Chapter 46#
The Innocent and Naive Fool#
Lin Xiaodong searched the entire starship until even his tail was sore from rubbing, and finally found Gu Xi in an empty room.
This room was likely originally a storage room, with no fingerprint verification or other locking mechanisms. He placed his hand on the door handle and pushed it open with a light nudge.
A thick smell of smoke wafted towards him.
Gu Xi sat hunched on a cold wooden bed, holding a partially burned cigarette butt in his hand.
The man’s brow was tightly knit, and stray sparks fell at his feet, only to be extinguished in the blink of an eye.
Smoking was not allowed in the military, let alone carrying tobacco privately. This was likely something a soldier had secretly brought aboard and hidden here, only to be discovered by Gu Xi.
“Get out.”
Hearing the sound, he turned to look at the night view outside the porthole and said without looking back.
Lin Xiaodong didn’t listen.
He closed the door behind him and walked over.
Gu Xi’s eyes suppressed anger as he turned abruptly and said: “I told you to—”
His voice cut off abruptly when he saw the little merman silently gazing at him in the darkness.
It was unknown how much time passed until the cigarette butt burned out. Only then did Gu Xi shake off the ashes from his fingertips as if waking from a dream, and asked in a raspy voice: “Why are you here?”
“To see you.”
Lin Xiaodong secretly rolled his eyes, thinking I’m already here, what else could I be doing, but on the surface, he answered in a very soft voice.
“Go back quickly,” Gu Xi snapped out of it, lowering his voice and deliberately avoiding his gaze, “I’m… not safe right now.”
“Where are you not safe?” Lin Xiaodong didn’t buy it at all, appearing quite persistent, “Are you talking about this?”
He pointed to his neck and asked.
Gu Xi only took one look, and his gaze seemed to be stung by that purple handprint. His hand at his side clenched instantly.
“…Does it hurt?”
But Lin Xiaodong shook his head and sat down beside him.
The little merman took the man’s hand and pried his fingers open one by one.
“I don’t blame you,” he said, “You didn’t do it on purpose. And it doesn’t hurt at all, really.”
As he spoke, he even actively stretched out his neck, as if wanting Gu Xi to touch it again. But as soon as Gu Xi’s fingertips touched the burning surface of the skin, he jerked his hand back as if he had been electrocuted.
“…You should go. Let me be alone for a while.”
Hearing the man’s dismissal again, Lin Xiaodong also got annoyed.
“I won’t!”
The little merman said willfully. As if acting like a spoiled child, he stretched out his arms, grabbed Gu Xi’s neck, and followed up by wrapping his tail around him.
Gu Xi subconsciously hugged the little merman’s slender waist, but as if wary of something, his body remained pinned to the spot, stiff as a wooden post.
“Look at me.” Lin Xiaodong forcefully straightened his face, letting the System take advantage of the man’s distraction to quickly detect how far the mother worm in Gu Xi’s body had grown.
He had originally only wanted to give the other a full-body checkup, but Gu Xi misunderstood Lin Xiaodong’s intention. The man lowered his eyes, sighed, and reached out to pull the little merman tightly into his arms.
“I’m sorry for making you worry.”
“Ding, Good Person Card fragment +1.”
This was an unexpected pleasant surprise.
Lin Xiaodong patted his shoulder magnanimously: “It’s okay, I’m fine.”
He cleared his throat, found a comfortable angle to nestle in Gu Xi’s arms, and began to hum softly. But perhaps because it was late at night and he was too sleepy, before long, Lin Xiaodong’s eyelids began to fight, his voice grew smaller and smaller, and finally gradually turned into an imperceptible snore.
Gu Xi maintained his original posture without moving.
But when he looked down at the sleeping little merman in his arms, his tightly knit brow slowly smoothed out, and his gaze gradually softened.
“Lieutenant General.”
Xu Feng’s voice came from the door. Gu Xi raised a finger to signal the other to be quiet, then stood up and walked out of the room carrying the little merman.
After obtaining complete control of the Star-Destroying Cannon, the military under Gu Xi’s leadership advanced with irresistible force. The nobles had no power to fight back at all, and many hadn’t even reacted before everything was settled by the following afternoon.
But this didn’t mean that everything was back on track.
In fact, what Gu Xi took over was a complete mess.
The economic transportation of the entire Central Star was completely paralyzed, society was in a state of stagnation, and nearly seventy-six percent of the population was parasitized by brainworms. The streets were full of vagrants, thugs, and homeless orphans.
“It can’t go on like this, Lieutenant General,” the staff officer said worriedly to Gu Xi. “The most important thing now is to stabilize social order first, so nothing must happen to you, and the news of the mother worm parasitizing your body must not be leaked one bit.”
Gu Xi glanced at his hesitant expression and frowned: “Speak plainly, don’t hide anything.”
“Alright,” the staff officer rubbed his nose, gathering his courage to propose a suggestion, “actually, what I wanted to say is, Lieutenant General, the entire galaxy now knows the merman is with us, and knows the merman’s singing has a miraculous effect on suppressing brainworm activity. Why don’t you… have Lin Xiaodong broadcast a few more times?”
“Xiaodong is not a tool for me to win people’s hearts,” Gu Xi’s face turned cold instantly, “I don’t want to hear those words a second time.”
“…I understand.”
But as a staff officer of the three services, how could there not be a hint of ambition?
They and Gu Xi were now in a state of sharing honor and loss. Therefore, after his suggestion was rejected, the staff officer went through Xu Feng to privately meet with Lin Xiaodong.
“Although Lieutenant General Gu didn’t say it, the current situation is truly very difficult,” he first let out long sighs, attempting to gain Lin Xiaodong’s sympathy by acting pitiful. “We need your help, but the Lieutenant General is too soft-hearted and hasn’t agreed. Still, I wanted to come and ask for your opinion.”
Lin Xiaodong bit a lollipop, sitting in his seat looking at him with a silly, sweet, and innocent expression.
“If you agree, no matter what you want, as long as it’s something I can do, I will definitely fulfill it with all my strength.” Seeing he was unmoved, the staff officer continued his efforts to persuade, “Of course I know, with the Lieutenant General around, you probably don’t lack anything, but this is a small token of my heart.”
As he spoke, he pulled out various precious candies and snacks from the backpack he was carrying, attempting to touch Lin Xiaodong with these sugar-coated bullets.
But the little merman only blinked his eyes, continuing to play dumb.
After staring for three seconds, the staff officer gave up.
“…Just tell me directly, what are your thoughts?” he said helplessly, “I don’t have much time left. This trip to see you today, I bet the Lieutenant General won’t let me off for the next three years.”
Lin Xiaodong pulled the lollipop from his mouth and pointed sympathetically behind him.
A minute later, Gu Xi, with a grim face, scolded both the shrinking staff officer and the hurriedly arrived adjutant to a pulp, then unhesitatingly shut the two outside the door.
“Loving the country but loving the beauty more, that won’t do,” Lin Xiaodong smilingly accepted the snack gift pack the staff officer hadn’t had time to take away, shaking his head and sighing, “If Gu Xi were to become Emperor, he’d definitely be a doting and foolish ruler blinded by lust.”
The System’s tone rose slightly, as if very perplexed: “Who is the beauty?”
Lin Xiaodong said shamelessly: “It’s me. What, I’m about to become a popular idol for the whole galaxy, I can’t even praise myself a bit?”
System: “Shameless.”
However, what Lin Xiaodong said was indeed the truth.
After that live broadcast, as the last merman in the world, Lin Xiaodong had successfully stood out from a group of entertainment stars with his celestial voice and beautiful face, becoming the undisputed national idol in the hearts of people worldwide.
Although Gu Xi resolutely forbade anyone from profiting by selling related merchandise, it was said that in remote star sectors outside the Central Star, hundreds of millions of people had made posters of the short few minutes of Lin Xiaodong’s appearance in the live broadcast to hang in their homes and by their beds to admire day and night. Many others had recorded the live broadcast to fall asleep to his singing every night. Some even specifically transcribed the score of that ballad, making it into light brain ringtones played with various instruments; the download volume for a single week alone reached the total population of a medium-sized habitable planet.
Besides this, sharp-eyed netizens had also discovered the account Lin Xiaodong had registered himself on the Star Network before. On the day it was exposed, his follower count had surged onto the Star Network’s front-page hot search with data exceeding the second-place holder by fifteen times. After several days of fermentation, the current “I Have a Big Tail” was already a super streamer with tens of billions of followers, a first-place outlier in both the music section and the entire Star Network.
Gu Xi naturally knew about these things.
During this period alone, thousands of inter-star corporations had proactively come to the door with money, eagerly hoping to cooperate with Lin Xiaodong.
The total of these fees was even enough to support the entire year’s military expenditure for the military.
But he didn’t want these fame and fortune disputes to affect Lin Xiaodong’s life.
In the man’s eyes, no matter how many years passed, the little merman would always be that innocent and naive boy he had first met, living by the clear Lake Garan, forever free and forever carefree.
“Let me go.”
But when he turned around, Lin Xiaodong spoke up proactively.
“…Why?” Gu Xi was puzzled.
In his view, Lin Xiaodong also detested these things.
Moreover, mermaids had no obligation towards humans to begin with, yet humans owed the mermaids far too much.
The little merman looked up at him: “Because you’re unhappy.”
The fingertips of Gu Xi’s hand at his side trembled.
“They all want me to go sing. Although I don’t understand the big principles they talk about, it should be to save people.” Lin Xiaodong flicked his tail and lowered his eyes, revealing a well-behaved and sensible look that made one’s heart ache. “I know you’re worried about me, but I also don’t want to make things difficult for you.”
“As long as you’re happy, it’s fine. If you’re happy, then I’m happy too.”
Fatal blow!
After a whole speech, not to mention a Good Person Card, Lin Xiaodong didn’t get a response for a long time. He was still wondering if his emotional expression hadn’t been enough when Gu Xi suddenly walked over and knelt on one knee before him.
“Come with me to a place,” he said, looking straight into Lin Xiaodong’s eyes, “just tonight.”
But until he sat on the flight vehicle, Gu Xi didn’t tell Lin Xiaodong where their destination actually was.
Lin Xiaodong watched as they flew further and further, even using wormhole jumps in the end, and couldn’t help but clutch his big tail in terror: “He, he, he couldn’t possibly want to take me to an uninhabited planet and prepare to keep a merman in a golden house, could he?”
System: “…………” What the heck is “keep a merman in a golden house.”
But Gu Xi was obviously a normal adult human with a rational mind. When the flight vehicle finally stopped, he blindfolded Lin Xiaodong’s eyes with a black cloth and led him slowly to the porthole.
“So mysterious.” The little merman’s voice sounded like he was complaining, but it was mixed with a thick hint of laughter. “What on earth are you doing?”
“This is my gift to you,” Gu Xi whispered behind him.
The man’s hot chest was pressed against his back, and as he spoke, the warm air brushed past his ear, bringing a shivering itch.
Lin Xiaodong subconsciously swallowed. Darkness always allowed one’s imagination to run wild. “What is it?”
“Look.”
The fabric wrapped around his eyes fell away gently. The little merman’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and he slowly opened his eyes as he wasn’t yet adjusted.
What came into view was not the blinding light he had imagined.
But a nebula emitting a beautiful glow.
Except for the instrument panel in the cockpit, all the lights in the entire flight cabin were extinguished. The dim background made the starlight outside the porthole appear softer and brighter. From a distance, the shape of this nebula looked like a fiery rose blooming in the vast river of stars.
“NGC2237, the Rosette Nebula,” Gu Xi took a step forward and stood side by side with him, his dark eyes reflecting the brilliant starlight outside the window. “You once asked me which sentence I liked most from The Little Prince. I didn’t give you an answer that time, but now I’ll say—‘My heart’s beloved flower is there, on that distant star.’”
He turned his head, looking straight into Lin Xiaodong’s eyes, and said softly:
“You came to my side from the stars, so…”
“I bought this most unique rose in the entire universe for you.”
The universe was silent and quiet.
Lin Xiaodong gazed for a long time at this magnificent nebula composed of young hot stars and warm cosmic dust, and then suddenly burst into laughter.
Gu Xi asked with some confusion: “What’s wrong, you don’t like it?”
“No,” he shook his head, looking at the man with curved eyes, “I just didn’t expect you really cared about this so much.”
He pointed to the rose earring Lu Xing had given him that he was wearing.
Gu Xi said expressionlessly: “I didn’t…”
“I know, Mr. Gu is broad-minded and magnanimous,” Lin Xiaodong suppressed a smile, deliberately widening his eyes and saying with certainty, “he would never be jealous, how could he possibly be jealous?”
Gu Xi: “…………”
He began to reflect on whether he had been pampering Lin Xiaodong too much lately.
“However, I’m very happy.” The little merman changed the subject, smilingly leaning towards the man whose face had been grim since being exposed, and gave him a soft “smack” of a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you for your rose, I like it very much.”
———————
If you want to tame someone, you have to risk crying. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince