Unexpectedly, just by casually strolling around, Lansi and Winsor had witnessed an unbelievable love triangle.
"This kind of drama between different species is really terrifying," Lansi concluded. He had no desire to interfere in the mess between the fish and the bird, so he quickly grabbed Winsor and sneaked away.
After spending a few more days in the sea, Lansi's injuries were almost completely healed. He was finally ready to visit the alliance with Winsor.
Of course, this time they were just going to check if Carl and the others were alright. If nothing was wrong, Lansi planned to step back from the action and live a quiet life with Winsor. As for how human society would develop in the future, that was not for Lansi alone to decide.
"Carl and Rose won't be angry with me, will they?" Lansi asked nervously as they swam back. He was getting so anxious that he even wanted to turn around.
Winsor was very curious. "What exactly did you do to Carl and Rose?"
Lansi scratched his cheek embarrassedly and said, "I tied the two of them together and left them on the bed."
Winsor fell silent. After a moment, he patted Lansi's head and warned, "After we see them, remember to stay far away from Rose."
He wasn't worried about Carl holding a grudge, but he was a little worried that Rose would be truly angry.
---
When they arrived at an uninhabited island not far from the Survivor Alliance, Winsor told Lansi to stop. He pulled out a communicator from somewhere and sent Carl a text message, letting him know they were waiting on the island.
Carl responded incredibly fast. Almost five minutes after Winsor sent the coded text, a reply came through.
Lansi leaned over to take a look. He noticed that Carl used a lot of code words. Although Lansi couldn't understand any of them, he could still tell from the screen that every single word was filled with absolute joy. In his mind, Lansi could almost see a husky with its tongue out, rushing toward them at full speed.
The next day, Carl and Rose traveled to the uninhabited island on a black boat arranged by Old Tang. Old Tang dropped them off on the shore. He knew what was happening, so he told the pair, "I will pick you up again in three hours."
He raised his head, glanced at the seagulls circling above his boat, and let out a heavy sigh. "Damn it, what is this world coming to?"
With that, Old Tang drove his boat away.
Once they were sure Old Tang had actually left, Lansi and Winsor emerged from the sea. Since Lansi didn't have any clothes to wear this time, he had to drag his fish tail onto the beach, calling out to Carl and Rose in excitement.
At the same time, he turned his head to glare at Winsor with envy. Why was Winsor able to make clothes appear for himself out of nowhere?
"Lansi..." Carl called out, his tone sounding deeply aggrieved.
Lansi knew exactly what Carl was complaining about without him even saying it, but he didn't take it too seriously.
However, his attitude completely changed when he glanced at Rose. Seeing that she had no expression on her face, Lansi suddenly felt very guilty. "I am sorry," he whispered. He was much more afraid of a quiet Rose than a loud Carl.
"Hey, since you had a plan, why didn't you tell us first?" Carl scratched his head, looking completely helpless. "The weapons in that truck cost me a fortune."
In the end, all those weapons were completely useless and were just dragged away by Lansi. What made Carl even more speechless was that the Alliance eventually stepped in and confiscated the "unclaimed" weapons. Carl didn't dare say a single word to get them back.
Lansi silently looked at Winsor.
After all, Winsor was the one who refused to tell him the plan in the beginning. Back then, Winsor had tied him up and left him on the bed like a salted fish. So, out of a petty spirit of revenge, Lansi had tied Carl and Rose up in the exact same way once he got free.
Rose still didn't say a word. With a completely serious face, she walked straight toward Lansi.
When Lansi saw Rose approaching, he scrunched up his face and wanted to run away. However, after realizing he had nowhere to go, he curled up his tail and tried to use his most innocent expression to beg for her forgiveness.
Rose didn't care about Lansi's act. She went straight forward, grabbed his face, and pulled his cheeks to the side. "So," she groaned as she tugged, "since you're brave enough to tie up your sister, do you think I won't spank you?"
Lansi endured the pinching with a dazed expression. *Where did I get a sister?*
After giving Lansi's face a good stretch, Rose seemed to let go of her anger. She released him and asked, "Are you going to make it up to me?"
Lansi rubbed his sore cheeks, hesitated for a moment, and finally nodded.
"Then you will be my brother," Rose declared, settling the matter instantly. "From now on, I am your sister. Be good and call me 'Sister'."
Lansi clutched his face, stunned for a few seconds. Under Rose's sharp, commanding gaze, he finally let out a weak cry: "Sister."
"Good." Rose nodded. Then she pointed at Carl next to her and said, "He is your brother-in-law."
Lansi: "????"
Winsor: "..."
How did a husky like him end up with a superwoman like her?
The two mermen looked at Carl's goofy grin and then at the cool, composed Rose. They suddenly felt the world was a very strange place indeed.
After joking around for a bit, Rose and Lansi got down to business. The Survivor Alliance already knew the truth about Dr. Murin. Before he died, Dr. Murin had sent a video to the laboratory. In it, he explained everything: the start of the High Wall incident, the existence of Will, and the truth about the northern island.
"He didn't say anything about you," Rose said, pausing to look out at the distant sea. "Maybe he found his conscience at the end."
Because Dr. Murin admitted in the video that the Poseidon Project was a total failure, the conservative members of the laboratory finally gained influence.
"Humanity has decided to leave this planet," Rose said.
The Alliance was preparing to restart the "Tinder Project." Humans were going to build a "Noah's Ark," fill it with the "seeds" of human civilization, and sail into space until they found a planet suitable for life.
It was a cruel plan because space was limited. Only one-tenth of the population could board the ship. The Alliance had created a strict, transparent screening process to be as fair as possible. Interestingly, class prejudice seemed to vanish; many wealthy people voluntarily gave up their spots for others.
It wasn't all bad news, though. Predictions suggested the remaining humans could live on Earth for several hundred more years if no new disasters occurred. But eventually, the rising sea would swallow the remaining land.
"Carl and I chose to stay," Rose told Lansi. She looked at him with gentle eyes, like a big sister caring for her younger brother.
"Yeah, if we leave, what would the Boss and Lansi do?" Carl scratched his head, pulling Rose into his arms. "Anyway, we still have hundreds of years. I want to spend the rest of my time here, at least on the same planet as the Boss."
Both Lansi and Winsor were silent. After a moment, Lansi was so moved that he started to cry, his little pearls bouncing onto the sand. "Thank you."
Winsor remained quiet for ten seconds before letting out a long, appreciative sigh.
"You've lived on land for a long time," Rose said, touching Lansi's head. "If you ever get bored of the sea, come back and see us. Carl and I applied for a transfer to the area outside the High Wall. We've saved enough money to build a small house there. If you come back, you'll have a place to stay."
"Okay." Lansi felt a warmth in his heart. Rose was so good to him that he couldn't help but lean in to act like a spoiled younger brother. "Sister, do you need any pearls?"
Rose froze for a second, then laughed. "Fine. You'll be in charge of the pearls for my wedding from now on."
What Rose didn't expect was that a few months later, she would be staring at a purple pearl the size of a basketball, wondering what to do with it. She would later think, "If I had known, I would have told him exactly what size I wanted."
---
Before they left, Rose acted like any sister worried about her brother moving away. She stuffed a massive amount of supplies into Lansi's arms. Lansi tried to refuse because swimming with so much luggage was difficult.
However, Rose shut down his protest immediately: "Doesn't Winsor have a way? Just have him turn into that 'sticky thing' and carry them."
Evidently, while Rose hadn't seen the fight on the High Wall, the details of Winsor's abilities had spread through the Alliance. It wasn't a secret anymore.
Winsor: "..."
Lansi glanced at Winsor and couldn't help but smirk. Consequently, Winsor was forced to carry a bulging, waterproof package of daily necessities under Rose's watchful eye. Rose was so worried about Lansi's quality of life that she tried to give him every good thing she owned.
"She really likes you," Winsor noted as they swam away. He watched Lansi rolling happily in the water ahead of him, his tone sounding a bit sour.
Lansi turned around and snorted proudly at Winsor. "It just shows that my personality is very attractive."
After the two merfolk decided to leave the Alliance, they began the journey back to Sunset Bay, which was to become their permanent home. Along the way, Lansi happened to run into a sperm whale.
The giant creature appeared directly in their path. Its massive body floated in the water, looking as though it was preparing to surface for a breath. Lansi stopped swimming and stared at the whale with a look of wonder. No matter how many times he saw a whale, he was always fascinated by such enormous beings. Humans were truly tiny compared to a sperm whale. Lansi hovered nearby, interested in watching the giant take its breath.
"Well?"
The sperm whale suddenly stopped its ascent. It used its head—which took up almost a third of its entire body—to look at the little creature next to it. It offered a slow, comfortable greeting.
"Hello there."
"Wow, another sea monster," Lansi thought. Ignoring Winsor for a moment, he curiously replied: "Hello there."
Sperm whales were legendary in human stories—from their battles with giant squid to the precious ambergris they produced. Lansi was deeply interested.
"Excuse me, where is this place?" the sperm whale asked.
Lansi tilted his head. "I don't know exactly, but Sunset Bay is not far from here."
"Oh..." the sperm whale replied simply. It turned its massive eyes toward Lansi, studying him carefully. "Excuse me, what kind of sea monster are you?"
Lansi was delighted. He pulled Winsor closer to introduce him. Both of us are mermen.
'Mermen? Two of them?'
The sperm whale seemed startled. It paused for a moment and, instead of continuing the conversation with Lansi, it sent a message to the "Super Jellyfish" in their mental chat group.
Sperm Whale: [@Jellyfish, are you there? How many mermen are there? I found them... but they aren't in the coral bones you mentioned... and there are two of them.]
Sperm Whale: [@Jellyfish]
Sperm Whale: [@Jellyfish]
When Lansi realized the whale was asking questions in the group, he quickly opened his own mental connection to watch the screen. A few seconds later, he looked at Winsor in shock.
"So you can actually chat like this?"
Winsor looked at the messages in the group, equally surprised by the sea monsters' communication style. "I didn't know."
After the sperm whale kept poking the jellyfish, the jellyfish finally came online and immediately began to complain.
Jellyfish: [What are you all doing? Who called me?]
Sperm Whale: [Me.]
Jellyfish: [You finally found your way? Where are you? I was expecting you to save the Little Cutie before... but she ran away on her own a long time ago.]
Lansi, "peeping" at the screen, rubbed his nose guiltily. He realized who this sperm whale was. Back when he was trapped in the Trench, that silly jellyfish had planned to summon its friends to smash the coral and help him "elope." However, for some reason, the sperm whale partner never showed up.
Now, the sperm whale sounded particularly wronged.
Sperm Whale: [I was swimming fine in the ocean, rushing to the position you said! But I don't know why, the ocean currents became so strange and I got lost.]
Jellyfish: [Humph, just an excuse.]
Lansi looked at Winsor with a suspicious glare. As the culprit, Winsor remained silent. He remembered changing the ocean currents specifically to confuse the sperm whale and prevent it from reaching the Trench. Who could have guessed this whale was so naive that it would stay lost for this long?
Sperm Whale: [I think I found the "Little Cutie" you mentioned, but didn't you say there was only one? I see two.]
The jellyfish answered instantly.
Jellyfish: [I'm offline! Didn't read this!]
Quirrell: [Ahahahaha!]
Hermit Crab: [Quack! Your luck is amazing, you ran into a big shot as soon as you left the house.]
Humpback Whale: [...Speak properly.]
Lansi couldn't help but laugh. He followed the conversation for a while before deliberately typing in the group:
Lansi: [@Winsor]
The group went dead silent.
Quirrell: [Fuck, I forgot the Teacher is also in the group. I'm offline! Didn't read!]
Hermit Crab: [Offline! Didn't read!]
Killer Whale: [I didn't say anything. Offline!]
Humpback Whale: [Well... don't form private groups!]
Winsor: [...]
In reality, the sperm whale looked back and forth between Lansi and Winsor, still confused. 'Why did everyone leave?'
Although the sperm whale had the largest head in the world, it was clearly very innocent. Lansi flicked his tail, thinking seriously about whether he should tell this naive whale the true identity of the black-tailed merman standing right next to him.