Chapter 144: The Little Mermaid (14)

Alright.
Since it has come to this.
Then...
"Eat if you can, and if you cannot, wait until Sang Wu returns."
Seeing that Sang Zha was about to leave after dropping these words, Tang Mu could not help pointing at the ship behind her.
"How on earth did this ship end up like this? It doesn't look like something human hands could achieve."
"Are you talking about it?"
Sang Zha looked in the direction Tang Mu was pointing and naturally saw the object she indicated.
"If you are talking about it... it is actually a ghost ship that will never sink. Every once in a while, it becomes brand new and slowly rises from the seabed to the surface, to welcome a new batch of travelers."
"Meaning you all."
"As for the sailors... they are evil spirits. When the ship sinks, they turn into ghosts and come into the water to attack us. We call them 'water ghosts'. When you encounter water ghosts, do not fight them head-on; it is best to call for us and let us resist them."
Merfolk could not even go to the deep-sea area.
They possessed no basic ability to fight back.
They had better not casually provoke things that were much more formidable than themselves.
Consequently, Tang Mu thought: "..."
Why did Sang Zha view all merfolk as fragile little white flowers?
As if they were utterly frail.
"Then where are we going after we finish eating?"
Sang Zha replied, "We are not going anywhere yet. You must first adapt to your merfolk bodies before heading to the deep-sea area and returning to the merfolk ancestral land."
Information was truly scarce.
Until now, Tang Mu had not obtained any clues regarding how to break the deadlock. For example, who was the boss? What should they do to dispel the boss's obsession? Was this instance's boss an evil spirit or a merman? What was the plot?
Nothing at all.
Not even a main storyline.
It was truly giving her a headache.
"Then when can we adapt to the merfolk bodies?"
"It will take ten days to a half month. As for you..." Sang Zha shook his head, "You will probably need half a year."
Unable to even eat raw fish, yet wishing to grow their bodies, head to the deep-sea area, and return to the merfolk ancestral land?
Might as well daydream!
Dreams had everything.
Although Tang Mu was pretty, her body was far too fragile. Who knew where Sang Wu had found this human, but she was truly exceptionally difficult to raise.
If Tang Mu knew what Sang Zha was thinking, she would undoubtedly roll her eyes at him dramatically.
Not eating raw fish meant being difficult to raise?
Did she need merfolk to raise her?
Idiot!
However, if it took ten days to a half month... Sang Wu would likely wake up and come to settle accounts with her.
She could not wait ten days.
She had to set off within ten days.
"I'll try eating the raw fish then." Tang Mu held a piece of raw fish meat in her mouth and slowly chewed it down.
Seeing that Tang Mu was finally willing to eat, Sang Zha's expression softened slightly.
He then turned to stare at the other half-merfolk.
With a quick glance just now, he had noticed there were still many half-merfolk like Tang Mu who could not eat raw or cold fish.
These half-merfolk who refused to eat properly were simply too disobedient.
Without eating, how could their bodies grow?
They all needed discipline!
After eating the fish meat, Tang Mu discovered that her body was mutating rapidly. For instance, her claws had originally been human nails, but after consuming the fish meat, they became much sharper, and webbing even grew between her five fingers.
All the mutations happening to her body were meant to help her survive better on the seabed.
Since that was the case...
Then she simply had to eat more of this raw and cold fish meat.
Ten days later.
All the half-merfolk were finally considered completely mutated. Their combat strength barely managed to reach the standard required to step into the deep-sea area.
Thus, they were about to set off on their long voyage.
As for the lagging Sang Wu...
He was the chieftain of the merfolk clan with the strongest combat power. Even if separated from the tribe, he could return to the merfolk ancestral land alone.
"Tang Mu." Xi Hongwei, who had been getting very cozy with his partner, suddenly sidled up to Tang Mu.
Every time Tang Mu swept her peripheral vision in his direction, he was kissing a merman with a pink fish tail. It was as inappropriate for children as anything could be, causing nearby people to dodge the sight whenever they caught it.
This time, Xi Hongwei had finally spared a rare moment, remembering that he was still trapped inside a game instance, and came over to discuss with Tang Mu how to clear it.
Looking at the lingering red marks on Xi Hongwei's face and neck that had not yet faded entirely, Tang Mu could not help letting out a cold snort.
"What do you want?"
Xi Hongwei acted as though he were entirely blind to the chill on Tang Mu's face.
He quite enjoyed offering a warm face to someone else's cold backside.
"I came to ask you a question. That is... didn't Sang Zha say that the ghost ship refreshes every once in a while to welcome new guests? And when it sinks, water ghosts appear. But we don't know when the ship refreshes, nor when the water ghosts appear. Besides, we are pretty far from the water ghosts now, so the water ghosts shouldn't be able to find us, right?"
While speaking, because he was not paying close attention to the road ahead, Xi Hongwei was directly blindsided in the head by a swimming sea turtle.
He and the turtle were knocked unconscious simultaneously.
Seeing his body begin to sink downward...
If not for his partner swimming over swiftly to prop him up, had he dropped another dozen meters or so, the pressure of the seawater would have made him feel even more miserable.
Xi Hongwei's partner was named Sang Ning.
When Xi Hongwei was sinking, Tang Mu had not lent a helping hand.
Therefore, Sang Ning held a strong grievance against Tang Mu.
To this, Tang Mu merely remarked, "Xi Hongwei is your partner, not mine. Isn't taking care of your partner your own responsibility? If I were to meddle, what would that look like?"
Though Tang Mu's tone was sharp.
Sang Ning's expression actually improved a great deal.
Sang Ning pressed on the philtrum beneath Xi Hongwei's nose.
After a few minutes.
Xi Hongwei slowly regained consciousness.
Awakening in a daze, Xi Hongwei muttered, "Did I just bump into something? It hurts so much."
Tang Mu pointed at the sea turtle not far away, which had been knocked dizzy and was spinning in circles on the spot, and told him, "You crashed into a turtle shell."
"Hiss, no wonder. I was wondering why my head hurt so badly! So it was a turtle shell... A turtle shell?!" Xi Hongwei was startled, and pointed incredulously toward the sea turtle, "A giant turtle two meters long with a mouth wide open enough to bite my head off in one gulp?"
"Yes. Exactly this sea turtle."
"Aren't you amazed that your strength is so great that you didn't die from colliding head-on with such a huge sea turtle? That's right, this is reality. Our mutation has been extremely successful."
While telling Xi Hongwei to set his mind at ease, Tang Mu also reminded him to watch his path.
"It's just that being in the seawater is not like walking on a paved road. Anything could crash into you. You were lucky this time—it was just a turtle. What if next time, it's a shark bumping into you?"
Xi Hongwei: "..." Could she stop cursing him? He was terrified.
After a while, however.
He was resurrected at full health.
"Well, since our strength has increased, does that mean we don't have to be afraid when evil spirits attack us?" Realizing he possessed such formidable iron-head skills, Xi Hongwei felt like he had been injected with chicken blood, strutting about valiantly once more.
Yet this time, it was not Tang Mu who burst his bubble, but Sang Ning.
"Don't look down on water ghosts." Watching her partner's foolish antics, Sang Ning could not help lowering her head and sighing. She wondered whether it was a blessing or a curse that her male companion remained so worldly-ignorant, naive, and innocent.
However, since Sang Ning was a native merman, she had been taught since birth to treat half-merfolk kindly. To accommodate the delicate bodies and fragile psychology of the half-merfolk, she had been trained from childhood to avoid displaying the innate cruelty of merfolk in front of them.
It would frighten them.
Consequently, Sang Ning exhausted all her brain cells trying to find the right words to explain this to Xi Hongwei.