Chapter 6

【Chapter 9】

Gu Cheng pounded frantically on the cabin door.

"Save us!"

"Save us, and you can have everything the Gu family owns!"

I pointed at the bomb-disposal kit beside him.

"Aren't you the experts?"

"Defuse it yourselves."

Gu Xiao grabbed the tools, but his hands shook so badly he couldn't grip a wire.

Gu Ye kicked him aside.

"Move. Let me!"

He cut the red wire.

The countdown jumped from thirty seconds to ten.

All three brothers stared.

At the last moment, my eldest brother hooked the lifeboat with his trident and hurled it ashore.

The bomb exploded in midair.

The lifeboat split in two.

The Gu brothers hit the beach, scorched black and barely alive.

Human rescue workers rushed over and pinned them down.

Gu Cheng still struggled.

"I'm the chairman of Gu Group!"

"You dare arrest me?"

An officer held up an arrest warrant.

"Illegal hunting. Unlawful experiments on living creatures. Endangering public safety. The evidence is conclusive."

"Congratulations, Mr. Gu. You're definitely going to trend this time."

Lu Chenzhou handed the investigation team every recording and account book he'd kept.

The Gu laboratory's records were made public too.

Under the guise of marine research, they'd hunted rare animals, illegally exploited seabed energy resources, and experimented with sonic weapons using animal sounds.

Gu Group's shares plunged to their daily limit that very night.

Its partners canceled their contracts en masse.

Gu Mingzhu sat on the sand, hair disheveled, watching her brothers being led away.

Suddenly, she crawled toward me.

"I can apologize."

"I'll get down on my knees. I'll bow my head to the ground. Would that be enough?"

"My brothers put me up to all of it."

Gu Ye burst into furious curses.

"Stop passing the blame, Gu Mingzhu!"

Gu Xiao sneered too.

"Weren't you the one crying for a mermaid?"

She turned and launched herself at them, scratching and clawing.

I couldn't be bothered to watch.

"Stop arguing."

"None of you is getting away with it."

She suddenly flung her arms around my tail.

"I didn't know your family was so powerful!"

"If I'd known, I'd never have touched you!"

I looked down at her.

"So if I'd just been an ordinary fish, I'd have deserved to end up in your soup?"

Her lips moved. Nothing came out.

"You aren't sorry you hurt me."

"You're only sorry you picked someone you couldn't afford to offend."

An investigator cuffed her.

She fought desperately, crying for her three brothers to save her.

They were too busy blaming each other to spare her a glance.

The tremors beneath the sea gradually stopped.

I'd barely let out a relieved breath when blood welled up in my throat.

I'd pushed my voice too far. The strength was draining from my vocal cords.

I opened my mouth.

Only a faint breath came out.

Mother gathered me into her arms. Her tears fell onto my wounds and became blue pearls.

Father stood beside her, his face frighteningly dark.

"Who told you to push yourself like that?"

I tugged his sleeve.

He turned away angrily.

A little later, he quietly slipped his tail over for me to hug.

After examining my vocal cords, my second sister suddenly smiled.

"Don't be afraid."

"This isn't a bad thing."

"Her Heart of the Tides has fully awakened."

【Chapter 10】

I slept for seven days.

When I woke, the sea folk had packed the area outside my palace to visit me.

Giant whales blocked the entrance.

Sharks crowded the windows.

An eight-hundred-year-old sea turtle lay under my bed and refused to leave, no matter what anyone said.

Father had laid eighteen layers of cushions around my bed.

I looked at him in silence.

He gave a guilty little cough.

"The floor's slippery."

"Father. I live underwater."

"Underwater floors can be slippery too."

Fine.

He was my father.

Naturally, that made him right.

My second sister told me Gu Group had been shut down.

Its illegal laboratory had been converted into a marine rescue center.

The three Gu brothers had received prison sentences for multiple offenses.

As for Gu Mingzhu, she'd not only taken part in illegal hunting but livestreamed her own abuse. The evidence didn't even need editing.

The day they took her away, she was still screaming that she had three older brothers.

Those same brothers had handed over every scrap of evidence of her childhood cruelty to animals, hoping for reduced sentences.

Such loving siblings.

Disaster struck, and they all stabbed each other in the back.

Lu Chenzhou canceled the engagement and testified in court.

He sent me an apology gift through an intermediary.

A commendation banner that read: "Don't Let Love Rot Your Brain."

I had it hung outside the Gu family's former aquarium.

My voice had indeed changed.

I could do more than sing beautifully now.

Whenever I spoke, the currents answered.

I could calm a storm.

Or wake a sleeping coral reef.