After returning from the Qi family's old house, Qi Hanyi started to get busy again. Su Su logged into the game as usual during the day, and slept with Qi Hanyi at night because of the side effects.

The side effects were getting better every day, and Su Su knew that the time for him to become a human was coming to an end.

Su Su was reluctant to leave behind the soft big bed, the shark doll, and the person sleeping next to him. He felt that he was getting more and more adapted to the life of a human being.

That day, Su Su logged into the game as usual and went straight to the arena.

He has been staying here since the game.

Others thought that he would surely be the champion based on his performance in the preliminary round, but Su Su felt that this competition made him see many of his own shortcomings. In terms of layout, he was not as good as [Go but No Return], and in terms of skills in killing Zerg, he was not as good as [Simplify the Complex]. There were also some other high-level players, and their performances also had their own highlights.

What he felt was lacking the most was the four SS-level male insects in the last battle. They were so powerful that Su Su was unable to confront them head-on, which made him realize that the insects in the universe were much stronger than he had imagined. This was only SS-level, what would it be like if it was an SSS-level male insect?

If he really wants to pilot the Shirazawa, he must face these problems. He must grow up quickly and become stronger than he is now.

So Su Su spent every day in the arena, fighting even harder than before. When he was in the arena, he never took his opponent lightly just because he was weak. He learned various fighting methods and techniques from every opponent.

While he was concentrating on training, someone discovered that he used a fake identity to log into the game. Some speculations about his origins began to spread: some said that he was a member of a vicious underground organization on Liberty Island, and wanted to use this opportunity to sneak into the Expeditionary Force with some dark purposes. Some people guessed that he was promoted by the military and had actually received professional starship driving training, so he could perform so well in the last picture. Some people also thought that the Expeditionary Force had just proposed a plan about mermaids driving starships. Could it be that this was actually a talented mermaid, a gimmick created by the Expeditionary Force for their plan?

For a while, there were all kinds of speculations and opinions.

Su Su was worried that he had caused trouble for Yan Bai, so he went to look for him. After receiving Su Su's message, Yan Bai asked him to come to the guild president's office to find him as usual.

"A lot of people have been checking my account recently, saying it's some kind of virtual identity. I hope it didn't cause you any trouble?" Su Su poked his head in a shark doll costume from outside the door.

"No, since I dared to let you participate in the competition, I have naturally made preparations in this regard. The source of these accounts is a technology company. The purchase records are confidential, and they can't find anything further." Yan Bai looked at Su Su and chuckled, but the smile did not reach his eyes: "You should be worried. Virtual accounts are illegal on the platform. Once verified, your qualification for the competition may be revoked."

"That shouldn't happen." Su Su smiled happily when he recalled Qi Hanyi's evaluation of him a few days ago. The other party gave him such a high evaluation, so he shouldn't eliminate him so easily: "I guess they have already checked my identity and would have cancelled it long ago."

Yan Bai only felt that this smile was a bit dazzling. Qi Hanyi and Su Su had colluded with each other long ago, so Su Su naturally didn't have to worry about the military disqualifying him from the competition.

"By the way, I'll give this back to you." Su Su transferred a sum of points to Yan Bai, which was exactly the sum of the points Yan Bai gave him at the beginning and the points needed to buy the Silver Dragon. "I won a lot of prize money in this competition, and I still have a lot left after adding on the money you gave me before. I'm playing in the arena now, and I get a lot of points as rewards every day."

"Why, why are you suddenly so distant with me? We are brothers, it's normal for us to take care of each other. Why are you being so polite to me for a little money? My money is yours." Yan Bai still had the same familiar attitude as before. He joked, "Cousin won the game, so he doesn't want me as his brother anymore?"

"..." Su Su didn't know why he suddenly felt that Yan Bai was a little different from before, but he couldn't tell what was different. Anyway, he just felt a little uncomfortable.

If he had to say it, he felt that Yan Bai was angry, but pretended to be calm. But Su Su couldn't figure it out. Why was he angry?

"I've already transferred it, so you just keep it." Su Su was not good at coaxing people, and he didn't understand what Yan Bai was thinking, so he simply planned to leave.

Just as he stepped out of the room, he suddenly heard someone behind him saying, "Do you remember our agreement? You didn't tell Qi Hanyi that you were playing games, right?"

Su Su realized something and stopped. He thought, no wonder Yan Bai seemed a little weird, maybe he guessed from some clues that Qi Hanyi knew about my playing games and got angry because of his secret.

Actually, this is easy to guess. He and Qi Hanyi can't see each other when they look down, but they can see each other when they look up. It would be strange if they could keep it a secret all the time, right?

Su Su turned around and admitted frankly: "I said it."

"You...you said it?"

Su Su's unconventional behavior once again disrupted Yan Bai's plan. He originally thought that as long as Su Su deceived him once more this time, he would give up, sever the ties between him and her with peace of mind, and use or even harm her by any means necessary.

Yan Bai didn't expect Su Su to confess.

"It's not really me who said it, Qi Hanyi guessed it himself. But I didn't say it was you, and he didn't ask me. He just kept it from me as a condition of exchange." Su Su blurted out everything and apologized to Yan Bai: "I'm sorry, I don't think it's a big deal, and I promised him a secret, so I didn't tell you. Are you angry with me?"

Yan Bai had never thought that things would turn out like this. Su Su did not betray him as he had expected, and even concealed his true intentions with good reasons. For a moment, he did not know how to react.

"Since you want to keep your promise, why bother saying it now?" Yan Bai looked away and said awkwardly.

"Because you seem angry." Su Su's straightforwardness and sincerity always make people unable to resist: "You are good to me, I treat you as a friend, and I don't want you to be angry."

Yan Bai clenched his hands tightly under the table. His eyes felt slightly hot, but a warmth surged in his heart, dispelling the cold suspicion and anger.

Yan Bai pinched the gills of Su Su's shark doll and said timidly, "Next time, don't hide this from me."

"It's up to you." Su Su replied vaguely.

After resolving the conflict between him and Su Su, Yan Bai blamed Qi Hanyi for his resentment. He thought that Su Su was simply deceived by Qi Hanyi's hypocrisy, and did not really betray him and join the human race. Maybe he could still fight for him, and there was no need to do everything to the end as his adoptive father said.

But Qi Hanyi must have had bad intentions in letting Su Su keep him a secret. He might have guessed who I was and even secretly investigated for a while. After all, the time when Su Su first logged in was easy to find out. If we push back in time, it is not difficult to infer that I had come into contact with Su Su at the party at the Mo family.

Yan Bai deliberately said, "Since Qi Hanyi is so smart, doesn't he know that you are the white-scaled shark? I heard that he has been pushing a mermaid-related proposal recently. Combined with your tendency to win the game soon, it's hard not to think that he might want to use the game to push you to that position."

Su Su thought about it and nodded in agreement: "Well, it's possible."

Yan Bai tried to see some anger on Su Su's face, but the shark doll stared back at him with its two cute round eyes, calmly.

Yan Bai couldn't understand: "He clearly guessed that [White-scaled Shark] was you, but he kept it a secret from you. Don't you mind at all?"

Su Su shook his head and said, "What's the big deal? I have been hiding from him that I am a white-scaled shark. It's not necessarily malicious. I just wanted to give him a surprise. Just like I hid it from you, I just didn't want you to worry about me."

"You think too highly of him. He's just a human being..." Yan Bai was a little anxious, like a younger brother who was watching his elder brother being cheated of money and sex but still refused to change.

Su Su interrupted him, not wanting him to continue: "I know you are doing this for my own good, but you seem to have many prejudices against humans."

"I don't think all humans are bad. Why do we have to generalize? The difference between people may be greater than the difference between humans and mermen. Just like the hatred you mentioned in the past, who specifically did the evil things, who gave the orders, who was in command, who was just forced to obey, who was just watching coldly, and who was secretly helping to protect the mermen, can these people also be generalized?"

"But aren't they all human beings? Aren't they all doing this for the benefit of humanity?" Yan Bai brought out Yan San's consistent argument.

Su Su shook his head when he heard this. He felt that this was not what Yan Bai should say: "You can hate someone because of something, but you should not hate a group of people because of something. I think it is stupid to use such a standard to divide hatred. You are obviously very smart, why do you have such thoughts?"

Yan Bai didn't expect that he was the one who wanted to change Su Su's mind, but he was once again speechless. In silence, he couldn't help but feel a little confused. Why did he feel at a loss for words? Was it because he was wrong? Was the hatred that his adoptive father had taught him all along and supported him for so many years wrong?

No, Yan Bai didn't allow himself to think like that. It was sinful, a blasphemy against the suffering of the dead mermaid.

He said: "I always feel that you still think too highly of humans. Maybe Qi Hanyi is good to you, but you have to know that he is still a human being. Like all humans, they watch the suffering of mermaids with cold eyes. It has been like this since ancient times."

"If you don't believe it, you can go to a place called the Mermaid Training Center. There are many such institutions in the imperial capital. You can go there and see what kind of torture the mermaids there are going through. That is not history or the past, but what is happening in reality. It is the suffering that our fellow mermaids are experiencing."

"Qi Hanyi can protect you now, but have you ever thought about what your future will be like if one day he can no longer protect you?"

Su Su had indeed not thought about it. Sharks never worry about tomorrow.

Besides, he didn't think Qi Hanyi was hypocritical, and he didn't even care whether Qi Hanyi was kind or not. Qi Hanyi did his own thing very well and was very good to himself. What did the fate of other mermaids have to do with him, Su Su.

Sharks are not kind and righteous little angels. In nature, they have seen much crueler things than what they saw here. They fight to the death for a bite of food, and even cannibalize each other. At that time, let alone mermaids, they even envied the sea turtles raised in human fish tanks.