Chapter 74
If Xia Yi ever had something he couldn’t figure out, he never spoke about it.
At night on the Great Barrier Reef, it was simply dazzling. Moonlight shone on the sea, reflecting many brilliant rays. Constructed by hard corals, there were various cliffs and terrains of strange forms.
Of course, there were also many soft corals, which lacked fixed specific forms and were composed of countless soft cylinders, resembling enlarged bath sponges, leaning to one side along with the sea.
They came in all colors—ivory white was not rare, light blue looked like some kind of vegetable from afar, and most oddly, there was pink. Xia Yi tried pressing down; it felt softer than seaweed, comparable to a mattress.
However, the crevices of soft corals were hiding places for many marine creatures, which were also shuttling inside, searching for smaller shrimp and plankton. When Xia Yi reached in, a bunch of frightened small creatures could leap out.
According to Siren’s words, after dark, a lot of food can be caught.
For example, sea urchins, those fellows who are covered in thorns and dislike sunlight, and—
【There.】
Xia Yi reached out and pulled Siren, suddenly realizing that his emotions were very unusual. Wasn’t it just a matter of waiting half an hour on a coral reef to finally see dinner? (…)
There was no need to be so excited.
But Xia Yi really didn’t notice at first; his subconscious was awful when he kept staring at the red object to find lobsters!
When he realized it was a lobster, the lobster had long since been exposed from the crevices of the coral reef. Xia Yi and Siren were seven or eight meters high above it, and they were just able to see it clearly.
Its body was flat, with the head and chest slightly raised, giving it a large and prominently spiked appearance, like a sword. As it crawled, its tail fin trailed behind, and its two long antennae bent backward majestically, resembling the crowns of Peking Opera warriors. Its eyes protrude like those of a crab, bulging at the end, rotating a full 360 degrees.
However you look at it, it’s definitely a lobster, but the color is quite unusual.
Several pairs of legs beneath its abdomen are a mix of black and white, making it look less like a lobster and more like some kind of dragonfly. Its overall color is yellow-green, and its shell is somewhat translucent, giving it a look akin to amber.
The color was quite unique. Xia Yi silently thought that his knowledge was still stuck on the menu pictures of lobsters raised in hotels, which were expensive and beyond what he had ever eaten. The small lobsters commonly found at street-side stalls during Xia Yi couldn’t compare.
In reality, lobsters come in all sorts of colors, including white, blue, green, and even rainbow-colored.
Siren was sprawled on the soft coral, and flicked Xia Yi’s shin with his tail. Xia Yi didn’t move, maintaining his posture with hands propped under his chin as he watched the lobster, which was about half the length of his forearm. He was surprised and didn’t pay attention to the odd sensation on his shin. Instead, he asked directly:
【Can’t we eat this one?】
【Of course we can.】
Xia Yi hesitated for a moment. It was difficult for him to subtly indicate his hunger.
But soon, he understood why Siren hadn’t moved.
Several lobsters of the same species crawled out one after another from the surrounding coral reef caves. They quickly lined up in a neat queue, with the largest at the front. Over a dozen lobsters crawled forward along the shadows beneath the coral reef, more orderly than kindergarteners lining up—absolutely organized from largest to smallest, with no one in the wrong place.
“Which one do you want to eat?”
Siren asked seriously.
Xia Yi smiled and couldn’t help but chuckle.
His expression left Siren utterly bewildered.
Was it that funny?
No, why was this worth laughing about?
Siren couldn’t understand at all.
But this expression was rare, and Siren couldn’t help but lose focus staring at it. Xia Yi paid no attention; he was watching the lobster queue continue crawling forward.
They marched forward while feasting, with the first lobster cramming its claws full in its mouth, then the second starting to eat. Towards the back, they were left with whatever was picked over.
The smallest one at the end was only as big as a fist. If they took it away, would the lobsters in front even notice?
But the small one was truly pitiful. Its legs were pushed by those in front, and it dared not move. It could only snatch up the leftovers that the front lobsters didn’t want to barely fill its stomach.
At the very front—well, they were just too big, almost half a meter long.
Could they finish eating it?
“The third one is good!”
Xia Yi hadn’t received formal education, but he must have done test papers, and it seemed that timeless classic advice was never out of date (when you really don’t know which answer to choose, choose C).
Siren suddenly snapped out of it, gently stroking Xia Yi’s leg with his fish tail.
Mermaids were very fast. Xia Yi hadn’t even reflexively moved when Siren had darted out again, effortlessly gliding over the lobster queue. He reached out directly, grabbed the third lobster, still struggling to eat small fish, by its chest shell. His sharp nails accurately slipped into the cracks of the shell and quickly lifted it up.
Lobsters can swim, but they usually crawl. Faced with this sudden unexpected attack, they naturally struggled, especially since lobsters were combative. Its body immediately contracted, and its claws struck back violently.
Siren floated upwards at lightning speed, and the sudden change in pressure made the lobster struggle even more intensely. A gap suddenly appeared in the underwater queue, and only the fourth lobster looked up, while the rest were forced to halt.
Soon, all the lobsters understood through their unique antennae contact that they immediately crawled over and formed a circle, tails inward, heads and claws outward, ready to face the enemy.
But following the fourth lobster’s upward gaze, it foolishly only saw the sea surface.
Near the sea surface, Siren suddenly dived down again. Mermaids could chase swordfish at high speeds, so of course, they were terrifying. The sea water was visibly split open, and the current swept the soft corals and seaweed abnormally to both sides.
The lobsters angrily rose from the ground, waving their claws wildly and even head-butting with their long, sharp spines.
But before they could attack, Siren had surfaced again.
After two or three times like this, the lobster was already dizzy and disoriented. When it was finally smashed onto the coral reef next to Xia Yi, its tentacles were drooping, and its legs on its abdomen were spread out motionless.
Lobster shells were very hard, and being pierced by it left a deep wound. But for Siren, it was just a bit of trouble.
Xia Yi looked at the lobster battalion not far below.
“Let’s change places. Those lobsters are already angrily climbing towards the coral reef. Even if they can’t climb up, it’s not good to eat their own kind right in front of them!”
Before Xia Yi could finish, Siren had already taken action. He removed its head, with its spikes and tentacles, and began peeling the shell below the chest. The meat inside was tender and white, with some pale blue liquid oozing out from the cut.
“What’s this?”
【Blood…】
Xia Yi stared blankly for a long while after getting the answer.
It seemed like a science fiction movie he had seen before, or maybe it was based on a sci-fi novel of the same name. It was about an alien that looked identical to humans, the only difference being their white skin and blue blood.
No one had told him that there were creatures on Earth with blue blood, especially creatures with ink-like pale blue blood!
Xia Yi felt the urge to find a pen to see if he could use it as ink.
Wait, didn’t Eurybia have a lot of ink inside its belly?
To eat cooked food, one had to float to the sea surface and use steam to cook with seawater. Xia Yi didn’t have that ability yet, so naturally, he distanced himself from the angry lobsters.
Compared to sea urchins and stonefish, lobster meat was exceptionally tender. Now if you offered Xia Yi oysters, he probably wouldn’t even spare a glance.
It seemed his taste had become quite picky… which wasn’t good at all.
Xia Yi began to worry about what he would do if he was left alone in the future.
The Great Barrier Reef stretched over a vast area of sea. The closer it got to the land, the shallower the water became. They hadn’t reached the islands formed by massive coral reefs, but Xia Yi found the water here too clear. During the day, he could see everything underwater five or six meters deep, which was very dangerous.
Due to the apocalypse, seabirds were rarely seen.
Yet surprisingly, Xia Yi spotted quite a few seagulls flying over the Great Barrier Reef. After coral reefs emerged from the sea surface, coral polyps continued to proliferate, slowly accumulating into islands.
Apart from those recently surfaced ones, others had already oxidized and calcified, covered with a layer of white sand. Over the years, plants had even grown on some, creating sporadic patches of green.
Apart from lacking a soft bed and blanket, there was simply no better, more beautiful enjoyment than this.
Unfortunately, this beautiful tropical sea area was constantly the scene of dangerous and terrifying hunts. He had always imagined fish swimming freely in the ocean… but now he understood that unless they were sea monsters, no one’s life was a leisurely journey.
Xia Yi was lost in thought when suddenly he felt a tug and inexplicably followed a Siren into the sea.
He noticed the Siren seemed to be searching for something, sometimes using its hands to lift up huge seaweed that hung down. It swam towards steep terrain.
But didn’t they just have dinner? Were they looking for a midnight snack?
Due to the shadow cast by the tiger shark earlier, Xia Yi was very cautious when turning corners.
But as luck would have it, when he rounded a coral reef, he suddenly saw a huge moray eel over two meters long. Its entire body was patterned with yellow-brown lines, resembling a tiger shark.
Its eyes looked fierce, and its mouth was even bigger, almost forming a right angle when it opened. If seen head-on, its mouth would probably cover its eyes.
However, the moray eel didn’t rush towards him but continued to keep its mouth open.
There were three or four small fish swimming around its body, and some were even darting in and out of its mouth.
Many fish species lure small fish closer by keeping their mouths open and motionless before swallowing them, but this fellow truly remained still, allowing those seemingly inconspicuous small fish to swim inside its mouth.
The arrival of the Siren surprised this large moray eel. It stared fiercely at Xia Yi until it realized Xia Yi had no intention of swimming closer, then slowly moved its head aside.
At this moment, a group of similar small fish emerged from behind the coral reef and quickly approached Xia Yi.
Upon closer inspection, Xia Yi noticed they looked peculiar with three-lobed lips that resembled rabbits, with only the upper lip being yellow, which amused Xia Yi in an inexplicable way. He remembered seeing photos of Japanese geishas where only the upper lip was painted with lipstick.
These small fish had a black border around their tail fins, which were light blue. Their fins resembled the wings of a small butterfly.
After swimming closer, they circled around the Siren and Xia Yi, concentrating around the scales of the Siren’s tail and fingertips, behaving intimately by directly touching them.
Xia Yi also noticed they were nibbling on calluses on his palm and gently rubbing their small mouths against his body as if gnawing on something, which felt ticklish yet strangely comfortable.
The Siren lightly stroked Xia Yi’s back with its fingertips, signaling him to relax.
“What are they doing?” Xia Yi asked.
“They’re cleaning. Removing food residues, tiny bits of seaweed, and dirt that you can’t reach in the crevices…”
The mermaid squinted with enjoyment. It began to embrace Xia Yi tightly, paying no attention to the menacing leopard-patterned giant moray eel nearby, which also seemed comfortable with its eyes closed, completely unconcerned with its surroundings.
“And what about it?”
Xia Yi inquired.
“Oh, it has parasites on its body.”
Noticing Xia Yi staring at the moray eel’s open mouth, the Siren curiously asked, “Do you need to brush your teeth too?”
“Huh?”
“Isn’t that what humans say?”
“…”
Author’s note:
In this chapter, the moray eel is a leopard-patterned giant moray, very fierce with sharp teeth and records of attacking humans.
