Beauty and the Beasts

Ten years ago…

The bottom of the deep blue sea was decorated with pearls the size of fists. The gentle light lit up the bottom of the sea, presenting a beautiful scene.

Large patches of seaweed drifted with the currents and several small colorful fish hid into the seaweed with a “swoosh”, then darting out again.

“Pffft.”

The sound of a female bursting into laughter rang out. A girl with draping blue curly hair was leaning by a cave, with exquisite chains of shells hung around her neck and limbs. She wore clothes that were woven from the rarest seaweed, and they hung over her slender body like silk.

She was dressed up like a fairy of the sea, yet there was no one to admire her.

She looked at the world outside, poking at the thin invisible film that was on the edges of the cave. There was seawater outside but air within the thin film. It would take a careful look for one to realize that the borders around the cave were all covered in such a layer of film.

“Sigh! It’s so boring. When will King and the others be back?” Jean sighed and asked.

With a loud “swoosh”, the small fish in the seaweed all darted out, bringing forth murkiness that spread out in the seawater.

Jean immediately put her face against the thin film. A human face was pressed onto the film, but it didn’t show any signs of breaking.

She knew that this meant that there was danger behind the rock. However, she didn’t panic. It hadn’t been easy for there to be a show.

She had been living here day after day, year after year. She was really being driven crazy from boredom. This was despite that the males in the tribe brought all the best things to her, giving her an endless amount of food, beautiful clothes that she couldn’t finish wearing. She also had an endless amount of youth and beauty.

New female merfolk would only be born after the previous one was close to the end of their lifespan. Therefore, there would only be one female in the merfolk tribe. As the female merfolk in this generation, she carried the important responsibility of reproducing the later generations.

The males would travel far distances to look for green crystals for her, allowing her to extend her lifespan endlessly. Generations of males passed by, and she watched as her children grew up, then mated with them, producing the next generation. She then continued to watch as they grew old or if they were unable to return after a certain trip to the land.

3

She could no longer recall how many hundred years old she was. Days like this were too boring, and she was unable to bear with it any longer.

1

Just then, a change suddenly appeared in her life.

A huge snake slithered out from behind the quarry, his vibrant black and red colors giving off an intense sense of danger.

Jean knew that she should shout out anxiously, but for some reason, she had a slight craving for the snake to get near.

The fact that the snake was able to avoid layers of guards and arrive at her residence proved that he was strong. Her heart suddenly palpitated and she held onto her chest, squeezing her face outside even further.

Was he a beastman from some other race? He must be able to bring her out. She really wanted to go to the land to play!

Those males were too cowardly and only dared to bring her to the surface of the sea to get a breather. At the most, they would only bring her up to sit on a small island, that she could see the other end of, for just a short moment. Furthermore, they would constantly keep an eye on her as well.

As if hearing her thoughts, the snake’s upper body suddenly changed into his human form.

His half-human, half-snake form looked very similar to that of merfolk, and his long red hair drifted in the seawater, turning into a stretch of bright red. Jean was instantly attracted by his red hair.

However, his tail was too long and his scales too rough. The large patches of white scales on his abdomen, especially, looked like a shell. For someone like her who was used to looking at fish tails, she felt that snake tails were too ugly.

Curtis stared at the female in the cave and swam over. Putting out a finger, he slit open the film that Jean had been unable to break no matter what she did.