I Woke Up To Find Myself Being Kept By A Mermaid – CH26

Chapter 26

The optical computer suddenly went dark, leaving both Vincent and Lux momentarily stunned.

Ruan Chen withdrew his hand. “Meow? (What’s wrong?)”

You weren’t supposed to play on the computer while recovering from an injury in the first place. Whenever he played on the computer while sick, his grandfather would give him a serious scolding.

The merman had been injured because of him, after all. Ruan Chen felt obligated to take responsibility for his recovery all the way to the end.

He earnestly tried to reason with Lux.

“Meow meow meow, meow meow. (Sleeping helps wounds heal. Once you’re better, you can play as much as you want.)”

As he spoke, Ruan Chen pressed his palms together beside his cheek and tilted his head, miming sleep.

“Ahem.” Vincent scratched his head. “Ruan Ruan wants you to sleep with him.”

Lux met the human’s black eyes, which were practically brimming with anticipation.

He chuckled softly and said to Vincent, “I’ll rest with him for an hour.”

Vincent nodded and left two translator earpieces on the cabinet beside the bed. “Once the translator finishes downloading, you can use these directly. The medicine for removing the toxin happens to contain sedatives anyway, so I’ll come back in an hour.”

There were still three hours before the Zerg arrived at Base X.

They had enough time.

Ruan Chen could no longer stand watching this merman stand there yapping at Lux and delaying his rest.

He let out an impatient “Meow!” at him.

“I’ll deal with those three ungrateful bastards and come back to wake you up.”

Vincent stretched his neck around to finish his last sentence even as Ruan Chen pressed both hands against his back and shoved him out the door.

The other merfolk officers who were also waiting outside: ?

What a coincidence. You got kicked out by that human too?

The door closed once again.

Vincent rubbed his nose to hide his embarrassment. “All right, disperse. Lux is fine. Go make your prebattle preparations!”

Seeing that all the merfolk outside had finally left, Ruan Chen breathed a sigh of relief.

He blew out a bubble and turned around.

“Meow meow. (All right. Now you can be good and go to sleep.)”

Unexpectedly, the merman flicked his long tail, stirring up a current. His tail swept beneath Ruan Chen’s bottom and rolled him straight onto the bed.

With a splash, Ruan Chen landed sprawled across Lux.

Lux rubbed the back of his neck and laughed. “Didn’t you want me to sleep with you? Go to sleep.”

Ruan Chen stared blankly at him.

“Meow? (What?)”

“Be good.”

“Meow meow meow? (You need me to keep you company just to sleep?)” Ruan Chen pouted.

Forget it.

It was not as though this was his first day knowing how emotionally fragile this merman was.

So clingy.

The medicine treating Lux’s wound gradually began to take effect.

Ruan Chen had only been lying beside him for a short while when the merman’s breathing slowly evened out. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

When the merman closed his eyes and lay quietly, his entire face looked much softer.

The shell bed was not particularly large. Lying on it meant Ruan Chen inevitably had to stay pressed close against Lux.

He raised his head.

The merman’s chest rose and fell faintly before him. Behind his long, pointed ears, translucent gills slowly opened and closed.

The slow rhythm was strangely soothing.

Ruan Chen watched for a little while, then yawned.

He rubbed his eyes.

Lux suddenly rolled over. His arm bumped against Ruan Chen, then exerted a little force and pulled him into his embrace.

“!”

Stupid goldfish, you’re doing it again—Ruan Chen had just been about to struggle free when his eyes caught sight of the bandaged wound on Lux’s shoulder.

Fine.

He sighed.

You’re injured. You get to call the shots today.

A hug was just a hug.

The room was quiet. Bored out of his mind, Ruan Chen reached up and fiddled with the merman’s long, curled pale-golden eyelashes.

He had to admit that although this merman’s personality could be pretty infuriating, he really was exceptionally good-looking.

Propping his chin on his hand, Ruan Chen pursed his lips and examined Lux from his beautifully shaped forehead all the way down to the faintly upturned corners of his mouth.

He gave Lux’s face a score of 9.9.

He withheld the last 0.1 so Lux would not get conceited.

Just then, Ruan Chen’s optical computer suddenly lit up and a window popped open.

He jumped in fright and hurriedly closed it.

Glancing at Lux, he found the latter still fast asleep.

Good. It had not woken him.

What the hell was that…? Why had it suddenly popped up on its own? Did computers in this world have annoying pop-up ads too?

Ruan Chen frowned and shifted around, turning his back to the merman before opening his optical computer.

[Notification: Your file “Chinese Translator” has been successfully installed!]

Ruan Chen: ?

Was he still dreaming?

Why could he suddenly understand the words on the screen?!

Ruan Chen sat frozen for several seconds.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer, carefully reading the line again before finally realizing what it meant.

Chinese Translator?!

Something this amazing existed?

His eyes lit up with delight.

Why had no one brought this out sooner?

[Earpieces detected. Connect now?]

Snapping back to his senses, Ruan Chen remembered the two translator earpieces Vincent had left on the table.

Earlier, he had wondered why there were two.

Now he understood.

They were meant to be used with the translation software. Presumably, one was for him and the other was for Lux.

Ruan Chen closed the notification and ignored the two earpieces.

He suddenly remembered that lousy website where the video of him getting an injection had been spread everywhere last time.

Well, well.

Now that your grandpa can finally read, you’ll be my first target.

Having already watched several livestreams, Ruan Chen expertly located the familiar blue icon on the screen.

The moment he tapped it, his finger suddenly paused.

Wait.

What did that say?

Human-Raising Forum?

Ruan Chen wrinkled his nose.

What the hell was this?

After entering the forum, he discovered that all the previous videos were gone.

When he clicked them through his browsing history, all he saw was:

[The video violated regulations and has been deleted~]

So they had actually been illegal videos?

Good riddance.

After confirming there were no longer any secretly recorded videos capable of causing his social death, Ruan Chen figured he was already here anyway and began browsing the forum.

Across the top were sections labeled “Sharing,” “Discussion,” “Livestreams,” and so on.

The Livestream section had been the only category he could understand before, so he was no longer particularly interested in it.

Still, Ruan Chen clicked into that visually disturbing livestream room from last time and glanced at the stream title.

[Sharing the Sweet Daily Life of Me and My Human]

Scratching his head, Ruan Chen failed to understand and backed out.

After thinking for a long while, he entered the Discussion section instead.

The very first post nearly made him tumble off the bed.

[Successfully matched with a brown-haired human today! I finally have a partner too!]

A human?

Why were they using that kind of classifier?

And what the hell was a partner?

Ruan Chen opened the post, lowered his head, and began reading carefully.

Several minutes later, he finished and slowly raised his head.

In the transparent glass not far away, he saw his own reflection.

Three parts horror, three parts confusion, the remaining parts panic, and a suspicious trace of a blush.

Impossible.

How could this be possible?

The post actually said that humans were a rare species and had to undergo compatibility testing. Only after the compatibility level met the required standard could someone raise one.

But that was not the important part.

The important part was—The merfolk in this world regarded humans as their partners!

Simply put, this was a world where the government assigned you a partner!

And it was the interspecies version!

In that case…

When this golden merman had taken him away from the place where he first woke up, it was actually because they had passed a compatibility test?

This entire time, the merman had been raising him as his future partner?

Ruan Chen’s eyes widened like bells.

The merman was always touching him, hugging him, and even kissing him…

So all along…

He had been lusting after his body!!

Ruan Chen was horrified.

His body stiff, he cautiously turned around.

Lux was still asleep.

Ruan Chen’s gaze traveled from the top of his head all the way down to his long, beautifully curved fish tail.

He swallowed.

Including the tail, Lux was more than half his body taller than him.

Someone this big…

Was his partner?

Suddenly, an inappropriate thought flashed through his mind.

If he dated him, and the merman was already this tall, then his… his… that thing could not possibly be small, right?

Ruan Chen’s gaze slowly dropped to the section of tail a few inches below Lux’s waist.

He could not see anything unusual.

Where was that part on a merman?

Could it be that they did not have one?

Ruan Chen had spent more than a decade surfing the internet in his original world. Naturally, he had heard of plenty of merman-related literature.

At the thought of those stories, his face reddened.

It seemed like…

In those works, merfolk were generally delicate and soft-tempered.

And they were always the one on the bottom.

Although his merman was a little bigger and occasionally deserved a beating, he got so scared when Ruan Chen was in danger that he needed hugs. He even needed someone to accompany him to sleep.

That actually seemed to fit the descriptions in those merman stories pretty well.

His personality was rather soft too.

What the fuck am I thinking?!

Ruan Chen abruptly snapped back to reality and banged his head against the bed several times.

How could that possibly happen?!

How could he possibly date a merman?!

Where the hell had he just been looking???

He had even started thinking about who would be on top and who would be on the bottom?!

He was crazy.

Something was wrong with him.

His mind had gone completely off the rails!

Hearing the noise, Lux let out a low “Mm.” His eyelashes trembled as though he was about to wake up.

Ruan Chen jolted all over.

In a flurry, he shut down his optical computer and swept the two translator earpieces Vincent had left behind into his hands, hiding them.

It was fine.

As long as the merman did not know about the translator, he would never discover that Ruan Chen already understood he was supposed to be his partner.

Then Ruan Chen could naturally continue pretending to be clueless.

Judging from the merman’s behavior, he was not the type to force him into anything.

If they could not even communicate normally, then dating was even more impossible.

There was no need to worry about anything that might happen afterward.

The plan was perfect!

Lux opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was his human obediently lifting his head and gazing at him with a pair of wide, round eyes.

In an excellent mood, Lux smiled and lowered his head, kissing the top of Ruan Chen’s hair.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Now that he knew the truth, Ruan Chen felt his face heat up at alarming speed.

The warmth spread all the way to his ears.

He continued pretending to be obedient.

“Meow. (I didn’t do anything.)”

He looked perfectly sweet and well-behaved on the outside.

Inside, he was panicking like hell.

Lux stroked his hair and noticed the red mark Ruan Chen had just knocked onto his forehead. His brows drew together.

“Where did you bump your head?”

Worriedly, he rubbed Ruan Chen’s forehead.

A merman’s body temperature was considerably lower than a human’s. Lux’s cool palm only made Ruan Chen feel as though his face was burning even hotter.

After reading those posts, he could no longer look at any of the merman’s actions toward him the same way.

Ruan Chen’s entire body nearly stiffened into an iron board.

Lux noticed something was wrong.

“What happened?”

“Meow…”

Ruan Chen tried to muddle his way through. His voice came out exceptionally soft and sweet, almost dripping with honey.

“Meow meow. (Nothing happened. Stop looking at me.)”

The merman stared at him for a long time.

He got nowhere.

Just when Ruan Chen thought he had successfully bluffed his way past the matter, there was a knock on the door.

“It’s me, Vincent.”

Lux sat up on the bed. “Come in.”

Vincent entered with a smile. “Oh, you’re awake. You look pretty energetic.”

“Oh, right. The translation software from earlier should have finished downloading by now. Even though the optical computers were turned off, the download would continue running in the background. Take a look.”

Ruan Chen was not wearing the earpiece, so he could not understand the merfolk’s conversation.

Thus, he failed to charge over and cover Vincent’s mouth in time.

He could only watch helplessly as Lux, upon hearing Vincent’s words, opened his optical computer.

The instant Ruan Chen saw the words—

[Chinese Translator successfully installed.]

—displayed on the screen, his vision went black.

He wanted nothing more than to hoist a battleship onto his shoulders and flee the planet on the spot.

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