“The Ten Fairy-Tales of Hua Yong” – The Mermaid (The Ruse): Is he… faking weakness?
The mermaid’s blue blood thinned into the tank’s seawater, pouring boundless life into what had been a dead pool.
“All those fish and corals that were already dead came back to life the moment they touched his blood,”
the expert said as he walked to the tank and pressed a button on its side.
At once the water churned violently; bubbles burst through the clear sea. Startled, the mermaid’s eyes flew open—and collided head-on with Sheng Shaoyou’s frank stare.
A de-oxygenation pump kicked in, driving the oxygen level down. One by one the small fish rolled belly-up, drifting helplessly in the swift current as their life ebbed before the naked eye.
The mermaid who had snapped his eyes open owned a pair of deep-black, beautiful irises. The double-eyelid creases were pronounced, yet the gaze itself was icy, weary, languid—an aura that warned strangers away.
Caught unprepared, Sheng Shaoyou suddenly understood the sailors said to have been bewitched by sea-sirens—such heart-stopping beauty truly existed.
The moment the mermaid saw him, a light kindled in those eyes; the frozen expression melted like thawing snow, turning tender as warm spring. His brows smoothed, crimson lips curving ever so slightly.
This creature wreathed in chill actually offered him a gentle smile—and the look pierced Sheng Shaoyou like a blade, a sudden pang tightening his chest.
Oblivious, the expert continued demonstrating the mermaid’s power of resurrection.
“Watch.” Skilled fingers guided a mechanical arm hidden in a recess; within seconds the metal claw gripped the mermaid’s translucent blue fin. The colossal force made his struggle futile. While he was pinned, a row of sharp steel needles sprang from the opposite wall and stabbed into the small patch of blue skin on his tail.
Because he thrashed so hard, one line of needles veered off, whistling past his cheek and shaving off a lock of hair. The smile meant only for Sheng Shaoyou froze, replaced by weak anguish. He tugged at the arm—only to be hit with its built-in high voltage, his body convulsing.
Dark-blue blood welled from the punctures. Curling his tail, he closed his eyes and drooped like a magnificent wreck hauled up by that artificial limb.
“What are you doing?” Sheng Shaoyou’s voice carried an unconscious reproach.
Thinking he feared for the rare “trophy,” the expert hurried to reassure him.
“Don’t worry—his vitality is astonishing; he won’t die easily. Look, the fish are reviving again!”
Indeed, the little fish that moments earlier had drifted listlessly shuddered the instant they touched the blood and sprang back to life—their patterns even brighter than before.
“A bona-fide miracle!” the expert exulted.
“Put him down.” Sheng Shaoyou’s brow knit. “He looks like he’s in pain.”
The expert shot a doubtful glance at the leader famed for emotional detachment, then forced a smile. “Quite right—a mermaid is still a person and deserves rights.” He pressed a button; the mechanical arm released its captive, who slumped back onto the oversized shell-bed.
The instant he touched the surface his unfocused eyes snapped open, searching anxiously; when they found Sheng Shaoyou he seemed to relax and even smiled. Multicolored fish and sea-grass clustered tight around him, forming an under-sea tableau.
The humans outside the tank had no idea the fish were whispering:
“Damn, that’s the sixth time this week we’ve died.”
“Yeah—why do we have to pull the instant-revival stunt every time?”
“That ugly contraption actually dared to slice the King’s hair! The last shark that brushed a strand died eight hundred years ago!”
A rainbow goby that had just resurrected swam hard through the churn and murmured to a peacock fish:
“Notice? The King seems to like it here—doesn’t look like he plans to leave.”
“I know,” the peacock fish sighed. “And strange, too—he’s acting. Pretending to be weak, maybe?”
An electric-eel drifted over lazily:
“Not maybe—he definitely is. Our King commands the thunderclouds over the whole ocean. A measly hundred-thousand volts of man-made current can’t drain him.”
“True!”
“And those missing scales? He plucked them himself—I saw it.”
“Me too!”
“Same here! He stayed up all last night clawing at his tail—worried the wound would heal before that human showed.”
“Humans are so easy to fool.”
“But why’s the King doing it?”
“To fool them, of course!”
“Right—those nasty humans deserve it!”
While the fish chattered, Sheng Shaoyou learned still more. They had dubbed the mermaid “Siren No. 1.”
“Sirens have wings, don’t they?” He clearly disliked the name. “And he isn’t Western at all. Must we worship foreign things even when naming?”
“The linguistics professor chose it,” the expert muttered under the rebuke.
“Tell him to change it,” Sheng Shaoyou said flatly.
“To what?”
Sheng Shaoyou’s gaze lingered on that blood-drained yet haunting face—one that would make even flowers burst into song.
“Hua Yong,” he said softly.
The little creature on the shell-bed seemed to understand; he actually nodded.
Sheng Shaoyou froze again, then stepped up onto the viewing stairs for a closer look. Feeling his gaze, Hua Yong struggled upright and swam a few meters, eager to draw nearer. But the chain at his waist held him, leaving him hovering mid-tank, dark eyes misted with water and helpless—pleading for rescue.
The realization pricked Sheng Shaoyou’s heart with pity.
“The Aimerikan leader is growing restless. Our clashes over the disputed territory have cost many soldiers’ lives,” the expert was saying.
“This mermaid gives the military hope. General Sheng Fang believes we should use him as experimental material to develop emergency and regenerative medicine.”
Inside the tank the fish gasped:
“Did you hear? They want to experiment on the King!”
“Are they crazy?”
“Humans eat shark fins and call them healthy—of course they’re crazy.”
“Ew, eating someone’s bones—disgusting!”
Hua Yong’s gaze upon Sheng Shaoyou grew ever more sorrowful; the young leader turned away, left the storage bay, and returned early to his residence. With the spectator gone the lights dimmed, leaving only faint glows from bioluminescent fish and jellyfish.
Clack—the door locked. Hua Yong hovered, still chained. His tail curled like a notched blade, glimmering faintly in the dark.
“Look, the King seems angry.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you tell?” The peacock fish—tail the same shape as Hua Yong’s—puffed with pride. “When he swam toward that human just now, his tail curled into an ‘S.’ That’s a courtship signal.”
“Courtship?” The clownfish’s eyes rounded. “You mean the King likes that pretty boy?”
Hua Yong—usually aloof—turned his face and said, “Mr. Sheng is not a pretty boy.”
W-what?!
The cold, proud King actually spoke—to us!
The clownfish rolled his eyes and fainted on the spot. Two kissing-gouramis rushed in, performing frantic fish CPR. Hua Yong touched a fingertip to the clownfish; blue flame flashed like slender lightning, and the little fellow sprang back to life, darting like an orange banner in sunshine.
Then Hua Yong pressed his snow-white fingers to the chain at his waist. He opened the hardened lock as easily as unboxing a parcel, snapped his fingers, and a blue arc blazed—a dreamlike instant that fried every alarm. An ammeter’s needle twisted so violently its glass cover shattered.
He floated to the tank’s rim and pushed lightly; the lid—supposedly torpedo-proof—soared away. With a flick of his tail he hooked the edge and caught the six-ton plate before it smashed the floor.
All the small fish crowded over, whispering through the glass:
“Where are you going?”
“To find that human?”
“Okay, we admit he’s decent-looking. But he does look like the type who starts things and dumps people.”
Droplets slid from Hua Yong’s damp hair, stringing into a crystal line.
“Mr. Sheng won’t,” he said. “He told me he likes only me.”
“He might be lying,” whispered a young starfish.
“No way!” the clownfish scoffed. “Don’t you know? No one can lie in front of the King.”
For their King possessed a face to bewitch gods—and eyes that saw through every lie. Remembering the night they first met over a decade ago, Hua Yong smiled again.
“Mmm. He didn’t lie.”
At that smile the clownfish fainted once more.
Mama!
The King—aloof, noble, proud as snow—just smiled so gently!
Heaven help me; seeing that smile is worth being grilled into fish skewers on the spot!