Her Tentacles 59

Chapter 59: Staying Over

Shu Yao, as if she had sensed something, was distracted by the sound of the splashing water.

The mermaid, who had just been lying on her stomach on the shore, staring at her warily, had now scurried to the bottom of the pool, diagonally opposite her. If they were on the sea right now, she would probably have disappeared without a trace.

Situ Jin looked at her friend in confusion, then at the little octopus that had climbed onto her palm. Neither of them seemed capable of scaring the mermaid like this—

So she could only sigh.

In her heart, she added another label to the mermaid’s “depression” tag: “introverted and shy.”

It was just dinnertime, and the glass elevator on the side lit up again. With a ding, it arrived at this floor, and several maids came out with plates of sashimi.

When Shu Yao first looked over, she saw thin slices of red and white fish meat of different colors and fat content. Perhaps only in an expensive omakase or kaiseki Japanese restaurant could one find so many kinds of seasonal sea fish meat.

Just as she thought Situ Jin was planning to dine by this hundred-square-meter swimming pool tonight, the maids placed all the plates of sashimi with only meat on the smooth ceramic tiles by the pool.

Shu Yao, who could only barely recognize the texture of salmon and raw eel, said, “…Are these for her to eat?”

“Yes,” seeing the mermaid hiding at the bottom of the water and not coming up for a long time, Situ Jin’s tone was a little depressed. “She’s very picky. She can’t stand cooked food, and she won’t even touch raw food with a bit of blood. I had no choice but to ask my dad to hire a foreign chef who specializes in this kind of sashimi.”

She also complained to Shu Yao, “Do you know how hard it is to catch these non-mutated, common sea fish now? And the prices have really gone crazy.”

Shu Yao: “…No, even before, these fish meats weren’t that common, were they?”

Some young ladies, while saying they wouldn’t keep a mermaid, would keep a mermaid more meticulously than a person.

Her face was calm as she asked, “Is your family still short of fish? I graduated from graduate school and can learn to swim now.” She then held up the little octopus in her hand. “Buy one, get one free. It can also perform some tricks for you when you’re bored to cheer you up.”

…

From the time she had entered the door until now, Situ Jin had finally shown her first smile.

The young lady understood what she meant and said to her with a smile, “How could I forget your share? The chef should be preparing our dinner upstairs now. You can’t eat too much raw food, right? He also brought a disciple who is good at making yakitori. You can go up and see today’s ingredients and menu first.”

Although Shu Yao had been to her house many times before, she still didn’t want to face her parents alone, so she asked, “What about you?”

Situ Jin pointed to the pool. “I have to coax this ancestor to eat first. These meats will get old if they’re left out for too long.”

Shu Yao decided to sit on a nearby chair and wait for her.

And at the same time, watch how the young lady coaxed her mermaid.

But she soon saw Situ Jin jump into the water without even changing her clothes, still wearing her beautiful dress, and slowly swim toward the mermaid hiding at the bottom of the pool.

The water that overflowed the ceramic tiles was like waves, clean and specially filtered living water, unlike the pools in public areas, which always had a strange smell, or an overly strong smell of disinfectant powder.

Shu Yao remembered that in winter, when the heating in this building was turned on, the pool would also become hot water like a hot spring. And now, she bent down and touched the water that had overflowed to near her shoes, which was being recycled by the drainage net and the underground water system…

It was ice-cold.

It was probably to simulate the temperature of the sea.

Shu Yao looked up again. In the transparent pool, the human, who was not afraid of the cold, had already come to the mermaid’s side in the two-meter-deep area. She smiled at her and slowly extended her open palm.

Although her body was much larger than hers, the mermaid only tried to dodge her movements. Situ Jin did not take a step further, but stayed where she was and extended her hands to her, maintaining the original distance, until her breath-holding time reached its limit, and she floated to the surface to take a breath, and then sank again.

After two or three times.

Situ Jin saw her fear and did not get any closer. She just went ashore and placed the trays of food on the surface of the water closest to the mermaid, and gently splashed the water on the shore, saying to her across the water:

“Alright, I won’t go down. You can come up and eat later, okay?”

The distance when she bent down on the shore was actually closer to the mermaid than when she was underwater, but this time, the silver-haired mermaid in the water did not dodge again. Her deep blue, almost black eyes, which were deeper than the color of her scales, just looked at her across the water.

Situ Jin smiled at her again. “If you don’t speak, I’ll take it as a yes.”

Then she got up, went to the side to get a clean bath towel and wrapped herself in it. With the water from her dress dripping, she said to Shu Yao, “Let’s go. I’ll go up and take a shower and change. We’ll go and have dinner.”

Before she left, Shu Yao looked back at the huge pool again.

She thought of the kindergarten in the community she had lived in when she was a child. At that time, it was the first day of school. She was awkward and introverted, and didn’t speak a single word all day, like an autistic child. And at that time, Situ Jin, who was sitting next to her, was just staring at her.

Later, during the lunch break, she came over and the first thing she said to her was, “You’re so beautiful, even more beautiful than the doll my dad bought me.”

Shu Yao glanced at her and still didn’t say anything.

Then Situ Jin took advantage of the teacher’s temporary absence to get up and sneak to the small cubby where the schoolbags were placed. She took out chocolate and candy from her schoolbag, and then ran back and put them next to her pillow.

Coincidentally, another child next to them was crying because they missed home, which scared the teacher who had just gone to the restroom to rush back to coax them.

Shu Yao also didn’t like to stay in this kindergarten. She hesitated and began to learn to squeeze out tears, but only attracted Situ Jin’s voice.

“You miss home too?”

“Oh, don’t cry. The candy I gave you is delicious. My dad brought it back from abroad. You should try it. I guarantee you’ll look forward to seeing me every day after you eat it.”

She wasn’t lying.

When she unwrapped the candy and put it in Shu Yao’s mouth, the sweetness that spread was even more delicious than the candy her family bought during the New Year.

It made her even forget to pretend to cry. She quietly and obediently stayed in the kindergarten for the whole day. When she was picked up after school, she was even rewarded with a little red flower on her forehead. And Situ Jin, who also had a little red flower, was clinging to her father’s shoulder, smiling and waving vigorously at her:

“See you tomorrow!”

She inexplicably also raised her hand and waved.

The next day, when Mrs. Shu, who had come to wake her up for school, had just entered her room, she had already opened her eyes and actively rubbed her eyes and sat up.

From that day on, she looked forward to going to school every day to see her good friend.

…

Shu Yao had always felt that there was no one in this world that Miss Situ couldn’t win over.

But she hadn’t expected Situ Jin’s charm to have started to cross species. When they came down after dinner, the plates that had been placed by the pool were all clean.

Not a single piece of meat was left.

And from the time they came down, that mermaid had been by the nearest pool wall. Although her expression was still as cold as the ice and snow on a high mountain, in fact, wherever Situ Jin went, her vertical pupils would follow—

Shu Yao suddenly said, “She seems to be waiting for your praise.”

Situ Jin: “?”

She was holding her laptop and looking at various historical records online about mermaids and sirens. But the pile of downloaded papers were all novels about mermaids. At this moment, she took a sip of her juice and looked back.

Because of Shu Yao’s attention, that fish had swum to the farthest place from them, but a place where she could still monitor their movements at all times.

“Really?”

Situ Jin was half-believing, half-doubting, but she still put her laptop on the table and got up to go over.

She didn’t go into the water again, but she squatted down on the shore and extended her palm to the mermaid.

“Do you want me to pat your head?”

Of course, the mermaid did not react.

Situ Jin was not discouraged, but instead, as if she were joking, she opened her arms. “Then do you want a hug?”

“…”

A very fine string of bubbles came up from under the water.

Situ Jin smiled, as if she had already guessed her answer. She turned and went toward Shu Yao. She didn’t see that the moment she turned around, the mermaid, who had been motionless, subconsciously wagged her tail and chased after her in the water.

Breaking through the waves.

But it stopped abruptly halfway.

Because this mermaid was too timid, Shu Yao temporarily had no chance to get close and find out if she was really introverted or if she was hiding other secrets.

Coincidentally, tomorrow was a holiday. Situ Jin asked her to stay here tonight. Shu Yao decided to stay here for another half a day to observe.

That night.

After Shu Yao had taken a shower, she remembered the little pet that had been in a daze while eating during the day and looked as if it had indigestion. Before she walked out of the bathroom in her bathrobe, she didn’t forget to put the little octopus, which was clinging to the mirror on the sink next to her, into the bathtub.

“You swim for a while before you come out and digest.”

The little octopus, which was not full at all: “?”

Before it could protest, Shu Yao had already walked out of the bathroom and closed the door for it. The sound of a hairdryer soon came from outside.

The little octopus, which was left alone in the bathroom, was angry. Thinking of how Shu Yao had been staring at that mermaid by the pool just now, it became even angrier.

It knew that that parasite was ultimately seducing its person with its beauty—

The bright orange little octopus raised its tentacles and claws, and couldn’t help but think, what’s so great about it? I’m much better looking than that white-haired thing!

It remembered…

It could also turn into a human, and it was the form that Shu Yao liked the most.

How did it do it again?

The little octopus, standing on the sink and facing the mirror, began to try. On the mirror, which had not been defogged, a blurry, elongated human figure gradually appeared.

…

Long, black, silk-like hair fell down.

A tall and slender woman replaced the place where the tiny octopus had been. She raised her jade-white fingertips and touched the blue circle on the mirror. In the rapidly clearing mirror, she carefully examined her current appearance.

Deep human black eyes, a high human nose, rose-red thin lips, and a slender neck, a collarbone-prominent shoulder…

Her jade-white toes were on tiptoe on the ground. She leaned closer to the mirror. Her deep black eyes revealed uncertainty and confusion, as if the soul of a baby had been stuffed into an adult’s body.

This way, it should be better looking than that fish, right?

The little octopus thought so. Because it had forgotten which tentacle had turned into a hand, when its palm slid down the mirror, it accidentally touched the body lotion on the countertop.

And it even knocked it far away, and it rolled onto the floor.

The sound of the hairdryer outside suddenly stopped at this moment.

Shu Yao walked to the bathroom door, and as she pressed down the doorknob, her voice came first:

“What are you messing with again?”