That same morning, Yan Yi didn’t go to work either. He stayed at home glued to his computer, watching the news headlines closely. As soon as the first report about the destruction of the Hongli City breeding facility appeared, Yan Yi immediately clicked on it and skimmed through it quickly. Seeing that experts attributed the facility’s destruction to a once-in-a-thousand-years extreme weather thunderstorm that occurred in the early hours of the morning, Yan Yi’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He instructed the technical department to monitor media coverage, and closed his laptop.
Lu Shangjin, on a rare day off, was reclining on the sofa watching the news. Every channel was covering the major incident in Hongli City.
“……” Lu Shangjin took a sip of water. “That kid—without a word, he went off to do something big. Back when I brought him home, you insisted he had the makings of a spy. Look at him now—just as trouble-prone as our Rabbit Ball. With a mind that sharp, he should’ve come with me early on to learn how to run a company. What a waste of talent.”
“Follow you to learn how to play the game of fame and fortune—all smiles on the outside, but a knife hidden behind them? He’s definitely picked up a bit of your temperament.” Yan Yi poured a glass of milk and sat down next to Lu Shangjin, who instinctively wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “That’s a pretty harsh thing to say, but I actually kind of like hearing it.”
“But it’s true—Lan Bo’s experiences are hard for that kid to accept. I imagine Xiao Bai also came from a training base; he probably suffered just as much as Lan Bo. But this time, he broke the rules outrageously. How do you plan to handle it?”
“I’m still thinking it over.” Yan Yi stared at the news footage of the ruins collapsing after the fire. “But someone has to handle this—even if it’s not him, it’ll be a secret agent. It’s just that his methods were a bit too brutal; I need to toughen him up a bit before I can feel at ease.”
Lu Shangjin chuckled. “Things are going smoothly on my end. The research institute’s stock won’t be leaving anytime soon. The test subjects consume an enormous amount of resources, so a reduction in production is inevitable. Sooner or later, they’ll start dumping their surplus. Plus, with the Red Lynx breeding facility completely wiped out, it’s adding insult to injury. Being picked at bit by bit is more agonizing than being swallowed whole—I’m sure Aileen has already come to realize that.”
That afternoon, Yan Yi went to the bathroom to soak in the tub. Lu Shangjin called Lu Yan, and it took several transfers to finally get through. He hadn’t seen him in quite a few days and had been worrying about him constantly.
Yan Yi’s phone, left on the table, buzzed once. While on the call, Lu Shangjin glanced over and saw that the sender was none other than Lan Bo.
“What do you mean, three are missing?” Lu Shangjin tapped to open the photo.
The photo was quite dark. Xiao Bai was sprawled on the bed, fast asleep and naked, his face and body covered in bloody, red wounds—neither scrapes nor gunshot wounds. Good heavens, he’d clearly been beaten up by Lan Bo.
“Hey, Yan Yan,” Lu Shangjin grabbed the phone and headed toward the bathroom. “Take a look—your son got beaten up by a fish.”
Yan Yi leaned out slightly to take a look and frowned.
A heavy rain had started falling outside in the evening, making a pitter-patter against the glass window. Although the curtains were only half-drawn, there was little sunlight coming in, and the bedroom was dim.
Lan Bo lay on his side, his hand resting on the head of the Alpha nestled in his arms. Bai Chunian slept soundly, his steady breaths gently brushing against Lan Bo’s chest, warm and gentle.
He brushed aside the strands of hair draped across Bai Chunian’s neck and noticed a ring of skin there that was slightly darker than the rest. Logically, the Dead Sea Heartstone collar wasn’t tight enough to cause such abrasions. The only possible explanation was that, at some point, Bai Chunian had begun requiring the collar to restrict his energy overflow more frequently.
Shortly after discovering that Bai Chunian had left the apartment in the middle of the night, Lan Bo received a call from Yan Yi, instructing him to come to headquarters immediately for a meeting.
Yan Yi turned his computer toward him and played a video from the beginning. The video was muted and blurred to preserve Lan Bo’s dignity, but as the person involved, Lan Bo knew exactly what the footage showed with just a glance.
Yan Yi said that Bai Chunian had watched this footage back in early June, but Duan Yang had only revealed that much. Bai Chunian was clever; he had broken his operation down into fragments, so none of his collaborators were aware of his plan. Duan Yang couldn’t even say on which day Bai Chunian intended to make his move.
If it hadn’t been for Lan Bo taking a look around the secret weapons cache in the bedroom and accidentally discovering the calendar marked with dates by Bai Chunian, Bai Chunian might have truly fooled everyone. No one could have concluded he was responsible, as there was no evidence.
Yan Yi had originally planned to send secret agents to intercept Bai Chunian, but he also knew that if Bai Chunian had truly laid out a meticulous plan, no one would be able to stop him. If a confrontation arose with the IOA’s secret agents, it would be impossible for him to protect Xiao Bai even if he wanted to.
Therefore, Yan Yi explained the full stakes to Lan Bo, concluding that he was the most suitable person to bring Xiao Bai back.
Lan Bo lowered his gaze to study the defenseless sleeping face of the Alpha nestled in his arms. The bruise left by the ruler on his face was still slightly swollen. He had scrutinized this face many times before. When Bai Chunian was a child, his nose wasn’t this high; he used to pinch it until it grew. And those upturned cat-like eyes were his favorite—they looked untamable, yet irresistibly alluring.
Because the Alpha loved to cling to him, constantly whispering declarations of love in his ear, Lan Bo had come to misinterpret his affection—for when his followers expressed their adoration, they always had a request.
In the sea, fish beg him to grant them reproduction and survival; his own kind ask for health and beauty; humans pray for rain and bountiful harvests; sailors hope to avoid maritime disasters.
“What do you want?” Lan Bo leaned down close to him, his lips brushing against the hair on his forehead.
A moment later, he sat up in bed and looked down at his tail.
His tail was covered with thousands upon thousands of scales; he had never examined them one by one since birth, but every generation of sirens had one scale that was different from the rest. Unless something unexpected happened, sirens were immortal, when a new Siren is born, the previous one retreats into the deep sea, never to be seen again, leaving only a single scale on Mermaid Island as a memorial to her time leading the clan.
His slender fingers traced along the scales. As his fingertips passed over them, the scales lit up one by one with a blue glow, as if illuminated, and the light slowly faded once his fingers moved on. But one scale remained conspicuously bright; while the others dimmed, it continued to flicker, as if it would never go out.
“Oh, it really is there.” Lan Bo slid his fingernail into the gap between the scales, prying it up, then pulled it down carefully along the edge where it was attached to the flesh. He was usually quite careless and rough in his actions, but this time he was unusually meticulous.
But this scale was exceptionally tough. Lan Bo tried several times without success, so he pinched the edge of the scale with both hands and yanked it hard.
The scale came off, but Lan Bo’s entire body lurched backward, sending Bai Chunian—who had been dozing on the edge of the bed—tumbling onto the floor.
It hurt so much that Lan Bo bit his lip to stifle a cry. He pressed his finger against the bleeding tail to ease the pain, momentarily forgetting about Bai Chunian. It took a while for the pain to subside.
With his back to the bed, he exhaled and turned to look. Bai Chunian wasn’t on the bed; he was crouched by the edge, peeking at him through a gap in the sheets, his fluffy ears flattened against his head as if he’d done something wrong.
From Bai Chunian’s perspective, it seemed that after he’d fallen asleep, Lan Bo had grown angrier and angrier the more he thought about it, until finally, unable to bear it any longer, he’d gotten up and beaten him up.
Lan Bo: “What are you doing?”
Bai Chunian whispered: “How dare I speak?”
“Here.” Lan Bo handed him a scale, holding it out in front of Bai Chunian.
But the first thing Bai Chunian saw was his tail, from which a scale had fallen. He stood up, climbed onto the bed, and touched the slightly swollen edge: “It’s all bald now. Why did you pull it out?” He dabbed a bit of saliva from his mouth onto the wound, which was still oozing a little blood.
“Stand up.” Lan Bo grabbed his arm, pulling him off the bed to stand before him.
He was wearing only a pair of black briefs; the scars on his pale skin stood out in a jarring red. Bai Chunian clasped his hands behind his back; no matter what Lan Bo intended to do to him, he never resisted.
Lan Bo hooked his fingertips around the waistband of Bai Chunian’s underwear and pulled it down slightly, exposing the skin of his hipbone—where the name he had carved earlier still remained.
“Don’t move.” Lan Bo held Bai Chunian’s leg steady, pressing his thumb against the lower abdomen where thin, blue veins stood out against the pale skin. He found a suitable spot and inserted the tip of the scale into Bai Chunian’s skin.
Bai Chunian hissed in pain, but Lan Bo didn’t stop. He pushed the scale inward until it was completely buried beneath the skin, then the wound healed, encasing the scale inside.
Even through the skin, he could still feel a foreign object shaped like a scale. When he moved, the scale would rub against the muscles beneath, yet miraculously, it didn’t cause inflammation; on the contrary, the wound on his body seemed to be slowly healing.
“This isn’t pornographic,” Lan Bo kissed that patch of skin and whispered, “No wonder you can’t bear to leave the land. Love is alluring; I can feel it.”
“I feel like a Christmas tree you’ve decorated,” Bai Chunian looked down at his own body. Merfolk do indeed have a habit of decorating things. They attach beautiful conch shells and butterfly clams to objects they like and inlay gemstones into walls. Merfolk always dress up the things they love—including their mates—with great care, then compete with one another. That’s why alpha merfolk always look more lavish than omega merfolk.
“But I still want that collar.” Bai Chunian sat down on the bed and gently squeezed Lan Bo’s fingers. “Give it back to me. I know I was wrong.”
Lan Bo pressed his lips together and fell silent.
Bai Chunian looked at him with disappointment.
After a moment, Bai Chunian climbed out of bed, pulled a shirt out of the closet, and slipped it on.
“I’ll go to the President and admit my mistake. I’ll apologize in person. It’s only right that he expel me.” Anyone who had told such a colossal lie would feel guilty. Several days earlier, Duan Yang had secretly told him that the truth had come out and that the President already knew the whole story, but Bai Chunian had gone ahead with it anyway. He had long been mentally prepared to give up everything, though it was painful.
If the President had sent someone to arrest him, Bai Chunian might have felt a bit of relief. But he never expected Lan Bo to come to Red Fox City alone to find him. This suggested the President’s stance wasn’t entirely cut-and-dried, which only made Bai Chunian feel even more deeply ashamed.
Bai Chunian walked toward the door when Lan Bo suddenly called out to him.
Lan Bo flicked his wrist, tossing the Dead Sea Heart Rock to him.
Bai Chunian caught the rock and stared blankly at Lan Bo.
“Even though you were in the wrong, this is the first time someone has stood up for me like this. It feels like I’ve been healed.” Lan Bo gazed at him, the corners of his eyes curving ever so slightly. “Thank you.”
Bai Chunian hadn’t expected Lan Bo to be willing to accompany him to the president’s villa to apologize. Standing outside the entrance, his finger hovered over the doorbell for a moment before Lan Bo reached out and pressed it.
The security guard asked over the intercom who they were. Lan Bo replied, “None of your business.” ”The fact that he’d pressed the doorbell and entered through the front gate was already the greatest sign of respect Lan Bo could show Yan Yi.
A moment later, the door opened. Lan Bo hooked his fishtail hair around the gate railing and gave Bai Chunian a gentle nudge.
Bai Chunian closed his eyes briefly, then steeled himself and walked inside. Lan Bo followed quietly at his side, crawling along the wall.
Yan Yi had opened the door. Bai Chunian stopped at the threshold, bowed his head slightly, and said earnestly, “Chairman.”
Yan Yi glanced at the two of them. “Is anyone here?”
Bai Chunian paused for a moment, then shook his head immediately. “I made a point of checking on the way here—no one noticed us.”
“Hmm.”
Uncle Jin was also in the reception room. Although he was still managing to maintain a gentlemanly demeanor, his eyes were already scrutinizing Lan Bo with obvious displeasure. Lan Bo, however, was unfazed, returning a look that seemed to say, “My presence here should be an honor for you.”
They didn’t stay long. Yan Yi didn’t keep them; he simply asked about the urgent matters he needed to know and then told them to leave as soon as possible.
Before they left, Yan Yi handed him a mission brief and instructed, “If you act on your own, punishment is inevitable. But remember: on the 24th, you’ll be volunteering at the Seaside Fishing Festival in Aochong City—you’ve never been anywhere else.”
Bai Chunian’s voice caught slightly. “Yes.”
By then, Lan Bo had already walked out. As Bai Chunian turned to leave, he heard Yan Yi whisper behind him, “You have IOA backing you. What are you afraid of?”
Bai Chunian couldn’t recall how he’d made his way out of the Chairman’s house; his steps seemed unsteady. He’d already walked quite a distance when, as if suddenly remembering something, he stumbled back, hid in the shadows of a corner, faced the Chairman’s house, and raised his right hand with the palm facing upward against his left chest—the Special Operations Group salute, symbolizing that he bore no weapons and that his heart was loyal.