Mermaid Effect

"Ding--"

Accompanied by the sound, two pieces of toast that had been toasted golden jumped out of the toaster.Not far from it, above the bluish flames, a fried egg was squeaking on a black pan, there was bacon in the kitchen, and the smell of yellow mustard danced.The pale yellow sunlight came in from the window and fell on the island-shaped counter. The white milk in the bowl was scattered with crispy cereals, dotted with red and purple dried berries in the middle.

Rand tilted his head, mixing Greek salad with yogurt, sweet orange, and mint leaves in a salad bowl (not the one Munster stayed in), with his phone sandwiched between his shoulder and ear.Different from the laid-back and warm atmosphere spreading throughout the kitchen, his expression was actually a little anxious... mixed with some helplessness.There was eagerness in his voice.

"...yes, I know it's a hassle, but I do need an aquarium...yes, I don't care about the size, much bigger than the previous one? Oh, no problem, really, whatever it is... Anyway , it would be wonderful if you guys could come to your door and install it today... oh, ok... thank you very much, thank you so much!"

After hanging up the phone, he let out a long sigh of relief. He never thought that one day he would feel the feeling of being saved because of an aquarium.

Thinking back to what happened when he woke up this morning... oh, that was a nightmare.

He hasn't remembered what happened to Munster last night. He just dragged his sleepy body and walked straight into the bathroom in a daze as before.However, after opening the shower curtain, he instantly saw the little monster floating on the water——

Its belly is facing upwards, its two claw-like pectoral fins are folded in front of its chest, its eyes are closed tightly and it makes a small even breathing sound of "wheezing and wheezing". The two tiny antennae will occasionally vibrate on the top of its head.

It slept so peacefully that Rand was stunned for a moment before suddenly remembering that his bathtub has now become the residence of this little monster.

Well, as a matter of fact, up to this time, everything seemed to be fine—Rand even just supported his forehead, deciding to give up his early morning bath with a hint of resignation.

But at this moment, he simply thought that maybe he could take a closer look at that little monster, after all it floated so easily on the surface of the water and was so close to him.Rand really wanted to figure out what the hell it was.

So Rand bent down and leaned over. Because of myopia, he squinted his eyes slightly. He might be a little too close to Munster, and he could even smell the faint smell of water on the little monster. taste……

And Munster also opened his eyes at this time——

It saw Rand at a glance.

God knows what's going on in that weird little head.

"Haw - chirp -"

It jumped up from the water with a scream, and its tail instantly slapped the bathtub everywhere, and Rand was immediately soaked.He suspected that Munster was about to jump on his face, and even his face was whipped by its tail, and he felt a sharp pain, and the large amount of water splashed made his vision blurred.

Rand closed his eyes tightly in a panic, pushing his hands in front of him indiscriminately—all in all, the scene was hell—he only touched some slippery things, maybe his nails picked something, but he didn't respond at all come over.

Until another loud splash sounded, and Munster fell back into the bathtub.Rand wiped his face casually with the shower curtain. He lowered his head with a livid face, and saw Munster scurrying under the bottom of the bathtub—a few seconds later, he bumped his head against the wall of the bathtub and curled up there. Get up and look like you're trying to bury yourself under the water.

If it was the real bottom of the sea, his behavior might barely be called a "disguise", but for God's sake-this is in Rand's bathtub!

Rand could hardly contain the anger in his chest, he was almost going crazy, after all, he never thought that one day he would be so embarrassed by a fish (maybe it wasn't a fish) either!

And, twice.

He took a deep breath, gnashing his teeth, even thinking about the possibility of removing it from his own home.But then he saw a trace of blue floating in the clear water.

oh wait...

Rand frowned. He remembered that the blood of this little monster was blue, and just now... he seems to have picked something?

Lowering his head, Rand found that there was also a ray of dried blue on his nails.He couldn't help tightening his lower lip, realizing that he might have hurt Munster just now.

He stood there, dumbfounded for a moment, and then he thought maybe he still couldn't ignore Munster's injury.So he had to puff himself up in shock and put his hand in the water.

"Hey, you bloody little one, I don't want to hurt you, so you can calm down too?"

He couldn't help talking to it, and there was still a dull pain on his face where he had been slapped by its tail before.

Oh man, what the hell did he end up in, Rand groaned to himself, vowing that he would never rescue any fish that looked unknown...or any kind of weird fish. animal.

Not sure if it was Rand's muttering that helped, Munster didn't show panic this time, though Rand did pull his head out of that corner with a bit of effort (can someone tell him Why would a fish have that much strength?!).

Then Rand found that one of the tentacles on Munster's head had fallen off, and the condition of the other one didn't look too good-it was on one side, half had been separated from the root, and the other side was connected by a thin skin. with.

From the place where the tentacles fell off, blue blood slowly oozes out.

"Damn."

Rand cursed under his breath.

He didn't know what the tentacles meant to the eccentric creature but it was clearly injured by his previous actions.

Rand tried to touch Munster's tentacles, which were still connected by a layer of skin, and they felt soft...and Munster immediately let out a cry.

It twisted its body violently, escaped from Rand's grasp, and continued to fall to the corner of the bathtub.

Rand was really, really unsure if he should let those two little wounds go unnoticed...and...he really didn't like having his bathtub soaked in unknown blood from unknown creatures.

After thinking for a while, he brought the first-aid kit from the room, and with the thoughts of "I'm treating a fish now", he sterilized the scissors with alcohol, and then carefully put the small The monster fished it out, and cut the layer of skin with the tentacles as gently as possible.

He thought Munster would scream or struggle, just like before, but the strange thing was that this time it just lay wet on the edge of the bathtub and let Rand move, making a small "tweet" sound from his mouth. hum.

This was the first time that Rand heard anything other than "chirp" in its mouth.

I have to say that Munster looks much cuter now than before.

Rand desperately hoped that its nature would also agree with what it is now...

He and Munster looked at each other for a moment, then sighed deeply.

He stretched out a finger and nodded on Munster's smooth head, and the latter made a "chirp...chirp" inflection, turned over and went to the bottom of the water.

All in all, that's what Rand does all morning -- fight and heal his pet fish.

By the way, he was also deprived of a bathing place by the other party.

To sum up, in Rand's current life, he found that what he needed most became an aquarium.So he called the store he had ordered from and asked if they could install it the same day.This request is unreasonable, after all, it was a week after the initial agreement.In fact, Rand did not report too much hope. However, after hearing that Rand was willing to give up the good deposit, the other party happily expressed that he could introduce a Sichuan restaurant in Chinatown to Rand.

Yes, it sounds crazy, but in fact, this restaurant has exactly the aquarium Rand needs in stock: they have just ordered a large number of aquariums in China, and for the sake of enough money, they are more than happy to sell them One is given to Rand, although the aquarium may be slightly larger than what he needs in terms of specifications (in fact, this is exactly what Rand wants, after all, even he is not sure whether Munster will continue to grow in the future. big).The most gratifying thing is that those industrious Chinese people are willing to come to help with the installation on the same day.

Rand finally felt that the god of luck had favored him for once.

And that afternoon, the people from the Sichuan restaurant rang Rand's doorbell as agreed.The aquarium they brought, in theory, was to show off the fresh fish to the group of guests in the restaurant - it is said that they always do this in their hometown, after all, only the freshest fish can make the most delicious boiled fish.

The size of the aquarium was actually larger than Rand had imagined—it took the Chinese workers who installed it a little time to fully install it.Sure, it's a bit cruder than the average commercially available aquarium, but...

"Very easy to use...very...sturdy..."

The leader of the Chinese workers stammered to Rand in English with a Taiwanese accent.

"Ah, thank you," Rand said to him gratefully, and then he looked at the aquarium, which was a bit exaggerated compared to the size of the living room, and whispered to himself hypnotically, "And I think as long as you look at it for a long time Maybe it's not that ugly."

In fact, no matter how beautiful the aquarium is, it is meaningless to the current Rand... and the real resident of the aquarium, the little monster named Munster, after all, Munster itself is not A pleasing creature.

After filling the water, Rand fished Munster out of the bathtub and put it in the aquarium.

During this process, a young worker who was still debugging the water inlet equipment kept looking at Munster intently.

"Any questions?"

Rand couldn't help asking.

The worker shook his head shyly. His English was not that good, but he still quickly said a word in Chinese to his friend, the lead worker.

"He said...it's a pike..."

The lead worker translated.

Rand was very surprised. He thought Munster was a weird deep-sea species, but he didn't expect that there were Chinese people who could recognize it.

"Haha...he said...he actually didn't know very well, but it looked a bit like..."

The other party continued.

Rand repeated that weird word, and decided to look for some information on the Internet later.

"Thanks," he said very sincerely, and in all fairness he felt a surge of relief in knowing that Munster wasn't a real little monster. "I thought I'd never know what it was."

"In China... it's very precious, it can make a sound... But some people also raise it to eat, it's said to be delicious..."

After the worker finished speaking, he seemed to realize that something was wrong, and he smiled awkwardly.

"This one of yours is beautiful..."

He quickly explained, indicating that he really had no other meaning.Rand twitched the corners of his mouth, expressing his indifference, although fundamentally, he was shocked by the Chinese's words.

After paying the fee and sending the worker away.He returned to the front of the aquarium and carefully observed Munster—the latter was obviously not used to his new home, and he was circling up and down.The blue scales shone like pearls at the bottom of the water.

No matter what, Rand felt that for such a creature, even if he killed him, he would not be able to develop an appetite.