A hunting adventure [unlimited]

"I dreamed of Irene." Yu Zhen recounted the content of the dream.

After Du Yu finished listening, he responded lightly, "Yes."

Yu Zhen: "You said, my dream...is it true or not?"

Du Yu smiled and said, "You're asking a strange question, I don't know."

Was the dream within a dream his dream, or Du Yu's dream?The world is like a lump of dissolved thick sugar, which sticks and sticks to each other after being boiled, and he can't tell the difference.

"That's right, you don't know." Yu Zhen leaned back on the desktop and took a stack of files that Du Yu had read, "What is locked?"

He turned to the first page, which was an observation report on the living conditions of the mermaid, recording the eating, excretion and activities of a little mermaid named Neil for a week.It is not in good health, its internal organs are prone to bleeding, and bloody vomit often floats in the pool.

Yu Zhen frowned, "Hmm... I don't understand."

Du Yu didn't raise his head, kept his eyes on the words and said, "If you don't want to read it, just wait, I'll finish it right away."

Such a thick pile, are you almost finished?Yu Zhen asked, "How long have I been asleep?"

Du Yu: "Maybe an hour and a half."

"So long!?" He patted his face, "It's almost dawn, isn't it?"

"Yes." Du Yu finished the last book, threw the document back into the high stack of papers, turned his head left and right, and loosened his tired cervical spine, "I have an idea about this basement."

Yu Zhen listened with his ears open.

Du Yu's hands were not idle, sitting on the edge of the desk, sorting out the files and letters he had read one by one, "Do you remember that in the palace, I took you to see the tamed mermaid?"

Yu Zhen was sitting in the chair, much shorter than the other person, so she had to look up at the person, "Remember."

Holding a stack of summarized materials, Du Yu lifted his eyelids, and the eyes under the eyelashes flickered coldly. He looked directly at him and said, "They are not mermaids, they are humans."

Yu Zhen: "...People?"

"That's right." Du Yu pulled out an envelope and gave it to him, "This is a letter between the previous Queen Greta and the research institute, which mentioned: After the pure-blooded mermaids were artificially raised, they gradually lost their ability to reproduce. The Queen Distraught, I had no choice but to turn to the Royal Academy for help."

"Dear Josie, Hello Zhanxin. I think I have encountered some difficult problems. The mermaids I kept in the bedroom have passed three breeding seasons, but they have no sign of pregnancy at all; for this reason, I consulted several creatures professors and doctors..."

Yu Zhen unfolded the letter paper, read a few lines, and changed from reading aloud to silently.

The content of the letter is not long, as Du Yu said, it is a letter for help; the signature is Greta, and it is addressed to Josie R. Yexiu.

Regardless of whether the content of his dream is true or not, the recipient’s real surname is Yexiu, and he has a close relationship with Irene; the letter from the queen is so confidential, the keeper must be the recipient himself, that is, the owner of the secret room .

After reading the letter, Yu Zhen asked: "Mermaids are hermaphroditic and self-fertilizing creatures. How could they lose their ability to reproduce?"

Du Yu handed over another piece of paper and said, "According to some scattered research data and Josie's speculation, it should be that after the mermaids were hunted and massacred, the offspring of the ethnic group have changed their personalities, and they will enter a stress response when they see humans. ; psychological problems affecting the menstrual cycle, and they refuse to ovulate and produce babies in captivity."

Of course, Yu Zhen's reading speed couldn't keep up with Du Yu's summary. He roughly flipped through the remaining documents and letters, and listened to the other party say:

"Qiao Qian, who received the help letter, tried her best to lead the researchers to secretly implement the mermaid conception plan, but no matter whether it was test tube or cloning technology, those embryos failed to develop and form, and the largest fetus was miscarried at five months, and lost A mermaid as a mother, so the plan ended in failure."

When Yu Zhen flipped the paper, a photo fell out of the folder, and he quickly caught the falling photo—it was a disembowelled mermaid corpse, and an unformed red fetus on a white porcelain plate, a curled up fish The tail and head are covered with a translucent mucous membrane.

"It turned out to be a viviparous birth?" He couldn't believe it, and then he comforted himself, not to use his existing knowledge to speculate on what happened in the empire.

Du Yu covered the photo to make him concentrate on listening to the lecture, and said: "At this time, there are very few pure-blooded mermaids left. As a symbol of the authority of the royal family, once they are extinct, the queen's position will definitely not be able to sit. But things are contrary to expectations, and the mermaid is still a One after another, they died violently, leaving no descendants."

"The research institute kept the genes and complete bodies of the mermaids for future research. In desperation, Josie suggested to Greta that she could make a few mermaids for her as a short-term display until the fleet caught the real mermaids again. mermaid."

"Short-term display?" Yu Zhen thought of the human teeth picked up under the operating table, the human legs soaked in the glass tube, and Du Yu's words; he said in shock, "Transforming people into mermaids?"

Du Yu had already digested his emotions, and said calmly: "Yes, Josie also stayed in Feimin Laboratory where Irene works. She is an excellent plastic surgeon."

"Put the whole body into a mermaid!?" Yu Zhen felt dizzy again, flashing in front of his eyes were those beautiful sea creatures like elves wandering in the blue water and freely shuttling between the long stairs in the attic.Their pretty faces turned into silicone and fat, and he couldn't help but imagine how they screamed when their legs were cut off.

There are also shiny and dazzling fish tails, gills that open and close under the ribs... the scalpel and prostheses completely shattered his fairy tale fantasy.

"There are no domesticated mermaids at all." Du Yu said, "We were all deceived."

From beginning to end, there is only one kind of real mermaid, which is the creature Yu Zhen saw for the first time; it is dangerous, ferocious, cruel, beautiful and evil coexist.

And the docile creatures raised in the mermaid hall are the imperial men who lost their legs and voice, and they are human beings themselves.

"The specific plan and process of the operation and other related video materials and written records have been destroyed." Du Yu opened an empty file folder, only pouring out some dust, "Or it was taken away by someone."

Yu Zhen said: "If the transformation surgery that allows people to breathe freely underwater without the aid of oxygen inhalation equipment, if it can be realized, no matter which world it is in, it will be at the level of a genius. If it were me, I would keep the content of the surgery strictly confidential."

"The operation was not successful at the beginning, and many experimental subjects died." Du Yu put the file he read at the beginning on the surface, "The observation objects recorded in this book are experimental objects after the technology has matured. But there are still Short lifespan, easy sudden death and other defects of low survival rate."

Yu Zhen: "Yes, the little mermaids we saw in the palace all looked underage. If they were human beings, the oldest one would be fifteen or sixteen years old. An artificial fish can only live for ten years or so? That's a big deal. It’s almost like a pet.”

The total number of existing mermaids in the entire empire, regardless of their true or false ages, does not exceed twenty; it can be seen that after the technology matures, they still have not been able to overcome the problem of the low survival rate of artificial mermaids.

Du Yu: "In my impression, the mermaid who lived the longest in the palace was called Elaine. She was ten years old when I was born, and died when I was nine years old."

Yu Zhen: "Even if a real pure-blooded mermaid is caught, as long as a new juvenile mermaid cannot be bred for a day, this operation will continue. Otherwise, if there is an accident, a few more mermaids will die accidentally, and the mermaid will become extinct again. Is this basement a secret place for performing plastic surgery and making fake mermaids, and its concealment and security are impeccable, so why was it abandoned?"

Du Yu handed him an old photo that was placed alone, "Because the owner of the secret room, Qiao Qian, died."

Yu Zhen took the photo after making enough mental preparations, but the moment she saw it, she was still terrified.

——Isn't this the photo Irene took in his dream!

A group photo of a family of four standing in front of their house, located at the south end of Safir Avenue, just across the road from the Royal Palace; on the far right of the photo is the pale face of the gardener, who looks anxious, as if she is afraid of something.

Yu Zhen flipped through the photo to see the content behind it, but it was not the simple map he had dreamed about, but a paragraph of text:

【I know that I have sinned deeply, and even death cannot forgive my sins. I implore you to forgive my children.I will stay here to repent, I will never be able to close my eyes until the cries of the dead are no longer in my ears. 】

Yu Zhen said, "It looks like I wrote it when I was mentally ill."

Du Yu hinted at him: "Don't you think the person in the photo looks familiar?"

"I just had a dream because I had a dream..." Yu Zhen said halfway, and suddenly stood up and left the desk!

He clutched the photo and walked to the air vent. In a warm living room, beside the dining table that seats six, there are two wax figures dressed up, a man and a woman in red and black dresses. Good chest strap.

The couple are the parents standing behind their children in the photo—Irene's mother, Josie, and her husband.

***

Yu Zhen squatted at the foot of the table, staring at the bound monster.

Struggling exhausted all its strength, it was lying on the carpet like a dead mouse, pus and blood flowed from the punctured eye sockets, and covered its face; with a napkin stuffed in its mouth, it could only make weak panting sounds from time to time to prove it still alive.

"I have a question, who is it?"

In fact, Yu Zhen had an answer in his heart, but it was too absurd and frightening, so he didn't dare to say it.

Du Yu paced around the dining table with a photo in his hand, more interested in wax figures than ugly monsters.He touched the wax figure's lips with his thumb, it was hard, and even the lip lines were carved delicately.

"A certain unlucky experimental product was experimented with a certain drug, and the body mutated; because it lost its value, it was abandoned here."

"Someone? Has it lost its value?" Yu Zhen asked, "Then why do you feed it regularly? Isn't it easier to kill it?"

"Maybe it has a special status." Du Yu focused on the wax figure, sliding his fingertips over the woman's temples.

Yu Zhen took advantage of Du Yu's wandering by his side and tore away the crumpled photo in the other party's hand. He read the words on the back of the photo again: ...but please forgive my children...

Children, is plural.

Irene in the dream said that she inherited her father's blond hair, and her younger brother inherited her mother's black hair, and the same is true from the photos.The little boy in the group photo has soft black hair, while this monster has long, dull and messy black hair.

Hair color can't be used as evidence, but...

Yu Zhenshun conjectured, "Is it necessary for a family to be tidy?"

Du Yu heard him talking to himself, stopped walking and said, "What?"

Yu Zhen rolled up the sharp corner of the photo, and instead of finger touching the monster's ankle, said: "I suspect that it is the fourth person in the photo, Irene's younger brother."