Chapter 101: Adventures in the Fresh Food Supermarket (IV)
The salesperson's question really made Lu Ren stunned for a while.
Kill? Kill what? Mermaids?
Lu Ren looked at the beautiful mermaid in front of him. Although the lower body was a fish, the upper body was a real human . If he really ate this thing, he would definitely have nightmares at night.
"Of course not!" Lu Ren shouted loudly, fearing that if he spoke too slowly the salesperson's stick would hit him.
The salesperson was also very cooperative. After hearing Lu Ren's words of stop, he politely replied "OK" and then stood back in his seat waiting for instructions.
The mermaid, who was struggling hard on the deck, finally realized that she had fallen into the trap of the fisherman. She stopped her fearless struggle, took a defensive posture, glared at the people present, and showed her teeth as sharp as shark teeth in a deterrent way.
But despite the mermaid's ferocious expression, she was still holding the pill hanging on the fishhook tightly in her mouth, which inexplicably made her threatening behavior more comical.
Lu Ren was about to open his mouth to remind her, but at this moment, Jun Fang, who had fished the mermaid out, looked at her face carefully, and then said in surprise: "Is it Little Pearl?"
The merman, who was originally in a state of extreme panic, paused for a moment when she heard the voice. Then she looked up blankly in the direction of Junfang. She probably felt that he looked familiar, so she tilted her head and continued to study Junfang's face carefully. Finally, the merman recognized Junfang.
She opened her mouth in a light voice: "Is it... Junfang?" The mermaid asked hesitantly, her originally tense facial expression gradually relaxed, and her exposed teeth slowly retracted.
The mermaid's voice was as ethereal as the sound of a bell echoing in the mountains after a rainstorm. The sound spread into Lu Ren's ears like ripples, making Lu Ren feel like his bones from head to toe were softened, and goose bumps appeared all over his body, rushing straight to the top of his head.
Junfang understood what the mermaid said and knew that she recognized him, so he smiled happily: "It's me."
Lu Ren never thought that one day he would be able to take Junfang fishing and he would actually catch a fish he knew. What was even more bizarre was that Junfang and the mermaid, one holding a fishing rod and the other holding a fishhook. It was clearly a scene of hunter and prey, but the two of them were unaware of it and actually kept chatting in this state.
He looked at the two people in front of him who were greeting each other in a curious manner with a shocked face, and asked uncertainly: "Do you two know each other?"
Jun Fang then remembered that Lu Ren had never met the mermaid, so he excitedly introduced the two of them.
He pointed at Lu Ren and introduced him to the mermaids: "This is Lu Ren, also from the Investigation Bureau. We usually call him Ah Ren."
Then he pointed at the mermaid on the deck and said to Lu Ren, "Her name is Little Pearl. Do you remember the last time we went to pay tribute to Old Yang, I told you that there was an unlucky guy who was eaten by the mermaid he raised?"
Lu Ren vaguely remembered this incident, and it was only after Jun Fang reminded him that he finally remembered it.
"Is that what she ate?" Lu Ren looked at the mermaid still flapping her tail on the deck in shock. "Didn't you cut her open to save her? How could she still be so alive and kicking?"
Junfang nodded: "Yes, because the mountain spider sewed quickly enough, and the mermaids have strong recovery ability. As long as the blood is not drained, it will not be life-threatening."
Then, Junfang looked at the mermaid and said with a smile: "Come to think of it, it was a close call. Little Pearl almost became sashimi, haha."
The mermaid was unexpectedly good-tempered in front of her acquaintances. She didn't mind Jun Fang and Lu Ren talking about her dark history in front of her. She even smiled at Jun Fang and said, "Yeah, I felt like my soul was floating up, but at the last second I heard someone shout 'It's done', and I almost passed away."
Junfang was shocked and said, "So I was only one second away from eating sashimi that day?"
As he spoke, the longing for sashimi that had been buried for a long time appeared in Junfang's mind unconsciously. So he began to unconsciously focus his eyes on the mermaid's fish tail, and a trace of crystal clear smile slowly left at the corner of his mouth...
In order to prevent the situation from escalating into a bloody and violent hunting scene, Lu Ren quickly interrupted Jun Fang's thoughts: "What happened next? Was little Zhenzhu released into the sea?" That's why she was caught by them today.
Jun Fang shook his head and said, "No, little Zhenzhu ate a human after all, so we can't just let her go. Moreover, she has been imprisoned by that human since she was a child, and she lacks common sense. It is very dangerous to let her go like this, so Lord Si Yuan sentenced her to the first level of the Endless Abyss to learn common sense for a few months and get rid of her animal nature before she comes out."
Speaking of the Endless Abyss, Lu Ren recalled the legend he had just heard from the salesperson: "But, isn't it said that there is no way out of the Endless Abyss?"
The merman retorted: "That's all exaggerated by the outside world. If there's really only access but no exit, we'll be squeezed to death sooner or later."
As a prisoner who had been imprisoned in the Endless Abyss for several months, the mermaid patiently explained: "I didn't know until I went in that the first three levels of the Endless Abyss are mainly for reform, mainly to teach them to integrate into human society, and prisoners are released regularly. As for the deeper levels, it is said that they are all holding serious criminals, but no one knows what is in there. Because no one has ever been seen going in or coming out, but every night, you can hear the shrill wails coming from the depths of the Endless Abyss."
Lu Ren understood: "Apart from the deeper layers of the Endless Abyss that are like urban legends, the first three layers sound no different from ordinary prisons."
Jun Fang explained to Lu Ren, "That's right, but it's not without reason that the outside world spreads such a scary rumor about the Endless Abyss. After all, the number of monsters nowadays is no longer comparable to that in the past, and even fewer will be thrown into the Endless Abyss. Because when the combat team is capturing monsters, few monsters are willing to surrender, and most of them will get too excited and have to fight with the combat team. Once the fight starts, few can survive. So few are locked up, and even fewer are released, so over time, such rumors have spread."
After saying that, Junfang looked at the mermaid on the deck and said, "By the way, little Zhenzhu, when were you released?"
The merman gave Jun Fang an embarrassed smile and said, "I was just released today. I passed by here and smelled the fragrance of medicinal herbs. I was not careful..."
Having said that, the embarrassed mermaid lowered her head shyly.
Junfang couldn't help but say, "Then you are a little too careless."
In response, the mermaid just gave Junfang an innocent smile: "Because it smells so good."
Lu Ren discovered that although the mermaids looked cold and beautiful, with sharp , they had a childlike sincere heart. It was as if all the beauty and evil in the world were mixed together and irrigated into the same body, forming a collection of contradictions.
After the greetings with Junfang, the mermaid seemed to remember something, looked at Junfang with hesitation, and asked: "My master...what happened later?"
After hearing this, Junfang sighed and reminded the mermaid, "He is no longer your master."
The mermaid was stunned for a moment, then bit her lower lip and said, "I know."
The mermaid remembered what Junfang said to her on the day she was cut open: "That's not your master. That's just the kidnapper who stole you away from your parents and relatives."
Then, Junxiang introduced the mermaid's previous owner to Lu Ren.
That human was a well-known rich man, and once humans have enough food and drink, they will start to seek excitement. And the way that human seeks excitement is to start raising all kinds of exotic pets. At first, it was just cats and dogs, then gradually it became lions and crocodiles, and finally he began to pursue some animals that only he could buy, such as a young mermaid auctioned on the black market.
At first, he was really nice to the mermaid. He had a temperature-controlled fish tank, bluefin tuna flown in from Norway, and he would even bring a bed and lie down beside the fish tank to sleep with the mermaid at night.
But passion comes and goes quickly. When passion faded, the mermaid gradually became a troublesome and inedible fish in the eyes of the former owner. He began to be dissatisfied with the mermaid's need for meticulous care and huge expenses, but forgot that he had taken away an entire ocean from .
The former owner, tired of her, began to frequently forget to replace the mermaid's water with fresh seawater, which made the mermaid sick, her scales became dull, and even fell off. The mermaid became ugly, and the former owner's attitude turned from boredom to disgust, so the former owner began to deliberately ignore her and deliberately withheld her food for several days.
But a mermaid cannot starve, she must eat her fill, no matter whose flesh she eats...
Junxiang informed the mermaid of the human's final fate: "After your former master was beaten, he lost a pair of eyeballs and a tongue. It may be because the eyeballs and tongue were tender, so they were digested in advance. In short, he will not be able to see or speak from now on. Living is more miserable than dying."
After hearing this, the mermaid turned her head and looked towards the sea. She was silent for a while and said softly, "Actually, he is not completely useless..."
She murmured softly, like a sigh. Lu Ren looked at her and saw a few drops of water sliding down her face.
Lu Ren was just about to comfort her that it was not worth it to be with such a person when he heard the mermaid continue, "At least he's still delicious." After that, the mermaid turned around while wiping the saliva from the corner of her mouth, as if savoring the taste of her former master.
Lu Ren: Okay, I thought too much.
The merman looked at Lu Ren and asked Jun Fang, feeling somewhat lost: "Is he your new master?"
Junfang shook his head: "He is my best friend. Ren said that we are all free and do not need a master."
After hearing this, the mermaid was stunned for a moment and couldn't help repeating Junfang's words: "Freedom..." Then, he smiled knowingly.
In the end, Lu Ren and Jun Fang gave all the remaining baits to the mermaid, because the mermaid said that she wanted to swim back to her birthplace, and if she was lucky, she should be able to find her family.
Lu Ren was somewhat worried about the mermaid's decision to travel across the sea alone: "Do you remember where you were born?"
"Of course I remember. We mermaids have lived in the South China Sea for generations. We live in the water like fish, but we still weave." The mermaid said with a smile. She looked at the place where the sea and the sky met in the distance. The reflection of the sparkling waves in her pupils was comparable to the brilliance of the sun and the moon.
The mermaid, who was about to travel far away, seemed to suddenly remember something while holding the elixir. She said to Jun Fang and Lu Ren, "Oh, right! Wait for me."
As soon as the words fell, the mermaid jumped into the water with a "plop". When she floated up again, she had a huge king crab in her hand.
The mermaid smiled sheepishly: "Aren't you guys catching seafood? I saw a lot of crabs on the seabed, and I picked out the biggest one for you. I hope you don't mind."
Lu Ren felt that the song " Good Luck .
