Chapter 7 Family Background

“How is the Second Miss? Did that little beast listen to you?” Seeing Jiang Yang come out, Lan Qian immediately ran over to ask.

Jiang Yang gave her a look.

Lan Qian immediately understood and went in to take a look. That little beast was happily floating on the water surface by himself. Seeing her come in, he no longer confronted her like before, but just gave her an indifferent look and continued playing with the handkerchief in his hand.

As expected of the Second Miss, she managed to tame the fierce merman in such a short time. Awesome!

At noon, the crew changed the water for the merman as instructed. Originally, he had a fierce reputation, so the crew all wore protective gear to prevent having their throats slit. They entered trembling, prepared to die, but the result was that the merman, rumored to be a fierce and evil spirit, unprecedentedly did not hurt anyone. He even seemed very easy to get along with, just not talkative, but much better than before.

Word spread like wildfire, and everyone on the ship knew that Jiang Yang had tamed the ferocious merman in just half a day. They immediately grew reverent!

Jiang Yang, who was eating and drinking in the room, had no idea that at this moment, her image in the eyes of the crew had leaped from a good-for-nothing profligate to an unparalleled prodigy in taming mermen.

In the evening, she went for a walk on the deck to aid digestion. Countless ardent, admiring, and appreciative eyes scanned her like machine guns. Jiang Yang felt uncomfortable being looked at, like a poor student who had unexpectedly scored first and felt quite unaccustomed.

She used the excuse of checking on the merman to escape the overly enthusiastic gazes of her subordinates.

“You’re here!” Chi Mei was very happy to see Jiang Yang. Half of his body leaned on the edge of the water bucket, seawater cascading down, wetting the entire floor and saturating her top-quality Shu brocade shoes.

“Is the newly changed seawater comfortable?” Jiang Yang asked.

“Comfortable, thank you Jiang Yang!” Chi Mei happily did a somersault in the water bucket, his fishtail splashing huge waves of water onto her. Jiang Yang wiped the water from her face. Now not only were her shoes wet, but her clothes were soaked too.

“Ah, sorry…” Chi Mei retracted his fishtail, his eyes timid.

“It’s fine.” She would change into sleepwear at night anyway. Jiang Yang casually patted the water droplets on her clothes. “Come to think of it, I’ve always wondered, why can you speak the human language?”

“My brother taught me.” Chi Mei rested his delicate chin on the back of his hand, his slender fingers tapping the bucket edge, wet with water.

“Your brother? Who is your brother?”

Chi Mei said, “My brother is called Fu Yue.”

Jiang Yang said, “You are a merman, so your brother should also be a merman. Why does he know how to speak the human language?”

Chi Mei’s clear eyes showed a hint of sadness. “Because he fell in love with a human.”

Wow, a human-merman tragic love story.

She knew it. Mermen, such beautiful creatures, with handsome males and pretty females, under the various strange fetishes of humans, how could they simply be used for meat and oil extraction? That would be too much of a waste of their beauty. They deserve to star in dozens of idol dramas.

Jiang Yang became interested. “How did they meet?”

Chi Mei said, “That year, a sudden mad dog wave surged in the sea. My brother happened to be swimming on the surface and was swept to the shore by the big wave. That woman found him, and as they interacted, my brother fell for her.”

Jiang Yang thought: Sure enough, the heroine saving the hero is an eternal trope.

As he spoke, Chi Mei suddenly became furious. He clenched his fist and heavily smashed it on the water surface, splashing Jiang Yang in the face again.

Jiang Yang was stunned. What happened? Weren’t they just talking about a love story?

“But that woman…” Hatred flashed in Chi Mei’s eyes. “Humans are all scheming and cunning creatures. That woman took advantage of my brother’s body. At that time, my brother was already pregnant, but she didn’t want to take responsibility and ran away. After being abandoned, my brother had nowhere to go and could only return to the bottom of the sea. But when the tribe learned that he was carrying a human’s child, they expelled him from the group. My brother, with a big belly and homeless, could only hide in the sunless abyss to give birth to the little mermaid.”

Holy shit, what a scumbag!

Jiang Yang’s sense of justice surged. “Which bastard is so despicable to abandon both the mermaid and the roe? Wait till I get ashore, I’ll go find her and avenge your brother!”

Chi Mei looked at Jiang Yang, who was just as righteously indignant as himself, with gratitude. She was indeed different from those human females outside. Not only was she gentle, attentive, strong, and reliable, but also very upright.

Chi Mei lamented daily: Why wasn’t she a mermaid?

“Her name is Jiang Qingzhou,” Chi Mei said.

Jiang Yang thought: Sister… I didn’t expect you to be so promiscuous, actually going after a fish.

“Uh… what is that person’s identity?” To avoid mistaking people with the same name, Jiang Yang asked for more details. If she got it wrong, it would be embarrassing.

Chi Mei recalled, “I remember my brother said she was a noble among humans, with many soldiers under her command.”

Jiang Yang thought: Alright, confirmed, case cracked, it was Jiang Qingzhou’s doing.

“Rest assured, I will definitely help you find this scumbag woman.” Jiang Yang solemnly patted Chi Mei’s shoulder, appearing calm on the surface but nearly laughing herself to death inside.

Hahaha, she really didn’t expect to gain an unexpected reward from this sea trip! That Jiang Qingzhou usually looked stern and serious like an old scholar, but behind the scenes, she was a heartless beast who slept around and then ran!

“Thank you.” Chi Mei tugged on her sleeve, his watery eyes gazing at her. “Yang, you are a really good person.”

Jiang Yang thought: Why was she suddenly friendzoned?! And why was he calling her Yang? Bro, we’re not that close.

Chi Mei seemed to read her mind and said, “My brother told me to use intimate names for people I trust.”

It seems your brother’s human speech skills aren’t that great either. No, sister, how did you teach him?

But looking at those watery eyes and that top-tier handsome face, Jiang Yang didn’t refute it. Could she bear to reject a handsome guy? Forget it, let him call her that. Anyway, she was a woman, so she wasn’t at a disadvantage. Life was great in a female-dominant society.

“So your brother has been living in the abyss all this time?” The pitiful abandoned husband, raising a child alone in the deep sea… tsk tsk, what a scene.

Chi Mei shook his head. “No, my brother went ashore.”

Jiang Yang: “Huh?”

“He said he didn’t believe that bad woman had abandoned him. He wanted to go ashore to find her. After giving birth, he secretly used a forbidden technique to transform his tail into human legs. He took the child to look for that bad woman. I tried to dissuade him, but he wouldn’t listen at all, obsessively believing that the bad woman hadn’t abandoned him and left him only because she had no choice.”

She had no unavoidable reasons. She was living a great life at home, eating well and drinking well.

“He’s a fish who has never lived among humans, and he has a child. How could he possibly find her?” The Jiang family was powerful, but it was a long way from the seaside. It would take at least a month or two to reach the main family.

Chi Mei said dejectedly, “I couldn’t do anything either. My brother just wouldn’t listen to me. He even told me that he didn’t want to come back in the first place and wanted to go ashore directly to find her. He only returned to the sea because he had no choice due to pregnancy and childbirth. Just a few days after giving birth, when he could barely walk steadily, he went ashore.”

Jiang Yang thought: A mind clouded by love is really deadly.

“So stupid.” Jiang Yang unintentionally blurted out her inner thoughts and looked at Chi Mei in horror.

Chi Mei frowned, angry yet helpless. “You also think it’s too stupid, right?”

“Uh…” Should she say yes or no now?

Before she could answer, Chi Mei continued indignantly, “The tribe all mocked him, saying his brain had been eaten by sunfish to become so foolish, easily deceived in both body and heart by a cunning human.”

His mother, the Mermaid Queen, had passed away early. She only had the two sons. With the older brother going ashore, now only he remained as the bloodline of the Mermaid King.

Upon learning that his brother had resolutely gone ashore, the elders were heartbroken. They came to his palace overnight for a long talk, which was actually to warn him not to be as foolish as his brother and easily deceived by a human woman. He now bore the responsibility of the sole descendant of the royal mermaid bloodline. With his noble lineage and heavy burden, he must mate with the most outstanding mermaid in the tribe to birth the strongest next Mermaid King.

Thinking of this, Chi Mei gave Jiang Yang a deep look. His regret turned into sorrow. Why wasn’t she a mermaid?!!!

“It’s no use complaining now that things have come to this. Let’s just hope he finds that woman soon.” Jiang Yang didn’t dare tell him yet that she was the sister of the woman who had deceived his brother and taken advantage of him. It was too embarrassing.

But suddenly, the handsome merman who had no relation to her had become the brother of her ‘brother-in-law’. They were now connected. Jiang Yang, who had no intention of killing or taming him in the first place, now even more so didn’t want to send him to the dog emperor to be a pet.

If she really did that, these two brothers would be completely ruined by her Jiang family. The sin would be too heavy.

She had to think of a way to let this fish escape reasonably without implicating the Jiang family.

But Jiang Yang racked her brains for a long time and couldn’t think of anything. It was too difficult. Trying to release the fish under the eyes of so many people was just too hard.

Forget it. Jiang Yang gave up for now and turned to look at Chi Mei.

Since this handsome merman was already her brother-in-law’s brother, his living standards needed to be improved a bit.

Looking at Chi Mei, who was still immersed in his exasperated frustration towards his brother, his brows wrinkled tightly together. This guy looked quite intimidating when he wasn’t smiling, with lowered brow tails, cold eyes, and scattered wet black long hair. If he covered his face with his long hair, he could probably compete with Sadako, the difference being that he was better looking than Sadako.

Perhaps his appearance could shock the other crew members and keep them from approaching, but Jiang Yang had fully grasped this fish’s temperament over the past few days. He was just an ignorant, foolish fish, easy to handle.

“Chi Mei, the lighting here isn’t good for you. Shall I get you a new room?” Jiang Yang said while stroking his wet fish head. I have to say, the merman’s hair quality was quite good, soft and smooth.

Chi Mei’s expression instantly changed from low pressure to bewilderment, from bewilderment to confusion, and from confusion to embarrassment, his expression changes comparable to Sichuan opera face-changing.

He looked at Jiang Yang, who was still fiddling with a strand of his long hair in her hand. His expression was both shy and awkward. Under the water, his hand gripping the white jade bracelet tightened again and again. Finally, he nodded and responded in a small voice, “…Okay.”

Chi Mei: My brother is really a love-obsessed fool (disdainful)