Chapter 15: Lord of the Sea Abyss × Researcher (15)

Ji Qingzhuo was entangled in the center of his tail, his muscles flexible, so even as his tail slowly tightened, she still didn't feel any sense of oppression.

She lowered her head and looked at the dark silver scales slowly swimming around her waist, feeling a little panicked, not because she was scared, but because she felt like she had violated some taboo.

Ji Qingzhuo whispered, "I'm sorry, I really..."

"I know you're sorry..." Shen Rongyu interrupted her apology.

"If you're feeling uncomfortable..." Ji Qingzhuo still hadn't fully understood his words, "we can temporarily pause the sampling."

"Absolutely not." Shen Rongyu said.

"I told you to fulfill your duty as a master." Shen Rongyu bent down, getting closer to her.

Ji Qingzhuo still didn't feel any fear, she just stared at the scales on his tail motionlessly.

She was thinking that if she made Shen Rongyu uncomfortable during the sampling just now, then let him hold her waist like this for a while.

Ji Qingzhuo had indeed misunderstood, she thought that Shen Rongyu interpreted her sampling actions as an attack, so out of the instinct of a non-human creature, he took a defensive stance and tightly coiled around any living being approaching him.

From this perspective, he seemed overly sensitive, Ji Qingzhuo thought.

Shen Rongyu didn't intend to do anything to her, he was just trying to divert his own attention with his words. He didn't want to reveal his true self in front of Ji Qingzhuo at this moment.

And, it was very difficult for him to convince himself to accept the fact that his emotions were being controlled by a human researcher.

That annoying, foolish researcher didn't even know what had happened.

She actually wanted him to help her write a research report!

How ridiculous!

Shen Rongyu's tail stopped its gentle rubbing motion, he knew that if he just stiffened his body like this, he would eventually calm down.

But at this moment, Ji Qingzhuo moved.

As soon as she thought that Shen Rongyu was in a defensive state, she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Generally, a being with such high alertness often meant that he had experienced similar violations.

Perhaps, before he woke up, he had encountered other researchers as well, but that researcher wasn't nice to him, maybe... his damaged tail resulted from the previous sampling, and the hostility he showed towards humans now came from this.

Ji Qingzhuo let her mind wander, the answer she came up with had nothing to do with the facts, but the unexpected logic was self-consistent.

She tried to comfort Shen Rongyu and, also, to satisfy her own selfishness.

So she reached out and gently patted his tail, at the same time, she heard Shen Rongyu's question.

"What do you think... a master's duty entails?" Ji Qingzhuo answered him, but then her words came to a halt.

She felt completely bound up, after she patted his tail, Shen Rongyu suddenly exerted force, tightly coiling his tail around her body, and at the same time, the cold, bone-only tail tip wrapped around her ankle.

Shen Rongyu leaned close to her, and the sweet scent from her body wafted into his nostrils.

"You—" he gritted his teeth.

"Uh?" Ji Qingzhuo tightened her abdomen, she could feel his beautiful silver scales unfold, gently caressing her waist.

Her expression was puzzled, but she tried to calm him, unsure of what to do with her hands suspended in mid-air.

Shen Rongyu couldn't continue pretending, he said, "Despicable humans."

To Ji Qingzhuo, this sentence further confirmed her guess, she nodded and agreed, "Yes."

Her unexpectedly good temper left Shen Rongyu at a loss for words, but his tail end continued to climb up her ankle.

Ji Qingzhuo felt ticklish, so she shook her foot.

"Miss Ji, can you please stop moving?" Shen Rongyu's thin lips pursed, and at this point, he wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, his beautiful peach blossom eyes carried a hint of tenderness.

"I'm sorry, I scared you." Ji Qingzhuo genuinely apologized.

Shen Rongyu: "?" What did you scare me with?

"If this can help you relax, then let's stay like this for now." Ji Qingzhuo said softly.

She thought that even this poor incarnation of the sea, despite being so afraid, still resisted launching an attack on her.

Shen Rongyu couldn't understand Ji Qingzhuo's thoughts anymore. He looked into her eyes, her eyelashes slightly drooping, but her gaze revealed a hint of compassion.

—She used this same gaze when she looked at that damn injured whale before.

Didn't she realize what he wanted to do to her?

He clearly looked so fierce, so dangerous!

Ji Qingzhuo suddenly felt the sharp end of his tail poking her calf several times, and the hard bones tightly wrapped around her ankle, like a shackle.

It was a bit painful, but more of a bizarre itching sensation.

So she softly said, "Mr. Shen, this hurts."

Shen Rongyu let out a deep sigh.

Ji Qingzhuo comforted him, "If you enjoy poking, then poke a couple more times."

Shen Rongyu released her foot.

Ji Qingzhuo said, "You don't have to force yourself."

His tail wrapped around her body, slowly rolling over her skin. Ji Qingzhuo stiffened and dared not move because she sensed danger.

Shen Rongyu pulled her body out from the center of that tail, and Ji Qingzhuo took a deep breath. He had really wrapped her too tightly, making it hard for her to breathe.

It was a failed sampling. Ji Qingzhuo hung her head, feeling a bit frustrated.

Shen Rongyu turned his head to the side, his throat rolling. He knew it wasn't Ji Qingzhuo's fault, and the reaction caused by the touch of her skin surprised even himself.

He had never been this close to anyone before. He thought he could perfectly control his emotions, but clearly, he didn't have that ability in front of Ji Qingzhuo.

Ji Qingzhuo hung her head and wrote something in her notebook. She didn't know what to say.

Shen Rongyu saw the imprints of dragon bones on her ankle.

"Come up and take a look." He tugged at her wrist.

"It's nothing." Ji Qingzhuo followed his gaze and looked down, twisting her ankle to show that she was fine.

With just a slight twist, Ji Qingzhuo didn't get injured by Shen Rongyu, but instead, she sprained her own ankle.

Ji Qingzhuo's body tilted, but luckily, she was still in the water and didn't fall.

Shen Rongyu: "..." Fragile humans.

He held her arm and returned to the cabin. Once out of the water, Ji Qingzhuo took off her diving gear and supported herself on the chair, unable to stand steadily.

It was purely her own fault for twisting her ankle.

You see, when she was still in school, Ji Qingzhuo always had the worst grades in physical education class. She was always troubled by her physical fitness tests.

"Miss Ji, why don't you sit down?" Shen Rongyu made room for her on the sofa.

"I apologize for my rudeness." Ji Qingzhuo put her notebook and test tubes into her pocket and tucked her slightly damp hair behind her back.

She didn't sit next to Shen Rongyu, she just found a chair to sit down. She was still not accustomed to being too close to people, and without water, Shen Rongyu felt like a human to her.

"Miss Ji, I don't feel that there is anything frightening around me," Shen Rongyu turned his head and looked at her, saying confidently. In reality, he himself was the "frightening thing."

"Okay." In order to accommodate Shen Rongyu's emotions, Ji Qingzhuo moved to the sofa where he was sitting.

Her hands were placed obediently on her knees.

"When I healed the whale earlier, you were surprised, right?" Shen Rongyu asked Ji Qingzhuo, one hand playing with his own hair.

"Yes, I've never seen such a transfer of energy before," Ji Qingzhuo looked at the research report placed next to Shen Rongyu, "There's a record of your ability on page thirty-four in this report."

"That's perfect," Shen Rongyu clapped his palms, "You can experience it yourself."

"Huh?" Ji Qingzhuo hadn't reacted yet, Shen Rongyu had already lowered his head and lifted her injured foot.

Honestly, her sprained ankle was self-inflicted, not something he had done.

Ji Qingzhuo was wearing flat sandals with straps around the ankles. When they were underwater earlier, his dragon tail had already caught onto the straps and pulled them apart.

So now Ji Qingzhuo's foot was placed on his dragon tail, and she could feel the cold, hard scales with the coolness of the deep sea.

Ji Qingzhuo suddenly lost the ability to think. She knew that Shen Rongyu was going to use his ability to heal her, and she felt that it wasn't worth the trouble, but...

But his tail felt really good.

Her toes couldn't help but touch the scales on his tail.

"Miss Ji, please don't do that," Shen Rongyu's large palm pressed down on her ankle, as if she had offended him.

Ji Qingzhuo immediately stiffened. She hadn't expected Shen Rongyu to notice.

"Why are you just standing there?" Shen Rongyu finally recovered, he chuckled and said, "Hurry up and take out your little notebook, which can't lie, and record this process."

"Okay." Ji Qingzhuo took out her notebook.

At the same time, a faint blue light appeared in the palm of Shen Rongyu's hand. Ji Qingzhuo could feel her ankle warming up.

Her pen "swished" and recorded--

"A very strange feeling, as if the blood at the injury site is boiling, and the cells in my body become very active in response to the call of his power, working overtime to heal my wounds."

"According to my previous speculation, his power only works on everything in the Night Abyss Sea."

"But... why does it work on me?"

Ji Qingzhuo drew a horizontal line under this question as a mark for further investigation. She wasn't a creature of the Night Abyss Sea, right?

If she had a question, she would ask her research subject directly.

After spending such a long time together, Ji Qingzhuo had already lowered her assessment of his danger.

She used the tip of her foot to scratch the scales on his dragon tail. She really liked this kind of touch. It was a texture that obviously did not belong to humans, hard, merciless, with the neat arrangement that had a mathematical aesthetic.

"Ji Qingzhuo." Shen Rongyu called her full name, his voice low and dangerous.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Shen, this is just a normal physiological reaction," Ji Qingzhuo's pen tapped lightly on her notebook.

Shen Rongyu held her delicate ankle, not saying a word.

"This goes back to your Night Abyss Sea transfer agreement," Shen Rongyu finally let go of her foot and said.

His fingers lightly hooked and retied the straps on her ankle.

Ji Qingzhuo was engrossed in her thoughts and didn't notice Shen Rongyu's display of gentlemanly charm.

"I am the owner of the Night Abyss Sea, so does that make me your owner too?" Ji Qingzhuo pointed at herself. "That's why you can heal my injuries, right?"

"Yes," Shen Rongyu gazed at her with a focused expression.

This was also his newfound discovery after reading the transfer agreement, and he... had to find a way to deceive the foolish researcher in front of him into returning the ownership of the Night Abyss Sea to him.

She was very intelligent, and sometimes not easy to deceive, so he had to carefully consider his plan.

Shen Rongyu prepared to continue disguising himself, deceiving Ji Qingzhuo, and he had a plan in mind. He would deceive her first, then coax her, and finally, when she was so deceived by Lijia that she couldn't find her way, he would make her hand over the ownership to him. He wouldn't have to be bound by her anymore.

It was a perfect plan, Shen Rongyu thought.

Ji Qingzhuo lowered her head. She didn't dare to meet Shen Rongyu's eyes because she felt guilty.

"Well... I didn't mean to occupy this sea. I just didn't want it to fall into the hands of merchants," Ji Qingzhuo suddenly felt a human-like sense of guilt.

She twisted her fingers, took a deep breath, and said to Shen Rongyu, "After the research is complete, I will find a way to earn money and repay the loan. Then, I will hand over the ownership to you."

Shen Rongyu: "?"

He leaned in, getting closer to Ji Qingzhuo once again, looking into her beautifully clear eyes, and asked in a gentle tone, "So, Miss Ji, once the research is complete, I lose my research value and you're so quick to get rid of me?" he asked.