Looking into Troyes's deep, dark blue eyes, Gu Qingqiu felt as if her soul was captivated.
"Do you prefer mermaids or humans?" A probing, seductive question rang in Gu Qingqiu's ears.
She could understand Troyes again, but she replied uncontrollably, "...I like them all."
Troye snorted, seemingly dissatisfied with Gu Qingqiu's balanced response.
Gu Qingqiu also realized that she hadn't actually spoken; it was as if she was answering the other person's question with her brainwaves.
Troye then asked two more trivial questions, seemingly testing whether his "seduction" was effective.
Seeing that Gu Qingqiu answered honestly to all his questions, he finally asked the question he had been wanting to ask the most: "Are you willing to be with me for the rest of your life?"
This problem...
Gu Qingqiu fell silent, and even her confused eyes cleared up for a moment.
But she didn't answer; her lips seemed to be moving constantly, but no sound came out.
Troye stared intently into Gu Qingqiu's eyes, trying to read her thoughts, but he failed.
Failure? Troye was somewhat incredulous. He had always been very confident in his abilities and had never encountered such a situation before. In any case, the humans he had bewitched would provide an answer!
"I love you."
Upon hearing the unexpected answer, Troyes felt as if his soul had been bewitched in reverse.
"...I'll give you two choices: do you choose to return to land and live as a normal human being, or do you choose to stay with me, enjoy the pleasures of immortality, and become the ruler of the ocean?"
Gu Qingqiu answered quickly this time, but still did not answer according to Troye's meaning: "I like being with you, not necessarily for immortality, not necessarily limited to land or sea."
Troye felt the pent-up emotions in his heart raging even more. He gritted his teeth and said, "Land? Forget about it. Let me tell you, you're about to become a mermaid, but you weren't born a mermaid. You still retain the fragile bloodline of humans. If you stay out of the water for too long, you'll feel excruciating pain all over your body, as if your bones are being ripped out. Then you'll become withered and eventually die."
Gu Qingqiu nodded: "I know."
Troye was exasperated and simply flicked his tail fin, turned around, and swam away.
After pausing for three minutes, Gu Qingqiu seemed to finally regain her senses. She looked around but didn't see Troyes. She couldn't help but feel a little flustered, but subconsciously she seemed to vaguely remember Troyes asking her a few questions before leaving.
Was it her answer that displeased Troye?
Gu Qingqiu was somewhat frustrated. She looked up and saw that the people on the cargo ship had already begun to haul in their nets. Before long, these people would return to land with the obviously problematic fish.
There's definitely something wrong with these fish; whether they're sold to people outside the town or supplied to the town's residents, there's a risk of something going wrong.
Gu Qingqiu pursed her lips tightly. She couldn't stop all of this. If the people on the ship saw her, they might think she was a monster and beat her to death on the spot. But she couldn't just sit idly by. What if her parents ate these fish too?
It has to be said that Gu Qingqiu was always concerned about her parents' situation. The way they separated was too outrageous. Her last impression of them was the backs of her parents standing in front of her and their desperate cries.
By the time she realized what was happening, Gu Qingqiu had already started swimming along with the boat.
The cargo ship slowly docked, and the dock was bustling with people, seemingly returning to its former prosperity.
Gu Qingqiu quietly looked at the familiar and unfamiliar faces on land and felt that she was already somewhat out of place.
The cargo ship was unloaded, crates full of fish. The wizard stepped off the ship amidst the cheers and applause of the crowd. Everything seemed to be developing in a direction that Gu Qingqiu could not change.
Gu Qingqiu knew that her power was limited and that she could not change anything.
What are you looking at?
Hearing the voice of System 057, Gu Qingqiu shook her head with a wry smile: "I don't know either, but I just want to be quiet and take a look at these humans."
System 057: [You don't need to do this. Once you leave this world, they'll have nothing to do with you anymore. Shouldn't you focus on your mission?]
“That’s not how it works,” Gu Qingqiu said. “Perhaps I am insignificant to this world, and my existence may even be illusory in essence, but there is also a real side to it, such as the love my parents have for me. If I leave, at least they will be sad and heartbroken.”
System 057: [How do you know your parents are real? What if they're fake? What if they're just NPCs created by the Main God System to make this world seem more real? What if they're just tools to enhance the host's immersion?]
Gu Qingqiu had never heard System 057 ask so many questions in one go. A faint doubt flashed through her mind. She felt that System 057 was not behaving like a system at the moment. She didn't know from what perspective it was questioning her, and she didn't understand why it was inexplicably unhappy, just like Troye who had stormed off in a huff earlier.
"According to you, Troye might also be fake, just a perfect male protagonist created by the God System. If that's the case, he's also a tool created. If I fall in love with him, it means I also accept this world mechanism, and naturally I'll care about everyone in the world. Do you know there's a type of game in the real world called otome games? Even if you know they don't exist in the same dimension, aren't there still many people who like anime characters? Whether it's real or fake, as long as I like it, that's fine."
[...Are you the Virgin Mary? Whatever, whatever makes you happy.]
Gu Qingqiu could detect a hint of gritted teeth and exasperation in the mechanical voice of System 057, which was very strange. But before she could investigate further, she heard a hoarse voice calling her name from the shore.
"Gu Qingqiu——"
Gu Qingqiu was taken aback and tried hard to identify the source of the sound. She was surprised to see a hunched-over, white-haired couple sitting together on the shore.
They are Father and Mother!
Seeing the two of them like this, Gu Qingqiu couldn't help but burst into tears.
She had only been gone for a little over a week, but her parents looked as if they had aged twenty years, resembling an elderly couple. Their faces were etched with pain and exhaustion, and their eyes held a sense of despair.
They were a pitiful couple who had lost their beloved daughter. Even though they knew that their daughter was most likely dead, they still held onto hope and supported each other as they walked to the shore, hoping that a miracle would happen.
Gu Qingqiu couldn't hold back any longer. She kicked her scaly legs and swam a few meters above the water. Just as she was about to surface, she heard a clear, cold voice calling her from behind.
"Qiuqiu".
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