Mermaid Wharf

After leaving this unclear sentence, Captain Garcia pressed the brim of his hat, and walked down the deck as calmly as when he came.

And I stood where I was, and suddenly felt a chill of unknown origin.

Yesterday evening, the warning from the Undead is still vivid in my mind. Although I have been working here safely for 82 days, I have never noticed anything abnormal. This sudden vigilance may seem redundant, but at this moment I look at the The Royal Ghost woke up in the morning light, and felt that it was a little strange.

There must be something secret about this ship that I don't know about, and Captain Garcia obviously has a dark side too.I took out a few days' worth of canned food and fresh water from the storage hold, put away the clothes hanging on the railing, and planned to investigate in the last few days of the Royal Ghost's departure.

However, it wasn't until I finished my chores and returned to my secret base that I realized that I seemed to have forgotten one of the biggest troubles.

Velija was lying on the side of the water tank, fiddling with the sand painting I put on the shelf, holding it up in front of her eyes to observe the liquid flowing in the glass frame, and she was really quietly waiting for me to come back.The porthole was half open, and the sunlight illuminated the small cabin very brightly. I realized that Veliga must have cleaned up those messy traces, so I couldn't help looking at him in surprise.

I thought he was the spoiled little prince in the mermaid tribe, but now it seems that I was wrong; the handicrafts and sundries on the shelves are all neatly arranged, and even have a breath of life, maybe in the future even if I go to the shore As a human being, Velija can also adapt quickly.

This kind of thought made my heart move, and I felt as if I had caught some clues.The breath of desire had already dissipated, and when Velijia saw me coming back, she threw the sand painting into my arms in surprise, raised her head and kissed my cheek.

"Mano, you're back!"

Veliga seems to like my name especially, and his movements are very warm and natural, giving me the illusion that we have known each other for a long time; but the fact is that it has only been dozens of hours since I first saw him, but I feel like it's been longer than my first eighty days on the Royal Ghost.

I looked at him, he still had the proud look of being fearless, but he seemed a little more shy, which reminded me of what happened last night.I coughed lightly, took out two breakfast cans from the bag in my hand, and asked, "Are you hungry? I don't know if you are used to eating human food, let's make do with it for the next two days."

Although I really want to ask what mermaids usually eat, but thinking of the terrifying bucket of Suna fish yesterday, I decided not to ask any further questions.Veliga probably has never eaten human food. Seeing that I opened the can, he leaned over and frowned at the corn kernels and smoked pork mixed with sea salt, but he did not refuse. He forked a piece of meat just like me. In the mouth, it seems that the taste is not bad.

I sat watching Villiga while he ate his breakfast.

It's really—too human-like.

Recalling the mermaids I have come into contact with so far, I can't find any sense of disobedience from them, whether it is their appearance, demeanor or behavior.Perhaps Percy's story does have a source, and maybe their ancestors belong to the same line as human beings; seeing that Villiga was still dealing with it, I sat by the window and opened Angelo's diary.

Veliga eats slowly, and I turn pages fast.

I thought that this old thing that recorded messages from ten years ago would bring me some unexpected gains, but I was soon disappointed to find that this diary was almost all the contents of Angelo before he boarded the Polar Joy, about his boring university Life and yearning for mermaids.I can't even get useful information about the owner of the diary, whether Angelo is tall or short, blond or black; after all, no one will profile his family background and appearance in the diary, so I can only vaguely infer that he should be a Noble, and a medical student with excellent grades.

He can be called an expert on mermaids. His diary is full of stories about this kind of creature. Among them, the legend about the origin of mermaids is almost the same as what Percy told me; there is also a charcoal-drawn imaginary picture of the mermaid's body structure. , probably because he didn't really see it with his own eyes, he drew a total of three pictures, each of which is different.

The mermaid in the first picture only looks like a human, with carnivore-like fangs, rough ventral and dorsal fins, and mottled scales covering the whole body, which seems to be closer to the legendary sea monster; the second picture has more human features , the fingers are connected with a translucent film like some kind of amphibian, and the cheeks are diamond-shaped ear wings; while in the third picture, except for the long fish tail, the upper body is no different from that of a human.

I looked at Velija, who also finished the first human breakfast after landing, and looked at me with a contented raised eyebrow.I thought for a while, then stretched out my hand to touch his cheek, and found that apart from the nearly invisible gill cavity buried around his neck, he was undoubtedly the third fully humanized mermaid.

Seeing me caressing his neck thoughtfully, Velija obviously thought I wanted to flirt with him, and wanted to kiss him, but saw that my attention was always on the diary in my hand, so he blacked out. Opening my hand with a straight face, I turned my back and sulked.

I had no time to appease some idle mermaid prince, and I read Angelo's beautiful cursive script line by line, and had to admire his meticulous research on mermaids; what surprised me most was that he even knew That grotesque curse.

【My father told me that there is no difference in thinking and cognition between mermaids and humans, and they can breathe freely on land after they become adults, which creates the conditions for mutual love.It's a pity that mermaids seem to have natural hostility towards humans, so they must not fall in love with humans, otherwise they will be severely retaliated by their ancestors; and the content of this curse is also quite interesting-it is said that it will trap the same life At two different points in time, until death comes.Unless one party abandons his lover, this curse will evolve into a deadly cycle, repeated and endless. 】

[When I asked my father why he knew so much about the mermaid's curse, he didn't tell me. 】

I flipped through the pages, and soon I felt a strange sense of disobedience.

Because Angelo's interest in mermaids does not seem to be a poetic romantic vision, but rather to satisfy some paranoid and weird thirst for knowledge.

【Perhaps it's because I'm naturally attracted to unusual things. I'm eagerly looking forward to the day I meet the mermaid, and I'm not afraid of the so-called curse.The existence of mermaids is a beautiful curse. Their genes are so harmoniously integrated with human beings. If their fish tails are removed, they may be able to live like ordinary disabled people on land... oh my god , maybe I should stop this horrible thought. 】

[And now the opportunity has come.The Polar Joy will pass by Fei's Wharf, which is rumored to be haunted by mermaids, and I will meet mermaids, which will also change my fate. 】

The content of the diary stops here.

My intuition tells me that Angelo is a dangerous person. He is absolutely inseparable from the disaster of the Polar Joy ten years ago, but the clues are interrupted here. I must go to the auction as soon as possible to buy all his old things. .Thinking of this, I looked at Velijia who was still sulking, and suddenly thought that Velijia's uncle also disappeared ten years ago. I don't know if this is just a weird coincidence.

"Villiga."

I called him, and saw that he was still lying there with his back facing me, so I hugged him helplessly, stretched out my hand and pinched his swollen cheek. "Hey, don't make trouble with me. Let me ask you, what kind of mermaid is your uncle?"

Velijia frowned and looked at me, obviously not knowing why I paid attention to his uncle, but he didn't care about the neglect just now, he turned his head and thought for a while and said: "My uncle is the most beautiful male in our tribe, both powerful and powerful. He is kind by nature and has a great reputation in the eastern group. Everyone says that I look a lot like him; because my father has many children and is always busy, I almost grew up with my uncle until ten years ago..."

He fell silent suddenly.I remember that Percy said before that Veliga's uncle was kicked out of the tribe by the leader because of the failed coup.

That might sound like nothing special, and if it weren't for the coincidental timing of a decade ago, I don't think I would care about the whereabouts of a politically frustrated royal mermaid.So I asked again, "What's his name?"

"No name, my uncle is my uncle." Veliga shook his head, "Almost all mermaids don't have names, we can identify each other by breath, and usually don't like to talk, so we don't need troublesome things like names. "

I looked at him with some amusement: "Then why are you called Velija, my little prince?"

Velija raised his cheeks in thought, patted his tail fin on the water, and said in a rather confused way: "My name is taken by Percy, and Percy may have been named by himself after he became a wizard, who knows? Woolen cloth."

I see.Who would have thought that mermaids can build their own civilization on the seabed like humans, but they don't even bother to come up with a name; but then again, Velija's name is very cute compared to the wizard, and it's not like Angelo It can be seen everywhere that he must have put a lot of effort into naming him.

At this time, Velijia suddenly remembered something and said:

"Wait, my uncle should have a name. I heard Percy say it before, it seems to be called... called..."

He held his forehead and thought hard, and it took him a long time before he blurted out:

"Molan, my uncle's name is Moran."