After Mistakenly Binding The Matchmaker System

Chapter 126

This desire was different from before; instinct screamed for him to drag the person into the deep sea regardless of anything, while reason tugged at him, urging him to control himself and suppress his instincts.

This was a novel experience for him. Since he became conscious, he had never suppressed himself like this. Most of the time, merfolk acted on instinct. Humans liked to think and analyze everything before doing anything. They even had to argue several times before making a decision.

To the merman, this was an extremely wasteful way of doing things. For merfolk, everything was based on strength. The strong had absolute dominance, and this was a choice made by nature. This mode of survival allowed them to survive for generations in the perilous deep sea.

Compared to the humans who first discovered their existence, merfolk had already known about humans. They also knew that although humans were weak, they possessed powerful weapons. Even the ocean’s overlord had to temporarily avoid the sharp edges of these weapons.

When he was young, adult merfolk warned them not to approach humans just because they were powerful. Fortunately, they lived in waters far from human activity, so they were able to live in peace for such a long time.

Merfolk preferred to live alone. After reaching adulthood, each merfolk had its own territory. Generally, merfolk did not visit each other. They were powerful and enjoyed solitude.

After being brought to land by these humans who looked very much like them, the merman had been observing them and he found their way of life completely different. Merfolk liked solitude, while humans lived in groups. Though they lacked individual strength, humans invented various strange weapons that made them difficult to guard against.

The merman had suffered some losses due to this. Though it didn’t cause him any real harm, it did affect his mood.

The merman scrutinized the man facing him. His appearance and aura hadn’t changed, but something about him felt different from before. It was an unfounded feeling, but he just felt that way. The merman was very perceptive in this regard. He didn’t know what had happened, but the changed Li Shu was less irritating to him.

The original hunger had turned into another kind of desire, a feeling he couldn’t describe. He only knew that he didn’t find it unpleasant, and that was enough.

The merman’s gaze was too aggressive, scanning every inch of Li Shu’s body with an indescribable feeling. Li Shu felt the hairs on his body stand up.

Li Shu was not unfamiliar with such a gaze. When he had not yet reached the peak of his cultivation, some people would often look at him with such a gaze. But on closer inspection, their gazes are slightly different. If he had to say, the merman’s gaze did not make him want to kill him.

“What do you want to do?” Li Shu grabbed the edge of the table warily. The laboratory had been specially modified with various protective measures. Worried the merman might repeat his earlier actions, Li Shu’s left hand touched the silver button on the edge of the table.

“Aren’t you curious how I got out of that…” The merman pointed to the petri dish not far away, “thing?”

Li Shu was not the original owner. He had seen all sorts of unconventional things. This was just a matter of getting out of a sealed petri dish without any external help. However, he put on a curious expression and asked, “Would you tell me?”

“What will I get in return?” The merman suddenly leaned closer, placing both hands on the table and trapping Li Shu in his embrace.

“Uh?” Li Shu was stunned by his question, unable to understand the merman’s thought process.

“Don’t you humans believe in equivalent exchange? If I tell you how I got out, what will you give me?” The merman moved even closer. He smelled a faint fragrance, and it seemed to be coming from the person in his arms.

“You smell so good,” the merman marveled. The merman’s gentle voice had a kind of decadent beauty, like a feather brush lightly sweeping over one’s heart.

“What smell?” Li Shu initially thought the merman was speaking casually, but then he felt the merman sniffing beside his face and he realized that wasn’t the case. He wondered, “Could it be that I really have some kind of scent?”

“Uh… I can’t describe it, but it smells very good and delicious.” Upon smelling this scent, all the violent emotions in his heart dissipated, leaving only tranquility.

It was a rare feeling. Merfolk are inherently bloodthirsty and enjoy killing. Their lives were supposed to be like that—fighting the ocean and full of slaughter. It is their nature that they enjoy this kind of killing, and their endless energy is released in the process of killing.

During his time in the laboratory, the merman had been away from the thrilling deep-sea life. He had endless food so he didn’t need to hunt, and the accumulated violence in his heart had no outlet. That’s why he forcibly used his ability before fully recovering. He needed a hunt to calm his inner turmoil.

Li Shu was his chosen prey.

As he wished, he easily captured his prey. The ease of it, however, left him disinterested and unenthusiastic.

But the subsequent development was completely beyond his expectation. According to his usual habit, he would drag the prey back to his lair. If he liked the prey, he would slowly enjoy it. Otherwise, he would dispose of it casually. Not every prey had the “honor” of being brought back to the lair by a merfolk, though the captured prey might not want this “honor.”

On the way to dragging the prey back to the lair, the merman changed his mind. He didn’t want to eat the prey so quickly. To the merman, humans were really fragile, unable to withstand a single blow. A little more strength could be fatal. So he carefully controlled his strength, using enough to firmly bind the human without hurting him or allowing him to escape.

“You can calm me down,” the merman whispered a fact in Li Shu’s ear.

This realization came to him suddenly. The moment he wrapped his tail around the young man, the merman felt the overwhelming desire for destruction in his heart decrease. At first, he thought it was because he had caught his desired prey, bringing satisfaction to his heart.

When two human females suddenly appeared, he should have rushed forward to kill the intruders. This was the nature of merfolk. But he didn’t. He just tightened his grip on his “prey” and used his gaze to drive away the intruders. He didn’t feel the need to personally expel them.

Later, he even tacitly allowed the two human females to enter his territory during the interval between hunting and consuming his prey, completely contradicting the nature of merfolk.

“I’m really curious now,” the merman murmured in Li Shu’s ear, “What magic do you possess to make me repeatedly go against my nature?”

“Whether it’s killing or sparing those two humans… do you know? Your two little assistants were originally not supposed to leave alive. Because of your one word, I let them in and then let them go. Our species does not tolerate interruptions during feeding. During this time, anything that appears before us has only one outcome—death.”

As he spoke, the merman’s cold breath poured straight into Li Shu’s neck. The laboratory was already a bit cold, and Li Shu felt the urge to cover his neck with his hand.

“Then tell me, why didn’t you kill them?” Li Shu calmly met the merman’s gaze. His voice was indifferent, showing no concern for the two assistants’ fate.

Sometimes, the merman really couldn’t understand humans. Like now, not long ago, the human who was now facing him had been angry because his assistant was bullied. But now, he didn’t seem to care about their lives at all.

He looked into the eyes of the person beneath him. This was the first time he looked directly into those eyes. Li Shu’s eyes were narrow and slightly upturned at the corners, but they were often filled with coldness, which made people overlook that they were eyes capable of captivating hearts. The pupils were very black, as dark as ink, reminding him of the deep sea where sunlight could not penetrate and was filled with darkness, like a pool of thick ink, cold and mysterious.

“I don’t know,” the merman replied slowly. “At that moment, I just wanted to tighten my tail around you a little more. I didn’t want to care about irrelevant people and things at all. Come back to the deep sea with me, I’ll find a way for you to survive there.”

Unexpectedly, even at this point, the merman still hadn’t given up on taking him back to the deep sea. Li Shu didn’t want to antagonize the protagonist, so he said indifferently, “Then take your time to think.”

In the original plot, the protagonist completely destroyed the base and then went through a difficult escape with the heroine. In the end, he successfully returned to his territory. When he returned, he was alone. The heroine had died saving him during the escape. To avenge her, the protagonist used his power to flood the city that had brought him pain.

In this city, he learned about love, understood pain, and experienced loss. Since that was the case, the city’s people should experience those feelings with him.

He(Li Shu) had come to this world, and he definitely couldn’t let the original plot ending play out. The system had told him that while the process they knew might be wrong, the final outcome would not be. This meant that no matter how the story unfolded, the ending would still be the male protagonist flooding the largest human settlement city with seawater.

Now, he had already created an opportunity for the male and female protagonists to be together, but it seemed there was no spark between them. Li Shu was always protective of his shortcomings; no matter how the plot went or what the future held, he wouldn’t let the tragedy of the original story repeat.

Not noticing the perfunctory tone in Li Shu’s words, the merman seriously considered the possibility of taking Li Shu back to the deep sea. He didn’t understand why he wanted to bring a human back to his lair. It wasn’t even as a reserve food source, but he genuinely thought about the feasibility of raising Li Shu in the deep sea.

He would find the largest shell as a bed, lay the softest shark silk on it, and since humans couldn’t adapt to the darkness, he could catch glowing fish for illumination…

Li Shu didn’t know that the merman was already imagining their life in the deep sea together. He pushed the merman, who obediently straightened up this time.

“Do you want to go back?” Li Shu’s gaze drifted to the petri dish. The merman was an aquatic creature and couldn’t stay out of water for too long.

The merman nodded. The petri dish had become his temporary lair. He felt a bit regretful that he couldn’t take Li Shu back to his lair.

Li Shu deciphered the meaning in his eyes and felt a headache coming on. “I’ll turn off the petri dish’s protective measures if you can promise not to harm anyone who enters the laboratory.”

Turning off the protection would allow the merman to come and go freely.

The merman gently touched Li Shu’s forehead with his own. “I promise you.”