CH 84

Translate by Hua

In the director’s office of the Mermaid Center, Oddo sat behind the desk while Kiro and Lin Feng sat on the sofas on both sides, both looking down at the latest data from the light brain.

Lin Feng still remembers that day when he rescued Kiro. That day, Ji Mingjiang publicly announced that mermaids can freely transform between human and mermaid forms. He stuffed Kiro into the treatment cabin and faced the worried Ji Mingjiang, who stood on two legs.

He took Ji Mingjiang’s casual advice to heart, and when he learned that Kiro intended to work as a keeper at the mermaid center, he quickly contacted Oddo and prepared to undergo a full physical examination of all the mermaids currently in the center, using Kiro’s physical data as a reference.

As for why Ji Mingjiang’s physical data is not used…

Thinking of the question Oddo asked him, Lin Feng chuckled. The person that his brother, Lin Nan, has been bragging about is Ji Mingjinag—someone who could beat military students and tear mecha apart. Compared with that guy’s physical data, they might need to send all mermaids to emergency care on the spot after the reports came out.

However, considering that Lin Nan told him that this matter needed to be kept secret and he could tell him only with Ji Mingjiang’s consent, Lin Feng didn’t tell Oddo the real reason. This person still believed that Ji Mingjiang was the cute, well-behaved, and smarter-than-average mermaid that he personally delivered to Clarice.

He just told the old director that Ji Mingjiang would not be back for a while. If the current mermaids were really generally sub-healthy, it would be better to have a checkup as soon as possible.

At that time, Ji Mingjiang really looked like he wanted to play on that tourist star for a while during the live broadcast.

Sure enough, after hearing what he said, Oddo only thought for a few seconds before adopting his suggestion.

The physical examination for all mermaids was carried out yesterday. With Kiro, who is a mermaid that can act as a bridge between mermaids and keepers, the physical examination went very smoothly this time. With a keeper who could understand the mermaids’ demands and the mermaids who could truly understand the keeper’s meaning working together, it only took half a day to test all the mermaids.

Now, what came to the minds of the three were the test results of nearly a hundred mermaids.

None of the three people looked good, especially Oddo.

The clear data comparison on the report sheet told him that the little mermaids he had always thought were well taken care of by him and the keepers were in a sub-healthy state from the beginning.

The mermaid who was carefully nurtured wasn’t even half as good as Kiro, who had just recovered from a serious injury.

That is a big blow for Oddo.

“So…we’ve been assuming that mermaids don’t like liveliness by nature and just like to immerse themselves in their own world and stay quietly or sleep. But in fact, they’re in a constant state of sub-healthy physical condition, and it’s a sign of their lethargy?”

After reading the hundreds of pages of documents, Oddo suddenly leaned back in his chair weakly, as if he had aged dozens of years in an instant, and spoke in a light and unbelievable tone.

“So it would seem.”

Kiro, who was equally surprised, put down his light brain. He looked at Oddo and said in a strange tone, “So how do you take care of those little guys? I was locked up in the basement for ten years by that guy, Bisnar Orfield, and now you’re telling me that I came out healthier than them after staying in the treatment cabin for a few hours???”

Under Kiro’s questioning, who was also a mermaid, Oddo, who was originally very confused, felt even more guilty. He muttered twice, “It’s just…just like what you usually see.”

“What kind…?”

As soon as Kiro had just uttered two words, a question mark popped up over his head in reaction to what Oddo had meant. His voice suddenly rose, and he immediately slapped the sofa and stood up. “I thought this was some kind of special day-off I happened to stumble upon and that you guys were giving those little guys a vacation!”

“It turns out that the arrangement of not having to move a muscle and eating only a few small whitebait a day is their routine day after day, year after year?!”

“Mr. Oddo, are you kidding me?!”

“Cough, calm down. Your Highness, please calm down.” Lin Feng glanced at Oddo, who was about to shrink into the chair after being yelled at, and quickly stretched out his hand to pull the agitated Kiro back to the sofa. Then he helped Oddo, who had a face of despair, to explain the situation. “It’s something that no one would have thought of; after all, it’s been such a mode of operation for hundreds of years, and there’s no other indicator of normal mermaids to use as a reference….”

As for human standards, almost everyone would assume that this is due to species differences.

It’s unknown when this statement was passed down, but the Mermaid Center has always believed that mermaids can only eat very little food every day. The consequence of this arrangement was that the mermaids, because of their constant hunger, spontaneously reduced their activity level, and after reducing their activity level, their bodies needed less energy and gradually adapted to this amount of food. In the end, it really fit the original myth.

Because the year it started is no longer traceable and there is no documentation available, looking back now, the two behaviors of reducing food intake and reducing activity have actually formed a mobius ring, which is interconnected, and it’s unclear who is the cause and who is the consequence.

“No wonder the mermaids here are so small…”

There were several who were obviously about the same age as him but looked twice as short and skinny compared to him.

Kiro brushed back the scattered hair that ran to his forehead due to the excessive movement just now and murmured. Suddenly, he stopped talking and looked at Oddo and asked, “What happened to Mingjiang? Didn’t he also come out of the Mermaid Center?”

He was carried out by Ji Mingjiang, and probably because that day was so special, he still remembered that Ji Mingjiang held him with one hand for a while, and there was a layer of very tight and powerful muscles on his arm when he exerted force.

Not to mention that Ji Mingjiang could transform into human form much earlier than he did.

How can two kinds of mermaids be raised in one soil and water?

“…” Seeing Lin Feng also looking over with confusion, as if he had been reminded, Oddo twitched the corner of his mouth, covered his face, and a dull voice came from behind his palm: “Because he was found by us in the outer sea and brought back to the center. And Ji Mingjiang only stayed here for about a month at most before he was taken away by His Majesty on his first match day.”

“Oh no.” At this point, Oddo paused and corrected himself: “It was he who chose His Majesty of his own accord and asked to be taken away.”

“…”

“You guys are really…”

After a moment of silence, Lin Feng pushed up his glasses, not knowing what to say for a moment.

Kiro looked at Oddo, who was questioning his life choice, and the idea that Ji Mingjiang mentioned to him as a joke a few days ago suddenly appeared in his mind.

Although he told Ji Mingjiang at that time that Oddo was about to retire at his age and Ji Mingjiang could just take his place directly, neither of them took this sentence to heart.

Now it seems…it doesn’t seem completely impossible?

The three people in the office each had their own ideas, and the air suddenly became silent.

At this moment, the light brains of Lin Feng and Oddo rang at the same time. Oddo straightened up from his chair with difficulty. As soon as he took a look, both his and Lin Feng’s expressions changed.

The man who was still a little wilted just now jumped out of his chair with a jolt, packed up his things in a hurry, and said to Kiro very apologetically while getting ready: “Just now, Chief Steward Rowlett sent us a message, saying His Majesty has brought back another mermaid in need of rescue. I will dispatch the manpower now. Your Highness, why don’t you go back to the mermaid house first?”

“No need.” Not long after Oddo finished speaking, the light brain on Kiro’s wrist buzzed twice. After he replied to the message, he stood up very quickly and said, “Rowlett asked me to return now. Leiden and Mingjiang have something to discuss with me. I’ll go give the little mermaids a heads up and join you guys later.”

***

When the three of them arrived at the palace, it wasn’t long after Oddo and Lin Feng sent rescue personnel. Those who had just rushed onto the starship had only moved the mermaid into the treatment cabin and then moved the treatment cabin to the ground.

After Lin Feng handed over his ID and the news he had just received to the guard at the door for inspection, as soon as he walked inside, the first thing he saw was the treatment cabin with a dazzling red light.

Medical staff of all ages half-surrounded the treatment cabin, and all of them looked grim and ugly.

Both Oddo and Kiro received additional news and needed to go to the study to find Leiden. Lin Feng nodded to them and hurriedly squeezed into the crowd.

Among the people standing at the front were employees from his clinic. Lin Feng patted his shoulder and motioned for him to give up his position. After standing in the front, he asked, “What’s going on? Have the data reports been released? Let me see.”

The red light was flashing, and it seemed that the situation of the mermaid inside wasn’t optimistic. Kiro’s previous condition was nothing compared to this.

“It’s just coming out.” The person next to him handed Lin Feng the special display screen connected to the treatment cabin. The lines of data on it were parsing and arranging themselves at a rapid pace. “The physical condition is too bad. The upper body is okay. It’s just some trauma. But a portion of his tail was so thoroughly destroyed that I don’t know if it can be repaired…”

“And the damage to his tail doesn’t seem to be caused by simple manual labor or trauma. I had the machine to extract a tube of his blood, and the results are components that we’ve never seen before.”

He swiped twice on the display screen, and after seeing a red mark, the assistant enlarged the page, pointed it to Lin Feng, and said, “Here it is. It seems to be some kind of medicinal ingredient, but it hasn’t appeared within the empire. We don’t know of any medicinal reagents uploaded by the Federation that can match it.”

Lin Feng slowly frowned. After all, he also graduated from the military academy. Whether it was to strengthen their stance or to let them face the cruelty of the Federation in advance, the school would have a special class every year to talk about those experiments of the Federation that wouldn’t be publicized.

But…has it reached the point of using mermaids for experiments?

“Take another tube of blood for later use. I will go to His Majesty to ask for instructions on how to deal with this matter. At present, our main purpose is to save his life. If you can save the tail, don’t lose out on small things.” After handing back the monitor and giving a few brief explanations to the assistant, Lin Feng gathered his coat and hurriedly walked towards the study.