"It's her!?"
The merfolk looked around in surprise and began to whisper among themselves.
"Alright, everyone quiet down." The clan chief's authoritative voice instantly silenced the noise. "Look carefully, this little girl just looks like that human. Perhaps she is a descendant of her."
Upon hearing this, the merfolk snapped out of their panic, but they quickly realized an even more serious problem: "So... this girl was a sacrifice specially chosen by those humans!"
Even the clan chief's expression turned grim: "It should be so. Where is this girl now? Is there any way to track her down? If she dies like this, we'll all likely suffer the backlash."
At this moment, Troye spoke up: "Chief, I have already treated her wounds. She should not die from her injuries. Since she disappeared in my waters, I will take responsibility for this matter. Once I find this human, I will keep a close watch on her to prevent any accidents from happening to her."
The benefits of the merfolk's territorial instincts were on full display at this moment. As expected, the chieftain did not suggest any search, but simply said, "In that case, you should investigate thoroughly on your own today. If you find anything, report it to the other members of the tribe. Check your respective territories to see if this human has fled to other seas in panic."
"yes!"
Seeing that the group of fish were about to disperse, Troye suddenly said, "Chieftain, if we capture this human, what should we do to avoid harming ourselves?"
When she heard about a question closely related to herself, Gu Qingqiu didn't dare to breathe loudly. She strained her ears to listen carefully, afraid of missing any crucial information.
The white-bearded elder beside the clan leader said, "Let's find her first. In my opinion, we should lock her up in Bastow Prison. It's a luxurious prison. We should treat her well and provide her with good food and drink. That would be fair to her. She can do whatever she wants in there, and we can satisfy any reasonable request she makes. I heard that the average lifespan of humans is 42 years now. Maybe she will die naturally after a few years."
The mermaids seemed to have no objection to this solution, so they each flicked their tails and swam away.
Gu Qingqiu used an invisibility and concealment item, the kind that would automatically become ineffective upon contact with a physical object. Therefore, she remained closely connected to an inconspicuous coral throughout the entire process, and now she dared not move at all.
But after the merfolk who had gathered before her had all left, she suddenly realized a fatal problem: given the merfolk's speed, they would probably be back in their respective territories in just a few minutes, while Troyes…
Gu Qingqiu felt a headache coming on as she thought about Troye returning to the stone house and finding herself missing, unable to explain where she had gone.
Regardless, she had no choice but to go back first. Fearing that the other mermaids would discover her whereabouts and send her directly to this so-called luxurious prison, Gu Qingqiu had to spend a lot of money to buy more concealment items. When she returned to the stone house, she did not see Troyes, but her intuition told her that Troyes had already returned.
Sure enough, not long after, she felt a strange ripple in the sea near her. The next second, a figure swooped down towards her.
Troye's expression was icy, with veins bulging on his forehead, as if he was trying his best to hide his anger.
"Where have you been?" A pleasant yet cool voice came from Troye's throat.
Gu Qingqiu was puzzled for a second that she could hear Troyes speaking, but then she immediately remembered that it was because she had used a prop.
Afraid of revealing her true colors, Gu Qingqiu could only rely on her acting skills, feigning a bewildered look of not understanding and being afraid.
Normally, Troye might have found this human endearingly foolish, but now he was filled with lingering fear and worry.
God knows how terrified he was when he returned to the stone house and didn't see anyone. In that instant, he considered almost every worst possibility, such as whether the human had run off somewhere and been captured, or whether she was deliberately trying to take advantage of him to get revenge on the merfolk.
He had just searched his own waters again and again, and his heart sank to the bottom. Fortunately, she somehow returned to the stone house.
"Didn't I tell you I was going out today?" Troye raised his voice involuntarily because he was angry.
"You only said you were going out, you didn't say I had to stay home..." Gu Qingqiu was inexplicably rebellious after being yelled at, and couldn't help but retort.
As soon as the words were spoken, both the human and the mermaid were stunned.
Troye's anger turned into scrutiny: "Do you understand what I'm saying?" Although he couldn't understand what the human was refuting, he could guess the gist of it from the other's expression.
Gu Qingqiu was also a little scared. In order to cover it up, she simply said a lot more in one go: "Don't you have anything to explain to me? You went to such an important meeting today, and it was related to me. What are you going to do with me? Are you going to hand me over to your clan chief? And then lock me up in that Basque prison?"
Troye had been frowning as he listened, but when he heard "Basque Prison," his expression suddenly turned fierce, and he grabbed Gu Qingqiu by the neck: "How do you know about Basque Prison?"
Gu Qingqiu finally understood what it meant to say the more you say, the more mistakes you make, and what it meant to bring trouble upon yourself with your mouth. She felt a wave of suffocation wash over her and couldn't help but try to open her mouth wide to breathe. However, she could usually breathe normally, but today, for some reason, she inhaled a large mouthful of seawater, causing her to choke and cough.
Actually, she mispronounced the name of the prison, but unfortunately, the pronunciation of the word for merfolk seems somewhat similar to that of human language, and her mispronounced version was almost identical.
Troye naturally noticed the regret and fear in Gu Qingqiu's eyes. His eyes were bloodshot, and he gritted his teeth, saying, "So, you've been lying to me all along! You clearly understood what I was saying, but you pretended to be stupid to lower my guard, and you even managed to follow me to the meeting without me noticing. Tell me! How much did you hear!"
Gu Qingqiu didn't speak. She suddenly felt as if all the strength in her body was being drained away. Seawater kept pouring into her nose and mouth, invading her lungs and stomach, making it hard for her to breathe.
At the same time, it seemed as if the surrounding seawater had turned into steel bars weighing a thousand pounds, squeezing Gu Qingqiu's body so hard that she felt as if her internal organs were about to explode.
Troye gradually noticed that something was wrong with the girl in front of him. She not only stopped talking, but also lost the strength to resist. She seemed to be rolling her eyes back, and then blood started seeping from the corners of her eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth.
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