Chapter 126

“Are they… trying to kill you?”

Lin Feng’s words made Zhao Shuqing’s heart tighten. She looked toward Ye Gui, locked in the cage. Ye Gui’s face was serene, her black pupils devoid of any disturbance, as if Lin Feng had commented on something utterly mundane.

“No,” Ye Gui said. “I want to die, but Huijun won’t allow it, so they had no choice but to tie me up and lock me in this cage.”

Lin Feng had never imagined it would be like this. She stared at Ye Gui in astonishment. “Why do you want to die? Isn’t staying alive good enough?”

Ye Gui replied, “Of course living is wonderful—who wouldn’t want that?” She lowered her eyelids, a shadow falling across her face. “But her position is different. She can’t have a mermaid for a wife, so I’m destined to die.”

Better to end it herself than be hauled off for execution.

She had tried taking her own life before, but a mermaid’s regenerative powers were simply too formidable. Even plunging a fruit knife into her heart hadn’t finished her off. When Ye Gui woke again to find herself still breathing, the truth was, she felt a pang of disappointment.

“I was among the first mermaids to come ashore,” Ye Gui told them in a gentle voice. “Forty years ago, an accident brought me onto land, and I’ve stayed ever since. Chen Huijun is someone I watched grow up. Right when the plan began, she entered the military, so we groomed her, smoothed her path, and helped her rise to where she is now.”

Ye Gui let out a soft sigh. “After we married, I gathered plenty of firsthand intelligence and passed it all straight to the clan without holding anything back. And… her life has been so seamless up to now. She can’t afford a blemish like me.”

A committee member with a mermaid wife? It would shatter Chen Huijun’s prospects for advancement overnight, not to mention the harsh punishment she’d face for state secrets leaked through Ye Gui.

Ye Gui’s death alone could serve as the explanation everyone demanded.

“Will you help me?” Ye Gui gazed at them, her tone calm. “Only if I die will she stop being a target.”

The request was outrageous. Zhao Shuqing had never dreamed anyone would beg for assistance with something like this.

Besides, this mermaid was the committee member’s wife, after all. If the committee member herself refused to let her go, how could a nobody like Zhao Shuqing possibly intervene?

“I’m sorry,” Zhao Shuqing refused. “Our own situation is precarious enough as it is. I’m afraid we can’t help you with this. Lin Feng, it’s getting late—we should head back.”

Lin Feng gave a slight nod, squeezing Ye Gui’s hand. “Keep living, okay? We’ll come visit you again.”

Ye Gui watched Lin Feng walk over to Zhao Shuqing’s side. The human girl took her hand as naturally as breathing, and together they left the dim room.

Unbidden, Ye Gui lowered her head and let out a soft chuckle.

A human and a mermaid could never expect a happy ending…

Once they were out of the basement, that heavy feeling lingered oppressively in Lin Feng’s chest. She pressed a hand to it and told Zhao Shuqing, “I don’t feel well.”

Zhao Shuqing halted at once. Seeing Lin Feng clutching her chest like that, she asked hurriedly, “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

“My heart,” Lin Feng said with a frown. She looked up at Zhao Shuqing. “Why does Ye Gui have to die? Isn’t living wonderful?”

Mermaids enjoyed such long lives—Ye Gui had decades ahead of her. Why choose death? The more Lin Feng dwelled on it, the more her own heart ached. She could sense Ye Gui’s deep love for her partner, so why couldn’t two people who cared for each other just stay together?

She simply didn’t understand.

Couldn’t humans love freely like mermaids did, pairing with whoever captured their heart?

Lin Feng felt miserable. Over the past while, she’d witnessed far too many mermaids meet tragic ends. She dreaded the day she might die right in front of Zhao Shuqing. The mere thought brought tears spilling uncontrollably from her eyes. Twin trails of them traced down her cheeks and along her chin before dripping slowly away.

Zhao Shuqing rushed forward the moment she saw Lin Feng crying, pulling tissues from her pocket to dab at her face. But Lin Feng only sobbed harder, her eyes turning thoroughly red.

“What’s the matter?” Zhao Shuqing murmured, rubbing Lin Feng’s cheeks as she coaxed her gently. “You were fine just a moment ago. Why the tears?”

Lin Feng hiccupped through her sobs. The idea that she might have to die someday pierced her deeply, and memories of recent hardships piled on—not enough food, fitful sleep, over a week swimming through the sea to reach shore amid biting cold. All her pent-up grievances came flooding out at once, and she cried without stopping.

Zhao Shuqing went through half a pack of tissues, but Lin Feng wailed on fiercely, even clutching her belly as if the crying had given her a stomachache.

Pregnant women weren’t supposed to carry on like this.

Zhao Shuqing was at her wit’s end. Words never came easily to her at the best of times, and now her mind raced only with worry. In the end, she cupped Lin Feng’s face in her hands and slowly leaned down.

Lin Feng’s lips still glistened with tears, lending the kiss a faint salty tang.

Lin Feng realized she was being kissed. She blinked open her puffy, red eyes to stare at the face so close to hers, forgetting even to breathe.

It had been ages since they’d shared a moment like this.

Zhao Shuqing savored the warmth of those soft lips. Her tongue gently nudged them apart, slipping past teeth to deepen the kiss.

Lin Feng felt fresh tears welling up.

She squeezed her eyes shut and looped her arms around Zhao Shuqing’s shoulders. She kissed back amid sniffles, but as their tongues intertwined, even the sobs quieted. In that shadowed corner, nothing remained but their quickened breaths.

Her back pressed to the wall, Lin Feng kept her eyes closed, absorbing Zhao Shuqing’s heat. Their tongues danced together, mingling their tastes.

“Mmm…”

Lin Feng felt a nip at her lower lip and cracked her eyes open to meet Zhao Shuqing’s gaze.

Those red-rimmed eyes and flushed nose tip made her look like a little rabbit, her pink tongue peeking out just a touch. Zhao Shuqing took in the sight, then dove back in for another kiss—this time drawing Lin Feng into a firm embrace, holding her close.

Lost in the haze of the kiss, Lin Feng suddenly registered approaching footsteps. She patted Zhao Shuqing’s arm urgently and nipped at her lip.

“Someone’s coming…” Lin Feng whispered, her tone full of grievance.

The bite barely stung—didn’t even break the skin—and paired with that soft complaint, it left Zhao Shuqing’s throat parched. She ached to scoop Lin Feng up and rush her home right then.

Three months had passed. Surely they could get closer now?

Zhao Shuqing’s eyes gleamed as she leaned to Lin Feng’s ear and breathed, “Not crying anymore?”

Lin Feng thought Zhao Shuqing was utterly shameless. Who calmed someone down like this?

Irritated, Lin Feng shoved at her—just as Yue Jiuchu came into view down the stairs. The push sent Zhao Shuqing stumbling back a step while Lin Feng turned aside to rub at her eyes, adopting the air of someone deeply wronged.

Yue Jiuchu descended the steps. “Are you two quarreling?”

Had she interrupted something?

Zhao Shuqing glanced back at her and said flatly, “It’s over.”

Yue Jiuchu eyed her curiously, then flicked a glance at Lin Feng’s reddened face. She paused thoughtfully before getting down to business. “Follow me. The committee member wants to see you both.”

The female officers who had been lounging in the first-floor living room earlier were nowhere to be seen now. Chen Huijun alone remained seated, lost in thought as she stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the flower beds in the garden.

“Committee Member,” Yue Jiuchu said quietly upon approaching her. “They’re here.”

Chen Huijun came back to herself and glanced at Zhao Shuqing and Lin Feng. “Come sit down. No need to stand.”

Zhao Shuqing shot Lin Feng a quick look before telling Chen Huijun, “Thank you.”

The two settled onto the sofa. Yue Jiuchu poured them each a cup of tea. Zhao Shuqing eyed her cup but left it untouched; Lin Feng mirrored her, sitting primly in place.

“May I ask what you need from us?” Zhao Shuqing ventured. “If it’s about handing Lin Feng over, then I swear I won’t comply.”

Chen Huijun studied them for a moment, lost in some memory, before saying, “My bond with Ye Gui was strong, too.”

She turned her gaze back to the garden and continued. “She adored gardening, so I had a flower patch made for her. She’d spend her days sitting out there in the sun or tending the beds. Every morning, I’d wake to fresh blooms on my nightstand. Coming home, I’d find her waiting in the yard.”

To this day, Chen Huijun couldn’t bring herself to believe that the woman she’d known for over forty years was a mermaid.

Yue Jiuchu clearly pitied her superior and, seeing her distress, offered comfort. “Don’t take it too hard.”

“Why?” Chen Huijun asked, bewildered. “She never showed a single sign—no vanishing acts, no unnatural craving for fish. How could she be a mermaid?”

“Ye Gui must have been one of the mermaids who came ashore well before the plan kicked off,” Zhao Shuqing explained. “She admitted it herself: forty years on land. Which means the person you knew and loved has always been exactly who she is—a mermaid.”

Ye Gui hadn’t changed a bit.

Chen Huijun appeared to grasp this already. After Zhao Shuqing finished, she fell silent for a long stretch before finally looking up.

“I need your help with her,” Chen Huijun said. “The word on Ye Gui being a mermaid has been locked down tight. To the outside world, she’s just ill and gone abroad for treatment. As long as she stays put in the basement, no one else needs to know.”

Zhao Shuqing frowned. Wasn’t that just fooling herself?

Chen Huijun wanted to protect her?

But rumors like that wouldn’t stay contained forever. Once they leaked—and they would—Chen Huijun’s career would be finished.

Yue Jiuchu evidently agreed. She objected strenuously. “You can’t. If it gets out, your entire future is over. You’d face prison for harboring a mermaid and compromising national secrets.”

Chen Huijun seemed set on her course. She told Yue Jiuchu, “This doesn’t concern you. Even if I end up behind bars, you won’t be dragged down with me.”

“Committee Member…”

“Enough.”

Chen Huijun silenced Yue Jiuchu and turned to Zhao Shuqing and Lin Feng. “As you saw, Ye Gui is set on dying, and I absolutely won’t allow it. So I’m asking Lin Feng to spend some time with her over the coming days.”

One mermaid to another—they might connect better.

Besides, Ye Gui clearly took a liking to Lin Feng. Perhaps she could sway her, convince her to live on in peace, at the very least.

Lin Feng didn’t object, but she glanced at Zhao Shuqing, silently seeking her input. Zhao Shuqing held Lin Feng’s gaze for a beat, her eyes drifting briefly to her abdomen, before turning to Chen Huijun. “All right.”

“But I have one condition,” Zhao Shuqing added. “We need access to a secure hospital for prenatal exams and the birth. And I insist on being involved every step of the way.”