The child likes it

The merman politely declined his invitation to the restroom.

He patiently explained that it wasn’t because he didn’t want to, but rather it was a matter of hygiene as airborne bacteria could make people sick.

Bai Ling scoffed. “You weren’t so particular before.”

The merman raised a hand, asked the waiter for a cup of black tea, then turned his gaze and softly  asked, “When was ‘before’?”

Bai Ling almost said, In my past life, when I dragged you to that rundown shack reeking of mold to fool around.

But he glanced at the other and wasn’t sure if the merman knew about his regression. After all, he had met Mr. D at fifteen, signed the guardian agreement at seventeen, and by then, they were practically strangers.

As his former guardian, it made sense that the merman would feel guilt toward him.

After weighing it over, Bai Ling decided to hold off on bringing up his regression for now.

He himself hadn’t yet figured out the reasons behind it. He was also afraid it was nothing but a fleeting dream—if he broke the spell, this merman might turn into bubbles and vanish along with this world.

He couldn’t bear such a heavy consequence.

Whether this was real or just a dream in his final moments, Bai Ling resolved to stay and start anew.

He thought back and casually said, “Before… when you pinned me against the bathroom tiles and forcibly did an ‘examination.’”

As he spoke, his lips twisted, recalling the sight of Yu Chen pulling out his index finger and slowly licking away the residue.

Old bastard!

Yu Chen was unfazed. He lifted the delicate teacup, his breath rippling the crimson surface. “Ah, that time.”

Bai Ling’s fist pressed against the table. “Exactly. You ate all those bacteria.”

The merman said with graceful composure, “It’s fine. You’ve eaten plenty of my bacteria too.”

Eat bacteria… Bai Ling’s heart jolted. Did the other know he had swallowed his…?

He rolled his Adam’s apple, keeping his face blank as he denied it. “Nothing of the sort.”

The merman’s long fingers pinched the small silver spoon and stirred the tea, taking a light sip as if tasting something exquisite.

“And yet I get fresh bird’s nest every day.”

Bird’s nest?

Bai Ling was confused. Bird’s nest was made from swiftlet saliva—bird spit. Bird… spit…

His face instantly flushed, his heart racing as he recalled an old rumor. It was said that couples who lived together long enough began to resemble each other because frequent kissing exchanged bacteria, influencing each other’s personalities and habits.

Bai Ling didn’t know what wire had crossed in his brain as he blurted, “Is it good?”

Yu Chen slightly tilted his head, making so his dark green pupils reflected the light, and softly replied, “Very moisturizing.”

Looking at the bird again, he had already buried his burning face so deep that the tips of his bangs were dipping into the black tea.

After settling the bill, the owner cheerfully handed over a handful of mint almond candies.

Yu Chen shifted the candies into the bird’s pocket, but unexpectedly, his fingers brushed against something thin. The bird’s body tensed slightly before he looked up at the ceiling with an air of feigned innocence, trying to mask his guilt.

Yu Chen gave a helpless smile and said to the owner, “I passed by the hallway earlier and saw a photograph with me in it. Would it be convenient to sell it to me?”

The owner warmly said, “Those were just some fun pictures my grandfather and uncle took back when they were running the shop. Plenty of regulars have taken photos over the years. Which one would you like? I’ll just take it down and give it to you.”

Yu Chen pinched the photo between his two fingers and pulled it out of Bai Ling’s pocket.

The owner leaned over the counter to look. “This one… It only shows your profile. Are you sure?”

“Yes. The child likes it.”

As soon as Yu Chen finished speaking, he felt slender fingers poke into his palm, rubbing against it like a puppy begging for attention.

He closed his hand in an instant, catching that finger like a bird beneath a net.

Bai Ling flinched with trembling his shoulders, and he mouthed back with a pout:

Let go, child…

Yu Chen’s expression was casual, but his grip tightened.

“But in our shop, there is a condition for taking photos,” the owner said with a grin, bending down to pull out an old camera from behind the counter. “We need to take a new one to add.”

Ten minutes later, they walked along the wet cobblestone path.

Bai Ling touched his pocket, which held two negatives against his body. Two because the merman had bought a copy of the new photo from the owner and tucked it in alongside the first.

Lao Yi and Xiao Yi are both yours now.

That’s what the merman had said, so gently.

Bai Ling repeated the words in his heart several times as a warmth bloomed in his chest. A gust of cold wind swept through, ruffling his lashes. The merman’s black cashmere coat opened and wrapped around him, pulling him into a burning embrace.

Ah… so comfortable.

Bai Ling shrank his shoulders, pressing his cheek against the other’s lapel, truly like a fledgling taking shelter beneath its parent’s wing, sinking into Yu Chen’s embrace.

True power is not desire, but control.

He spoils you like a child, not because he thinks less of you, but because he has the power to do so, and so he does.

Bai Ling found it hard to resist such indulgence.

People knew nothing of Izu Paraiso. Bai Ling had once been among them. But as he spent day after day with this man, he began to realize that the other, like him, was a tangle of contradictions.

No one would ever imagine Izu Paraiso in a humble rib shop in a working-class district.

Not that he couldn’t, but… it just didn’t fit the iron-blooded, majestic image of the old emperor.

Yu Chen noticed his dazed expression and plainly said, “It seems a little question has formed in your mind.”

“No… I just didn’t expect you to eat at places like this.” And enough to become a regular.

The cold wind died down. Yu Chen naturally reached out to adjust Bai Ling’s scarf, making sure his ears were tucked inside, safe from the chill.

“Before, I often came here to look around.”

Bai Ling’s eyes widened slightly. He knew that “before” meant when the Old Empire still existed.

“I walked these streets, checking if the number of customers had dropped, if people could still afford meat. I suppose you know that the Empire imported tens of thousands of shiploads of chilled meat from the Federation every year. I had to make sure the prices I negotiated in the Interstellar Alliance hearings weren’t too different from what was actually being sold in the markets.”

Bai Ling looped his arm through his as they walked uphill. “What if there was a big difference?”

Yu Chen’s voice was low and measured. “If the difference was too great, it meant there were rats and termites in my administration. Then I’d have to work harder, root them out as soon as possible, and decide on replacements within a day. At first, I managed fairly well, but over time, they learned to hide.”

The nobles and elites of the ruling class did not welcome a strict, unyielding sovereign.

It’s the same in every dynasty.

When the nobility and elites realized that as long as Izu Paraiso lived, hoarding wealth and abusing power would be met with severe punishment, they secretly banded together, coalescing into a formidable force. They stood against his sovereign, opposing him, isolating him, and obstructing him at every turn.

In comparison, the nobles much preferred a monarch like the tyrant Kaide, with whom they could coexist in cheerful collusion.

Take Gram, for instance.

That swordfish dared to act with such flagrant arrogance, holding semi-public “consort selections” within the legions. Aside from being the tyrant’s childhood friend, it was because his family background was unshakeable—

The Swordfish Duke. The nominal governor of the underwater super-province “Poseidon,” and its true master.

As a child, Bai Ling had briefly studied the history of the Merfolk Dynasty in his textbooks.

Looking at the 400-year span of the Merfolk Dynasty, during the first 273 years, the relationship between the monarchy and the nobility maintained a delicate balance. One could call it each fulfilling their own duties, or simply non-interference.

Geographically, it was difficult for the Merfolk Dynasty to form a unified centralized government.

The territory consisted of twenty-six planets. Aside from the capital planet, most were barren and harsh, requiring lords to take the lead in reclamation and infrastructure development. As a result, these local lords inevitably established deep-rooted power bases. With the addition of noble titles, they gradually became the entrenched aristocracy ruling over their domains.

This situation was very similar to the power structure of medieval European countries on Ancient Earth.

Within the kingdom, dukes and counts held their own fiefs with significant autonomy. They paid taxes in peacetime and supported the monarch in wartime, steadily eroding the nation in a sustainable, slow-motion act of exhaustion.

By the time Yu Chen took over, he glanced at the treasury bill—negative.

He then looked at the dukes standing beneath the throne—each possessed wealth that could rival a nation.

The old dukes smiled at the newly crowned young merman with politeness tinged with unmistakable disdain. Their meaning was explicit—

Little merman, your grandparents could do nothing about us. Be sensible, lie down and take it easy, and we’ll at least preserve your dignity, letting you keep your throne.

Yu Chen knew that under the current circumstances, the Merfolk Dynasty would face financial collapse within twenty years. The central government would declare bankruptcy, and the entire nation would descend into chaos.

He had inherited a complete mess.

As a monarch with substantial personal wealth, he could have played it safe, taking the royal assets and fleeing overseas to live a life of luxury and abundance.

But Yu Chen insisted on revitalizing this stagnant pool.

Thus, “Yu Chen” vanished from public view, getting replaced by the invisible, silent, omnipresent Izu Paraiso. In just fifty years, he forcibly advanced centralized monarchical power, suppressed the lords on various planets, and firmly gripped the very throats through which those rats and termites breathed, holding them tightly in his palm.

From then on, he toiled day and night, never daring to rest for even a day. Because with one misstep, this nation, this great ship, could capsize in his hands.

He had to use everyone, yet could not fully trust anyone.

It sounded absurd, and did not align with people’s fantasies of the role of an interstellar emperor. But beneath the miraculous prosperity of the Old Empire that spanned over a century, there indeed flowed harsh realities: endless corruption to clean up, and the blood of Izu Paraiso.

After listening, Bai Ling was silent for a long time, then quietly asked, “Why did you insist?”

He probably already knew the answer: ideals, the legacy of his forefathers, or a sense of responsibility to save the people.

But Yu Chen softly chuckled, speaking with the measured cadence of someone for whom the past had faded into smoke: “Because I am an extremely arrogant person.”

“When I first ascended the throne, some people secretly predicted I would be a sovereign who’d bring downfall to his kingdom.”

He exhaled slowly, his tone lightening a little. “The Last Emperor, the Fallen Kingdom’s Monarch. Such ugly titles. I didn’t want any of them.”

Bai Ling blankly stared at him, as if through these slightly willful words, he could glimpse the young, spirited merman from a century ago.

Xiao Yi, Xiao Yi… didn’t want to be the Last Emperor, but in the end, he exhausted himself and lost his kingdom.

Once so powerful, yet when faced with the torrent of fate, he was equally vanquished.

Bai Ling’s breath became unsteady. He stepped forward as his bony fingers clenched the front of Yu Chen’s coat enough to make his knuckles white from the force. He lifted his chin and with a gaze fixed intently on Yu Chen, his eyes blazing with a fervent, undefined light, he said:

“You are not a sovereign who lost his kingdom.”

“With me here, you will become the one who restores it.”

Yu Chen looked at this falcon, sharp-clawed, fierce, yet fiercely loyal, and softly sighed. He bent down and wrapped his arms around his trembling body, solemnly promising in a voice as soft as the low hum of a pipe organ:

“Not me. Us.”

The cobblestone path, polished smooth by years of footsteps, reflected a faint gleam after the rain. A gust of cold wind swirled past, lifting a corner of the scarf and scattering the golden strands of hair.

The empire ruled by Izu Paraiso had been called the “Golden Age.”

Above the scarf, the stark white feathers stood unyielding in the wind.

Yu Chen couldn’t help but think—perhaps this decayed, incorrigible nation would usher in a new era—

A Silver Age.

 

---

Night descended. A cold, silver sickle moon rose, hanging low in the ink-blue sky, as if Death had slashed a wound across the heavens and now gazed down upon the land through it.

In the unlit cockpit, Lu Hang was also looking down at the earth.

In truth, anyone capable of piloting a mecha to the edge of the atmosphere found it hard to resist the temptation of overlooking their homeland. Especially after nightfall, when the countless lights of ten thousand homes blazed with brilliance, like liquid gold poured into a dark basin, their glow tracing the contours of the continent bit by bit.

It resembled a leaf.

A full leaf with tiny serrated edges.

Magnified, those regular serrations revealed themselves to be dense clusters of ports. From there, submersible ships could plunge six hundred meters beneath the ocean in an instant, passing calmly through the storm belts to reach the planet’s far side—

The homeland of the oceanic races, the undersea super-metropolis “Poseidon.”

Lu Hang had just returned from there.

The day before, after an extensive search by the secret police, Major General Gram’s remains had finally been recovered.

To call them “remains” was generous. Only a few fragments of skull remained. The black-market doctors had been tight-lipped; no one would reveal where the rest of his organs had gone.

But Lu Hang could guess. Those fresh, young organs had inevitably made their way back to the upper classes, implanted into the body of some obese old noble in need of a new kidney.

After all, in this day and age, only that group could produce such a vast sum of money.

Major General Gram, who had feasted on others, was ultimately devoured by his own kind.

Faced with this outcome, Lu Hang felt neither sorrow nor sympathy, only vexation.

Because their sovereign had, in a sudden whim, insisted on holding a funeral with vice-state-level honors. Unfortunately, Lu Hang’s squad had been chosen as part of the ceremonial guard, playing their instruments and escorting the coffin all the way to Gram’s homeland.

After returning, his deputy was still humming tunefully:

“A suona’s wail, parents’ toil, a boat’s upturned bow, the devil’s smile~ Our dear Major Gram, down to hell he ran, bent and bowed, kicked over by Lao Yi—ow! Who hit my head?”

The deputy clutched the back of his skull with a fierce expression as he turned to settle the score. Seeing Lu Hang, he immediately fell silent.

Lu Hang’s expression was serious. He pointed to the streetlamp above the deputy and mouthed: “There’s surveillance up there.”

The deputy grumbled, “We ate the funeral feast, so what’s wrong with a little rhyme?”

Lu Hang smiled ruefully. “You might want to consider who’s paying your salary.”

The deputy muttered under his breath: “If I ever switch employers, I’m strapping a loudspeaker to a satellite and broadcasting that every single day.”

Many of Gram’s victims still remained in the legions. Not only those persecuted for their looks but also people like the deputy, who came from humble backgrounds and had been maliciously demoted simply for refusing to collude with Gram.

So, the deputy’s hatred for Gram was entirely justified.

Lu Hang, ever so cautious, patted his teammate on the shoulder and reminded him, “In the future, keep such talk to a minimum outside.”

They both knew the reason.

Losing wages was trivial; losing one’s head was serious.

The flight from the undersea city had been long, and the group of young men, barely out of their teens, were ravenous. They clamored for Lu Hang to treat them to a meal.

Lu Hang, well-off himself, didn’t mind the expense and agreed with a smile.

The deputy teased, “You’re spoiling them too much.”

But Lu Hang uncharacteristically paused, and said, “I wasn’t always so indulgent. Someone once asked me to treat them, and I refused.”

“And then?”

“And then… they never flew back.”

They crashed? The deputy’s expression shifted; he opened his mouth to ask more, but Lu Hang waved it off, unwilling to elaborate.

An alpha with a mental stability rate of 98% had a painful past…

The deputy glanced at Lu Hang, who had already returned to his usual composure. He rubbed his chin, thinking:

No stress response. Hard to say if that’s good or bad.

The squad members, who were usually stationed on remote, barren planets for long stretches, had finally returned to the capital. With half a day to rest, they were determined to sample the local specialties.

They had their sights set on one of the “Top Ten Delicacies of the Commoner District”: the rib shop.

Lu Hang parked the mech and led the group of rowdy, wide-eyed young alphas, feeling oddly like an elementary school teacher on a spring field trip.

The terrain here was undulating, with many streets requiring uphill and downhill climbs. They turned into a slightly dark alley, and the dozen or so young men, crowded shoulder to shoulder, quickly filled the narrow space.

Lu Hang brought up the rear, but after only a few steps, the group ground to a halt.

Lu Hang craned his head forward. “What’s wrong?”

One alpha at the front, tall as he was, turned back with an uneasy expression, like a mouse that had just spotted a cat, his face crumpled in distress:

“Captain Lu, I can’t go forward. I’m scared.”

The deputy stepped out from the middle, ready to snap at him. “Scared of what? What’s there to be scared of? You see a ghost or something?”

The alpha shrank back, stammering, “There’s… there’s a really terrifying scent.”

By the instinct of male animals, alphas possessed a subtle radar for one another, capable of sensing each other’s presence from a distance.

In human terms, it was like two dogs, say, a husky and a German shepherd, taking a walk in the neighborhood and baring their teeth at each other from fifty meters away.

The deputy scoffed, “And here you are, always bragging about being an ultra-S-rank solo operative. Now you’re scared just strolling down the street. This is a commoner district, not some wild planet. What monster could you possibly run into? Are you going or not? If not, I’ll kick your—”

His voice cut off abruptly, stuck in his throat.

The deputy instantly felt the presence. It was as if an innate natural enemy had appeared and his DNA screamed at him with survival instinct. He stood frozen, terrified, not daring to move so much as a hair.

He was one of the luckier ones. Some alphas with lower mental stability were already trembling, leaning against the walls to keep from collapsing in disgrace.

“Excuse me.” A low, magnetic, mellow voice.

To Bai Ling’s ears, it was gentle and polite. To these boisterous young alphas, it carried an unmistakable undercurrent of threat.

They were blocking the way.

The group immediately scrambled like startled rabbits, pressing themselves flat against the walls to make enough room.

As the figure passed by, curiosity gnawed at them. They wanted to sneak a glance at this alpha whose presence was so terrifying. But the moment their gazes even brushed against him, their minds filled with white noise interference.

They cursed inwardly. A high-dimensional psychic attack type: a big shot with a built-in scrambler! Panic surged through them; they feared that if they displeased him, he might blow their brains apart with a thought.

And judging by the posture, the way he was shielding a young man in a scarf as they walked, it was probably a guardian protecting their charge.

Eyes fixed straight ahead, they obediently looked elsewhere. Just then, they heard Lu Hang’s voice, laced with hesitation:

“Aren’t you… [Ad Space for Rent]?”

---

Author’s note:

I revised the text a bit. The previous sweet bits will appear elsewhere; they haven’t been deleted.

Other alphas: Why do you have to treat your omega like a baby? Omegas have legs, they can walk by themselves!

Old merman: (arrogant) (haughty) Because I can carry them. And you can’t. (calls AI to come grab them) (sends them to the moon to grow potatoes)

Little bird: (icy expression) (secretly puffing up his tail) (puppy-falcon acting cute)