Chapter 30 Part 1

Bai Qian had absolutely no idea about this rule. The original plot never mentioned it at all.

~~~

The Female Protagonist ultimately died in the Scumbag Man’s laboratory. She didn’t just fail to avenge her parents—she never even got a chance to return to the seabed. There was no way it would describe some consort-sealing ceremony.

After her explanation, Yu Shaoling reached out to take her hand again.

Bai Qian dodged without mercy, her expression complicated. “I wasn’t proposing to you. And besides, do you really think things will be that simple?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Black Octopus lurked for years before finding the chance to claim his current position. Back when he hunted you down, he was dead set on making sure you wouldn’t survive. He might have been helpless when you were unexpectedly saved by me, but he’s definitely still scheming to kill you and eliminate any future threats. If you charge back rashly like this, even with your powerful telekinesis now, how can you guarantee you’ll be able to handle him when he’s prepared?”

Once she finished speaking, Bai Qian led the woman—who lost all reason in her excitement—back to the room. She pulled out a tablet and turned the screen toward her. “This is some information I dug up on the Black Octopus’s weaknesses after researching related materials. Until we’ve come up with a foolproof plan, you’re forbidden from rushing back to the seabed on a hotheaded revenge quest. Got it?”

The human world didn’t even have any records on mermaids, much less the Black Octopus’s weaknesses.

Bai Qian’s intel stemmed from a glitch in her Guardian identity.

She waited quietly for a moment before realizing that although Yu Shaoling was staring at the tablet, her gaze was clearly unfocused. The slight furrow in her brow made her distraction plain to see.

“What’s wrong?” Bai Qian called, pulling her drifting thoughts back.

“So when are you going to propose to me? If you don’t want to, I can propose to you instead. No problem at all.”

“…” Bai Qian unceremoniously flicked the woman’s forehead. “I’m trying to discuss the Black Octopus with you. Can you at least take this seriously!”

Yu Shaoling rubbed the spot with a pitiful whimper. “Marrying you is important to me too. If you won’t give me a straight answer, I can’t settle down enough to help you make octopus sashimi.”

Bai Qian paused. “…We’ll talk about that after you’ve gotten your revenge and claimed the throne. Until then, focus on how to seize power. Stop acting like a lovesick fool who has to bring this up at the worst possible time, okay?”

The love-brained mermaid blinked in confusion. “What’s a love brain? I’m a mermaid. I only have a mermaid brain—not a love brain.”

“You don’t need to know! Now put your attention on this tablet and look at the materials I’ve compiled.”

Yu Shaoling obediently bent her head and skimmed the tablet resting on her thigh. After a quick glance, she looked up curiously. “I never knew any of this. How did you find it out?”

Bai Qian thought: All that talking earlier, and she didn’t hear a single word?!

“From the library!” Her teeth ached from clenching her jaw.

Yu Shaoling nodded. “Sea Master was right. While we were studying you humans, you humans were studying us seabed creatures too.”

Bai Qian thought: Absolutely not!

The girl’s attention wandered again. She tilted her head and gazed at Bai Qian with eager anticipation. “So how do you humans describe us mermaids?”

Bai Qian’s face darkened. She grabbed the mermaid’s restless head and twisted it back, grinding her teeth. “Can you handle the important stuff first before we chat about all this irrelevant nonsense?”

Yu Shaoling tugged at her sleeve, signaling her to release her grip.

The mermaid’s expression held a touch of innocence. “But these materials you gave me… they’re useless.”

Bai Qian blinked. ?

“In our Mermaid Kingdom, the subjects only support the wearer of the King’s Crown as their king. Truth be told, the Black Octopus doesn’t even qualify to be king.”

She went on to explain. “When he killed my father the king, he stole the crown and used witchcraft to overwrite my father’s aura with his own. That’s why the crown recognizes him as its master. The subjects of our Mermaid Kingdom only acknowledge the crown—they don’t care about the bearer’s breed. That’s how he’s managed to hold the position temporarily.”

“Then why bother retrieving your fish tail? You’re the legitimate descendant of the mermaid royal line. Just go straight back and have the crown recognize you as its master, right?”

Yu Shaoling thought for a moment. “Let me figure out how to explain this. Hmm… it’s like how you humans need tools and rockets to reach space. The Mermaid Kingdom lies at the ocean’s deepest depths. Even if I want to return, I need my fish tail to get there. Does that analogy make sense to you?”

“Then without your fish tail, you still want to take me back?”

Yu Shaoling reached for her slender neck and pulled the miniature Sea Conch out from her collar, saying softly, “You have this. It can let you swim through the ocean like a mermaid and enter that mysterious kingdom with me.”

Bai Qian grew more and more confused as she listened. “Then couldn’t you go back yourself with this Sea Conch?”

Yu Shaoling patiently explained to her, “I haven’t finished yet. The reason it can take you back is that its creator is also a mermaid. If I don’t have a fish tail, then I’m just like you—an ordinary human. Does that make sense when I put it that way?”

“So you’re saying that avenging your father and mother isn’t as difficult as I imagined?”

The woman’s rare confused and bewildered expression was so adorable that Yu Shaoling couldn’t resist leaning in to steal a kiss on her lips. “Yeah, instead of spending so much energy dealing with that Black Octopus, it’s better for me to spend more time kissing and hugging you.”

“…” Bai Qian shoved away the rascal who had just kissed her lips and was now trying to push her tongue inside, glaring at her. “Then why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

Yu Shaoling hooked her little finger around hers. “I like how much you care about me. I promise you, just this once—from now on, no matter what it is, I won’t hide anything from you anymore.”

Bai Qian: Hmph.

“Then let’s go back now? I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Wait!” Bai Qian said hurriedly. “If it’s really as you say, then I don’t need to worry too much about your process of regaining power. But what about the grudge for your father and mother being killed by the Black Octopus? Can you avenge that as simply and easily as seizing power?”

“He tampered with my father and mother’s medicine back then, so naturally, I’ll make him taste the same flavor.” Yu Shaoling’s face turned cold. “My father and mother were slain by his sword right in front of me, and the Sea Master sacrificed his life to save me. For all these debts, I have to make him pay them back one by one.”

…

Before setting off for the Mermaid Kingdom, Bai Qian went to see An Yan one last time.

But she didn’t meet her—the woman had gone on a honeymoon with her family mermaid.

The two left the alley and stood at the bus stop waiting for the bus.

KFC was recently running a Little Mermaid Blind Box combo meal promotion. The girl spotted the advertisement behind her and her eyes lit up instantly.

“Bai Qian, I want this—buy this for me!”

The woman looked in the direction she was pointing.

Yu Shaoling was like a spoiled cat, relying on her beauty to plead with full expectation. “Bai Qian, you’ll buy it for me, right?”

“…” No one could refuse a mermaid like this.

—Including Bai Qian.

The Blind Box combos came in three types: single-person combo, double-person combo, and family bucket combo.

Bai Qian had no interest in burgers or fries. Seeing that Yu Shaoling only wanted the Blind Box, she ended up ordering the cheapest single-person combo.

The girl, now holding the object of her heart’s desire, obediently let the woman pull her toward the exit.

But as soon as Bai Qian got her to the door, she realized she couldn’t budge her anymore.

A bad premonition had just risen when the person beside her started acting spoiled. “Bai Qian, you’ll buy it for me, right?”

She stiffly turned her head and, following the other’s gaze, spotted a whole box of unopened Blind Boxes next to a little girl at a nearby double table.

Yu Shaoling turned to stare at her eagerly, shaking the Pink-Tail Mermaid in her hand toward Bai Qian. “My companion told me she wants to go home with her other sisters.”

“…”

Yu Shaoling happily boarded the bus hugging a whole set of Blind Boxes.

Bai Qian sat down beside her with a face full of grief. Who the hell invented Blind Boxes anyway? One cost 59 yuan—didn’t his conscience hurt making this black-hearted money!

“Bai Qian, this one doesn’t seem to be their sister. I didn’t see it on the boxes.”

When Yu Shaoling opened the third box, she pulled out a mermaid with a deep red fish tail, wearing a golden crown and holding a gem scepter.

Bai Qian took the box and glanced at it—it was a Hidden Edition.

“It’s this one.” She pointed to the mermaid on the box cover, which was just an outline with its body obscured by a question mark.

Yu Shaoling was surprised. “So this is the Hidden Edition! I saw on Little X Book before that everyone said Hidden Editions are super hard to get.”

The girl fiddled with the Hidden Edition mermaid back and forth. Unlike the others, she didn’t put it back in the box. Instead, she stuffed it into Bai Qian’s hand and said softly, “This is for you.”

“Hmm? I don’t need it, thanks. You like it so much—keep it for yourself. Didn’t you say earlier you wanted to put it with the other sisters?”

Yu Shaoling shook her head and looked at her seriously. “Bai Qian, you’re my Hidden Edition.”

The woman’s face, which rarely blushed, turned red again in an unprecedented way after the girl said that.

…

The middle-aged man, whose eight thick tentacles had been sliced off by blades formed from telekinesis, lay there with his vitality utterly spent.

Yu Shaoling knew he wouldn’t last three days. With a cold gaze, she ordered the guards to expel him from the palace.

The Black Octopus fled in panic, only to find himself cornered by the guards of the Mermaid Kingdom. In the end, he reached the very stretch of sea where Yu Shaoling had first encountered Bai Qian.

When her subordinate returned to report, Yu Shaoling was coaxing a kiss from Bai Qian.