Epilogue 3: Shrimp’s Story (3)
That night, Luo Bian led the Saintess and, from a secret passage in her room, they escaped to the wild waters outside their home.
For the next few months, they had the happiest time of their lives.
Here, those treatises on ruling, diplomatic skills, and the “Book of Rulers,” which was full of rules, all turned to nothing.
There was only survival, escape, and the wonder and beauty that were mixed in.
It was full of dangers, and life and death were unpredictable, but it was truly dazzling.
During the day, they would hold their long claws and swim freely in the shimmering sunlight, their light-blue bodies shimmering with a beautiful color.
At night, they would pass through a cluster of plants that were filled with a glistening green light, and they would chase a large school of colorful fish, and they would laugh freely because they had been playfully splashed with sand by a fish in the mud.
They would clean each other’s bodies, and they would also wantonly and countless times entangle themselves.
Once, in a brilliant moment, Luo Bian held the trembling Saintess and heard the other suddenly ask in a hoarse voice:
“What is our relationship?”
Luo Bian immediately thought of a certain identity she had long craved.
She had actually wanted to ask this question long ago, but she was worried that the runaway Saintess would not want to be bound by a relationship.
Now that she was finally asked, Luo Bian’s heart was pounding with nervousness and excitement, but she inexplicably put on an act.
“In your ‘Book of Rulers,’ it seems that unmarried mating is considered no relationship.”
The Saintess paused.
Her crimson body moved slightly, and she slowly lifted her shrimp tail, and before she whipped it down, she questioned Luo Bian:
“I’ll give you another chance. If you say there’s no relationship, then we’ll never have one.”
“!”
Luo Bian immediately stopped pretending and said hastily, “We’re in a romantic relationship for the rest of our lives!”
Only then was the Saintess satisfied and retracted her shrimp tail.
Of course, wandering in the wild was not always so beautiful and romantic.
They would also encounter countless life-and-death crises.
They had narrowly escaped from the mouth of a large fish, had fought with a giant crab, and had been entangled with a poisonous plant… they had been injured many times and were extremely tired.
The once elegant and composed Saintess, following Luo Bian, was often in a disheveled state, with missing claws and legs. Even her important shrimp whiskers had once been broken at the root, and her senses had been greatly reduced.
Luo Bian’s heart was filled with an unspeakable pain.
If liking was taking her to wantonly explore an unknown world, love was the contradictory self-reproach she felt at night for the injuries she had suffered.
In this vast wild water, a shrimp’s abilities were ultimately limited, and she could not protect her beloved shrimp completely.
And Luo Bian knew very well that the scent on her, which made most shrimp dislike her, would make the creatures in the wild waters particularly aggressive.
If the Saintess had been traveling with another shrimp, perhaps it would not have been so dangerous. And what’s more, she knew that the Saintess was actually a little scared.
On the surface, she was proud and fearless, but in reality, she would secretly tremble for a long time at night and would also frequently have nightmares.
After all, she was a delicate flower that had been raised in a greenhouse since she was little.
A private elopement, and she had eaten all the bitterness.
Luo Bian’s emotions were growing more and more complicated, but she had never thought of ending it.
That day, they were once again in a life-and-death crisis—
Due to her broken shrimp whiskers and weakened senses, the Saintess had almost been swallowed by a certain deeply hidden fish-eating flower.
Luo Bian, with quick eyes and claws, had forcefully pushed away her girlfriend, who was about to be in danger, but she herself had thus been trapped in the fish-eating flower.
The fish-eating flower’s slender and poisonous thorns were tightly wrapped around her, and the corrosive liquid in its flower disc was about to devour her bit by bit.
The Saintess did not listen to Luo Bian’s words and stubbornly refused to leave.
She silently endured the itchy and numb pain of being burned by the venom and, with her long claws, she ground down those dense thorns one by one, and in the end, she had rescued Luo Bian.
The two tattered and torn shrimp lay in a strange rock cave.
Having once again escaped death, they held each other, panting.
The Saintess’s long claws had been rotted by the poison and had already fallen off.
Luo Bian could only gently hold her leg.
She looked at the luminous and floating plankton in the water and suddenly asked, as if unintentionally:
“If, and I’m just saying if, there was a wedding between you and me in the future. Would you still run away?”
The Saintess’s answer was once again unexpected to Luo Bian, and her tone was proud.
“On what grounds is it just ‘if’?”
She did not answer, but instead raised a question.
But she had clearly answered everything.
Luo Bian chuckled lightly.
She laughed until her whole body ached from her wounds, but she still couldn’t help but laugh.
Hearing Luo Bian laugh, the Saintess also began to laugh, and she coughed lightly, her tone weak.
“You fool.”
That night, Luo Bian was imagining her wedding and fell asleep, happy.
But the next day, the Saintess did not wake up.
—The poison of that strange fish-eating flower seemed to have not only injured the Saintess’s long claws, but had also further invaded her insides.
Luo Bian was immediately flustered.
She dragged her wounded body and searched for herbs everywhere, and used every means to treat the Saintess.
But the Saintess’s heartbeat was getting weaker and weaker, as if she would die at any moment.
Luo Bian had been on the verge of death several times, but she had never felt such extreme panic.
Regret, annoyance, and helplessness were about to swallow her, just as the corrosive substance of the fish-eating flower had devoured her.
With nowhere to go, Luo Bian decisively decided to carry the Saintess and swim toward her home, where the shrimp clan had the best medical care.
She was already weak from her injuries, and she also had to carefully protect her unconscious ex-girlfriend.
On the way, she had to deal with and resist many dangers alone, and Luo Bian was exhausted, with almost only one breath left.
In the end, with her limbs broken, she arrived near her home, and she didn’t even have a shrimp tail left.
She didn’t know if it was a final burst of life or if she had sensed something, but the Saintess had suddenly and with great difficulty woken up at this moment.
She looked at Luo Bian in a daze, her tone full of affection.
“Have I been unconscious for a long time?”
Luo Bian looked at her home not far away and, lowering her head slightly, she struggled to suppress the feeling of heartache.
…This is as far as it goes.
The Saintess would return to her home to receive medical treatment, and it would be difficult for her to escape again;
She had committed the serious crime of kidnapping the Saintess and could not be tolerated by her home.
The most important thing was that with only half of her shrimp body left, Luo Bian had almost lost her ability to survive and would soon be eaten by other aquatic creatures.
The Saintess, the Saintess would never be able to wait for her.
“Let’s break up. I’m tired.”
Luo Bian’s tone was nonchalant.
She fought back her weakness and pain and said the words with a full voice.
But her eyes were quietly and without a moment’s pause looking at the Saintess, afraid of missing a single second.
The Saintess froze, and then her whole body trembled slightly.
She tried to see Luo Bian clearly, but it was in vain.
After a moment of silence, her voice was as thin as a thread, and she coughed and begged, “I didn’t hear what you just said…”
Luo Bian still said, “Let’s break up.”
This time, her tone was even heavier.
And the proud Saintess, ignoring her pride, once again gave her a chance, and her voice was faintly choked.
“You think about it. I never look back. Once we break up, it’s for a lifetime, and we can never get back together.”
Luo Bian said, “Mhm, I know.”
She used her last bit of strength to send the once again fainted Saintess to her home and said to the shrimp soldier at the door:
“The Saintess is poisoned. Send her to the medical office.”
The shrimp soldiers were dumbfounded as they looked at this shrimp, who was only less than half of her body, and for a moment, they forgot to arrest her.
After a moment, they came back to their senses. “That’s the culprit! We should arrest her!”
Another companion said, “She’s already in such a tattered state. She’ll probably die in a moment.”
…
At that time, she had been too deeply poisoned, and in her serious illness, she had been dizzy and her vision had been blurry. The Saintess had not seen Luo Bian’s expression and appearance when she had broken up with her.
She could only repeatedly savor her voice.
She vaguely remembered that the other had been extremely firm, and her tone had been very heavy.
Her tone had also held a certain usual nonchalance.
Every time she thought about it, her heart would ache for a long time.
It was very clear that either she was not strong enough to survive and was also poisoned and sick, and the other was tired of being a burden.
Or, after a few months of being together, the other had grown tired.
Otherwise, she could have clearly waited for her to be cured, and then they could have planned to escape and travel together again.
But she also remembered that on countless nights, when she had been startled from a nightmare, that shrimp had been looking at her with affection.
She had patted her on the back and coaxed her, as if she were a precious treasure.
How could she have just broken up with her…
After her treatment and recovery, the Saintess had returned to her former life.
Instead of wantonly releasing her nature in front of Luo Bian, she had once again begun to package herself with dignity and elegance.
This time, the packaging was even easier—
Having suffered a tragic and heavy emotional injury, she seemed to have lost the leisure to be rebellious.
…
Three months later, the Saintess’s succession ceremony.
On this grand day, the clan was in a festive mood, and the shrimp tide was surging.
And so, when a suspicious shrimp slipped in, no shrimp discovered it.
“I heard that our new ruler is getting married in a week.”
The suspicious shrimp was in the crowd and, hearing this, her whole body suddenly froze.
She for a moment forgot to cover herself and couldn’t help but extend her long claws and, holding that shrimp soldier, asked in detail:
“…Wedding?”
“That’s right. The new ruler has fallen in love with a beautiful shrimp and can’t be without her. The wedding has been in preparation for a while.”
The suspicious shrimp was stunned for a long moment.
Seeing that the shrimp did not speak, the shrimp soldier turned his head and was immediately startled.
“Aren’t you that serious criminal?!”
“Quick, catch her!”
The suspicious shrimp, that is, Luo Bian, was thus gloriously and in a grand manner sent to prison on the day of the Saintess’s succession.
This prison was indeed as it was in the legends, dark and sunless, and the environment was extremely turbid and difficult.
Special aquatic plants were wrapped around it, leaving only a small, narrow gap for the prison guards to deliver food.
The prison guard said, “Eat more. According to the system, you will be dealt with tomorrow. You probably can’t escape the death penalty.”
Luo Bian did not speak and ate in silence, and she felt that it was like chewing wax.
Her mind was full of the wedding, and she was not in her right mind.
At night.
Luo Bian was lying in the prison, sleepless.
She began to think about her shrimp life, which was nearing its end—
She had freely seen the world, had also loved without reservation, and had had several life-and-death thrilling experiences.
She was both unlucky and lucky. Even though she had been so injured that only half of her body was left, and she should have been dead, she had still been able to narrowly survive and had obtained a complete new body after several molts.
Now, she was about to die before her ex-girlfriend’s wedding, and she would not have to see that scene.
All in all, it was a complete circle.
As she was thinking, she suddenly felt the water ripple.
Luo Bian’s thoughts sharpened.
Click.
The shackles that were wrapped around the prison were unlocked, and a shrimp slipped in and tightly wrapped herself around her.
Feeling the soft and familiar body, Luo Bian’s whole body trembled, and for a moment, her mind was blank.
“D-didn’t you say you would never get back together…”
“Indeed, we won’t get back together.”
Her ex-girlfriend kissed her. “Don’t talk. Just do it.”
…
The prison was dark and turbid, and in the surging heat, dust flew everywhere.
It was indeed like a fight to the death.
In the midst of the overflowing passion, the sound of a shrimp tail whipping could be heard.
Later, the day broke, and a faint, dim light shone in.
Her ex-girlfriend, with a sore and weak shrimp tail, and with limp and weak legs, slowly swam away.
Luo Bian, on the other hand, was paralyzed on the sand, her head buzzing from being whipped, and she was mesmerized.
On the first day of the new ruler’s reign, she was so sleepy that she almost yawned at a meeting.
“So this serious criminal is actually innocent, and is even a hero who saved the ruler.”
A shrimp below said.
The ruler barely managed to suppress a yawn and nodded with an elegant and dignified air.
“Mhm, go and release her without any charges, and announce it to the whole clan.”
When she woke up again, Luo Bian had gone from a serious criminal to a hero. She left the prison with a cool air and went back to her former rock cave.
After several months, she had thought that this place would be full of turbid dust. But it was very clean, as if a shrimp would often come over to clean it.
She didn’t have to think to know who had arranged it.
At night, the new ruler, who was busy with a thousand things, came over.
After several months, they mated on that soft vegetation.
This time, when they were done, Luo Bian finally couldn’t help but ask her trembling ex-girlfriend:
“Who will you marry?”
Her ex-girlfriend panted lightly, her tone nonchalant. “I don’t know yet. I’ll just find someone beautiful.”
Luo Bian was slightly stunned.
After a moment, she lifted her long claws.
With a click, the little white flowers bloomed with a bright light.
Luo Bian moved closer to her ex-girlfriend and recommended herself.
“Ruler, do you think I’m a little beautiful?”
Her ex-girlfriend nodded.
Luo Bian was pleased, and her flowing whiskers lifted with a certain pride. “Then why choose a shrimp when you can just have one? Just marry me.”
Her ex-girlfriend sneered. “Don’t forget, we’ve already broken up, and there’s no possibility of getting back together.”
“The whole clan is excluded first.”
Luo Bian: “…”
Later, even though she was made to sleep in a daze every night, her ex-girlfriend still did not relent.
