【R76】Tide wave

"The human prince burst into tears, and the tears rolled down from his eyes and melted into the sea in an instant. But the mermaid princess didn't see it. She only had eyes on the handsome groom who was transformed from an evil witch. The little mermaid is so beautiful today. Wearing hairpins strung together with rubies and pearls, bright red gems jumping on the earlobes, and a string of tiny blisters from the fiery fish tail, which looks like a warm flame.

The prince suddenly began to miss his country on the mainland, his hometown, his parents and people - but the witch used his face and voice to transform into tonight's bridegroom.This is the price of replacing the legs with fish tails. Without the legs, the prince cannot return to the dry world again.

'As long as the mermaid princess is killed, the magic will be invalid.You can see it too, she doesn't love you. The witch's voice kept echoing in the prince's mind. He looked at the happy smile on the princess's face in pain, "Kill her, and you will be liberated." '

The human prince clenched the dagger given to him by the witch: Legend has it that it is made of meteorite steel just like the Sea God's Trident, and it can take any life away.The prince made up his mind, and he chased the little mermaid and her fiancé with all his strength, and then plunged the dagger into the witch's heart.

Just when the witch screamed back to her original form and died, the magic disappeared.The unremarkable mermaid was shrouded in golden light, and the gray and dull fish tail slowly transformed into human legs—the prince wanted to open his mouth, but found that he couldn't say anything.The human body made him crushed by the sea in an instant, the sea water invaded his lungs, and the salty current blurred his vision.

At this moment, the mermaid princess finally understood who the person who ordered to tear the fishing net to save herself was.

In the sad eyes of the princess, the prince felt that time had stood still, and the warm and gentle sea water when he transformed into a mermaid now looked scary and strange, and his body was sinking, sinking all the time.But soon, his back touched the hard seabed.The expected pain did not come, but the prince felt that the numb feeling was like his mother's embrace when he was a child.

He stared at the little mermaid he loved so much with human eyes for the last time, and the prince found that his body was changing: love came out of his body, vigorous and grand, like the continuous green plants on the land, breaking through him soaked by sea water With pale skin, his bones turned into countless corals, and his blood dyed the corals redder than the scales of the mermaid princess. "

Jack Morrison felt that when reading a bedtime story in the future, it was necessary for him to confirm the content in advance - when the plot was halfway through, he had already caught a small sobbing sound; The little guy was already crying, and a pile of shiny tear crystals fell on the bed.

"Daddy," Hana blinked, and another pink crystal slid from her cheeks onto the quilt made of soft water plants. The girl twitched and took off the red coral hairpin from her hair, and lifted this little thing up to Morrison Right now, "Is my hairpin also changed by a human prince?"

No, it is impossible for human beings to become corals. Fairy tales are all lies.The xenophobic sea wizards will only turn humans who strayed into the underwater world into wriggling sea cucumbers, and then drive them to the edge of the reef to wait for human fishermen to catch them for cooking. ——But Morrison couldn't say this explanation. The cruel facts would instantly shatter the innocent fantasy of the children in front of him.

However, Morrison was frowning as he tried his best to find a reason, which obviously made Hana wrong.The girl's eyebrows were red, and she looked like she was about to cry.Infected by her emotions, the small faces of the shadows around her also wrinkled into balls, and the little octopus restlessly stirred the sea anemone bed under it with its ankles, one of which was still tightly hooked on Hana's light pink tail fin.

"Of course not, my little baby." Morrison quickly replied, his daughter's crying was enough for him to fear, if he made his daughter and friends cry together, the crisis index tonight would probably be equivalent to a disaster, "The red coral that the prince turned into has been buried in the underwater tomb with the mermaid princess, and the souls will be happy together forever. There will never be any bad wizards to destroy their love." He made up a crappy lie, " What you have in your hand is just ordinary red coral."

"Really?" The little octopus asked timidly, with a thin purple chip stuck to her face.

Morrison stepped forward to wipe the girls' cheeks clean with his fingers, and then dusted the crystals from the water plants to the ground. "When did I ever lie to you? Now story time is over, time for bed kids."

Morrison's supplementary ending obviously alleviated the original sense of tragedy of the story. Although they were still a little dubious, the girls were generally quite satisfied with it. Sen found it very interesting (she was just in the period of changing teeth recently), the little girl quickly pecked the side of her adoptive father's cheek: "Good night, Daddy."

Hei Ying rubbed his red eye sockets from crying, and politely smiled at the mermaid: "Good night, Uncle Morrison."

After the men and the girls said goodnight, they slowly closed the giant clam's white fan shell.

He swam around the edge as always—these two little ancestors were not good babies, and several times Morrison just closed the shell on his front foot, and the little girls on his back foot sneaked into the playroom to play with toys.Although Morrison didn't mind chasing them all over the room with strange lines like "I saw you", but as a "father", he was still "the children must get up early and go to bed early." 'The faithful executor of the theory.

The girls are still whispering about the tragic fairy tale just now, sympathizing with the human beings who sacrificed for love.Morrison listened to the childish conversation outside the shell, not even noticing the slight upward movement of the corners of his mouth.

He stretched his waist, and the tide formed countless swirls with bubbles around the mermaid. They rubbed against the skin, and finally turned into thin white lines stretching towards the distant sea. Morrison stared at the bubbles, and waited. When he came back to his senses, he finally realized that apart from the faint sound of the tide in the distance, the night talk in the shell was over, and the children who were tired from crying fell asleep peacefully surrounded by sea anemones.

It wasn't until then that the man breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew from his daughter's room.He stuffed the fairy tale book just now into his rucksack, and after confirming that the door was locked, the old mermaid swayed its blue dorsal fin and plunged into the deep darkness of the sea.

※※※

Morrison often wonders why the octopus wizard likes to live in such a hostile environment—magma churning a dangerous orange-red color beneath the nearly transparent seabed; weird rocks covered with giant barnacles can be seen here and there; The cage was suspended in the air, and the prisoner who didn't know what wrong he had committed had already turned into invisible bones.Morrison relaxed his body and let the ocean current push him forward—the sea water here is also very different from the area where the mermaid lives—the particularly warm water temperature makes the microorganisms grow continuously, and even the originally clear water quality appears A viscous and chaotic dark green, the rotten smell is conveyed to the nasal cavity in waves through the gill opening.Morrison endured the discomfort. When the iconic submarine mountain peak appeared in front of his eyes, the man slammed his tail fins to get away from the tide, and quickly bypassed the sharp-edged rocks. After throwing out the parasites on his body, he bent down and dived into the dark entrance of the seabed cave.

The tunnel leading to the destination is long and narrow, and the huge number of stalactites and stalagmites makes every swing of the fins more cautious. During the process of advancing, Morrison often encountered a school of anglerfish swimming around him. The shimmering light spots of time illuminate the road almost instantly.

"Jack, you are not only late today, but you didn't bring enough things." The notorious octopus wizard sat lazily on the throne, flipping Morrison's backpack with his eight wrists in disgust, "The previous agreement?" Zhou you brought me seven soul orbs, and I wish Hana a safe adulthood' Now there are only four, which means that next week I will be hungry for three days."

"Then why can't you eat some lobster or crab like Sombra?" Morrison was a bit irritable. As a male mermaid, he stayed in other people's territory for a long time. In a state of high tension, "Damn, I'm sick of having this idiot conversation every week."

"She is her, I am me. Don't complain, the current situation is caused by the fact that you have basically failed to achieve your goals. Seven requirements a week are not too much." The octopus wearing a bone mask came down from the giant conch, and he The ankles of Morrison surrounded Morrison with a soft and dangerous net, enclosing the mermaid who had nowhere to retreat, "Give full play to the advantages of race, my friend." The wizard wrapped his arms around Morrison's waist, Pull him in front of you. "Go to the sea to sing and create a few tsunamis, or use your tears to lure pearl divers, or even manipulate sharks to kill a few fishermen who go out to sea, Jack, there are many ways to get soul balls. And you It's clearly being passive-aggressive."

The Grim Reaper—that's the name of the Octopus Wizard—was right. There were too many ways to get the Soul Ball, but Morrison didn't want to try any of them.

Unlike those of the same kind who regard humans as imaginary enemies, Morrison has always maintained a neutral attitude towards humans. As long as the two sides do not invade each other, there is no need for mermaids to play the role of deep-sea demons and take the lives of innocent humans.

So there was only one way left.

The mermaid swims very close to the sea every day, risking being discovered by hunters, searching for the red and black soul balls left by drowned humans. Sometimes he can find fishermen who were shipwrecked, some were killed by pirates and thrown away. Some of the travelers who disembarked were dead souls who drifted over from nowhere...but Lady Luck is not always by her side.Most of the time, Morrison is just like today, confronting death with lack of confidence and restlessness.

"Hana is four years old now. In other words, I have made this unequal contract with you for four years," the black tentacles began to wrap around the blue tail of the mermaid, and Morrison's arm was wrapped around Morrison's arm with the free wrist. Tie it to the back and fix it, they got so close that Reaper could almost see the small opening and closing gill slit on the side neck of the opposite guy, "I think it's time to cancel it."

Morrison's expression froze instantly.

When he first picked up Hana, she was a small, weak fry struggling on the verge of death.The scales on the little girl's tail have not yet grown, and the bones and beating blood vessels under the transparent fish scales are clearly visible.She was abandoned in the water grass of Morrison's territory. When the mermaid found her, she was completely panicked. Morrison had no experience with small fish.

Although the sea is the home of mermaids, there are always too many dangerous undercurrents surging in the invisible darkness.

Morrison's first thought was to find Angela, but the only kind doctor who could help him was long gone—she fell in love with humans, traded a golden tail for a pair of slender legs, followed the beloved brown-skinned The girl went to that hot world full of sand together.

In desperation, Morrison had no choice but to seek help from the underwater wizard.

The effect of the wish was indeed as remarkable as the god of death promised, and Hana managed to survive.The energetic and mischievous little mermaid has been growing up healthily till now, just like the mermaid princess in fairy tales, she is innocent and lovely, her caudal fin is shiny and full, and the word disease seems to be a stranger to her.

"Then please fulfill the agreement well," the wizard's voice pulled Morrison back from his thoughts, and the octopus tentacles hung on the mermaid's heart and circled back and forth, "If you can't bring the soul ball in the next two weeks, The magic time is coming to an end." The god of death sneered, "I also advise you to give up the idea of ​​replacing the content of the contract with other things. There are too many mermaids who have made wishes to me, and the scales and tears have long been worthless."

"I've taken care of Soi Ying for you for so long, don't you even have a word of thanks?"

"Don't judge me by your mermaids. Octopuses are completely independent from birth and don't need the protection of their parents." Death paused, "And don't think that I was the one who picked up the black shadow. It was completely her. Swimmed to my territory by myself and occupied that big shell. Don't get Jack wrong."

After saying these words, the octopus quickly backed away from the mermaid, and the oppressive feeling that made Morrison unable to breathe disappeared with the moment the merman left.The god of death shifted his gaze to the backpack brought by the white-haired mermaid: "Come to return the book?" His tone was like an old friend who had known him for several years (their relationship did last for a long time) and began to talk to Morrison. Talking, as if the confrontation just now didn't exist, the black tentacles waved the fairy tales they found out from the backpack, "What is it? "Children of the Earth"?"

The mermaid moved his untied arms. Except for some light red sucker marks, the god of death didn't leave any more scars on his body. This uncertain wizard is probably in a good mood today.

It's not like Morrison has never seen the god of death collecting rewards from other wishers, especially after he once forcibly tore off most of a mermaid's dorsal fin, the blue mermaid felt more and more that she was still loved by the goddess of luck Well, after all, compared to howling and screaming, the "treasure hunting" task of traveling dozens of nautical miles is still relatively easy.

"A sad fairytale about love. Good except for the little ones who are not suitable for this age."

TBC