Chapter 52: Eternal Day (16) Cycle
028 was first startled by Wen Yin’s words, and then completely confused after Wen Yin finished telling her dream.
Seeing Wen Yin's eyes fall on the half-face mask on the bedside table, the two fish tails carved in blue and black seemed to have a different meaning at this moment.
[Twins... Could it be that the owner of the boat... is the jet-black mermaid Cangyu!]
028 exclaimed.
[I guess so.]
Wen Yin took off her pajamas, exposing her perfect body to the sunrise over the sea. She looked at herself carefully in front of the mirror to make sure there was no abnormal redness or swelling on her skin.
[Otherwise it would be hard to explain how harmoniously they got along last night.]
Wen Yin changed her clothes and walked towards the bathroom with a normal expression.
She gently opened the frosted glass door, and the misty water vapor and the refreshing fragrance of sea salt hit her face.
Cangli was still soaking quietly in the bathtub, her long sea-blue hair spread out like algae, covering part of her cheeks.
Hearing the noise, he raised his head, and his blue eyes looked over, and instantly switched to the fragile look that Wen Yin was most familiar with, filled with fear and confusion.
It was as if the predator that had aggressively plundered and yet struggled to restrain itself last night had never existed.
There was no sign of abnormality on Wen Yin's face.
After all, according to common sense, she should have been in a coma until now under the influence of the mermaid blood and "know nothing" about what happened afterwards.
She walked to the bathtub, squatted down, and casually stirred the cold water in the bathtub. Her tone was as relaxed as if she was sharing an interesting gossip.
"You may not believe this, but I had a very strange dream last night."
Cangli's tail swayed slightly in the water unconsciously. He raised his face and looked at her with his seemingly pure and innocent blue eyes, playing the role of the purest listener.
"I dreamed I turned into a young mermaid, hmm... a blue one, swimming freely in the ocean."
She observed Cangli's expression, paused, and a hint of self-deprecating smile appeared in her voice.
"Unfortunately, the joy turned to sorrow. The mermaids' home was destroyed, and I was caught in a human net."
"I guess it's because I look at this big blue fish like you every day, and I think about it during the day and dream about it at night?"
The moment he finished speaking, Cangli blinked his long, moist eyelashes.
Wen Yin clearly caught a hint of surprise from it...a surprise that he had not expected.
really……
Wen Yin immediately made a judgment in her mind that Cangli's original intention of feeding her mermaid blood was not to let her obtain fragments of his memories.
But there are other plans.
As for this other...
[Host, it seems that the dream was not intentional.]
028 seemed to have noticed Cangli's surprise.
[Um. ]
Wen Yin was still lightly stirring the water in the bathtub, with no change on her face.
[So how do we determine who is the true source of this strangeness? Or... which target needs to be dealt with first?]
028's voice was filled with confusion.
Wen Yin looked at Cangli, who was still in the bathtub with deep eyes, and raised her head to look at her, and gently uttered something that almost made 028 freeze.
What if both of them... are...
-
Wen Yin didn't stay in the bathroom for too long. She left the room as usual and wandered around the cruise ship.
Yesterday's bad weather finally cleared up, the sun was shining, and the sea was as calm as a mirror.
There were noticeably more tourists on the deck and in the major public areas. People were enjoying the sunny weather after the heavy rain and gathering in groups of three or four to chat.
Some people even exchanged business cards with each other under the cover of masks.
Anyone who can board this ship is either rich or noble. Even if the purpose of this trip is not good, it does not prevent them from taking this opportunity to expand their network.
Wen Yin wandered gracefully among the crowd, and soon she saw the lady with the abnormal skin behind her ear again.
She walked up to him with a smile and after a few pleasantries, her eyes naturally glanced behind his ear.
The dark red raised area seemed to be larger, the cracked texture on the edge was clearer, and one could even vaguely see a subtle, unnatural luster under the skin, similar to the reflection of scales.
"Your condition... seems to be a little more serious?" Wen Yin expressed her concern at the right time.
The lady scratched herself again subconsciously, her brows furrowed, and her tone became even more irritated.
"Yeah, it itches even worse! What the hell!"
A man who was enjoying a cocktail nearby also interrupted after hearing this.
"Come to think of it, I've had a rash on my back these past couple of days. It's itchy and a little stinging. I guess it's because of the high humidity at sea."
Wen Yin's heart moved, and a perfect expression of sympathy appeared on her face.
"The climate at sea is a bit unique. I don't have any skin problems, but I don't know if it's because the mattress is too soft, but I always feel a soreness and numbness in my tailbone, and sometimes a tingling sensation."
After she finished speaking, she carefully observed the reactions of the people around her. The other guests all looked bewildered, and each said they had no similar symptoms.
"Maybe you're just sensitive," the lady said perfunctorily, and her attention returned to the itchy area behind her ear.
Wen Yin smiled and nodded, pretending to be indifferent and changed the subject.
None of them felt the pain in the cracks of their bones, only she did.
Thinking back to the pink-purple mermaid that jumped into the sea yesterday and vaguely became a corpse in the water, and then comparing it to the red, swollen and itchy skin of these guests...
Cangli's blood and the blood of the mermaids that are now being enjoyed by other guests may have completely different effects.
As for the final effect...
Wen Yin recalled the pain she felt in the morning and the words of the boat owner last night, "Take it easy, there's still a long way to go...", and suddenly a surprising idea flashed through her mind.
How can a living human being stay in the deep sea?
Of course... you have to grow a tail.
-
A few more days passed in an eerie calm.
Cangli stayed obediently in the bathtub and did not kiss her or feed her blood in the middle of the night.
The boat owner, or Cangyu, had not been seen for several days.
The sea was calm and the sun was so bright that it almost made people forget the filth and secrets buried deep beneath this magnificent cruise ship.
Wen Yin assigned 028 a task, asking it to keep an eye on the guests who first showed skin abnormalities. However, after a few days, although the red and swollen patches on those people did not disappear, there was no sign of further expansion.
Until one night, Wen Yin was completely sleepless and just curled up on the sofa in the living room of the suite, flipping through an insignificant magazine under the soft reading light. Suddenly, the voice of 028 rang in her mind.
[Host, among the guests you asked me to keep an eye on, one is currently drinking mermaid blood, but she's not in a good state.]
Wen Yin's heart skipped a beat: [028, access point.]
As she finished speaking, her perspective switched to the image shared by 028.
The lights in the room were dim. The lady who was once adorned with jewels was now lying on her back on a luxurious white velvet chaise longue, her expensive silk nightgown disheveled.
028's perspective zoomed in, and Wen Yin discovered that a large area of her skin was dry and dehydrated.
Like cracked land, a strange dark red color can be seen from deep within the cracks.
What was originally just a small red swelling behind the ear has now spread to the neck, cheeks and bare chest.
The red and swollen areas bulged violently, the skin was stretched to be almost transparent, and fine, neatly arranged scales were faintly visible underneath.
Those long legs were twitching and twisting unconsciously, as if they were in great pain.
The skin on the legs was also covered in cracks and was slowly fusing and stretching in an anatomically incorrect way.
She seemed to be in great pain, her consciousness was blurred, and she made a "ho ho" sound in her throat, like a broken bellows.
He scratched his dry and itchy skin frantically with his hands, leaving obvious blood marks.
Next to her chaise longue was a delicate silver instrument.
At one end of the instrument, a sharp needle pierced the wrist of an unconscious mermaid with a dull tail in the water tank next to it, and was extracting the dark red blood drop by drop.
The blood flowed through a thin tube into a tall glass, filling up half a cup.
The lady seemed to be extremely thirsty. She struggled and stretched out her trembling hand to grope for the cup, greedily drinking the remaining mermaid blood in it.
Mermaid blood overflowed from the corner of her mouth and slid across her red and swollen skin, looking extremely hideous.
After drinking it, she did not become satisfied, but more anxious.
“Water…water…”
Wen Yin heard her indistinct mumbling and suddenly rolled off the chaise longue like a fish out of water.
Using his legs that were fusing and deforming, he crawled on the carpet with difficulty and twisted his body, heading towards the huge transparent aquarium in the corner of the room that was originally used to imprison the mermaids.
The water in the aquarium was a little turbid because of the mermaid's previous struggle. The mermaid, from which a large amount of blood had been drained, sank silently to the bottom of the water like a broken doll, and it was impossible to tell whether it was dead or alive.
The mutated lady crawled to the edge of the aquarium, burst out with her last strength, and flipped over!
"Plop!" A muffled sound.
She fell into the icy water.
Miraculously, as soon as she came into contact with the water, the extreme pain and thirst on her face were instantly relieved, replaced by an expression of relief that was almost intoxicated.
And even more horrifying changes began underwater!
Her cracked skin was like land that had been dry for a long time and finally received rain, absorbing moisture crazily.
The cracks quickly closed up, and were replaced by large, moist, smooth, tightly packed green scales that covered her entire body at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Her hair grew wildly as if it had gained life, and the color faded away without any traces of artificial dye, turning into a dark green like deep water, floating in the water like seaweed.
Her twisted and fused legs struggled for a final moment, then suddenly and completely fused, stretched, and thinned, forming a powerful fish tail covered with huge green scales!
The tail fin slowly unfolds in the water like a torn green gauze curtain.
But just a few minutes.
The painfully mutated human lady on the chaise longue disappeared.
In the aquarium, there was a "mermaid" that was extremely frightened and was waving its brand new green fish tail anxiously.
The mermaid that had sunk to the bottom of the water and had been drained of blood and was unconscious, its body also began to change.
Its beautiful scales lost all their luster, turned gray, and began to fall off in large chunks.
Its skin became swollen and pale, its hair dried and fell off, exposing its scalp...
But in the blink of an eye, it degenerated and twisted from a beautiful inhuman creature into a bloated, ugly floating corpse that was clearly a human female.
It floated silently in the murky water, forming a juxtaposition with the newborn cyan mermaid.
One is being born, the other is decaying.
The joke of fate seems so cruel and terrifying at this moment.
The lady madly pursued the blood of the mermaid, longing for the illusory nourishment and eternal youth, but in the end...
But it transformed into the prey she enjoyed.
The mermaid she exploited lost all illusions after death, revealing its plundered human form.
Wen Yin and 028's consciousness, through a shared perspective, saw everything completely and horrifying with incredible clarity.
[Host...Host...]
028's voice rang in Wen Yin's mind, filled with unprecedented shock and horror.
[She…she turned into…a mermaid…]
[And that 'mermaid' whose blood she drank dry... was actually... actually... a human!]
Wen Yin froze on the sofa.
The magazine in his hand fell to the carpet with a dull sound.
She finally understood. This wasn't about "enjoying" a mermaid at all.
It is a cycle of cruel replacement of identity and destiny.
She finally understood why the waiter always looked at her with greedy appetite.
It's not just because of the fatal attraction she carries to the strange creatures, but also because in their eyes, she is not a guest, but... the next batch of "raw materials" waiting to be replaced.
Wen Yin was still immersed in the huge shock of identity replacement when 028's voice sounded again.
[Wait, host! No! Look at that 'mermaid' that has turned into a corpse, her face...]
Wen Yin's perspective changed again.
The image focused on the swollen, ugly face of the female corpse floating in the murky water.
Due to immersion and degeneration, the face was swollen and deformed, and the facial features were distorted, but the general outline and certain indelible features could still be vaguely recognized.
The high arch of the nose bridge, the slightly wide jawline, and the iconic mole on the brow bone, which is now more and more prominent under the swollen skin.
028 quickly mobilized the database and performed a fuzzy comparison of facial features.
Almost instantly, the result came out, accompanied by 028's high-pitched, almost pitch-shifted child's voice:
[Match! Host! A perfect match! She's Qiao Lin, the wife of the famous philanthropist and chairman of the Colin Group!]
028's voice was filled with disbelief, and he continued:
[According to the information collected, Qiao Lin is currently active and even attended a grand dinner yesterday.]
[There's also a somewhat strange news report from last summer.]
[It's said that since returning from a mysterious overseas recuperation, her personality has changed drastically, from being gentle and low-key to being extremely strong, even bordering on ruthless. She has also pushed for several highly controversial business mergers and acquisitions, which caused quite a stir in public opinion at the time!]
The information was like cold fragments, instantly pieced together in Wen Yin's mind.
Now last year.
Returned from overseas recuperation.
A drastic change in temperament.
A terrifying, spine-chilling conjecture emerges!
Wen Yin's voice sounded a little dry.
[028, Could you please check Ms. Qiao Lin's public schedule? Where was she at this time last year?]
028 was silent for a second, apparently conducting a high-speed search.
[…No. Host, I can't find any public records of Qiao Lin taking any long-term overseas treatment last year.]
[But…but those media reports of her ‘dramatic change in personality’ were all so convincing…]
A suffocating silence suddenly enveloped the person and the system.
Then, 028 finally asked the most crucial question.
[If…if the body that died here and returned to its original form is the real Qiao Lin…]
[That……]
[Who is Qiao Lin, the one who was reportedly at the dinner yesterday, alive and well, and whose disposition has changed drastically?]
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