I Woke Up To Find Myself Being Kept By A Mermaid – CH30

Chapter 30

Ruan Chen had not expected the comment he posted to receive countless replies within mere minutes. It was instantly pushed to the top of the hottest reply threads, dragging Sain’s comment up in popularity along with it.

And almost every response to him followed the same pattern—

[Whose human is this? So fierce, so scary! [Afraid]]

[The softer the name, the harsher the words?]

[I imagined my own human saying this and somehow found it adorable. [Heart]]

[I can’t take it. With that name, he’s both cute and fierce. I need to go virtually cuddle some humans before I recover.]

[Who is Meowx…? Don’t tell me it’s what I think it is??]

Ruan Chen, who had already prepared himself for an eighteen-round online battle: “?”

He checked his comment again and discovered that, in his haste, he had typed Lux’s name as Meowx.

Ruan Chen: “…”

He waited a little longer.

The discussion in the comments grew more and more off track. Huge waves of replies flooded the page, all praising him for being cute or asking about Meowx’s true identity.

Meanwhile, the merman named Sain still had not responded.

Ruan Chen calmed down slightly.

After thinking for a moment, he edited and posted another comment.

[Ruan Ruan: I’m the human @Sain was talking about. That day at the hospital, he tried to grab me by force, so I beat him up. It wasn’t that serious, though, because Lux stopped me. I mistyped the name in my last comment. It’s not Meowx. It’s Lux.]

As expected, within minutes of this reply, the comments exploded again.

[Meowx = Lux. Oh my God. Admiral… Admiral, your aloof image has completely collapsed QAQ]

[HAHAHAHAHA MEOWX.]

[Ah, so does that mean Prince Sain was lying? But… can a human really beat a merman?]

That purple merman?

Ruan Chen could take ten of him.

He was just about to aggressively hammer out an explanation when another explosive piece of news appeared beneath the comments.

[@Ruan Ruan, my human was in the same examination room as him that day. I personally witnessed this human pick up Prince Sain and slam him onto the floor. I was so shocked that I even recorded it. [Video File]]

Ruan Chen had not expected something like this to exist.

He took a violent gulp of his drink before finally convincing himself to open the attached video.

The footage began with Sain confronting Lux.

Then, in the very next moment, the human in Lux’s arms suddenly sprang up and charged straight toward the purple merman, who was pointing fingers and ranting.

Ruan Chen stared at the screen, ready to admire his own technique.

The enormous size difference only made the scene even more comical.

The purple merman, nearly half a body taller than Ruan Chen, traced a perfect arc through the water in Ruan Chen’s slender arms before crashing onto the hospital floor with a completely dumbfounded expression.

The video’s audio quality was not particularly good, but one could still faintly hear Ruan Chen warning the merman, along with the surrounding onlookers’ shocked cries and laughter.

The footage ended on Sain’s furious, bright-red face.

By the time Ruan Chen backed out of the video with the straw still between his lips, the comment section had transformed once again.

[HAHAHAHAHAHA this is way too funny. Wait, are we going to get our accounts banned for laughing at this?]

[I genuinely didn’t expect it to be this funny before I opened it. Sorry. //Repost]

[I’m dying laughing. //Auto-reposted by system]

[I remember now! I saw this video in the entertainment section a while ago! But before I could even save it, it already said it had been deleted.]

[@Sain @Sain @Sain. Ruan Ruan, we’ll help you @Sain.]

[Protect your accounts! Everyone, run!]

Ruan Chen still wanted to tag Sain a few more times.

But the moment he finished typing and sent the comment, a system notification popped up.

[In accordance with regulations, your account has been suspended.]

Ruan Chen: “?”

Can’t handle the heat???

At that very moment, inside the royal palace—

“Take this news article down immediately!” Prince Sain shouted, his face flushed red. “Hurry up!”

He had never expected things to develop this way.

That damned purebred Chinese human.

How had the Zerg squad he lured over failed to crush him into pieces?!

Sain did not have the courage to confront Ruan Chen in the comments.

He could only vent all his anger on his subordinates.

The merfolk responsible for operating the royal news app trembled before him. They misclicked several times and took a full ten minutes or so before finally removing the entire article.

Their clumsiness only made Sain even angrier.

“A bunch of useless trash! You can’t even handle something this simple!”

“What are you staring at me for?” he roared. “Go ban every account that commented just now! Are you waiting for them to spread this elsewhere?”

The merfolk officials nodded repeatedly.

“Y-yes, Your Highness.”

But Sain had clearly underestimated the impact of the incident.

After Royal News banned nearly half the merfolk who had participated in the discussion, those merfolk—furious over Sain’s lies—simply gathered on other news platforms instead.

Sain shouted, “Contact those media outlets! Tell them to suppress every one of these comments and ban the accounts!”

But every media outlet rejected his demand without exception.

“We support Admiral Lux. We believe there must be another reason for this defeat and are willing to wait for the Admiral’s explanation.”

That was their response.

Sain nearly fainted from rage on the spot.

The royal family’s already dwindling public credibility plunged straight to rock bottom because of his farce.

Even the usually harmonious Discussion section of the Human-Raising Forum was flooded with posts about what had happened that day.

A thread titled—

[Ruan Ruan Flies Into a Rage for Meowx—Look at Other People’s Humans!]

—quietly climbed to number one in popularity.

[Just got here. Is this the rare breed? He really is different.]

[AAAAAH, why?! Why does the fiercer he gets make me even more excited?! Is something wrong with me?!]

[Upstairs, same. There’s something wrong with both of us.]

[I’m so jealous of Lux, sob sob sob. I want to steal Ruan Ruan!]

[Little Ruan Ruan, what color sack do you like? [Delighted]]

Ruan Chen, whose account had been banned before he could successfully fight Sain and who was now patrolling comment sections everywhere: “…”

He typed.

[Ruan Ruan: I was only clarifying the facts. I didn’t do it for him. Stop talking nonsense.]

The moment he appeared, the comments became even more enthusiastic.

[Yes, yes, we know. You were just protecting Meowx.]

[All right, all right, we get it. Even though you fought for him, argued online for him, and charged into the comment section for him, we understand that you were only pursuing the truth.]

[Ruan Ruan: ?]

Elsewhere at Base X.

Lux personally inventoried the remaining energy reserves and then visited the wounded soldiers.

After leaving the military hospital, Vincent’s expression looked terrible.

“Captain Cote’s human only just successfully completed his transformation period, and now Cote has lost an arm. I… I honestly want to go fight those old bastards in the royal family myself!”

“There’s only enough energy left for half a month. The Zerg are obviously trying to wear us down. They know we’re far from the home planet and that our supplies can’t keep up.”

Vincent gritted his teeth.

“They’re clearly trying to make things difficult for you, Lux.”

In truth, he was already putting it mildly.

The royal family wanted more than merely to make things difficult for Lux.

Their real goal was likely to use him to eliminate the Zerg, an external threat, and then use the Zerg to eliminate him in turn.

Lux’s face remained expressionless.

“It’s not that serious. I’ll arrange the best doctors for Cote and have him fitted with a prosthetic arm. The energy requisitioned from the military will arrive in a week. That will be enough to sustain us for another month.”

Vincent sighed.

“Even combined, that’s only a month and a half…”

“If this battle still cannot be ended within a month…”

“Then we evacuate in batches.”

Lux’s voice was cold.

“We abandon Base X.”

That was the worst-case scenario.

Base X contained the efforts and sacrifices of countless predecessors.

Unless absolutely necessary, no one wanted to give it up.

Vincent did not reply.

His silence amounted to acceptance of the heavy decision.

He pulled up his optical computer to check messages from the military and deliberately switched to a lighter topic, hoping to cheer Lux up.

“Oh, right.” He asked, “Did you talk to Ruan Ruan yesterday? What’s his personality like? Is he as adorable as his voice?”

Lux paused.

Ruan Chen’s fierce little expression and all those words that had absolutely nothing to do with cuteness surfaced in his mind.

But then he remembered the human getting so furious at him, yet unable to struggle free, forced to lie pinned beneath him on the bed while angrily cursing.

Lux smiled.

“Mm. His personality is adorable too. Even more adorable than I imagined.”

Vincent looked envious.

“Seriously?”

“Wait!”

Vincent suddenly shouted.

“Lux, look at this news!”

As usual, he had opened the news page to check whether the royal family was spreading more slander about them.

He had never expected the headline that popped up to nearly make his eyes fall out.

Today’s Top Story—

[Purebred Chinese Human Ruan Ruan Defends Admiral Lux, Tags Prince Sain in Royal News Comments: Come Fight Me Online!]

Lux opened the article.

Several screenshots immediately appeared before him.

At the very top was the long paragraph Ruan Chen had written insulting Sain.

Vincent stared at the sentence—

“He should’ve let me crack your skull open and check whether it’s filled with seawater.”

After a long silence, he stiffly raised his head.

“…This is what you call… adorable??”

The room fell silent.

Lux ignored him and finished reading the article.

Then he laughed.

“Ruan Ruan has helped us tremendously.”

Vincent stared blankly.

“?”

Lux was in an excellent mood as he explained.

“The entire public is now directing its anger at the royal family. With this incident as a trigger, the royal family won’t dare withhold energy supplies again.”

At that, Vincent finally understood.

“Ah. True. If the public finds out they withheld energy supplies right now, they’d probably be burned to ashes by the people’s fury.”

That brainless idiot Sain had really caused a massive disaster this time.

“Not yet,” Lux said calmly. “Once the Zerg are dealt with, we’ll settle accounts with them.”

They were not on Ocean Planet right now.

For the time being, they could not push the royal family too hard.

No one had expected the situation to suddenly take such a dramatic turn.

A huge smile instantly spread across Vincent’s face.

“Hehe. Then we really need to reward Ruan Ruan properly. He’s our great hero.”

Even without Vincent saying so, Lux had already been thinking the same thing.

Vincent suddenly remembered something else.

“Oh, right. Has he shown any other merfolk traits yet?”

Lux shook his head.

“No.”

Vincent rubbed his chin.

“It hasn’t even been a month. It’s normal for nothing else to have appeared yet. No rush.”

Lux gave a casual hum.

“There’s no rush.”

Ruan Chen clearly had not reached the point where he could fully accept Lux yet.

They had to take things slowly.

Lux opened his optical computer and tapped a few times.

Several seconds later—

Inside his room, Ruan Chen’s optical computer popped up with a notification.

[A merman has tagged you. Come take a look~]

Ruan Chen was currently typing furiously with both hands, replying to the countless new virtual parents on the forum and the ridiculous netizens claiming they wanted to stuff him into a sack.

The sudden notification interrupted his train of thought.

Frowning, Ruan Chen opened it.

It was Lux’s officially verified account.

[Lux Dorian: I will soon file a lawsuit against Prince Sain for spreading false accusations regarding the military. I trust the Royal Tribunal will deliver a fair and impartial ruling.]

[Lux Dorian: @Ruan Ruan Thank you, Ruan Ruan. I’m sorry I can’t spend time with you during this period. I’ll make it up to you twice over in the future.]

Both messages were publicly visible.

Ruan Chen skimmed over the first one.

Then he stared at the second for a long time.

He had even planned for the future already.

…Narcissist.

Ruan Chen typed a line.

[I don’t need you to spend time with me.]

He paused.

Then deleted it.

After deleting it, he rapidly typed—

[I wasn’t trying to help you. I just happened to teach that idiot merman a lesson.]

He stared at it for several seconds.

Then deleted that too.

A long time passed.

Ruan Chen scratched his head and tugged at his ears, yet still could not squeeze out even a few words.

Instead, Lux sent him another private message.

[Lux: You don’t have to wait for me tonight. Go to bed early. I’ll take you somewhere fun tomorrow morning.]

Who was waiting for you?

That day, I was just afraid you’d die outside.

Ruan Chen expressionlessly shut off his optical computer.

Before nine that night, he had already curled up in his conch bed and gone to sleep unusually early.

Update Posting Schedule: Starting next chapter, posting schedule change from posting every day to 3 chapters every Monday~

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