Translate by Hua
When they returned to the palace, the Mermaid Center, which had been contacted in advance, had sent several people with a complete set of equipment to wait at the hatch of the starship.
The huge ship had just stabilized, and before the hatch was fully opened, a few medics who were anxious after receiving the news had already set up a stretcher and made a move to rush in, causing Ji Mingjiang, who stayed in the cockpit, to twitch the corners of his mouth.
When the cabin door was completely opened and the long ladder to the ground was lowered, several people in white coats rushed up in a hurry. Vincent, who had come to the door to meet them, was knocked back half a step by a couple of men who looked to be a good deal thinner than he was.
“Where’s the mermaid?!”
“Where is His Highness? Where is Cub Jiang? What’s wrong with him? What’s the injury? Is it serious???”
“If he was fine during the live broadcast this morning, how did it suddenly get so bad that he needed a treatment cabin? Did he fall while skiing?”
After noticing Vincent guarding the door, the few people who glanced around and didn’t see Ji Mingjiang became even more anxious. They grabbed Vincent, who was about to show them the way, and swarmed around him, asking a series of rapid questions.
Vincent, who had always felt that he had adapted well to this kind of scene, was at a loss for a moment. The sunglasses slowly slid down from his eyes, and his flexible prosthetic eyes almost popped out.
“Wait, wait, wait! Stop!” After pulling his torn and wrinkled sleeves out of these people’s hands, Vincent raised his arms and shouted to stop these people.
Then he attempted to recall these people’s sanity with doubts in his heart: “What are you talking about?! Ji Mingjiang is doing very well. Who told you that something happened to him?”
“Ah?” The anxious doctors were stunned for a moment. “Director Oddo told us that His Majesty sent him a message saying that the mermaid is in critical condition and needs help…”
Several people were silent for a moment. “So, it’s not Ji Mingjiang?”
“Huh?” Ji Mingjiang, who had just walked out of the cabin, heard his name and made a confused voice from deep in his nose. Then he looked at the surrounded Vincent Lurleena and asked, “What’s the matter? Was someone calling me just now? Vincent, why haven’t you taken them to the bathroom yet?”
“Ah…so the mermaid in need of rescue is in the bathroom.”
An old man with a white beard who was holding on to the hem of Vincent’s clothes just now looked at the confused Ji Mingjiang and said it dryly.
Hearing this, Vincent twitched the corner of his mouth.
Although the mermaid center does care about the lives and health of the mermaids, why are they losing their cool when they hear that a mermaid from the Federation was injured? It turned out that there was a problem with information transmission that made these people think something happened to Ji Mingjiang.
“Where is the bathroom? Let’s go there quickly; let’s go; let’s go!”
After seeing Clarice walk out right after Ji Mingjiang with the same doubt on his face, the crowd, who had already put down half of their hearts after seeing Ji Mingjiang walk out unharmed, became even more relieved.
Remembering what they had just done and fearing that Vincent, a seemingly unscrupulous youngster, would say something to make fun of them, several people pushed and pulled Vincent, who was watching the show, and surrounded him toward the bathroom.
“??”
Vincent, who was pushed forward by a group of people again, doubted himself for the first time. Was it because he hadn’t exercised for so long that a few old men and skinny people
were able to push him?
“Eh? Wrong, wrong! This is not the bathroom; that is the public kitchen area!”
“That’s not right! That’s the supply area!”
“Stop pushing me! I’ll take you there!”
“Oh, young man, why are your legs and feet not as sharp as us old men? Come on, come on, lead the way.”
“…”
The noisy sounds gradually faded away. After a few minutes of silence, a few vague exclamations and curses came from the bathroom at the end, followed by the clanking sound of stretchers and other equipment being put down.
“Let’s go down first.”
After that, he never heard any more movement. Guessing that those people should be able to handle it, Ji Mingjiang said to Clarice.
He had just turned his head when he saw Rowlett waiting outside and wondered if he had something to tell them.
Previously, he had been staying on Capital Star and didn’t feel anything special when there was no comparison. However, after returning to Capital Star from B437, although it was also the season of howling cold winds, he could clearly feel the temperature rising.
Ji Mingjiang took off the thick coat he was still wearing when he walked down the starship ladder. Rowlett, who came up to meet him, saw him wearing only a sweater and gave him a disapproving look. He stroked his beard under Ji Mingjinag’s flattering smile, but said nothing in the end.
After all, Clarice, who followed behind, was only wearing a shirt and a windbreaker.
Young people relied on their good physique to be willful.
Rowlett reached out and touched the padded, double-warmed jacket he was wearing and shook his head, turning to other topics.
“His Royal Highness Kiro has been at the Mermaid Center for the past two days, getting familiar with the environment there. It’s not time for him to get off work yet, but I have sent messages to both him and Oddo. They should be back together soon.”
Leiden nodded and instructed the guards to take the people from the mermaid center to the place where the treatment cabin was placed after they came out. Then he walked forward and said, “Tell them to go to the study when they’re done. We’ll go over there first to take care of the paperwork from the past two days before they come over.”
……
“”These are the matters to be dealt with in the next two days; nothing particularly urgent; just make sure you remember them.”
“Here are the documents that need to be signed. I have already read them. There are also some minor details involving arrangements for next year, so it’ll be good to take care of them before the New Year.”
The temperature in the study room was just right, and Ji Mingjiang had already changed his velvet sweater into the same shirt as Clarice. Rowlett, who was stacking documents on the table next to him, shook his head again.
Two days are neither long nor short. When the New Year is approaching, some particularly important things will not happen, but there will be no shortage of requests for instructions on various trivial arrangements.
For a time, the only sounds in the study were the sound of Clarice flipping through review documents and the slight sound of Ji Mingjiang drinking tea and tapping on his light brain.
Ji Mingjiang is searching the Star Network for news related to the Federation.
It’s unknown when the mermaid will wake up. To put it mildly, it was still unknown whether he could wake up. They couldn’t place all their hopes on a mermaid.
Although the Empire and the Federation can be described as having the same potential as water and fire, the Star Networks on both sides are still on the same page. They will add a cover or strengthen censorship when it comes to sensitive information and speech.
For example, making irritating remarks under the other country’s primary Beastmen-related content will definitely be discovered and deleted by the high-intensity patrol auditors.
So when Ji Mingjiang searched for “Federation” for a long time without finding any relevant news, he realized that the trouble behind this mermaid might not be small.
However, there is no official news, and there are many complaints from ordinary people.
In just less than ten minutes, Ji Mingjiang had already seen no less than a few dozen people whose positions were displayed in the Federation complaining about the sudden territory-wide blockade, and many of them who seemed to know the inside story spoke vaguely about it.
“The Big Bang: I’m speechless. What on earth is Abbot Wilson doing? It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and you’re giving me an all-out blockade??? My f*cking home is in the center of the planet in the remote tourist star, and I can’t go back now. Are you all right, are you all right, are you all right, are you all right???”
“Work is bullshit: the whole country’s lockdown is good, ah! I can’t go back from a business trip, and my boss still has to hold his nose and reimburse me for hotel expenses and meals, so it’s great to travel at public expense!”
“…”
“Give me a mermaid to try something new: I know some inside information. It has something to do with the dissatisfaction and complaints made by several big bosses at Central Star last night. The blockade will not be lifted for a while. I can’t go into specific details. If you want to know, send me a private message with a price and add my phone number.”
After seeing the content posted by the last person, Ji Mingjiang’s eyes lingered on their ID for a moment. He frowned and clicked into this person’s StarNet account page.
As he expected, it was filled with some unsightly photos and videos featuring mermaids. Key parts of the photo were mosaic, and only one section of the video was shown. Some gory scenes were also mosaiced.
The captions are all similar to the last sentence of his Starnet post just now: “High-definition, uncensored videos and photos are sold in packages. DM me for a fixed price.”
There are a lot of comments and likes below. Most of them are amazed at this person’s skill in obtaining these videos and photos, and some are curious about this person’s real identity, but they have never received a reply.
There were only a few comments complaining about the injustice to the mermaids and saying that they needed to contact rescue agencies, and some even attracted ridicule and mockery from everyone in the comment area, which made Ji Mingjiang frown.
“What’s with the hard look on your face?”
Clarice had stopped reviewing documents at some point and was looking at him with concern.
“It’s nothing.” Ji Mingjiang shook his head, casually clicked the report button, and then exited the person’s account space. He entered the names of several Federation politicians and businessmen in the search box to see if he could find anything.
Because there were too many people being searched and their activities were also very frequent, the relevant reports that popped up couldn’t be finished at one time. Ji Mingjiang closed these official reports and then clicked on the homepages of these people’s accounts one by one.
During the check, Ji Mingjiang asked strangely, “The Federation policy towards mermaids is very different from ours? I just saw a Federation account and posted some…”
After organizing a moment of speech, Ji Mingjiang said euphemistically, “If it’s the Empire, some of these contents would have been identified overnight and finally turned over to law enforcement agencies.”
Leiden was a little confused at first. After seeing Ji Mingjiang’s face and noticing that he emphasized the Federation, he came to his senses.
Immediately, he also frowned. “You can just report that kind of account directly to our Network Supervision Bureau. The Federation really doesn’t care.”
In Ji Mingjiang’s puzzled eyes, Leiden sighed and said, “The mermaids in the Federation are directly managed by the government. In addition, they have always been slaves to money. Only those with money and power can have access to primary beastmen like mermaids. Moreover, this kind of explicit distribution will be regularly visited by people who aren’t easy to mess with, so there are also unregulated underground auction houses, and mermaids are the most popular species among them. Abbot Wilson is well aware, but he won’t pursue it.”
In those battles in the early years, when the Federation army was beaten by them and retreated in panic, many mermaids who were regarded as military supplies were left on the battlefield, with various scars and marks densely overlapping. At that time, the soldiers who brought them back were heartbroken.
Ji Mingjiang was silent for a long time after hearing this. He frowned in disgust and then said, “I just saw the Federation people complaining about their nationwide blockade. Some people said it was related to the underground auction last night. So, that’s a mermaid who ran away from the auction house?”
Leiden nodded and then shook his head. “It’s probably true that he ran away from the auction house, but there must be other reasons why his tail became like that. The auction house won’t harm mermaids, or else they won’t fetch a good price. And just losing a mermaid from the auction house won’t make Abbot Wilson act in such great fanfare.”
Who knows what other dirty things those money-grubbing maniacs have gotten up to?
