The Old Man and the Mermaid

Aigre took a closer look at Mr. Mermaid's expression, and always felt that there seemed to be something wrong with the thing in his hand.So he lowered his head and began to look at the... gift that Mr. Mermaid sent this time.

What the mermaid handed him was a stone-like object, which looked very white in appearance. Although the surface was a little uneven, it was not sticky to the touch, and the touch was very smooth. It should have slept on the seabed for many years, experienced There is no product of the first ocean current washing.

Those recessed parts seem to have something shining in the sun. Eigre turned his wrist a little, and saw that the surface of this thing was constantly reflecting the sun's brilliance.With the help of this strong sunlight, Aigre carefully distinguished the structure of the outermost hard shell, and preliminarily judged that it seemed to be some kind of crystal or similar to when it was condensed together.

Judging from the color of the exterior, this thing looks a bit like gray amber (Note 1), which is sold at a very high price in the market, but its appearance is not very similar.

What's more, although the price of gray amber is extraordinary in human society, for the sea dwellers who cannot use flames, let alone experience the benefits of spices, the original body of this spice should be regarded as excrement, right?

To put it bluntly, it is the excrement of the neighbors.

Aigre pondered for a few minutes with no expression on his face, but he was still not quite sure what it was in his hand, so he could only continue to turn his questioning eyes to Mr. Mermaid sitting quietly opposite.

The mermaid has been observing Aigre's expression.He could see that this bright young man had probably guessed something, and he probably couldn't believe that after being away for so long, what he brought him would be such a different kind of gift.

In fact, when he left Twilight Island, he himself couldn't think of anything meaningful to give to Aigre, so he spent a day or two searching in the sea, and recalled the things he had encountered over the years. All the treasures of the world—treasures for human beings.

The human race is huge.In a large ethnic group, there will always be many injustices and gaps.For those who can live without too much pressure, collectibles have become a kind of entertainment and status symbol for pastime and comparison.

They will always try to find some beautiful gemstones that are rarely produced in the world, or these unique and difficult-to-obtain treasures of the sea.The sea products he brought to Aigre before seemed to be of great value in human society, but to him, they were no different from the most common stones.

Merfolk do not interfere with each other in their lives and never act in groups.Each of them is enough to dominate a certain sea area alone, there is little communication, and there is no trade.And they don't stay in the same place for a long time, so no matter how beautiful and precious these things are, they are not worth collecting for them.

The number of this group is so small that any mermaid can clearly distinguish the difference between each of them.They have their own unique system of communication, capable of sending messages over great distances, so that when a young mermaid is born, his or her parents don't even need to name their child.

In the real ocean, this is probably the only thing that fits the description in human fairy tales—mermaids have the same emotions as humans, so they will also give their love and body and mind.They are extremely loyal to their partners, and they will also give their young children the most perfect layer of protection until they grow into adults and grow into a powerful existence that can protect themselves.

However, Mr. Mermaid's fellow clans are not very good at approaching land and humans, and what he is doing now is considered a special case.

Aigre was still looking at him, so Mr. Mermaid took the object back without thinking for too long, and directly exerted force with both hands, breaking the irregular round object into two halves.

Aigre looked at the mermaid's movements in surprise. He originally thought that he had directly destroyed this thing with brute force. After a closer look, he realized that this thing seemed particularly fragile, and it was not a similar thing as he imagined. things about rocks.

The mermaid put one of the fragments on the beach, then supported the ground in front of her with one free hand, and leaned forward to approach Aigre.After reaching a position extremely close to the young man, he curled up his fish tail and sat down again, stretching out his free hand to lift the hem of Aigre's clothes.

For a moment, Eigre thought that this Mr. Mermaid actually had some research interest in his own body, and wanted to see the special differences between humans and mermaids on land...or he wanted to see Does he have abs?

It wasn't until the mermaid put the half of the fragments in the shadow under his clothes that Aigre didn't understand the meaning of the mermaid's series of actions.

——There are countless fine crystal powders inside that fragment. These powders look no different from grains of sand under sunlight, but they appear extremely bright in a slightly dim environment.It looked like a star that had fallen so close to him that it was being held firmly in the palm of the merman's hand after falling from the sky.

Aigre looked down through his collar, and couldn't help stretching out his fingers to touch the powder slightly.

This is indeed some kind of powder, just don't know what the exact ingredients are.

...It seems that this is not an object that has been explored by humans before, so it may be a new substance that no scientist can perfectly explain.

Aigre raised his fingers to look at the fine powder stuck to his fingertips.After being illuminated by the sun, they seemed to have been completely deprived of the right to emit light, and the color was even darker than the sand grains around them. What happens to things that are split in half.

What a wonderful gift.Aigre thought so.

Compared with those expensive corals and pearls, this kind of sea product that no one may have seen before made Aigre feel that he had indeed become friends with Mr. Mermaid.

He can probably guess why the mermaid disappeared these days.If the visitor from the sea had indeed been away for a few days in search of this gift, Aigre would be very happy, whatever it was.

He hadn't felt this kind of surprise for a long time.

After Aigre saw the powder clearly, the mermaid lightly released the hand holding the hem of his shirt, stepped back and took the other half of the irregular object, and handed it to Aigre again.

"I'm not very good at communication, so after receiving gifts from friends one after another, I don't know what to say." Aigre looked at the two things in his hand, showing a sincere smile, " —but I know you must be very thoughtful. No matter where these gifts come from, I am very happy to be entitled to receive what you have given me, and I am honored by it, my friend."

The mermaid looked at him, and didn't know whether it was because of Aigre's rare smile at this time or because of his last sentence. He felt that his mood at this time was much happier than the sum of the previous few days-it seemed that every time he saw When he arrived at Aigre, he would obviously feel the changes in his emotions, the wonderful feeling that he could relax his whole body and mind.

This discovery made Mr. Fish feel more satisfied with his previous decision to stay on Twilight Island for a period of time.The place was sunny, the water was clear, there weren't too many ships around, let alone the smog that filled the city, and the only human friend he had talked to so far was so friendly.

It is indeed a very suitable place to stay or even live.

Thinking of this, the mermaid glanced at those strange humans who were still unconscious from the corner of her eye, and couldn't help turning her head to look at the expensive-looking speedboat.

Seeing this small movement of the mermaid, Aigre also turned his attention back to those strangers, feeling a little headache.

He counted them carefully and found that they were four men and one woman.

The woman's figure is very petite, it seems that she is only about two-thirds of Aigre's height, and her figure is also very thin. Only her short hair dyed bright red is very conspicuous.She was just like any girl on a beach holiday, in a country-sparing dress that exposed almost her entire upper body to the sun, and a short skirt that barely covered her hips—she didn't even have wear shoes.

The men's clothes were very simple, almost the same vest and shorts, with different hairstyles.One of the guys only had a long braid at the front near his forehead, which looked very unsuitable, which made Eigre a little suspicious of people's current aesthetic standards.

Then, like Mr. Mermaid, he looked at the speedboat parked not far from the shore and frowned.

There are no other large islands near Twilight Island, only a few sporadic small islands that will be completely submerged at high tide can be used as temporary viewing objects.In other words, this speedboat must have come from the port on the mainland.But Aigre didn't hear of any of the town's resident kids or friends buying a speedboat and bringing a group of friends home for the holidays.

If there is such news, it should spread directly across the entire island in a short period of time, just like Aigre's pair of red underwear.

Aigre patted himself on the forehead, shaking off the memories of the underwear.

Moreover, Eigre confirmed it again, and he was sure that he had never seen these people before, and before they woke up, he could not look for their documents without authorization.

Thinking of this, Eigre turned his eyes to look at Mr. Mermaid again, and asked: "Although I don't know how you did it, but it's not very good to let them sleep here and be directly exposed to the sun... How long will it take them to wake up?"

The mermaid glanced at him, turned around to let his body submerge into the sea, and then when he jumped into the deeper sea, he slapped the soda can floating on the sea surface with his fish tail, and hit one of the men lightly on the forehead.

Aigre noticed the man's frown, turned his head and raised his voice before the mermaid disappeared, and said, "Wait, Mr. Mermaid... If you don't mind, would you like to try the new dinner in the lighthouse tonight?"

The mermaid jumped up and down a few times on the sea surface, before finally disappearing, raised his hand to Aigre.

Aigre could probably guess that he should have agreed to come down, so he also let go of his heart, and turned to look at the man who had already sat up while rubbing his head.

However, when he saw the man get up and move, he also found that he was still holding the two fragments that the mermaid gave him before, so he simply picked up the sun hat that he had been keeping aside before, and put the two fragments Rolled up in a visor.

After finishing all this, he slowly walked over to the man and squatted down, asking politely, "Are you all right?"

The man still seemed to have some headaches. He clenched his hands into fists and beat his forehead for a while, then frowned and looked at Aigle, and asked back, "Who are you?"

"I am the lampkeeper of that lighthouse." Aigre casually pointed to the lighthouse on the high slope behind them, "I just saw you unconscious on the ground in the lighthouse, so I came here to check the situation."

"Coma?" The man looked around suspiciously, and after seeing that his companions were all there, he asked again, "How did we pass out?"

"I don't know too much." Aigre said truthfully, he really didn't know the specific reason for their coma, "But I think no matter how you fainted, after being exposed to the sun for so long, you should have some heatstroke. It's still early, I suggest you go to the medical clinic in the town? Ask the doctor to prescribe some medicine to relieve the heat."

"We came from the small town just now, and we plan to go around the island... What's going on?" The man asked himself in confusion, and then raised his chin to Aigre, "Thank you , I'll wake up my friend and we'll go by ourselves."

"Since you are coming from the town, you should have a pass to land on the island, right?" Aigre asked again, "If you go to the doctor with the pass, he shouldn't charge too much extra."

"Yes, we still have that piece of paper on board, but we don't care about the medical expenses that don't even count as a fraction." The man 100 years stood up and patted his pants, raising his eyebrows at Aigre and saying, " It is completely fine to let the people on your island earn more living expenses."

Aigre glanced at him, but didn't speak.

Together with the man who did not give his name, he woke up the rest of the people.The young strangers were naturally very dazed, but they were probably casual people, so they didn't seem to care about the reason for their fainting. After saying a few words to each other, they didn't thank Eigre again , Just got on the speedboat and left the coast.

Aigre watched them leave, and decided to go to the town tomorrow if he had time, and ask who they were by the way.

Now, he hopes to think about what kind of meal to entertain Mr. Mermaid in the evening.

The merman wasn't far away.He went back to the sea just to avoid the sight of those strangers, so after those guys returned to the speedboat and left in another direction, he also looked there together.

The speedboat finally stopped at the coast where it was parked a few days ago, and the young people went ashore shoulder to shoulder, their voices still too loud, and it even sounded like they were arguing.It was as if they didn't think anyone would dare to do anything to their speedboat, and they left this exquisite boat on the shore without even putting on the safety bolt.

The mermaid was not interested in speedboats, he was just a little curious about what these strange-haired humans were trying to do.

He just decided to stay in the waters near Twilight Island for a few days, and he didn't want someone to disturb his life after only staying for such a short period of time—to be precise, he just didn't want to be near the lighthouse People will often appear, which only disturbs his meeting with Aigre.

Most merfolk don't even have many friends in their lives, at most they have a mate and two or three children.Since he was able to make a human friend smoothly, he didn't want this friendship to be blocked or destroyed in any way.

Generally speaking, when he saw that Aigre was unhappy, he would also feel unhappy.

But after thinking for a while, Mr. Mermaid decided to ignore those strangers for the time being—as long as they don't make more garbage and noise for the sea, he won't bother to care about them.

The mermaid wandered around for a while, and after exploring the sea area near Dusk Island, he returned to the beach near the lighthouse at sunset and went ashore, successfully entering the lighthouse of Aigre through the window.

Probably because it is not clear when he will come back, Aigre prepared all the ingredients and ingredients early, and only completed the last step directly after he arrived.

Aigre was still the same as last time, let Mr. Mermaid sit in the previous position, then put the plate in his hand in front of him, thought for a while, and then explained when his guest picked up the tableware: "I think You should be interested in more different flavors of food, so this time I tried some different ingredients. You may have never tried it before, so be careful when you eat it for the first time, because I added A few small…”

Before he finished speaking, he saw Mr. Mermaid cough violently.

"……chili."

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Note 1: Ambergris block.