Rather introverted.
Thinking of how he insisted on dragging her to within two meters to watch.
Shu Tang recorded: Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
After briefly describing the fish’s personality, she wrote down the preliminary diagnosis:
Suspected psychic turmoil.
Yes, although it’s rare for an omega to have “psychic turmoil,” the situation with the mermaid in front of her had surpassed “psychic damage,” showing signs of becoming monster-like and difficult to communicate.
Shu Tang wrote tirelessly, unaware of how much time had passed.
The mermaid seemed content just to have her encircled, quietly watching her write and draw on the paper until he slowly closed his eyes.
—Until he heard a “gurgle.”
The tall mermaid opened his eyes in the darkness.
“Gurgle, gurgle.”
Shu Tang clutched her stomach: She shouldn’t have been this hungry so quickly.
But he was just too tempting!
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Shu Tang moved her ears and turned away.
She thought that with the rain so loud, the mermaid must not have heard.
But the mermaid lowered his head, his dark eyes staring at Shu Tang for a while, before suddenly picking her up.
However, after only a couple of steps, the mermaid realized something, looked down at Shu Tang again.
Shu Tang was a fragile creature, light as if she barely existed, and weak as an ant. Taking her to the sea might kill her.
The tall deep-sea butcher looked at her quietly, then set Shu Tang down and walked away alone.
Shu Tang was surprised; the mermaid had just now not wanted her to leave his side within a two-meter radius. Why leave now? Wasn’t he worried she might slip away?
The mermaid’s pitch-black eyes glanced at her.
Normally, being stared at by those empty, dark eyes would be quite eerie and frightening, but for some reason, Shu Tang could see from his pitch-black eyes—
The fish was very reassured.
The next second, Shu Tang knew the answer.
Because when the mermaid pushed the door open, borrowing the light from outside, Shu Tang clearly saw the true nature of that door:
A giant stone door weighing about two tons.
Shu Tang: “…”
*
The only way out of the fortress was sealed.
Truly no escape.
Shu Tang was locked in a “Bastille.”
In the entire dark fortress, only Shu Tang remained, along with the mermaid who had gone out and could return at any time.
In such a situation, foolish people might choose to panic and cry; wise people would look for an escape route and quickly flee.
However, Shu Tang, having worked several night shifts in a row, wandered around the “Bastille,” found a sheltered corner, took off her white coat, covered herself with it, and lay down.
So sleepy.
Why is there still night shift work in the year 3036? Aren’t interns human too? She had worked night shifts for a week straight, even squeezing dating into her sleep hours, and her internship salary was only two thousand yuan!
Shu Tang decided to make the most of every minute, squeezing in some sleep before the mermaid returned.
The air was filled with the delicious scent of roasted fish. It was dark and lightless, and the sound of rain outside was conducive to sleep.
As soon as she closed her eyes, she fell into a confused slumber.
…
Shu Tang slept exceptionally well. If it hadn’t been for her stomach growling and waking her from hunger, she could have slept for three days and nights.
Rubbing her swollen head, she realized the mermaid hadn’t come back yet.
What was he up to?
To be honest, Shu Tang had a vague feeling that the mermaid must have gone out to get her some food.
But she couldn’t be sure.
The rain was so loud, he might not have heard her stomach growling.
She felt it was presumptuous to think he went to get her food.
Shu Tang regretted hiding; she wished she hadn’t, so he could have heard clearly how hungry she was.
Sighing, Shu Tang thought if he brought her food, she would forgive and forget, considering him a good fish.
Desperately hungry, Shu Tang put on her coat and wandered around the Bastille, looking for the kitchen.
The kitchen was in a corner on the first floor, but she found it not only without electricity but also devoid of any food.
Dizzy from hunger, she checked her communicator and realized it was already afternoon, which explained why she felt so famished.
Suddenly, Shu Tang heard footsteps.
Peeking out, she saw a dark figure at the end of the hallway.
In the dim light, the tall shadow, in the posture she remembered, was carrying something heavy.
The long, heavy object dragged on the ground, dripping steadily with an unidentified liquid—whether it was blood or seawater, she couldn’t tell.
In the darkness, the tall shadow moved stiffly towards her.
Shu Tang smelled a strong scent of blood.
The mermaid lowered his head, his pitch-black, eerie eyes quietly observing her.
With a thud, the heavy object hit the ground.
Shu Tang looked down:
A shark.