You Can Tell He's the Little Mermaid

"My fault. I called it badly. None of you need to feel guilty." Ji Yunzhou summoned his captain's authority, cleared his throat with a fist pressed to his lips, and set the matter straight.

And with that, the matter was closed.

Yu Xinglan lay flat on the huge bed at home, rubbing the crease of his brow with a knuckle, feeling more tired than he ever had.

An ordinary team simulation course had worn him out more than a solo exam.

Even straining to match his teammates, to fit their rhythm, it had all come apart in the end.

Dusk deepened; streetlights flickered on one by one. He spread his palm—his fingertips were trembling. Light from the corner lamppost streamed through the window and slipped between his fingers into his eyes.

On a home planet now blanketed wall to wall in climate control, Yu Xinglan's fingertips were still cold. He swallowed, remembering the hot cocoa he'd had on that little planet.

Pulling his thoughts back, he braced on his arm and sat up along the edge of the bed.

The motion knocked the login helmet off the nightstand; it hit the floor with a bang.

He paused, picked it up, and checked it inside and out. Only when he pressed the power button and saw it light up as usual did the knot in his chest finally loosen.

The second sales channel for the helmets hadn't opened yet, and the first batch had been tiny. Now that everyone had seen how playable the game was, helmets in stock had become precious—they were already going for two million star credits on Starnet. If he'd cracked it, it would have genuinely hurt.

He settled the helmet over his head, and the next second Yu Xinglan logged in to the merfolk capital.

The castle was exactly as he'd left it. The great hall stood empty—not only had the Queen gone, there wasn't a single NPC guard in sight.

He was about to leave when a light behind the throne caught his eye.

A point of light flickered, half-seen, and vanished in an instant.

He narrowed his eyes, certain he hadn't imagined it, and slowly approached the throne.

Two or three meters out, an invisible barrier stopped him cold. He could not take one more step.

The barrier had no visible edge; it ran all the way to the walls.

He rapped it with a knuckle—no reaction. Arms crossed, he backed up two steps, planted his elbow, and slammed his whole body into it.

The barrier didn't so much as ripple. It hurled him back two meters instead.

Yu Xinglan hit the ground and rolled twice. His health bar, lower left, dropped by two points.

As he moved to get up, an odd sound reached his ear. He turned—[GonnaGetRich] was standing in the doorway like an idiot, staring straight at this side. The moment he was noticed, he swam over three steps at a time.

[GonnaGetRich] had barely arrived before he flopped belly-down on the floor, feeling around this way and that, like he was searching for something.

Yu Xinglan gripped his shoulder and hauled him up off the ground. "What are you looking for?"

"Boss, I saw the whole thing! You were sprawled on the floor—what else would you be doing? There's gotta be treasure down there!"

[GonnaGetRich] thumped his chest excitedly, the picture of a man who understood everything.

"We've cleared a dungeon together, you know. Out of pure teammate loyalty—even if I find it, I won't fight you for it."

Yu Xinglan was speechless. He put a hand to his forehead and stopped [GonnaGetRich] from flopping back down.

"What are you doing here?"

He hadn't simply appeared in the hall the way Yu Xinglan had—he'd come in through the main doors. Clearly he was not freshly logged in. Something had made him come back.

At Yu Xinglan's words, [GonnaGetRich] smacked his forehead and pulled a scroll from his pack. "Look at this—I forgot all about it."

Yu Xinglan unrolled it. The paper was old, the ink faded nearly past reading, but the pictures could just barely be made out. The story closely resembled something from the Old Earth fairy-tale collection he'd read as a child, called The Little Mermaid.

The story went roughly like this: to walk on land in pursuit of love, the little mermaid traded her voice to a sea witch for a pair of legs—and in the end, her love unrequited, she dissolved into sea foam.

The moment he finished the scroll, a quest auto-accepted itself, named [The Little Mermaid], matching the story.

Yu Xinglan opened his quest panel as usual. This time the description made even less sense.

[Quest description: Are you the next little mermaid?]

"Boss, I came straight to you the second I got this. The quest description says nothing, but I know this story a little." [GonnaGetRich] took the scroll and stowed it back in his pack. "You don't suppose we're supposed to trade with the witch for a pair of legs too?"

Yu Xinglan didn't answer right away. This quest entry had something new—a guiding arrow. Tap it, and a map unfolded: the buildings on it were only rough outlines, but the guide path shifted constantly with his position.

With a route to follow, they soon reached the marked spot.

The stone house before them looked no different from the rest of the city, only bare of ornament, moss crammed into every mortar line. The door stood ajar; there was no telling whether anyone lived inside.

He pushed the door open, and the sand on the doorframe came loose and swirled away in the current.

The room's layout spread out before Yu Xinglan at once. Along each of the four walls stood a row of shelves holding all manner of bones, gems, and herbs. At the table in the very center stood a merfolk figure in a pointed hat and a long robe.

The merfolk had their back turned, face unseen—but the body was stooped and small, dressed exactly like the witch described in the quest.

"Sorry to bother you, witch. We accepted a quest and—"

Before Yu Xinglan could finish, a dagger whipped past his face and buried itself in the wall behind him.

A thin cut of blood bloomed across his cheek. Blood beaded and slid down; his health bar, which had just refilled to full, dropped another point.

The witch turned around. Long red waves, emerald-green eyes, a small round face with long lashes—unmistakably a child who hadn't yet grown up.

"You're the witch! I'm only a hundred years old!" The 'witch' flushed with anger, cheeks puffing out, eyes welling up. "Why did you break into my home!"

The air turned razor-edged. [GonnaGetRich] hurriedly pressed Yu Xinglan's arm behind him, shielding him, and waved both hands at the little witch, grin spreading, eyes curving. "Easy, little witch, easy! His eyes are bad. We heard an all-powerful witch lived here, one whose potions could raise the dead and knit broken bones, and we came all this way begging her to brew us one."

"Now that's more like it." The little witch pursed her lips and set her little knife back on the table. "You're looking for my mother, then. She went out. You can leave my house now."

"Beg pardon, but when will your mother be back?" Neither of them stepped back; [GonnaGetRich] leaned in even closer.

The little witch turned her face away and stopped looking at them. "Don't know."

"We really do have something urgent." [GonnaGetRich] dug a ruby out of his pack and pressed it into her hand, palms together, bowing at the waist in earnest.