Ren Shuhan’s mother was named Ren Wan’er1Her name means graceful child, which was extremely mismatched with her appearance – a big woman with a robust figure. Her husband, Lu Xu, had a personality similar to hers. This couple had such an easy-going nature that they didn’t feel the need to contact the home planet even after being away for so many years.
Their spaceship had an accident during a vacation trip they had organized while they were with colleagues. Many of them brought their families along, essentially being a unit for team-building. The nature of their work was somewhat mysterious – exploring and developing undeveloped planets suitable for human habitation. They were involved in activities often referred to by the interstellar people as “poverty alleviation” or “performative arts2This one is a bit ruder, some people basically think they’re doing that just to look good“.
So, when they fell into this world, nobody panicked. Instead, they briefly attempted to contact the outside world and checked the existing facilities.
Upon discovering that the signals here were not compatible with the interstellar alliance and the backup spaceship was damaged, they calmly packed up the non-functional items into storage and never opened them again.
Ren Shuhan’s system helped them fix the communication terminal, enabling them to receive external information. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much, as they never bothered to look back after that.
Subsequently, using the lifeboat mode of the spaceship, they floated on the sea for a while, fished for survival, accidentally found an uninhabited island to land on, and even extracted supplies from the spaceship on the island. In just two years, they repaired the spaceship to a reasonable extent, began circumnavigating the globe, and explored other civilizations.
After discovering the merfolk tribe, they successively absorbed several tribes.
It wasn’t smooth sailing initially, as the merfolk were highly vigilant against humans. However, after joining a tribe and using their knowledge to teach the merfolk how to weave and make paper, they gradually gained leadership positions through knowledge. They continued sailing with some merfolk, facilitating communication between different merfolk tribes, and their expansion rate became rapid.
Because merging between merfolk tribes were common, Ren Wan’er and Lu Xu’s team had grown to several times the size of the Hu tribe.
Due to the Hu tribe’s strong combat strength and their extensive travels over long distances, after some information exchange with other tribes, they had already heard about this new large tribe.
Hu Yang had known that he wouldn’t become the next chief, so he was actually looking forward to being absorbed by the new large tribe.
“Haha,” thinking about this, he forgot about the pain in his tail and burst into laughter. “If Ren Shuhan finds out, he will be greatly disappointed.”
Hu Wang also agreed deeply.
The mobile island didn’t anchor close to the shore; it dropped anchor at a considerable distance. Merfolk on the ship started singing, expressing their friendliness.
Ren Shuhan on the shore was stunned, “This…”
Why did it sound so awful?
Merfolk’s singing was usually very melodic. Jiang Qingyue had a gentle and bright voice, often humming human pop songs for Ren Shuhan. But now, the sound from the ship was like an assault on the ears.
“This is our original communication frequency,” Jiang Qingyue explained. “It’s very high, maybe you find it unpleasant, but we are more accustomed to this frequency’s tune.”
Ren Shuhan asked in surprise, “Does that mean the songs you sang for me were actually hard for you to listen to?”
The cute way he slightly parted his lips reminded Ren Shuhan of his childhood, so Jiang Qingyue laughed and touched his lower lip.
“No, it’s not. I have a broad aesthetic sense.”
Ren Shuhan couldn’t distinguish whether he was joking or just consoling himself, so he just touched Jiang Qingyue’s cheek.
The first to respond to the large tribe’s merfolk was Jiang Chen. She invited two merfolk and two humans from the ship to come ashore, specifically naming Lu Xu and Ren Wan’er, stating that their son was waiting in the tribe.
Lu Xu and Ren Wan’er were both dumbfounded.
The chief of the Jiang tribe didn’t understand what was going on, feeling dissatisfied as Jiang Chen intervened in such a major matter. Unexpectedly, after the guests came ashore, they brought many gifts, exclusively presenting them to Jiang Chen. Gratefully, they tearfully thanked her for raising their child.
The onlookers, Hu Yang and Hu Wang, were bewildered, “?”
“What? The new chief is the son of the chief of this large tribe?”
“They are humans too? These merfolk actually submit to humans?”
“What are you saying… Our new chief is also a human.”
“Wait a minute, doesn’t that mean it’s not our tribe that got absorbed by this large tribe, but rather, the large tribe and our tribe were originally one?”
The tribes that were absorbed were relatively weak, often allocated to unfavorable sea areas, and some even had to pay protection fees. Now, everyone was relieved to discover that this wouldn’t happen anymore.
“Fortunately, we have a new chief.”
“If they had come and seen that we had been expelling humans since they were young, the consequences would have been unimaginable!”
“It was Jiang Chen and Zheng Zhilai who saved us. I really regret not reconciling with them in the past few years.”
“Looking at it now, Qingqing’s love story is so romantic. If only I had gone to save human children back then. I’m so envious…”
Hu Yang and the merfolk around him were close to tears.
Humans can also be this powerful?
The elders of the Hu tribe were very pragmatic. As soon as they saw such a large tribe coming, with Ren Shuhan’s biological parents present, they realized that settling old accounts would not be easy. They took the initiative to imprison Hu Yang, Hu Wang, and those merfolk who were injured by them. As a punishment, they cut off half of their fins. They earnestly explained all these matters to Ren Wan’er, Lu Xu, and expressed their gratitude.
“You’ve suffered,” Ren Wan’er said, her nose tingling, hugging Ren Shuhan and repeatedly patting his head. She then asked, “I thought you were the only human child here. Shouldn’t you be considered a protected species and very precious?”
Ren Shuhan replied, “You’re thinking too much.”
“He has had a hard time,” He Ze observed from the side. “If it weren’t for Qingqing saving him, he would have died in the deep sea. Later, Jiang Chen took him in, but the whole family was expelled from the tribe, living in the deep mountains, struggling to survive, and didn’t even have a place to go for fishing.”
Jiang Chen: “…”
Not really, my family is doing quite well, and we eat healthily.
But they kept it a secret from the tribe, and it wasn’t convenient to say. Zheng Zhilai also smiled and remained silent.
Seeing them not denying it, and He Ze, an outsider, was the one who couldn’t stand it, they couldn’t help but shed tears, thanking Jiang Chen’s family. Lu Xu also blamed himself for not finding him earlier.
“Don’t blame yourselves,” Ren Shuhan replied indifferently, appearing a bit distant. “After so many years without seeing each other, you could recognize me at a glance. That’s already not easy.”
“You child,” Lu Xu hugged Ren Shuhan, crying while patting him forcefully. “Do you know how much we missed you over these years? You appeared in our dreams every day. How could we not recognize you?”
Ren Wan’er dismantled the emotional scene, “It’s because you look so much like your grandfather.”
Of course, there were some differences.
For example, Ren Shuhan’s skin color had turned into a healthy wheatish tone after being exposed to the sun, while General Lu had enjoyed a life of luxury, resulting in fair skin.
Their son had suffered a lot.
Ren Wan’er and Lu Xu watched him, feeling for the first time that their obsession with work and neglect of their son since childhood, which continued due to a lack of opportunities, was somewhat unfair to the child.
Ren Shuhan’s feelings toward them were not deep anymore, to be honest. It felt a bit awkward, so he didn’t play out any dramatic scenes. Instead, he told them about the conspiracy against him and affirmed that he would use their backup spaceship to go back for revenge.
“Didn’t you say the backup spaceship is already broken? And even if it’s not broken, you can’t just casually traverse a space wormhole, right?” Ren Wan’er disagreed. “It’s too dangerous.”
As a member of the Lu family, although he didn’t get along with his family, Lu Xu had different thoughts, “You say you’re going back for revenge, but you were only a few years old at that time. Are you sure what you remember is accurate?”
“It’s not dangerous. My original spaceship had a memory path facility. It can be assembled with your backup spaceship. I’ll investigate thoroughly after going back to find out who and how they harmed me. I won’t wrongly accuse anyone,” Ren Shuhan countered one by one, showing no intention of negotiating with them.
It sounded very dangerous, and Ren Shuhan was just coming of age this year.
But Lu Xu and his wife couldn’t persuade him. Ren Shuhan boarded the spaceship on his own, moving at a speed that didn’t seem human. Only Jiang Qingyue could catch up with him.
“Forget it,” Ren Wan’er held onto Lu Xu, who wanted to chase after him, and said, “The spaceship is broken. Once he realizes he can’t fix it, he’ll naturally give up.”
Jiang Qingyue followed Ren Shuhan, watching him quickly repair the spaceship. Reluctantly, he took his hand, wanting to kiss his fingertips.
“Don’t move, it’s dirty.”
Ren Shuhan pulled back his hand, leaned over, and directly kissed him.
“Be good when you’re alone at home.”
Ren Shuhan had long arranged for the system to monitor Jiang Qingyue, ensuring his safety. He didn’t say more goodbyes to anyone, directly boarded the spaceship, and left.
On the shore, Lu Xu and Ren Wan’er, who heard the sound, looked back: “…”
“How did he fix it?” Ren Wan’er was frustrated.
“Wait, did he just leave like this?” Lu Xu muttered.
Zheng Zhilai, who understood Ren Shuhan better, knew that he must have left first to avoid trouble. He had to help out and said, “He must be afraid that you would be sad, so he left without saying goodbye. Go explore the route sooner, so he can come back and pick you up earlier.”
Jiang Chen scratched his head, “Yes, the child has grown up. Don’t worry too much. You quickly go to the shore, and we’ll have a bonfire party to welcome you tonight.”
Lu Xu and Ren Wan’er had already figured out that they were in-laws, plus their son had already left… No matter how much they thought about it, there was nothing they could do. They had to face reality and warmly chatted with Jiang Chen’s family.
Zheng Zhilai: …Well, these parents are really broad-minded.
The merfolk and humans went to join the festivities, but Jiang Qingyue did not go back. Instead, he didn’t even go to read the human books he loved. He floated alone in the shallow waters, occasionally revealing his legs, lifting them to take a look. Thinking that these were legs Ren Shuhan dared not look at closely, he couldn’t help but smile.
Having looked at his legs enough, he would look at the moon for a while, then turn over after a while to look at the seabed. Suddenly remembering his pearl, he swam back to the mountain, emerged from the stream, and walked into the small wooden house barefoot, only to find that his pearl was missing.
He was stunned for a moment, then smiled as he took out the terminal given to him by Ren Shuhan and tried to make a call.
“Hello,” the call was immediately connected, and Ren Shuhan’s voice came softly from the other end, “Missed me already?”
“Yeah,” Jiang Qingyue nodded. “Can’t we open video chat?”
“Not convenient right now,” Ren Shuhan said with a headache. “I still have a few days before reaching the main star. We can do video chat when I get back.”
Jiang Qingyue had to agree, but he didn’t hang up the phone.
After a while, Ren Shuhan said, “I miss you too.”
In the end, he patiently waited until Jiang Qingyue reluctantly hung up, and then the interrupted call from the main star came in again.
“Hello, cousin, where were we just now?” Ren Shuhan asked indifferently. “How did you find me so quickly?”
“It’s like this,” Lu Bin said with malicious intent, “Grandpa had a plane crash a couple of years ago and was saved by someone. In order to repay the lifesaver, he arranged for you to be his fiancé, named Nanxi. Since you’re back now, hurry back to the main star to meet him.”
Shuhan is not even back properly and the troubles already are starting lol I guess this Nanxi guy is the original protag!
