The Sea Wanted Humanity Dead

“Kill him!”

“Evil human!”

“He deserves to die!”

Everywhere I looked, my people surged with rage.

The sea foamed around them.

Their voices crashed louder than waves.

I stepped back, but a tide pushed me down onto the wet deck.

Before I could rise, the sea witch appeared behind me.

She should have been in the deep.

Her octopus tentacles curled around my throat.

Her voice was hoarse.

“I give you a choice, little princess.”

“Do you want her to die?”

“Or will you turn into sea foam?”

My sisters threw a silver dagger from the water.

It landed at the feet of the man standing on the cruise deck.

Lin Qi looked at me.

His eyes were deep as the ocean.

Then he picked up the dagger and placed it against his neck.

This story began many days earlier.

Before the witch.

Before the dagger.

Before my people decided humanity should disappear.

I had been singing with my clan when a whale sent a message through the currents.

Many fish had died in a distant sea.

I was not good with directions, so I followed the whale.

There, I saw a giant pipe discharging strange water into the ocean.

As the bravest warrior princess of the mermaid clan, I rushed forward and tried to block it with my body.

The water burned.

My skin corroded.

My hair fell out in clumps.

Still, I gripped the pipe and refused to let go.

I had to buy time for the other sea creatures to escape.

My brothers and sisters called from the water.

“Ariel, it’s useless! There are many more pipes releasing water!”

I froze.

A current blasted me away.

When I woke, the water clans had gathered in fury.

They were discussing how to exterminate humans.

Looking at my reflection in the water mirror—bald head, scarred skin, body burned by human poison—I volunteered to become the vanguard.

We agreed that once I understood the human world, I would blow the conch and summon everyone to the shore.

Then I swam to land and drank the sea witch’s potion.

My tail split into human legs.

I walked onto a beach.

“Ugly!”

“Is that fish-scale disease?”

A group of human children surrounded me and laughed.

One even threw sand at me.

I clenched my fists.

So humans were indeed a species that cruelly rejected anything different.

They deserved extinction.

All of them.

I turned to run back to the sea and start the war immediately.

Several adults called out.

“Hey, wait.”

I turned and bared my teeth.

“What?”

The leading man bowed slightly.

“Sorry, little girl. I apologize for my child.”

He dragged over the boy who had mocked me and forced him to apologize.

The other children muttered sorry too.

Each adult gave me a red banknote and told me to buy new clothes.

Holding the money, my mood mysteriously improved.

I decided to observe a little longer.

“So stupid. You don’t even know how to tell their parents?”

A good-looking human child stared at me with an arrogant expression.

I crouched and bared my teeth again.

He did not flinch.

“I only called their parents because I pitied you!”

What was a parent?

Did everyone have one?

I asked.

The child’s face changed.

He looked at me with pity.

“You… if you have nowhere to go, I can reluctantly take you in.”

That was how I followed Young Master Child home.

And watched him get beaten by his older brother.

“Do you not know lost things should be handed to the police? How dare you bring someone home?”

Young Master Child pointed at me.

“She isn’t a thing! I brought her back because she had nowhere to go!”

Remembering human manners, I quickly stopped his brother.

“Sir, don’t hit Young Master. I really am not a thing.”

Both brothers fell silent.

They stared at me.

“What’s your name?” the older one asked.

“Ariel.”

“How old are you?”

“Over five hundred.”

“Where do you live?”

“Deep Mermaid District, Number 521.”

Silence again.

Later, I learned that my fluent answers turned me, in their minds, from a mental patient into a runaway girl with an overactive imagination.

The older brother’s name was Lin Qi.

The child was Lin Xuan.

They banned me from calling them Sir and Young Master.

After dinner, Lin Qi turned on something called a television and played a documentary teaching me how to use chopsticks.

He told me to ask if I did not understand, then went upstairs.

I grew bored and pressed the magic buttons.

The images changed.

After several channels, I froze.

A beautiful human woman spoke on screen.

“On the 24th, Island Nation Nerushima plans to discharge nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific…”

I knew.

This had to be connected to the pipe.

I rushed upstairs and kicked open Lin Qi’s door.

He was not in the room.

But I smelled steam.

So I pulled open the door that separated the steam room.

Lin Qi reacted fast.

He sprayed water into my face with a handheld object.

But I was a mermaid.

My eyes did not even blink.

I reached for him.

He dodged in panic.

Then I saw the mark on his waist.

My mouth dropped open.

Wasn’t that my fated mate mark?

Lin Qi, red with anger, turned me around and pushed me out.

Only then did I remember the urgent matter.

I slapped the door and called his name.

Two minutes later, Lin Qi emerged fully dressed, teeth clenched, and translated the news for me.

He said Nerushima planned to discharge nuclear wastewater and the whole world opposed it.

“But they already discharged it,” I said.

Lin Qi’s face changed.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I saw it. A huge pipe.”

I described everything with gestures.

His brow tightened.

Then he went to his room and started making calls.

My heart was urgent too.

That night, I ran back to the shore and blew the conch.

My people surfaced one by one.

“Ariel, you understood humans so quickly?”

“As expected of our strongest princess!”

“What is humanity’s weakness? Can we defeat them?”

I looked at my hopeful clan.

Solemnly, I said,

“We were wrong. The sea was not poisoned by all humans.”

“It was one human country.”

My people looked confused.

“If one country did it, doesn’t that mean humans did it?”

“A clan’s crimes should be carried by the clan, no?”

I opened my mouth.

Then closed it.

I did not yet know how to explain countries.