"I feel like there's something in front of me..." something.
To Xia Nuo's surprise, he was still racking his brains to find an excuse to explain this abnormal behavior, but the mermaid didn't wait for him to finish, just glanced at him, and then asked understandingly : "Do you want me to take you there?"
I don't know why, the mermaid is so abnormal, but it makes Xia Nuo feel a little uncomfortable.
Probably because... the mermaid's connivance to him without asking why has become more obvious
Xia Nuo felt a little guilty for no reason, he nodded, and the mermaid hugged him, swung its tail and swam towards the direction he pointed.
During this process, Xia Nuo saw the white dots in the river when he entered the secret room at the beginning. They seemed to feel the breath of the mermaid, and avoided them far away before they approached.
"What are those?" Xia Nuo asked curiously.
"They are white-headed crocodiles." The mermaid glanced at them, not paying much attention to them, "It's just a weak creature that doesn't have much lethality."
Xia Nuo believed it to be true, but he didn't know that in the eyes of mermaids, almost no creatures were considered powerful.
The "weak creatures without much lethality" in his mouth are brutal by nature, eat flesh and blood, and like to hunt in groups. No matter how powerful the creatures are, once they fall into their territory, it is impossible to escape unscathed.
They guard the river and do not allow anyone to pass through. They have devoured countless lives for so long, and even many high-level monsters have died in their mouths.
If they were able to speak, knowing what the mermaid said about them, they would probably be unable to resist protesting, right
However, the mermaid didn't care about their thoughts. He took the boy to swim deeper and deeper until he entered a narrow passage, which was already very far away from the entrance of the secret room.
The space was getting narrower and narrower, and Xia Nuo couldn't help feeling a little suffocated. This time, before he could speak, the mermaid produced a lot of fresh water vapor just like when it was in the underground passage.
The further you walked in, the darker and darker your eyes became, and the mermaid's eyes glowed with blue light in the dark passage.
Xia Nuo couldn't help looking into his eyes, but he found something that made him not know what to do - from the very beginning, the mermaid was watching him intently, and there was something in his eyes that moved Xia Nuo. emotions.
"you… "
do you like me
He hesitated to speak, his vague guess was suddenly confirmed at this time, and he suddenly didn't know what to say.
"Hush—" the mermaid put her index finger on her lips, "Don't say it."
Now is not a good time.
He wasn't sure what he would do, no matter whether the boy could give him a satisfactory answer.
He may not be able to bear the boy's rejection, but if the boy agrees... What he is more likely to do now is to lock the boy in a place that no one knows-his beloved treasure, which must be strictly protected and treasured by him .
But that would definitely be hated by the teenager, right? The mermaid thought so, but temporarily maintained this delicate balance until... he was able to hide this thought perfectly.
In the darkness, Xia Nuo couldn't see the curve of the mermaid's lips.
He didn't know what the mermaid was thinking, but he breathed a sigh of relief, because he didn't know how to face the mermaid once he said it.
Just... let's do this for now...
Xia Nuo lowered his head like an ostrich, his brain circuit subtly overlapped with that of the mermaid.
Just at this time, they had reached the end of the river.
The passageway is an upward slope, and at the end is a narrow hole. The mermaid hugged the boy and peeked out from there. Xia Nuo looked at the scene in front of him with a surprised expression.
Compared with the previous secret room, it is more appropriate to call it the secret room here. Because apart from the hole they came out of, there is no other way to enter here.
In the not very spacious space here, fluffy green grass grows ankle-deep on the ground, and a big tree grows from the gap in the wall. Because of the limited space, the crown of the tree can only be covered with vines. the top of the space.
In addition, there are many unknown plants. Luminous fungi grow on the walls, illuminating the entire space. Although I don’t know how they survive the lack of sunlight and water, some plants are not in good condition, but They are tenaciously rooted here, showing no signs of dying.
The most eye-catching thing was a man lying on the stone bed.
The skin around him showed a vibrant new green, with strange lines painted on it, he had pointed ears that were different from ordinary people, and he had six fingers on each of his hands and feet.
"Tree people?"
After seeing the murals at the entrance of the maze and "The Labyrinth of the Demon King", Xia Nuo is basically familiar with these characteristics of the treant. Now when he saw this man, he immediately recognized him.
but…
"Have you noticed..." Xia Nuo looked at the tree man's face carefully, and asked the mermaid hesitantly, "This tree man looks exactly like the Duke?"
Even though he had only met the Duke once, and there were disturbing lines on the tree man's face, but after removing these lines, Xia Nuo could be sure that there was no difference in the appearance of the two.
"Well, it is indeed the same." The mermaid nodded, confirming the boy's guess.
"Are they the same person? Or are they twins? But the Duke is obviously not a tree man?" Xia Nuo muttered to himself rather distressed.
Mermaids are a race that doesn't like intermarriage with foreigners, so the Duchess married the Duke who is also a mermaid, so logically speaking, the two should not be the same person or twins.
Unless the identity announced by the Duke is false, but Xia Nuo saw his fishtail again...
"Can other species masquerade as adult fish?"
Xia Nuo came up with an unreliable guess: Could the Duke's fish tail be fake
The mermaid easily guessed what he was thinking: "Yes, and it's very easy. But the Duke we saw is indeed a genuine mermaid, and this is not false."
"What we saw?" Xia Nuo grasped the point keenly, "You mean the original Duke is not a mermaid, he was pretended by someone? Is this the real Duke?"
Having been poisoned by the dog-blood TV series in the real world for a long time, a lot of dramas of identity swapping and impostors popped up in his mind, and he couldn't help but be full of sympathy when he looked at the tree man.
"Neither." The mermaid completely denied his guess, "To be precise, the duke is indeed the one we saw, because he is indeed the heir to the title, and this tree man—"
The mermaid prolonged her tone on purpose, and after whetting the boy's appetite, she slowly revealed the truth: "——The real identity is the Duke's son."
"Huh?" Xia Nuo opened his mouth slightly, feeling that this was more surprising than the guess that "the tree man is the Duke's brother".
Then he heard a story from the mouth of the mermaid that made him extremely messy.
The story is roughly that the previous duke, the one they saw at the banquet, fell in love with a tree-human girl in his early years.
And the tree-human race is also a race that is unwilling to intermarry with foreigners, and the girl of the tree-human race, even though the Duke pursued him very enthusiastically, still doesn't like him and has rejected him countless times.
But the mermaid clan is often extremely emotionally paranoid. The Duke designed to trick the tree-human girl out, also imprisoned her in this secret room, and let her give birth to a son for him.
The tree girl couldn't bear the torture and finally chose to commit suicide. After the tree girl died, the Duke seemed to wake up from his fanatical love, and his whole temperament changed drastically.
Because his deeds of pursuing the tree people in the early years were almost known to everyone, the Duke was rejected in the family. If the people knew that his son was a tree person, they might even deprive him of his title.
The duke quickly thought of a way.
He announced to the outside world that he had married a mermaid wife, who also gave birth to a son for him, but he protected them very closely, and no outsider had ever seen the existence of these two people.
Then, after finding an appropriate time, the Duke announced that he and his wife had died of illness, and his son inherited his title. Then he reappeared as the Duke's son and married the current Duchess.
But his real son was locked in this dark and secret room, sleeping in a daze.
"This, this..." Xia Nuo was tongue-tied and almost speechless, "Isn't this duke too scumbag?"
Not only did he kill the person he liked, but he also lied so much for his status, replacing his son's identity, and even imprisoned his son.
No wonder he doesn't appear in front of people often, and he doesn't want to talk too much! He should be afraid of revealing his identity, right
The mermaid carried him to the surface of the water, Xia Nuo bare|barefoot stood on the grass, keeping a safe distance and looking at the tree man in front of him.
"Can he still wake up?" Xia Nuo asked curiously.
"Of course." The mermaid sat by the hole with his tail submerged in the water. He pulled Shano into his arms and made a gesture of protection, but his eyes were on the tree man on the stone bed. "In fact , he is awake now."
"Ah?" Xia Nuo opened his round eyes wide, looking silly, "But..."
"Chang'an..." The mermaid sighed softly, and he nodded the boy's forehead amusedly, "I just said that the Duke imprisoned him here, but I never said that the Duke let him fall into a deep sleep."
However, because of Xia Nuo's preconceived notions, when he saw the tree man lying on the bed, he thought that he couldn't wake up by himself, but he didn't expect that there was a possibility of pretending to be asleep.
But since he was awake, why did he lie on the bed and pretend to be asleep? And the tree people have heard what they said just now
Xia Nuo suddenly felt an embarrassment of talking about others being caught face to face.
When the tree man heard that the mermaid had exposed his disguise, he stopped pretending to be asleep, turned over and sat up, staring straight at the two uninvited guests: "Who are you?"
"Does it matter who we are?" the mermaid asked back, "You should really want to escape, right?"
The tree man has cat-like vertical pupils, and when he looks at people, he looks a little fierce for no reason: "Don't you know my story very well? Who would want to be locked up here and never be able to leave!"
"In that case, let's make a deal." The mermaid glanced at the boy in her arms, and smiled slightly, "I can take you out, on the condition that you give me a moonlight tree seed."
Xia Nuo was taken aback, he didn't expect the mermaid to make such a request.
"I promised you before that I would take you to the tree-human territory." The mermaid waited for the tree-man to give an answer, while rubbing Shano's fluffy head, "but now there is a more convenient way .”
The author has something to say: A hot boss dedicated to gaining Nuonuo's favorability
And a reminder: the mermaid boss is about to go offline, and the devil boss is about to debut
The second more√
Good night little angels (≧3≦)