54: Answer me.

The younger merman was a bit puzzled, but he still obediently took the glass bottle to collect the small pearls everyone was dropping.

Soon, the bottom layer of Nan Zhisui's glass bottle was filled with pearls.

Wow!

So beautiful! The texture of these pearls is amazing!

Nan Zhisui's hoarding instinct immediately kicked in, and she looked toward the Merfolk Males with a beaming smile.

The kind Merfolk Males didn't notice at all that they had been targeted by an evil Female!

Stare—

When Lan Xing swam over from the side with Little Fu,

he was surprised to find circles and circles of merfolk swimming in front of the merman prison where Nan Zhisui was held.

For some reason, these merfolk were all sobbing and crying.

There was also a young Male Merman holding a glass bottle he had never seen before, weaving through the crowd to collect everyone's tears.

Little Fu was about to cry when she saw her mother.

She swam to the front of the cage, clutching the bars to look at her mother, trying to get closer.

Stinky Daddy, pulling her and not letting her see Mommy, even locking Mommy up.

She wasn't going to love Daddy anymore!

Nan Zhisui, however, had no self-awareness as a prisoner. She began to tell a story vividly inside the cage:

"The Merman Prince fell in love with a Female princess on land. He exchanged his sweet singing voice for legs.

But with every step these legs took, it felt like walking on the edge of a knife, causing immense pain.

However, the land Female princess actually mistook another prince for her savior!

The Merman Prince learned this cruel truth. When he saw the princess and the other prince fall in love, his heart broke into a thousand pieces.

He regretted it. He regretted exchanging his voice for legs.

He wanted to go home, to return to the sea!

However, having lost his tail, he could no longer return to the ocean!

What was the Merman Prince to do?!

On the night of the princess's grand wedding,

the Merman Prince's brothers handed him a dagger they had exchanged for their long, seaweed-like hair and told him: 'My young brother, you can only return to the sea if you kill the princess.'

The Merman Prince's heart ached. He was in such distress.

How could he bear to kill the Female he loved!

At the break of dawn, the Merman Prince gazed at his sleeping beloved Female. He truly could not bring himself to kill her.

In the end, he threw the dagger into the sea.

He gave up on killing his lover.

He lost all hope of returning to the sea and dissolved into rose-colored foam in the morning light."

As Nan Zhisui spoke, she wiped her eyes sentimentally.

"Waaaaah!" The Male Mermen burst into a chorus of wailing, some even hugging each other.

It was too sad; this story was just too sad.

Even the Little Male collecting pearls was crying as he worked.

The glass bottle in his hand was soon full, so he switched to another one to help the Princess Consort collect tears.

"The Merman Prince's life was too bitter."

"I told you land Females can't be loved."

"Yeah, the Merman Prince who fell in love with a land Female is so pitiful. Waaaaah."

"How painful it must be to walk. Isn't it better just to be a fish in the sea?"

"But there are hardly any Female fish in the sea!"

"Exactly! The ratio of Females to Males on land is 1:10, but in the sea, it's 1:100. Everywhere you look, it's all Male fish. Where is there a Female fish to love?!"

One Male fish asked in a very low voice, "Why is such a beautiful Female fish like the Princess Consort locked in a cage?"

"I don't know, I don't know. I heard it was an order from His Highness Lan Xing."

The blue-purple merman swimming over from a distance was as beautiful as a dream. With a flick of his large tail, several small fish were drawn by his beauty and gathered around.

Nan Zhisui called out to him in surprise: "Lan Xing!"

Lan Xing, wearing blue-purple Shark-silk, directed three Soul-piercing questions at Nan Zhisui:

"Answer me.

After a land Female mates with a beast husband prince, can she no longer mate with a Merman Beast Husband?

Can she not take the Merman Beast Husband with her too?

Why must she abandon him, make him suffer, and let him turn into foam?!"

Nan Zhisui: "...?"

This has nothing to do with me. This is 'The Little Mermaid' written by the great Hans Christian Andersen; that's just how he wrote it!

Lan Xing snorted and continued to interrogate her: "So you are just like that land Female, right? You've mated with a land beast husband, so you don't want a Merman Beast Husband anymore, right?!"

"You—you're talking nonsense!" Nan Zhisui panicked.

"Nan Zhisui, in your eyes, is it right for a Merman Beast Husband to return to the sea, to be abandoned, and to be nothing but foam?!!"

All the merfolk panicked. Why were the Prince and Princess Consort arguing??!!!

Nan Zhisui was even more flustered. She had only adapted a story to trick some tears out of the Merfolk Clan; how did it turn into this?

—

Five years ago, after Nan Zhisui left behind White Fox and their son, the childbearing system was desperately urging her to have another child. Nan Zhisui had no choice but to leave Stone Village in a hurry.

She stumbled along aimlessly. Although she encountered several Male Beastmen on the way, she, being a lover of beauty, didn't find any of them attractive.

Even if she was forced to do childbearing missions, she didn't want to settle for less.

She summoned all her strength and ran from Stone Village all the way to the seaside in one breath.

The countdown for her childbearing mission had already turned red, beeping incessantly.

Nan Zhisui thought to herself that there were so many fishermen by the sea; if all else failed, she would just close her eyes and pick a random Fisherman to form a contract with.

They were just tools anyway. At least she would complete the mission and save her life.

However, just at that moment, she heard a Fisherman's shout.

"Fish for sale, fish for sale! A fresh-caught merman today!"

Nan Zhisui pushed through the crowd to look and saw a very young, delicate, and beautiful Male Merman, about 18 years old, lying in the fishing net.

The merman's eyes were filled with terror. He was terrified, but in his despair, he saw Nan Zhisui and reached out his hand toward her.

"Save me..."

Nan Zhisui's heart softened, and she asked the Fisherman, "How much for this merman?"

The Male Fisherman looked up, and his eyes lit up when he saw Nan Zhisui. "A beautiful Female? You want a merman too? This fish is clearly young. If you buy him and place a slave contract to make him a Beast Slave, you can have him catch fish from the sea for you to eat forever."

Nan Zhisui asked curiously, "He's that useful?"

Does she want him to be a Beast Slave too? The merman's eyes dimmed slightly.

Nan Zhisui asked, "Then what do you want in exchange?"

The Fisherman thought for a moment and said, "We're at the seaside here. I don't want things from the sea. My home is short on beast skins, so I want beast skins."

"One?" Nan Zhisui asked.

"Ten," the Fisherman said.

"So many?" Nan Zhisui was surprised.

She had given almost all the supplies she had accumulated to the village chief of Stone Village, asking them to take care of White Fox and their son. Her current supplies were very scarce.

Nan Zhisui thought for a moment and said, "I only have one beast skin on me."

"Then I can't sell him to you." The Fisherman turned to leave.

The merman became even more terrified, his eyes looking at Nan Zhisui with a struggling gaze.

Those watery blue-purple eyes were truly stunning.

Nan Zhisui really couldn't bear to let this fish down!

"Hey, wait a minute!"

After calling the Fisherman to a halt, Nan Zhisui said, "Look at this fish. He's lost quite a few scales. He's not perfect or beautiful, and he looks too thin and small."

When the merman Lan Xing heard her disparaging him, it touched a sensitive spot in his heart, and he felt like crying from the grievance.

The Fisherman knew she was trying to bargain, so he said, "You can't say that. How is such a healthy and strong Male Merman not perfect or beautiful? The scales he lost were from when I accidentally injured him while fishing. It's just a surface wound; he'll be beautiful once he's healed."

Nan Zhisui said, "I really don't have that many beast skins. But... I have some common wound medicines. Do you want them?"

"Wound medicine?" The herbs in Nan Zhisui's hand clearly caught the Fisherman's attention.

Nan Zhisui looked at the injury on the Fisherman's leg. "You fishermen get hurt easily... I see that wound on your leg isn't shallow. Won't you consider trading for some medicine to treat it?

The medicine at the Witch Doctor's is so expensive, but my price is much cheaper than the Witch Doctor's!

Look at this big handful of wound herbs; I'll trade them with you for the merman. How about it? Do we have a deal?"