Chapter 2

Hunger woke me the next morning.

Someone had changed me into fresh clothes.

The man brought me two grilled fish.

“I’m Shen Yuan. What’s your name?”

I snatched the fish and wolfed them down.

I didn’t even stop to spit out the bones. I crunched them up and swallowed them.

Only once the fish were gone and my belly was full did I have time to answer.

“Cyril.”

After a little conversation, I had a rough idea of Shen Yuan’s circumstances.

The man was utterly destitute!

I’d lured in a pauper. How embarrassing.

He had nothing in his house except pearls and silk.

Being blind and afraid of the sea, he didn’t fish, either.

He traded his pearls and silk to the fishermen for food.

Which raised a question.

“Where do you get your pearls and silk?”

The fabric was as soft as seawater.

It felt wonderful against my skin.

It didn’t seem like something a pauper could afford.

With a perfectly straight face, Shen Yuan said he’d found them.

He sounded so sincere that I actually believed him.

Who cared where they came from, as long as he could keep me beautiful?

I thought Shen Yuan really was under my spell.

So, over the following month, I let my true colors show.

I treated him entirely as my personal servant.

No more sweet-talking him. I ordered him around all day.

He had to wash my face and hair in the mornings, and my feet at night.

If his touch was too light or too heavy, I glared at him.

I called him a useless man who couldn’t do anything right.

He never argued. He simply adjusted his touch in silence until I was perfectly comfortable.

Besides feeding and housing me, he had to teach me how to walk.

Shen Yuan didn’t even ask why someone my age couldn’t walk.

Whatever I told him to do, he did.

Though perhaps he wasn’t completely enchanted.

Perhaps he still felt resentful and hurt.

Late every night, I would hear faint sobbing.

And the soft clatter of beads falling to the floor.

Wow. A grown man, hiding away to cry.

Pathetic.

Secretly, I looked down on him.

I really was a bad merman.

Fortunately, he was fine again by daylight.

He brought me not only the fattest, freshest fish, but beautiful new clothes, too.

He was far too good to me.

So good that even a wicked merman like me began to feel a little guilty.

On the first day of the second month, I heard him crying again.

It irritated me.

It made me want to cry, too.

But I’d cried for half a month while fleeing. I’d done quite enough crying.

What use were tears?

They changed nothing.

I got up and tottered into the sitting room.

I hugged Shen Yuan from behind.

Ever since I was little, I’d been the one people soothed. I’d never comforted anyone else. It felt awkward.

Throwing caution aside, I shut my eyes and blurted, “Stop crying.”

“I won’t take advantage of you for nothing.”

“Don’t humans think getting a wife is one of the biggest things in life?”

“A man who’s poor and blind like you will never find one.”

“I’ll be your wife. Happy?”

“All you do is cry, cry, cry. It’s annoying.”

I was lying, of course. Merfolk married other merfolk.

Humans were a different species. How could we reproduce?

But his crying upset me, so I might as well soothe him.

Shen Yuan’s hand stopped halfway through wiping his tears.

He hurriedly hid something where I couldn’t see it.

Then he turned and seized me in his arms, asking softly, “Really?”

“You’d really be my wife?”

This was my first attempt at comforting someone.

I was dying of embarrassment.

And he kept asking questions.

Losing patience, I bent my knees and jumped.

I wrapped both legs around his waist. At last, I was looking down at him again.

Satisfied, I glared fiercely.

“Really!”

“Ask again and I won’t.”

Shen Yuan looked nervous and wounded. “I won’t ask.”

“Don’t change your mind.”

Bullying an honest man was such fun.

I deliberately teased him.

I leaned close to his face and blew softly against it.

I watched his pale skin slowly turn scarlet.

Then I realized that although he’d taken off the white ribbon, his eyes were still closed.

I pressed at the corners of his eyes, tempted to pry his eyelids open and have a look.

“Hey. What exactly is wrong with your eyes?”

Shen Yuan carried me back to the bedroom and set me on the bed.

Looking uneasy, he took out the white ribbon and tied it over his eyes.

“Nothing.”

Hmph. Fine, if he didn’t want to answer.

As if I cared that much.

Fuming, I lay down, closed my eyes, and prepared to sleep.

A hand suddenly touched my face.

His fingertips stroked my lips.

His other hand settled gently on my thigh.

Shen Yuan’s breathing grew heavy and quick.

“Wife, do your legs still hurt?”