Chapter 164: Re: I Am Not A Merman

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Chapter 164: Re: I Am Not A Merman

Flame was the name Qin Yuan had given him. He had burst into Qin Yuan’s life without warning, like a rare treasure bestowed by heaven.

He was one of only two surviving dolphins in the world, with intelligence no lower than a human’s. He was friendly toward people and utterly unguarded around them, always rushing forward the moment he saw a human in danger. Yet someone as kind as Flame had nearly been killed by humans again and again.

Flame regarded humans as friends and family, while humans treated him as food or a test subject. That unequal relationship meant he could never receive the respect he deserved.

Flame understood perfectly well what the humans wanted, yet he still cooperated and allowed them to collect research samples from his body. Even that was not enough to satisfy some people. They wanted more, and they were willing to use any means necessary to get it.

From the moment he entered the human world, Flame was injured over and over, each time more severely than the last. In the end, he even gave his precious life for those cruel, selfish humans.

The sight of Flame’s mangled body before his death became Qin Yuan’s lifelong nightmare, tormenting him without end.

He developed severe insomnia and could go dozens of days without truly sleeping. Even when exhaustion drove him to the limit, he could only doze briefly before waking in anguish.

But Qin Yuan could not allow himself to collapse. He still had to protect Wave. That was the responsibility Flame had left him, and now his only emotional anchor. Yet after losing Flame, little Wave grew more depressed by the day. Dolphins were deeply emotional and acutely sensitive to changes in their environment and the loss of family. No matter how hard Qin Yuan tried, he still could not stop Wave from choosing death.

One bright, sunny morning, Wave rammed his head into a stone platform. After a few weak struggles, he left the world forever.

And just like that, the world’s last dolphin disappeared from human sight in a brutal fashion.

Wave’s death dealt Qin Yuan another devastating blow. He had failed to save Flame, and now he had failed to save Wave. The remaining little merfolk also died young because humans lacked the experience to care for them properly.

Most people merely regretted the loss of several precious creatures. They had no idea that humanity had lost far more than a few rare lives—they had also lost their hope for reproduction and evolution.

Dolphin genes could compensate for defects in the human genome, promote human evolution, and increase fertility. But all of that hope shattered with Flame’s death. Scientists tried to recreate the dolphins through cloning, and every attempt failed—horrifically. The mutated dolphins retained an extraordinary assimilation ability that allowed them to incorporate the genes of most species, but when that ability went wrong, the result was a monster like Dipson.

Flame had exhausted every last ounce of strength to kill Dipson after he transformed into a squid monster, preventing the mutated genes from spreading. Most scientists knew nothing about what had happened, and even if they had, it probably would not have stopped certain people from continuing their insane experiments.

Qin Yuan was one of the few people who knew the truth, but he neither intervened nor warned anyone. He simply watched humanity destroy itself with cold indifference.

The first major mutation outbreak occurred seven years after Flame’s death. That year, twenty monstrous-looking infants were born around the world.

The fetuses appeared completely normal in the womb, but the instant they were born, their bodies mutated into all manner of deformed creatures. Most did not survive beyond five months.

The result only deepened the panic of a humanity already facing a reproductive crisis. But by then the research had gone too far to stop, so the scientists could only continue.

Without the dolphins’ progenitor genes, however, experiment after experiment failed, while the mutated genes themselves continued evolving and quietly spreading. Countless people unknowingly became carriers—and victims. A few years later, visibly mutated humans began appearing one after another, their monstrous forms causing worldwide upheaval. The mutations were irreversible, leaving humanity to choose between accepting the mutated people or exterminating them.

In the end, humanity chose containment and quarantine. The mutated people were rounded up and treated as experimental subjects. Naturally, they refused to submit quietly and began fighting for their survival. From then on, the world entered an age of chaos driven by rampant mutation.

Humanity had once stood on the threshold of near-perfect evolution. Instead, it had been driven down a twisted, violent path of deformity.

Qin Yuan ignored all of it. Using his wealth and connections, he purchased an uninhabited island and built a power base of his own.

He named the island Wings of Flame. Twenty years later, it had become the most peaceful place on the planet, untouched by the conflicts raging in the outside world.

Qin Yuan lived on the island for decades and never set foot beyond it again for the rest of his life.

On his final day, he sat alone on the beach facing the vast blue sea. He pressed a tender kiss to the ring on his hand, smiled, and closed his eyes.

Once, he had dreamed of living with Flame on an island isolated from the rest of the world.

Now, that island had become the grave he had built for himself.

In life, he could never sleep. In death, he finally found rest.

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