Chapter 38#

The Innocent and Naive Fool#

The story, as the Queen told it, was not particularly pleasant.

Lin Xiaodong listened calmly and finally understood the purpose of Lu Xing’s series of actions—he wanted to drag the entire upper class of the empire down with him as a funeral offering for his deceased beloved.

But was he worthy?

The Queen said to him, “Little one, don’t be fooled by the palace’s magnificence; both the people and the affairs within have rotted to the core. Tonight at 6:30 is the final deadline. I can probably win you about half an hour before the King comes for you. Take this chance and leave here quickly.”

The little merman looked at her with a gaze both sorrowful and sympathetic: “And what about you?”

“Me?” The woman gave a faint smile. “At this point, what do I have to be afraid of? Lu Shengzun used underhanded means to force my fiancé to confess and break our engagement, then locked me in the harem for decades. My only flesh and blood is practically carved from the same mold as him… Tell me, what meaning is there left in my life?”

“Living doesn’t need any meaning in the first place,” the little merman said. “As long as you’re alive, good things will always happen. Like when I used to scavenge for trash—sometimes it would be nothing but rotten apples for days, but sometimes I’d find a fresh can of meat!”

The Queen stared blankly at the serious expression on his face and suddenly burst into laughter.

She probably hadn’t laughed this happily in a long time, even laughing to the point of tears. Lin Xiaodong looked at her curved eyes and, though there were fine lines at the corners, sincerely thought she must have been a great beauty in her youth.

The little merman voluntarily withdrew his shield and reached out to gently hug her.

“Your Majesty, you look so beautiful when you smile.”

Feeling the long-lost warmth of an embrace, the Queen’s eyes slowly moistened. She blinked hard, but couldn’t control it; her nose stung, and tears fell.

“You’re a good child,” she choked out, pulling the little merman into her arms.

“So, go… go far away, and never come back!”

“Ding, Good Person Card +1.”

“I can open a character biography now,” the System said. “Are you sure you want to choose Lu Xing?”

Lin Xiaodong nodded.

“But the Queen already told you the truth. Isn’t it a bit of a waste to use this chance on Lu Xing?” the System asked, puzzled. “Although you’ve collected two and a half Good Person Cards in this world, there’s no sign of the remaining two and a half yet.”

“That’s why I need to see Lu Xing’s memories,” Lin Xiaodong said. “The Queen is royalty, yes, but she’s clearly not on the same side as the old King or Lu Xing. Living in the harem for so long, her understanding of outside news isn’t comprehensive. You have to understand that a person like Lu Xing would never tell his entire plan to anyone, even his own mother.”

The System felt he had a point.

“Opening ‘Lu Xing’s’ Character Biography…”

The earliest memory was a burning flight pod.

Thick smoke filled the cabin. The violent impact of entering the atmosphere had turned the world upside down. When things finally settled, a lever had pierced through his leg, displacing the bone and shattering the joint. Even the slightest movement caused incessant bleeding, and the pain stimulated his brain’s nerves every second.

Lu Xing closed his eyes.

Seeing that he couldn’t save himself, he simply relaxed his body and lay quietly in the cabin, waiting for death.

In this life, although he was the Crown Prince—above ten thousand and second only to one—he hadn’t felt any sense of actually being “alive.” He lived numbly day by day, associating with the so-called “high society” that was polished on the outside but rotten within, never feeling anything new.

Even on the verge of death, his heart remained as calm as stagnant water.

How boring, he thought.

Until the door of the flight pod was pried open from the outside. The sudden bright light made Lu Xing subconsciously squint as he struggled to look up.

The moment he saw the newcomer, the heart in his chest, which had seemed dead, suddenly gave a sharp thud.

“Are you okay?”

A young merman looked at him with concern, asking in a voice that sounded like a song.

A merman had saved him.

It was like something out of a fairy tale, but after the initial heartbeat, Lu Xing quickly regained his reason.

Since there was hope for survival, there was no need to rush to his death. Thus, Lu Xing used his extensive social experience and humorous eloquence to touch the merman, convincing him to lead Lu Xing into the mermen’s sanctuary.

The moment he saw Lake Garan, he was indeed awestruck.

The vast expanse of the lake mirrored the azure sky like a glass. The transparent water felt like air, and wisps of white clouds floated on the surface. Within sight, hundreds of mermen of different colors and various beauties frolicked in the lake. It was as if they lived in a fairyland completely different from the human world. Their smiles were bright and sunny, and their hearts were as clean and clear as the lake water, untainted by a speck of dust.

They were somewhat wary of him, but Noah—the name Lu Xing gave him—convinced his companions to accept him and devoted himself to healing Lu Xing’s wounds and illness.

He began to think that if his future Crown Princess were a smile-loving merman, it actually wouldn’t be bad.

Thousands of mermen sang in unison at night, their voices like celestial music.

As a human, Lu Xing had the honor of hearing it once.

He had to admit it was stunning—a level of beauty unforgettable in a lifetime.

The Imperial Guard’s starship found him. Lu Xing looked at the greed in the eyes of the nobles; while being polite on the surface, he couldn’t help but sneer inwardly.

After consuming the scales, Noah was now able to talk to him normally. But the young merman didn’t dare tell his companions, so Lu Xing heard many doubts about himself. The elderly mermen were all warning Noah to stay away from him, saying humans would bring disaster.

Fortunately, Noah trusted him deeply and truly believed he was a very gentle human.

Lu Xing had no positive feelings for any mermen other than Noah. Seeing Lu Xing acquiesce to the nobles’ deceptive behavior, Noah thought these people were Lu Xing’s friends. He, in turn, persuaded his companions not to be nervous—that visiting other planets to broaden their horizons wasn’t a bad thing, and if they were unhappy, they could just have the humans send them home.

Regrettably, his friends probably would never return.

On the way to the Central Star, Noah accidentally discovered a copy of The Little Prince. He loved the book so much he read it over and over again, making Lu Xing read it to him every night before bed.

Lu Xing wasn’t interested in fairy tales.

Especially after reading it three or four times, he could practically recite the story from memory.

But looking at the young merman lying beside him, his big eyes sparkling as he watched him, Lu Xing sighed and dutifully opened the book, reading softly in the warm light:

“There might be five thousand flowers in the world that look exactly like you, but you are my one and only unique rose…”

That night, the idea of building a rose garden for Noah took root in Lu Xing’s mind.

He prepared secretly for a long time—from site selection and planning to the varieties of roses, to the secret castle belonging only to the two of them. Lu Xing did everything personally.

He wanted to give Noah a surprise, so he also learned sculpture.

Because Lu Xing felt that except for himself, no one in the world could capture Noah’s beauty.

He made the sculpture into a fountain and placed it in the center of the rose garden.

The fountain was originally finished, but one day, Lu Xing looked at the shallow water for a minute and called people to dig the pool several times deeper. The workers couldn’t understand—a perfectly good fountain turned into a swimming pool?

But Noah loved this fountain-pool very much.

Looking at the happy smile on the young merman’s face, Lu Xing felt everything was worth it.

But there were always blind people who came to disturb their lives. At a banquet, his dear Imperial Father lost face because he couldn’t get a merman to sing, and ordered all the mermen to be executed on the spot.

Lu Xing had a bit of a headache; how would he explain this to Noah?

Fortunately, the King eventually changed his mind and adopted a “soft” policy. He asked Lu Xing to persuade the mermen to sing for the nobles. But when the mermen saw him, they only stared at him with eyes full of hatred. No matter how much Lu Xing used gentle persuasion or threats, they remained completely unmoved.

“Lu Xing, you will regret this,” the eldest merman said to him when he finally gave up and snorted coldly, preparing to leave. “You can fool Noah for a while, but you can’t fool him forever. He will find out your true colors one day and leave you completely.”

Lu Xing stopped in his tracks.

The young man turned his head, and the gentle smile on his face vanished instantly. He glared at the merman with a sinister gaze, but the other party showed no fear, meeting his eyes candidly.

“You should worry about your own situation first,” he hooked his lips into a smile to hide the anger and panic in his heart. “Unless there’s an accident, this is probably the last time we’ll meet.”

“Farewell, everyone.”

But until he walked out that door, not a single one of the hundreds of mermen behind him opened their mouth to beg for mercy.

After returning from the palace, Lu Xing’s life returned to peace.

The rose garden’s flowering season arrived. Looking down from the highest point of the castle, the view was a sea of fiery red.

He started getting up early. Every morning after washing up, he would go to the garden to pick the freshest rose and place it by the sleeping young merman’s pillow.

This way, when the first light of dawn shone into the castle and Noah opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was always the most beautiful rose among the tens of thousands.

“Why are you so good to me?” Noah often asked him.

Lu Xing would always answer with a smile: “Because I love you.”

Like the Little Prince in the fairy tale, he had fallen in love with a unique flower among the billions of stars.

At this time, he was immersed in happiness, forgetting that reality is not a fairy tale.

The Little Prince would grow up sooner or later, and his cherished rose would eventually wither and fade.

But he didn’t expect this day to come so quickly.

That day, Lu Xing sat by the bedside, clutching the young merman’s hand, watching as his beloved slowly stopped breathing.

Noah did not forgive him even in death.

Since learning the truth, the smile-loving merman had never shown Lu Xing a smile again. But now, his face bore a faint smile, as if he had finally found relief from endless guilt.

The young man’s hand trembled as he reached out to wipe away the tear sliding from the corner of the merman’s eye, and the words that merman had said to him echoed in his mind again.

He was wrong—terribly wrong.

From then on, only one thing remained in Lu Xing’s life:

Revenge.

He worked day and night to devise a plan, planting his own people around the old King and perfectly navigating between the different classes of nobles. Simultaneously, he worked hard to gain the support of the lower classes, using anyone he could and any means necessary to achieve his goal.

Having lost his beloved, the current Lu Xing had no qualms.

Especially when he heard that Lieutenant General Gu, who had been missing for many days, had finally been found and had brought a merman back to the Central Star, Lu Xing’s first reaction was that he could take this opportunity to sow discord in the already intense conflict between the military and the imperial family.

A preliminary plan formed in his mind. Lu Xing met with the King and used the temptation of the last merman in the world and exclusive power to get him to agree to send Gu Xi out to war. Then, he took the Imperial Guard to the military, making Gu Xi mistakenly believe it was the King’s own idea.

The only surprise was when he saw Lin Xiaodong.

The other had a baby face very similar to Noah’s. Especially when he looked into the little merman’s clear, transparent eyes, Lu Xing felt as if he had returned to the day they first met.

Except this time, the merman’s object of dependence was no longer him.

It was another strange man.

Lu Xing’s gaze fell on Gu Xi’s face. Noticing the look, the man frowned and blocked the little merman behind him. This made Lu Xing uncontrollably think of his past self and Noah.

The two in front of him were practically a mirror image of them back then.

A twisted sense of hatred suddenly surged in his heart—hatred for the little merman’s unreserved trust, for the tacit understanding and affection between them, and for the true love he once possessed but which had now become a fleeting dream.

Lu Xing wanted Gu Xi to taste the bitterness of losing a beloved too.

So, he tricked the little merman into the Rose Manor and put the rose earring that once belonged to Noah on him, listening to the voice of his deceased beloved echoing in his ear again, creating a self-deceptive illusion that he was still by his side.

But Lin Xiaodong was not Noah after all.

The little merman was lively and clever. Although he was foolish most of the time—having the common trait of mermen’s kindness and innocence—in some aspects, he was much more mature than Noah, who had been pampered and protected by elders. After managing to find out about the little merman’s past life of scavenging for trash, Lu Xing had to admit he could no longer see them as the same person.

Soft yet resilient—that was the image of the little merman in his mind.

In the process, he was horrified to find his heart beginning to be moved by Lin Xiaodong. Even in the dead of night when he closed his eyes, the first thing to emerge in his mind was no longer Noah’s tears, but the little merman’s bright and radiant smile.

Lu Xing had to re-examine Lin Xiaodong’s existence. He intentionally reduced his visits to the castle and accelerated the progress of his plan. This was shown, on one hand, by secretly ordering the Imperial Guard to cut off communication between Sagittarius and the Central Star, suppressing all distress calls from the fleet where Gu Xi was located; and on the other hand, by heavily promoting the “last merman in the world” on the star network, attracting the entire upper class of the empire to gather at a banquet.

As early as half a month ago, he had proactively made close contact with a host parasitized by a brainworm.

Using his own body was the only way to bring the brainworm into the palace. Lu Xing knew exactly what the consequences would be, but he felt no fear in his heart—even a sense of relief, as if a burden had been lifted.

Because after the nobles were all parasitized by brainworms, his next plan would only be even crazier…

Lin Xiaodong suddenly opened his eyes.

“Leave quickly, Lu Shengzun came early!” the Queen said urgently, shaking him awake.

As she spoke, the old King’s hoarse voice came from the door: “Where’s the merman? I want the merman! Fast!”

Under the subtle influence of the brainworm, his mind had become fragile to the point of exploding with rage at any moment. In the short two days he had been waiting, four attendants had already provoked him over minor matters and been beaten half to death.

Looking at the Queen’s extremely anxious expression, the little merman simply shook his head.

“I’ll be fine,” he patted the woman’s hand reassuringly. “Because…”

Bang!

A gunshot.

After a brief silence, the old King’s tragic wails rang out in the open space before the bedchamber.