Chapter 277: Death of a Merperson

Chapter 277 The Death of the Merperson

Isabel dragged Xia Yuan around the Merperson Tomb, nearly choking him to the point of bruising, but couldn't bait Meng Wan out, so she had to call it quits.

Xia Yuan got tossed into the tunnel, no clue if anyone was waiting for him down there.

Isabel was still looking alluring and captivating. With her killer figure, she suddenly let out this flirty laugh directed at the masked men, catching every guy's eye. Then, wearing her red dress, she jumped into the water out of nowhere, splashing up a ton of water before vanishing into the lake.

Except for a couple of people still chilling in their seats, everyone else bolted from their seats to the lake's edge to look.

Ripples were still spreading across the lake, but there was no one in sight underwater.

No one thought Isabel would commit suicide by drowning; pretty much everyone on the island knew how to swim.

About the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, the folks on shore were still gawking by the lake when a blue figure came swimming up fast, bursting right out of the water.

Isabel had switched to a water-blue gauze dress. She seemed to know who was behind each mask, as she raised an arm to pull one of the men standing by the lake, leaning in for a kiss, and slipped a pink pearl into his mouth.

The man snapped out of that soft, warm daze, yelling, "What the hell is this?" It was Chen Zhenlong's voice.

Isabel's voice was sweet and seductive, "Something to make you feel good."

Chen Zhenlong, momentarily spellbound, felt desire stirring but still had a sliver of caution, "Is this a mermaid pearl?"

Isabel's voice bounced off the special rock walls, saying in a teasing tone, "If you say it is, then it is."

While everyone else was jealous of Chen Zhenlong's luck, Isabel dove back into the water, this time not going to the bottom but clambering onto the wooden platform in the middle of the lake. At the same time, a bunch of musicians popped up from the water, sat on the edge of the platform and started playing.

The beautiful melody filled the whole space, even reaching a secret room under the lake.

"We gotta go."

Six small figures were hiding in a narrow passage, sharing some dried fruit. A little boy swallowed a dried plum, licked the sugar from his lips, and looked up and said, "The island lord said to swim up and dance when the music starts."

Their upper bodies were like regular humans, but their lower halves were underwater, each wore a short gauze skirt tied at the waist. Sometimes, when they splashed, golden fish tails showed up.

The fish tails were nowhere near as pretty as people imagine—cold, slimy, and reeking of fish. Knowing how they were stitched onto these kids, no one there felt any fondness for those tails; instead, they felt nauseous.

Chu Ci knelt beside them, taking their pulses one by one. Despite the cool underground chamber, cold sweat dripped from his forehead. As a physician, he hadn't been this disheartened in a long time.

"Thank you, little brother. We know we can't be saved. You should leave quickly. We really have to go up now," urged the little girl whose pulse he was checking.

These six children—some boys, some girls, some xiaoge—looked about the same age, at most seven or eight, not much older than A Yan.

But their words carried a strange desolation, not the tone of children their age, but rather that of old women, devoid of vitality or hope.

Chu Ci's eyes were red, but he could only step back helplessly.

"They're... they're so young. Is there really no cure?" Miss Shen's voice trembled from the corner.

She had been found by Chi Yu in the back courtyard of the Taoist temple, and her condition was not good. Her hair was shaved off, and she now wore the simple clothes of a servant on Gibbon Island. Her face was pale, and she spoke with a light wheeze, as if injured.

Chu Ci shook his head silently, holding up three fingers.

Chi Yu found it hard to believe, "They only have three years left to live?"

The little boy who had spoken first said, "You mean three days, right? We've been in so much pain we couldn't sleep for a while now. If not for the medicine we were given this morning, we might have been dead from the pain by now."

"We have three more days to die? I wish we could die now," said the most innocent-looking little girl.

The others calmly agreed, "Exactly. If it's going to hurt like before, it's better to die now."

"My wounds are almost rotting inside. I dare not take off my skirt."

"Same here. Do we have to endure three more days? Won't the island lord give us medicine tomorrow?"

"Without the medicine, I'll die of pain immediately."

"They won't let us die."

Seeing these innocent children desperate for death, Meng Wan couldn't bear it either. He clenched his fists, his voice heavy with grief, "After you perform today, they won't stop you from dying anymore."

"Really?" The six children looked delighted, as if they were not facing death but receiving a beloved gift.

Miss Shen turned away, her shoulders trembling, and a few muffled sobs escaped into the dark rock tunnel.

"Don't cry. You're lucky. You weren't turned into monsters like us. Go with them, leave this terrible island, and find your family."

Comforted by a group of small, suffering children near death, Miss Shen completely broke down. She rushed over and hugged one of the little girls, "Don't die, please! Ah... wuwu..."

The children looked at her strangely; some even seemed a bit angry. They had finally found a way out!

Meng Wan knelt before the children, "Do you have any last wishes? I can help you fulfill them."

"Last wishes?" The six children looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison. Clutching the snack bags Meng Wan had given them earlier, they said earnestly, "We just want to die."

Meng Wan closed his eyes, "Alright. Go ahead."

The drums and music above had been playing for a while. One by one, the six children swam to Chu Ci, taking a pink pill from his mouth, then swam away without looking back.

Meng Wan and the others watched them leave, their hearts unsettled.

Meng Wan took the first step, "Let's go too. Even if we can't save them, at least we can destroy this island."

Ethereal singing came from the Merperson Tomb again. This time, Meng Wan finally understood the meaning in the song.

It was the desperate cry of hopeless children, carrying the calm and determination of facing death. The countless small skeletons at the bottom of the Merperson Tomb's lake would be their final resting place.

The people above had been waiting. Some out of curiosity, some for profit, or perhaps for some task—they all gathered to watch the spectacular mermaid performance.

The young "merpeople," like Isabel, transferred the pink pearls from their mouths to the merchants at the lakeside.

Isabel watched coldly, waiting for the wealthy merchants' ugly reactions. But suddenly, sounds of a fight came from the tunnel entrance.

Uncle Heng kicked one guard after another, the burly thugs like chicks in his hands. The young man calmly walked to the lake, grabbed a child who hadn't yet passed on the pearl, and pinched the pink pearl, examining it.

Isabel stared at the pink pill in his hand, feeling its color was redder than usual and its texture rougher.

She didn't know it was an emergency concoction by Chu Ci, naturally inferior to the carefully refined pills of the Strange Taoist.

"Honored guest, what are you doing?" Isabel's task was to ensure that no male guest leaving the Merperson Tomb would leak secrets. Especially for those chosen by the island lord, the "mermaid pearls" contained special additives, ensuring they would return to Gibbon Island willingly.

Uncle Heng and the young man were clearly not among them. Like Meng Wan, they had been excluded from the start.

The young man muttered, holding the small pearl, "So this is the mermaid pearl. You use it to amass wealth and curry favor with those above? But I say... if you have the luck to make money, you should also have the luck to spend it."

Isabel's skin prickled with goosebumps. She let out a scream, but in the next instant, Uncle Heng had her by the neck, "Take us to Chi You, or die!"

Isabel gasped, "I don't know..."

The next second, with a sharp "crack," her beautiful neck snapped.

Uncle Heng tossed her graceful corpse into the lake, landing before the long-suffering young "merpeople." They didn't even blink as water droplets splashed into their eyes, staring numbly at the scene like porcelain dolls devoid of souls.

"Don't you hate her?" the young man raised an eyebrow and asked.

The "merpeople" shook their heads. "It wasn't Isabel who turned us into this. She was just following the Island Lord's orders."

The young man's eyes grew dark. "So she's not the real Island Lord of Cat Ba Island. Where is the true Island Lord? Where's Chi You, the one who turned you into this?"

These children knew nothing. Only when the one who transformed them was mentioned did their expressions shift, trembling with fear so intense they dared not even hate.

"Ah!" the youngest "merperson" suddenly cried out in pain, followed by the others' faces contorting.

Having been submerged in water for so long, the pain was coming back.

Now that no one was here to control them, they seemed truly "free."

One boy, pale-faced, tilted his head, aimed for the sharp corner of the wooden platform in the lake, flipped over, and swam toward it, then without hesitation slammed his head into it.

Blood spread through the lake as his small body sank underwater, prompting the other five "merpeople" to eagerly follow suit.

They rushed toward death, yet their lips curled in wild and triumphant smiles.

The series of thuds terrified the musicians on the wooden platform. Some had blood splattered on their faces and bodies—marks they, as bystanders, could never wash away for the rest of their lives.

In business, it was common to summon a few girls or young men, and occasional flings were fine, but a death in public was a different matter.

All the masked individuals, including Lord Shen, were shocked. They were just ordinary merchants; faced with an incident, they lost their composure and scrambled into the tunnel, desperate to find their servants and attendants.

Seeing the situation go wrong, the musicians jumped off the wooden planks into the water.

Uncle Heng was skilled in martial arts but couldn't swim, so he could only watch helplessly as they escaped, realizing he shouldn't have killed Isabel so hastily.

The young man remained calm. "Uncle Heng, don't worry. When dawn comes and the boats dock, I don't believe the islanders would dare let these people leave so easily."

The master and servant had cut through the guards at the Merpeople Tomb, while on the other side, Chi Yu cleared out the Taoist temple with equal efficiency. The two sides were surprisingly in sync.

With such a major incident on Cat Ba Island—the "merpeople" all dead before the performance ended, and both Island Lord Isabel and a large number of guards wiped out—Guo Qixiu could no longer stay composed, no matter how calm he usually was. It had taken six years to build Cat Ba Island to its current scale, and just as it was beginning to aid its master, this disaster struck. His failure would not go unpunished.

He mobilized all the island's guards, including four mid-level martial artists he had been supporting. Finding the troublemakers with so many people was easy.

Meng Wan sat on a large rock by the dock, casually eating dried fruit—the last piece in his pocket. After this, if he boarded another ship, he'd have no supplies left.

Chu Ci sat behind him, dressing Miss Shen's wounds, with several medicine packets scattered around. Chi Yu stood in front of Meng Wan, head down, weaving a rope out of dry grass.

In the open space before them, a large bonfire blazed. The night sea breeze was cool, and Meng Wan occasionally walked over to warm himself.

The master and servant pair had similar thoughts to Meng Wan; they too waited silently at the dock, watching each other from across the dark night.

When the guards with torches found the two groups of troublemakers, both Meng Wan and the young man stayed calm.

The other merchants had been captured by Guo Qixiu, including a few of Uncle Heng's subordinates.

"Quite the skills you two have!" Guo Qixiu said with a fake smile.

By "two," he naturally meant Meng Wan and the young man.

Meng Wan rested his chin on his hand, looking at ease. "You flatter me, I'm not as impressive as Island Master Guo, who managed to send people away with his divine foresight."

The expressions of both master and servant shifted, and the young man called out, "Is Chi You not on the island?"

Realizing that both parties seemed to be after Daoist Chi You, Guo Qixiu only then began to feel a chill of fear. If Yan hadn't forcefully taken the man off the island, he really might not have been able to protect the Daoist this time.

"You've injured many of my men. Do you really think I wouldn't dare to touch you?" Guo Qixiu sneered. With a wave of his hand, a large number of men behind him surged forward, surrounding Meng Wan and the others.

Although both sides had experts, Jibo Island was ultimately his own territory. Even a human wave tactic could wear out Uncle Heng and Chi Yu.

"I suggest you'd better not move rashly," Meng Wan said maliciously.

Guo Qixiu just thought he was bluffing. "Hmph, I don't know what status you have, but once you've fallen into Jibo Island, life and death are no longer up to you!"

"And you, Young Master Xiang. I've heard you are the most promising offspring of the Xiang family's main branch. For the Xiang family to be willing to send you out, it really does me honor. Since you made the first move, don't blame me for not showing respect to the Xiang family!" Guo Qixiu actually knew the young man's identity.

Compared to the low-key official's husband from Lingnan, it was indeed the direct descendants of the four great families venturing out that attracted more attention. No wonder Guo Qixiu initially didn't take Meng Wan seriously.

Young Master Xiang himself had practiced martial arts since childhood, far stronger than Meng Wan, who was all talk and no action. He said confidently, "Enough nonsense. If you dare to stop me from leaving, I wonder whether the people behind you can withstand the Xiang family's retaliation."

"Nephew, our two families are related by marriage. When you leave, don't forget to take your little uncle with you."