Beauty and the Beasts

In the deeper waters, the temperature plunged. Only the area that was one arm deep from the surface would be warm.

However, when soaking in the sea, the water would refract away some of the light, and it wasn’t that hot.

An’an was clearly given a scare and hugged him tightly. Bluepool’s heart ached as he tried to coax her. “I’m not leaving anymore, I won’t leave. Let’s just give birth here, alright?”

An’an didn’t reply to him, so he just took it as if she had given consent. He blew a big blue bubble in the water.

He carefully placed it over An’an’s head, and the edges of the bubble successfully stopped at her neck. It didn’t break. It was a success.

This was a more difficult type of bubble amongst the ones that mermen could make. It had a high requirement for the secretion used to make the bubble.

With a bubble over An’an’s head like an oxygen mask but her body still soaking in the seawater, her never-changing face had a hint of surprise on it. She started to move her limbs around in the water.

Bluepool was above An’an, stabilizing the air bubble. His voice rang out from the seawater into the bubble, then through the strong level of oxygen into her ears, “An’an, does your stomach still hurt?”

As Bluepool said this, his long and slender tail brushed An’an’s stomach, his fins as fluttery as the silk dress she was wearing. The blue and white colors looked exceptionally harmonious.

An’an’s attention returned to her stomach, and she lowered her head to look at it.

Not long later, An’an saw a trail of illuminating speckles falling out from under her fluttery dress. She looked toward Bluepool, looking perplexed.

“You’ve given birth.” Bluepool was elated. He swam under An’an and took a look, then immediately went back up, hugging her and saying, “You’re not done yet. It looks like there’s a lot.”

Those fish roes each were the size of a longan, and they also looked like they had their shells peeled. Their surface was translucent with a black dot in the center. Adhered by a glue-like viscous liquid, all of them were connected together, looking like a bunch of grapes.

In just a short while, over 100 of them came down.

An’an looked very stunned. She’d occasionally take a look at the trailing light spots and pouted as if she wasn’t satisfied that she had given birth to something that gave out light.

After the fish roes stopped coming out, An’an’s stomach instantly shrank. The trail of fish roes gradually landed toward the depths of the sea. There were roughly about 200 or more of them. It was considered a lot considering that this was An’an’s first pregnancy.

Bluepool swam down to scoop up the fish roes, then blew an even bigger bubble to place her in it. He pushed An’an with one hand, held onto the fish roes with the other, and swam toward the hatching zone he had prepared long ago.

Bluepool had modified it from the concave position on the island. It looked like a crescent that was indented toward the center of the island. It was able to block off the waves from both sides.

As the seawater there was shallow, the temperature was higher, making it very suitable as a hatchery for the fish roes.

Bluepool had planted seaweed here long ago. After putting the fish eggs on the seaweed, his job was done.

An’an got closer to take a look as well, putting her face on the edge of the bubble. She opened her mouth and chewed on the bubble’s outer layer.

“Are you hungry?” Bluepool’s attention immediately returned to her. Seeing that she was in a forlorn state, the joy in his heart was replaced by heartache. He immediately carried her and floated out of the water.

However, An’an looked like she couldn’t bear to leave the light spots on the seaweed. She kept turning her head to look at them until she was carried to the shore.

Bluepool washed her up with clear water, then put on new clothes for her. He then placed her in the tree hole to get some rest while he made nutritional food for her.

The fish roes at the side were also rapidly hatching under the nourishment of the sunlight and seaweed. Occasionally, seawater would channel in and the fish roes would drift with the seaweed, causing a few of them to break loose and be taken away by the seawater.. No one knew where they’d drift off to, and it’d be up to their fate to see if they could hatch successfully.