Chapter 43: Your Majesty

Your Majesty

Beyond the South Sea there are merpeople; they dwell in water like fish, and do not cease weaving. When their eyes tear, they can produce pearls.

A sentence from a book she had read flashed across Fu Guang's mind.

The merperson used his tail to encircle her in his embrace; his long tail half-wrapped around her waist in front of her, and his cold hand gradually stroked her neck.

Fu Guang couldn't help but shiver; the tail and hand were bone-chillingly cold, the chill seeming to seep into the gaps of her bones.

Whether it was his nature or the water's influence, touching him felt like touching a smooth ice cube; the beautiful scales slid past her hand, leaving a sensation like jade.

The Sentinel lowered his head, his ear fins brushing her long hair; black and gold hair tangled in the water, and his voice sounded like heavenly fairy music: 'Who are you?'

Yet his palm was not polite as it rubbed her neck; his sharp nails carefully scraped her skin, still leaving red marks on her fair complexion.

He lowered his head as if to bury himself in her neck, sniffing all around; his hair brushed her skin, making it itchy.

His voice was drunken and enamored; the whole person—or rather, fish—held her tighter, as if she were a pillar at the seabed being wound tight.

"Why won't you speak?"

Fu Guang was somewhat passive; she had been sleeping soundly, but upon opening her eyes she found herself not only at the seabed but also entwined by an unfamiliar fish she did not know.

If it were merely a fish, it would be easy to deal with, but it turned out to be an S-rank Sentinel corrupted by pollution.

She could not defeat him; in an unfamiliar environment, with his sharp claws, her vital points were seized.

What could she say? If she spoke poorly, the Sentinel might suddenly go mad and she could easily lose her life; better to stay mute until she understood the situation.

"Guide, sir." Tiny, ice-cold kisses fell on her cheek; the merperson's fish tail restrained her legs, and a fan-like transparent tail pressed against her lower abdomen.

Fu Guang sensed her mental power slowly increasing; she glanced at the Sentinel's face with the corner of her eye without leaving a trace, and the elemental power condensed in her hand strengthened unseen.

The Sentinel's blue eyes turned like a bend of spring water; soon his eyes lost their clarity, he laid his head on Fu Guang's shoulder and neck, his long lashes drooping to veil that pool of water.

"Little Blue, is that you doing this?"

The blue giant egg inside her mental landscape ran out, swaying front and back, then left and right.

Fu Guang pushed the merperson's tail with her hand; the tail was smooth as jade, and her hand could exert no force on the large tail.

Seeing Little Blue's movement, Fu Guang one hand removed the Sentinel's arm from around her shoulder while wondering what it meant.

"Get rid of him."

Her mental form continued to sway left and right, front and back, indicating 'no.'

Could her mental form have turned into a bad egg? The yolk shook loose, and she could not control herself?

Little Blue stood still, as if unable to believe what she was thinking, and froze for a moment.

After a while, it leapt up, about to smash into Fu Guang, but midway a blue large tail fanned it away.

It rolled gurgling far away in the sea; Fu Guang lowered her head, covering her dizzy forehead, wondering if she would really become a bad egg now.

The merperson Sentinel seemed to awaken from a drowse; he lifted his head, his tail tightening around Fu Guang, and coldly rebuked: 'No harming, Your Majesty.'

Soon after, finding nothing amiss, he nestled back into the girl's neck crook.

"Your Majesty?"

Little Blue shrank several times over, like a chicken‑sized egg standing upright, motionless in Fu Guang's palm.

It seemed to truly answer Fu Guang's words, becoming a dead egg.

"Are you angry?"

Fu Guang considered herself not narrow‑minded; why did her mental form hold a grudge like this?

Little Blue seemed angered; the egg's surface cracked with a snap, and in an instant Fu Guang withdrew it into her mental landscape.

It appears to have grown; the time to break its shell is near.

But we cannot just devour the Sentinel's mental power like this; the bluish‑black seawater visibly coalesced into a tornado and vanished swiftly.

Fu Guang laughed and said to Little Blue, 'Do you want to eat bite by bite, or have a full meal at once?'

The tornado shrank a little, as if hearing Fu Guang's words, yet reluctant to give up the tasty morsel before it.

"It seems that after we return, we should wander the world, how about that?" The potion was her creation; the military could easily find that out with a little inquiry.

Someone drank her potion, died from mental power depletion; regardless of whether she made it, the military would take them away for investigation, and how to explain her sudden surge in mental power?

Once could be said to be heavenly favor, incredible luck; twice would raise suspicion that she possesses some extraordinary treasure.

She holds so many secrets that one cannot help but examine them closely.

Why does a B‑rank Guide possess an S‑rank mental sea?

Why, as someone raised in an orphanage, do you know how to brew potions?

Why do you devour the Sentinel's mental power?

Although each individual problem she could cover up, when they pile up...

An innocent man bears no guilt, but he who holds a jade incurs crime.

What awaits her is either death or imprisonment.

To avoid exposure, must she not become a wanderer, roaming the world?

The tornado's speed of devouring mental power slowed; inside her mental landscape, Little Blue rolled about in the water, dissatisfied, and the tornado spat out streams of purified force that had cleansed the pollution.

Although good, this also provides a reason why the Sentinel's mental power vanished out of thin air.

Fu Guang is quite satisfied with her handling of her mental form; though mental forms are said to be beast‑strong and human‑weak, it seems adequate.

To be able to curb greed before great profit—she is indeed worthy of that.

Hold on to development, don't waste.

Even if she recovered to an S‑rank Guide in one wave, she would become humanity's public enemy, impossible to reconcile.

Once Little Blue had finished eating, Fu Guang's body gradually turned into transparent foam, disappearing from the merperson's embrace.

Considering the merperson provided a grand feast, we will for now overlook his offense.

The wind stirred the curtains; Fu Guang sat up, leaning against the headboard, and belched as if she were full.

Pale white fingertips held Little Blue and examined it carefully; there was only a crack. She placed Little Blue on the bed, fingertips touching the egg, and the egg trembled slightly.

After eating so much, when will it hatch?

"You have to wait for an opportunity; do you understand?" Little Blue said in a babyish voice.

At the mention of opportunity, Fu Guang's brow twitched and she asked, "Won't I be struck by lightning?"

Little Blue, as if at a loss, said, "Who are you asking? How would I know what you don't know?"

"That merperson called you 'Your Excellency'; what are you?" Fu Guang recalled the Sentinel calling her 'Your Excellency.'

Although it is her spiritual body, a thin membrane seems to lie between her spiritual body and herself—it is her yet not her; she feels this way and cannot regard her spiritual body as herself.

Little Blue, in a babyish voice, retorted unhappily to Fu Guang, "You're not a thing."

Who asks themselves what they are?

Whimpering, Little Blue grew angrier the more she thought, and burst into tears with a wail.

"Indeed, it's not a thing." Watching the spiritual body reduced to tears by bullying, she recalled their childish conversation.

Fu Guang thought and thought, then suddenly laughed; her laughter grew louder, trembling in resonance with her chest cavity.

Her laughter gradually faded; Fu Guang lay on her back on the bed, arm covering her eyes.

It had been a long time since she had laughed heartily from the heart.

Little Blue was like her when she was young—ignorant and fearless, passionate and unrestrained.

Little Blue's eggshell pressed against Fu Guang's cheek, and she said seriously in a babyish voice, "Originally, I am you."