.3 – He must have fallen into the river of love

translator: xiin

editors: alamerysl & BlueBug

Yan Qiwen’s face and appearance was gentle and cute. His entire person seemed kind, and because of his face, the charm and impact of Xue Ling’s eyes was reduced significantly. The eyes that were originally slender became slightly rounded, and the corners of his eyes were still tilted upwards, making him appear particularly smart. Such eyes were clearly unsuitable on such a lovely face, but the feeling that he gave others was not dissonant at all. Rather, he seemed even cuter, making others feel closer to him.

Normal people felt closer to him, and people who were enchanted by Xue Ling’s charm ability would feel a lot of goodwill towards him. When faced with such a carefully prepared smile, Yan Qingjun only felt that something had drilled into his heart, making his entire person feel flustered.

He had not paid much attention to this little merperson when he had come in just now. He had only felt that it would most likely be another spoiled young master merchild who was one of the natural merfolk. Now that he looked carefully at him, he felt that his previous assumptions had been a little overboard.

This little merchild was different from the others. His tail was a mysterious and noble black and gold, and the scales were arranged one by one, making his entire tail appear very smooth and sleek. His scales were shiny, and it was clear that he was very healthy. Similar to his tail color, the merman’s hair was black, but under the sunshine he had a light golden halo. His sweet smile displayed two dimples, and made Yan Qingjun’s first impression of him very good.

He was very good looking, but unlike Yan Qingjun’s warm and mild gentlemen’s temperament, the little merman’s temperament had a kind of mysterious nobility. Although he was smiling, it made others feel that he was sacred and inviolable. Although observers felt close to him, they were simultaneously afraid to approach him. This kind of contradictory feeling wandered through his thoughts, making Yan Qingjun a little stunned.

Xue Ling smiled and let him look as he pleased. He also knew that he had been affected by his enchantment, and his mind was experiencing some fluctuations. But, struggling was useless. As long as Xue Ling wanted, he could make anyone like him to the point of madness. The ability to charm was very effective on those who had lower spiritual power than him. If the difference in power between the two was not too great, he would be able to handle the other party and make it so that they were unable to become his enemy.

Oh. It didn’t work for people who hated him from the bottom of their hearts. That was why he had been forced into this situation of having to look all over the worlds for his tails.

Yan Qingjun could not resist Xue Ling’s influence on him. He curved his lips up into a smile and said, “Hello, I am Yan Qingjun.”

“Oh, you are also surnamed Yan?" The Yan surname was a widespread one. Other than the family of the Duke’s Palace, the several of the Emperor’s friends in the upper echelons of society were also surnamed Yan. Those with the Yan surname did not all belong to a head clan, and in light of the fact that the Empire’s governing system did not allow for a family clan to stand in such a dominant position, most people with the Yan surname were scattered. "I have been in the Palace ever since I was small, and this is my first time coming to school. You’re the third mermaid that I have ever seen, and you’re very beautiful."

Yan Qingjun blushed under such blatant praise. He spoke with some embarrassment, “Natural merfolk are all favourites from heaven, so all natural mermaids will be very good looking. Look at yourself - you are also very attractive."

Xue Ling patted his own, slightly round face, touched the tear mole in the corner of his eyes and said, “You don’t need to comfort me, after all, I will never grow up to be as beautiful as you.”

He propped his cheek on his hand and tilted his head to look at Yan Qingjun. He spoke while sighing in admiration, “You’re really a treat for the eyes. You even look like my mother.” After saying that, he clapped his hands and continued, “I’ll show you some pictures of my mother from when she was young. She was a famous beauty, and my father was unbearably fascinated with her.” After saying so, he self-consciously brought up the picture of the Duchess on his nano-computer, and before Yan Qingjun could recover, leaned over to show it to him. "Look, she’s beautiful."

When Yan Qingjun saw the photograph of the Duchess, his entire person froze for a few seconds, but the turbulent thoughts in his eyes were soon brought under control, and his eyes became full of amusement as though he had not noticed his relationship to the Duchess at all. He gave Xue Ling an odd look, as if thinking about why Xue Ling would want to show him the photo, and whether it was for a specific purpose.

Xue Ling ignored his suspicions. After swiping across to show the Duchess’ photos, he continued to swipe and showed Yan Qingjun some photos of his childhood. “These are all pictures from my childhood. Wasn’t I cute as a child?"

There were some things that could not be overdone. He had come to act as a silly and sweet character, and there was no need to allow Yan Qingjun to see his true face even if what he wanted to do was not anything bad.

The courses at the Mermaid Academy were very boring, at least for Xue Ling. Yan Qingjun studied very carefully in every class, while Xue Ling was sleeping in his seat beside him. Occasionally, when he woke up with eyes still blurry from sleep, he would act spoiled and ask Yan Qingjun to help him copy notes.

The school teachers had always maintained an attitude of turning a blind eye regarding these merfolk’s education. If Xu Ling did not want to learn, they would not force him to do so. He was only sleeping in class, and wasn’t that a fishtail behind him? They should be indulgent towards merfolk.

A good student like Yan Qingjun had already won the great prize of making all the teachers in the entire Academy feel moved.

Xue Ling had only come in order to get close to the protagonist shou, and had no plans to steal his limelight. So, during classes like piano and drawing, he did them completely blindly, and it would be best if the teachers labelled him as a ’stubborn and disobedient merman’. This way, the Duchess would have to consider whether or not the other family would be able to withstand him tossing and turning before marrying him out.

After spending the lesser half of a month interacting and getting along with each other, Yan Qingjun felt that he had already completely seen through Yan Qiwen. He was exactly like his cute and lovely face, and was a merman that had no schemes in his heart. He just ate and slept all day long, and his greatest goal in life would be to marry a good man. It would be best if the man would spoil him, let him do whatever he wanted, and love him regardless of any reason. Then, he could spend the rest of his life being served, eating and waiting for death.

If he had to point out what made this particular fish so unique, it would probably be that he kept expressing to Yan Qingjun that he did not want children in the future because he was a cute baby himself.

Yan Qingjun did not know what to say about this. Heaven knows how many ellipsis marks he had over his head when he heard it, but because Yan Qiwen’s personality was like this, he completely abandoned his guard against him and went from suspecting that he had approached him with a goal in mind to believing that he had approached him just because he was pleasing to the eyes.

Exactly, in Yan Qingjun’s heart, Yan Qiwen was just like a Yan puppy. He had his own principles based on beauty, and it was not known how he made judgements, but in any case, the people he considered important were very few, and Yan Qingjun was one of them, and was even one that he liked very much.

If Yan Qingjun knew that Xue Ling only regarded him as a pet, he would probably be angry enough to bite a chunk of meat off of him.

This world was too peaceful. There was no infighting, and as long as his bodyguards watched him closely, those from the research laboratory would not rush into action and could only hide in the dark. Xue Ling did not plan to make a move on them yet, so he could temporarily rest for a while and ease his mood so that he would not be too tired.

After half a month of leisure time, they had finally arrived at the time when Lou Cen should wake up. Xue Ling had grasped the opportunity to visit on that day, because Madame Lou would definitely not let him see her son after he woke up.

Because he had told the Duchess about his visit in advance, Xue Ling did not attend school that day. Instead, he went straight to the hospital. The day before, he had also told Yan Qingjun about it, acting pathetic and saying that he had taken a fancy to a beautiful man, but the other party’s mother was too powerful, bullying him until he could only give up the engagement. In return, his hair had been completely mussed up by Yan Qingjun.

He smiled and expressed, “Little Wen is so cute. How could anyone possibly dislike you?

Xue Ling pouted as he spoke. “Who knows? Maybe she wanted to find someone like you, Junjun...”

All the fur on the system’s body stood on end thanks to its host’s tone. Although he was simply acting spoiled and being cute, it made the system break out in goosebumps all over. After knowing its host’s cruel nature, the system could not make itself believe it at all. It could only pray that Yan Qingjun would not see Xue Ling’s true nature in his entire life, because it would not a good idea to frighten this gentle merman.

Lou Cen had fallen into a coma due to a secret mission from the military, so he was staying in a military hospital, and people had to pass through a lot of checkpoints to get in. However, because Xue Ling had a special identity and was a merman, the check was not so severe. Madame Lou had a smile on her face as usual when she saw Xue Ling, and she was kinder than she had been when suggesting that they break off the engagement. Perhaps it was because he now no longer had anything to do with Lou Cen that Madame Lou’s hostility was no longer so strong.

Xue Ling rolled his eyes behind her back, thinking that Madame Lou was too naive.

Lou Cen’s ward was quite easy to enter. Xue Ling sat in his floating merfolk chair and went inside. He could see with a glance that although Lou Cen was lying there breathing smoothly, his spiritual and physical strength was rapidly soaring.

As Xue Ling had previously seen on the merfolk network, Lou Cen was very attractive. After all, he was the protagonist gong that had been picked out of thousands and chosen out of ten thousand options to match with Yan Qingjun, and would absolutely appear amazing. Although he was dressed in hospital clothing and had been in a coma for over half a month, his physique had already been upgraded by a level, and he would wake up as soon as his spiritual strength finished rising.

“When will he wake up?” Xue Ling quietly asked Madame Lou, his eyes revealing a little concern that even she was unable to resent him for.

“I also don’t know.” Although she firmly believed that her son was alright, Madame Lou was also distressed that he had been lying here for half a month. She waved her hand and said, “The doctor said it all depends on him.”

Xue Ling softly let out an ’oh’ sound, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he thought in his heart, ’he’s waking up now’.

In the next second, Lou Cen’s spiritual power directly broke through the SS level, and advanced to the SSS level. The power that had previously been suppressed broke through, and all the machines in the ward began to wail. Xue Ling opened his mouth and asked, "Aunt, Lieutenant General Lou is waking up!"

Madame Lou was overwhelmed by surprise. Because of the unexpected situation in the ward, all the doctors had arrived, and Madame Lou retreated to the back of the room, looking at the bed with a joyful expression on her face.

Xue Ling asked the system, “Now that he’s waking up, is he aware of his surroundings?”

“Yes, he is.” The system wagged its snow-white tail and exaggeratedly praised its host. “Is it because you two have been in love for such a long time that the ability to sense the other party is maxed out? Host’s guess was correct this time – that’s him."

Xue Ling’s lips curved in satisfaction. Despite all the doctors around them, his gaze met with a pair of dark eyes.

Those eyes belonged to Lou Cen, who had just woken up. His gaze was still filed with sharp killing intent, and the doctors were rather wary of getting close to him. After all, he was already a SSS-class powerhouse. It was also because he was SSS-class that Lou Cen subconsciously looked towards the only person in the room who could threaten his spiritual strength the second he woke up.

Then, he fell into a pair of golden eyes.

It was a pair of very good-looking eyes. Slightly uptilted, they seemed to draw people in, and the tear moles at the corner of his eyes made gave him the appearance of an alluring demon. But that pair of eyes on that slightly rounded, still somewhat immature face that still had traces of baby fat, made people suddenly feel that it was much more pure.

It was rather strange, because the first thought that appeared in Lou Cen’s head was not ’who is he’, nor was it ’why is this person here’, but rather one word - cute.

This version of him was so cute.

That kind of warm and lively feeling that came from his heart allowed his tense spirit to relax. He looked at the person who was meeting his gaze, slowly closed his eyes, and fell back into a deep sleep.

Before he fell asleep, he saw the teenager smile at him.

It was a very beautiful, very good looking smile. The corners of his lips curved upwards slightly, and two lovely dimples appeared on his cheeks, making his eyes sparkle and shine. It was a smile that was very much to his liking.

He must have fallen into the river of love.

This was the thought that flashed through Lieutenant General Lou’s mind before he fell asleep.

chapter 90 is 10 chapters away from 100, which is kinda like being halfway through WTMT...