Chapter 6
The spacious bedroom was utterly quiet; even the sound of breathing was barely audible.
Wright lay on his back, having remained completely still in that position for about fifteen minutes, yet he felt not the slightest hint of sleepiness.
That was what insomnia was usually like: he would lie with his eyes closed for several hours, doze lightly in the early morning, then wake again.
But tonight was a little different from other nights, because a little merman was lying beside Wright.
Sleep was important for young ones still growing, and Wright knew that. So he tried not to make any noise that might disturb the other, even though he already slept so rigidly that he might as well have been standing at attention.
Tonight, however, he was several times quieter than usual.
Perhaps he’d reached the level required for a covert mission.
At that moment, the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Wright slowly turned his head... He thought the little merman should be asleep by now.
Almost the instant he turned his head, a rustling sound came from the other side of the bed.
Mu Chen looked at Wright with equally wide eyes. “Your Highness, are you having trouble sleeping?”
...
In the darkness, Wright stiffly answered, “Mm.”
He hadn’t made a sound. How had the other noticed?
More annoying than insomnia itself was having someone realize you were suffering from it.
Wright had heard that mermen were highly perceptive of mental power, and that their songs could heal it.
His brow furrowed slightly. He was suddenly a little afraid the other would say, “Your Highness, shall I sing you a song?”
Singing couldn’t possibly work on him.
Worse than being caught suffering from insomnia was having someone kindly suggest a solution, only for them to discover it was completely useless.
A soft shuffling sound came from beside him. The little merman seemed to be inching in his direction.
Wright realized he might have been getting ahead of himself.
The next second...
Mu Chen said, “Your Highness, I know a way to fall asleep faster.”
Wright’s eyelid twitched. “What?”
It wasn’t going to be singing...
“Roll...”“
It was the sound of someone rolling back and forth on the bed.
Mu Chen hugged Sharky and rolled around on the bed. “Whenever I can’t sleep, I roll around like this. Once I get tired, I fall right asleep.”
As he spoke, the little merman rolled more and more vigorously, as if he’d mistaken the mattress for a swing.
There were no guardrails around the bed, and Wright was a little worried he might fall. Before he could finish saying, “Careful...,” a loud “Thud!” rang out.
“Ow—”
Mu Chen cried out in pain from the floor.
Wright immediately used his smart-brain to turn on the lights. He sat up and leaned over the edge of the bed. Mu Chen was sitting on the floor, rubbing his forehead. He must have fallen hard, but fortunately, the plush toy in his arms had softened the impact a little.
Wright couldn’t help but laugh at how Mu Chen had tried to teach him to fall asleep quickly and ended up on the floor himself. But seeing the little merman looking so miserable made him feel sorry for him.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No.” Mu Chen climbed back onto the bed by himself and shook his head, though his pale forehead had turned red in one spot. Up close, it even looked a little swollen.
“Wait a moment...” Wright asked an intelligent robot to bring him a first-aid kit.
He often bumped into things during training, so he kept some medicine for injuries in his room.
“I’ll get better quickly.”
A merman’s blue blood was effective for all kinds of wounds, and even illnesses healed much faster than they did in ordinary people.
As he spoke, Mu Chen tucked his chin into the shark plushie. His eyes were still a little red from the shock of the fall. He was clearly trying to hide how embarrassing it was, but he only looked more aggrieved.
“An ice pack will make it hurt less.” Wright took one from the first-aid kit.
He wrapped the ice pack in a towel and gently pressed it to Mu Chen’s forehead, making sure it wouldn’t freeze the little merman’s skin.
The instant the towel touched his forehead, a soothing coolness spread from between his brows, and the pain eased considerably. Mu Chen hugged Sharky and obediently let Wright hold the ice pack against his forehead, occasionally peeking at him through his lashes.
A few minutes later, Wright confirmed the mark on Mu Chen’s forehead had completely faded, then turned off the light again.
In the darkness, they lay back down, and the room grew quiet once more.
“Tick, tick...” Time passed second by second. Just as Wright thought Mu Chen must have fallen asleep,
“Your Highness.”
“Mm.”
“I’ll let you have Sharky. If you hug him while you sleep, maybe you’ll fall asleep quickly.”
...
Wright said, “No need.”
“Come on, hold him...”
Mu Chen drew out the last word.
In the quiet, Wright felt a warm little bundle scoot over beside him, with a plush toy in between them.
It must have been the “Sharky” Mu Chen had mentioned.
He didn’t think hugging “Sharky” would help him fall asleep.
But a childish voice sounded beside him. “You can’t sleep, so I can’t sleep either. Now Sharky can’t sleep either.”
“If Sharky can’t sleep, he won’t have any energy tomorrow. Without energy, he won’t be strong, and if he isn’t strong, people will bully him...”
Wright said, “Give him to me.”
“Hm?”
“Sharky. Give him to me.”
“Here.”
A plush toy was placed in his arms. Wright’s fingertips, calloused from years of piloting mecha, brushed the shark plushie’s dorsal fin. He held it as if it were a ticking time bomb, his posture utterly stiff.
When he was eighteen, he’d piloted a mecha for the first time and destroyed twenty-eight military fortresses belonging to the insect race.
And now, at twenty-six, Wright had “acquired” the first plush toy of his life—one that someone else had merely lent him.
The feeling was rather strange.
Then... something suddenly clung to Wright’s arm. Warmth brushed the back of his hand as Mu Chen pressed his whole body against him, snuggling close.
Wright’s left hand stiffened, and then he heard the little merman ask softly, “Can I get closer to Sharky?”
...
Wright said, “You can.”
Mu Chen rested his head on the soft pillow and found a comfortable position. He closed his eyes contentedly. “Good night, Your Highness.”
“Good night.”
Wright held a shark in his right arm, while a merman “hung” from his left. He himself lay there, stiff and utterly motionless.
Before long, the long, even sound of breathing came from beside him. The sleeping little merman seemed to have mistaken himself for Sharky, clinging to Wright like a koala.
The little merman carried the faint, clean scent of a bath, but it was different from an ordinary fragrance...
With his eyes closed, Wright seemed to smell the sea breeze mingled with sand.
He also saw an endless ocean. The calm sea seemed vast enough to contain all things, and his tangled thoughts emptied in an instant. His mental entity, which had been knotted into a complete mess, seemed to be lifted onto a cloud and slowly smoothed out.
Before Wright even realized it, he had fallen asleep.
A dreamless night.
...
“Beep! Beep! Beep!”
The smart butler’s alarm woke Wright, and the glaring sunlight streaming through the curtains made him frown.
Unlike the exhaustion he usually felt after training, Wright woke feeling refreshed, as if he’d had a full night’s rest.
He stared in surprise at the “9:00” displayed on his smart-brain...
Had he really slept that long?
The events of the previous night slowly resurfaced in his mind. Wright couldn’t remember how he had eventually fallen asleep, but the calm, relaxed state of his mental entity had left a deep impression on him.
Wright looked at the little merman still asleep beside him. Could Mu Chen have helped regulate his mental power?
The thought made Wright furrow his brows slightly. Professional mental therapists usually suffered varying degrees of backlash because they couldn’t withstand his mental power, let alone a little merman who was still growing.
What if his mental power had hurt Mu Chen without him realizing it?
At that moment, Mu Chen’s eyes were tightly shut, his long lashes casting a shadow beneath them. His slightly puffed cheeks were tinged pink, and he was unusually quiet.
Wright tentatively called to him. “Mu Chen...”
There was no response.
Wright touched Mu Chen’s cheek with the back of his hand. It felt warm, but not hot, and there was no sign he was about to wake up.
The little merman’s condition worried Wright, so he immediately brought up his smart-brain and called Cole from the Royal Institute of Biology.
About fifteen minutes later, Cole came hurrying over. His lab coat billowed behind him in the wind, nearly tripping him, and his glasses sat crookedly on the bridge of his nose.
“You’re saying a merman helped regulate your mental power?” Cole frowned and took a measuring device out of his bag.
“Actually, a lot of people have a misconception about mermen: they think mermen have some miraculous ability to heal mental power, that just listening to one sing can cure it. None of that is supported by science. How effectively someone can heal mental power must be linked to their own mental power. These stories came about because the first generation of mermen, hundreds of years ago, had such powerful mental power that they could command all marine life. But by the last generation, that ability had declined exponentially...”
Just as he placed the measuring device against Mu Chen’s wrist, it suddenly crackled with electricity. Its needle began to shake violently.
Immediately afterward, an alarm rang out. “Beep! Beep! Beep!”
Cole froze. “I can’t measure his mental power at all.”
“Could the device be broken?” As he spoke, he swept the probe toward Wright. The needle moved slightly twice, then stopped in the “SSS” range.
“There’s nothing wrong with the device, so how could this happen?” Cole muttered to himself. “...It’s also possible this device just isn’t suitable for mermen.”
After that, he took a stethoscope and a pile of equipment for checking vital signs out of his bag and began fiddling with them.
Mu Chen showed no signs of waking throughout the entire process.
Wright couldn’t help asking, “What exactly is wrong with him?”
Cole put away the stethoscope. “There’s nothing wrong. The nerve cells in his cerebral cortex are being inhibited.”
Wright: “?”
“Uh, well...” Facing Wright’s gaze, cold as frost, Cole rubbed his nose. “He won’t wake up because he’s sleeping deeply.”
Wright: “...”
He looked at the little merman, whose face was still half buried in the soft pillow. So he just hadn’t woken up yet?
Perhaps he sensed the commotion around him. A few minutes later, Mu Chen’s eyelids finally twitched.
He cracked his eyes open and sat up crookedly, hugging Sharky as he looked bewilderedly at the people gathered around him...
What was going on?
Mu Chen was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open. He asked weakly, “What’s wrong?”
Wright went over and sat beside him. “Do you feel unwell anywhere?”
At that, the little merman lowered his lashes halfway and fell into thought.
Unwell? Was he?
Maybe a little.
Faced with Wright’s concerned expression, the little merman nodded woodenly.
Wright’s brows furrowed. Had something gone wrong with the mental power regulation last night after all?
Then,
he heard Mu Chen complain, “I’m so hungry.”
He was hungry enough to eat an entire shark. How could that not count as feeling unwell?