Unexpectedly, Adonis didn’t loosen his grip despite the pain.
Instead, as if misinterpreting your actions, he tried to lower his head and nuzzle your neck to soothe you.

You turned your head to dodge, reaching out to scratch him again.

This was the hardest you had ever struck.
Adonis’s cheek and chin were broken, and pale blue blood flowed from the wounds.

The tentacles wrapped around your waist made you feel repulsed.
Annoyed by the current situation, you grabbed a section of a tentacle and bit down hard, your sharp teeth even grinding against the flesh.

Adonis hastily spoke words you couldn’t understand, emitting low, pleading syllables, his voice still hoarse.

The tip of the tentacle you were biting quickly curled up.
The tentacles around your waist relaxed their grip as you wished, slumping down limply.

Adonis didn’t care about his wounds at all.
Even as you gnashed your teeth on the softest, pinkest part of the tentacle, he simply let you vent your emotions.

The pale blue blood dripped, dissolving into wisps of mist in the seawater, then vanishing against the backdrop of the sea.

After a while, you released your mouth and threw the tentacle from your hand.
You had long tasted the salty, fishy flavor in your mouth.
You turned your head and spat a few times.
Even though you knew the Tentacle Monster opposite you couldn’t understand, you still made your position clear.

“I don’t need a mate.”
“Now, get out of my territory immediately!”

You were angry at your own delayed realization.
Perhaps it was a misunderstanding caused by the inability to communicate.
You had accepted his ingratiating behavior, but had never carefully considered his purpose.

The feeling of being courted for the first time made you feel offended.

Adonis’s affectionate gestures carried the innate aggression of a male creature, something you could feel without him needing to express it subjectively.

After you understood his intentions, his strength, his build, the way he looked down on you from within his shadow—all of it carried a sense of oppression.

Adonis retracted his tentacles.
With words being useless, the most expressive things he had were his deep-set eyes, which gazed at you pleadingly.

But it still gave you the feeling that he could easily overpower you; he was just holding back in front of you.

You could only continue to drive him away with a fierce but faltering demeanor, while he was still willing to indulge you.

Driven away for the second time, Adonis skillfully swam to the edge of the sea.
He didn’t go any farther.
The reason he left so easily this time was because he hadn’t given up.

He sank to the seabed, his tentacles reaching up to his face, gently touching the wounds you had inflicted.
The wounds, with their excellent healing ability, had already scabbed over.
It was unclear what he was touching, what he was thinking.

The corner of the tentacle you had used to grind your teeth on looked quite pitiful.
The tender pink inner flesh was torn open by your bite, and the small suckers on the flesh were also cut.

Adonis brought the wound close to his eyes, examining it for a few seconds.
Then, with a blank expression, he opened his mouth wide and stuffed the tentacle tip inside, licking the wound you had bitten in a dark corner of the seabed.

For the next few days, fresh, slaughtered fish would always appear on the reef near you.
Occasionally, you would see Adonis peeking at you.

You couldn’t get used to this kind of ingratiation.
This behavior, which went against your wishes, was just too stalker-like.

You wanted to get rid of this Tentacle Monster.

You made the decision to leave.

Diving beneath the surface, you swam towards the iceberg where you had first awakened.
You expanded your search area, searching from day until evening, confirming that there were truly no kinsmen nearby.

You climbed onto the reef again, and in the rising tide, you sang out once more.
This time, you sang the entire melody.

But in this vast sea, it seemed they had truly vanished, your Mermaid kin.

A half-human figure emerged from the sea.
Adonis’s gaze was focused and infatuated as he looked at you.

He opened his mouth, and unskillfully, with some stumbling, he tried to sing along with you.
You didn’t know the meaning of his song.
His voice was hoarse, and his singing wasn’t very good.
He only sang a few short lines before falling silent under your cold gaze, as if ashamed of himself.

Suddenly, you beckoned to him with your finger.
He immediately responded and swam over, stopping a few meters away.

You picked up an ordinary conch from beside you and shook it to get his attention.
Then you touched the earring on your ear and finally pointed to the distant sea.

Your conch and earring had been left in Adonis’s dark nest in the deep sea.
They were things you didn’t care about, but now they became your excuse to trick him into leaving.

Adonis seemed to have understood your meaning.
He turned in the sunset and slowly swam in the direction he had first come from, turning his head to look at you from time to time.

You raised the back of your hand and gave a perfunctory wave, quietly waiting for him to disappear from sight.

The setting sun quickly sank below the horizon.
The afterglow faded, and the night sky was covered by vast dark clouds.

You tossed away the unremarkable conch in your hand, turned, and slipped into the sea, swimming with all your might in the direction you had explored in your memories.
Your light, soft tail occasionally flipped out of the water, its moist scales catching a faint glint of light, pattering out a string of tiny bubbles.

You chose to temporarily abandon this territory.
When he returned and couldn’t find you, after some time, perhaps everything would return to normal.

The moment you left your territory, raindrops began to fall, pattering on the sea’s surface.
The waves in the night began to surge, from sunset until midnight.

You didn’t stop moving until you reached another distant island, a long, long way from your territory.

After nearly ten hours of exertion, you didn’t want to do anything.
You hastily found a temporary cave, curled up inside, and started to sleep, sleeping soundly until high noon.

This was an island you had swum past in the days after you first woke up.
It also met your standards for a dwelling.
The only difference was that it wasn’t near the iceberg where you had slept.

You had temporarily given up on searching for your kin.
You always ended up with results that left you disheartened.

You spent two days patrolling these waters.
This sea still seemed to be unclaimed, just as it was initially.

In fact, there were very few of your kind who, like you, preferred warm dwellings.
You were even willing to sleep on shallow sandy beaches.

You found a new cave and began to set it up.
This time, you were in high spirits, probably because you had gotten rid of Adonis.
You were certain that in the vast sea, a Tentacle Monster finding a fish was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Your passion for crafting returned.
Now, you were weaving a string of brightly colored starfish with seaweed.
You wrapped this decoration around the entrance of your cave.

Full of energy again, you went to collect pearl oysters.
Your long-lost patience had returned.
You gathered the materials for weaving Mermaid silk, preparing to make yourself a top.

Another sunny day.
You leaned against a reef in the shallow water, with soft, fine sand beneath you.
The reef beside you was covered with large and small shells.

You happily swayed your tail fin gently, opening the pearl oysters one by one.
Suitable, round pearls were placed in a washed clamshell.
Unsuitable ones were casually tossed aside, sinking into the sea and falling into the fine sand.

Until your sensitive ear fins twitched a few times, catching a faint sound.
You turned your head towards the sound and saw a golden head.

It was a merman with six or seven features similar to yours, with blond hair and a green tail?
It really was a fishtail, not something else.

You were a little incredulous, yet it didn’t seem entirely right.

The other was also looking directly at you.

In the eyes of this male merman named Ewan, you possessed an extremely unique beauty.
He had been secretly watching you for a long time.

A powerful and beautiful fishtail, in a color he had never seen before.
Skin as fair as pearls, with a faint, pale pink hue.
This pink was lightly dotted on your cheeks and the corners of your eyes.
Your eyes were wide with surprise, your thick, feather-like eyelashes trembling slightly.
Your pupils were a clear purple, more beautiful than the glass he had picked up from the shipwreck.

His heart shamelessly started to beat faster.

The blond merman opposite you had a pair of green eyes, like tender buds in early spring.
His facial features were softer than Adonis’s, making him look very handsome.
You could easily feel his friendliness.

You first tried to greet him.

“Hello?”

The other tilted his head in confusion, clearly not understanding, but he subconsciously mimicked you: “*&@?”

You were dumbfounded.
Before this, you had somewhat thought that Adonis might be a fool or illiterate, but the fact that this person’s pronunciation was similar to Adonis’s made you doubt yourself.

Could it be possible that you were the only illiterate one in this new world?