After the island exploded, Lansi and Winsor did not rush back. Instead, they stayed nearby for a few days.
They wanted to wait for the situation to calm down before going to the Alliance of Human Survivors to take a look. Lansi also knew that after this incident, he would definitely be on the alliance's blacklist.
But it didn't matter.
In the past few days, Winsor wanted Lansi to stay safely in the reef cave to take a good rest until his injuries were completely healed. However, he should have known that Lansi is someone who could not sit still—he insisted on seeing the clownfish.
"Okay, okay, I really can't do anything with you."
Winsor shook his head and had to go to the nearby coral reef to find the clownfish with Lansi.
Although the island explosion was massive, the good news was that it had not affected the nearby coral reefs.
After finally reaching the coral reef, Lansi looked east and west. He stared at a bunch of clownfish that looked exactly the same, his face full of confusion.
"Who is who?"
Why were there so many clownfish here?
"Don't look at me." Winsor turned his head, ignoring Lansi's silent plea for help. "I can't recognize it either."
Lansi: "..."
"And you call yourself the creator."
After searching among the corals and sea anemones for a long time without finding the specific clownfish, Lansi felt a bit depressed.
Seeing a few reefs sticking out of the sea not far away, Lansi thought for a moment and simply stopped looking. He floated up to the surface of the sea and lay down on the rocks to bask in the sun.
After a while, Winsor came up too. He sat beside the rock and asked curiously, "Aren't you looking for it anymore?"
"No more." Lansi rolled over, revealing his belly to bask in the sun.
He had originally wanted to come here to visit, but since the clownfish was not around, maybe it really went out to conquer the sea of stars.
SQUAWK—
Before he could finish his thought, a little seagull suddenly dropped from the sky and stepped right on Lansi's belly.
Oof—
Although the seagull was small, the speed of its fall made it heavy. Lansi felt like he was almost crushed by the tiny bird.
"What are you doing?" Lansi looked at the little seagull stepping on his stomach and questioned it angrily.
The bird that stepped on his belly was the mutated little seagull.
Lansi did not know how it found them, but with its keen sense of smell, it could track someone down accurately. One had to admit that this little seagull's career as a gang leader would definitely be very successful in the future.
"My subordinates told me there was a lot of noise here, so I came to take a look." the little seagull said. It dragged out its words in a very dramatic way. With its two paws planted firmly on Lansi's belly, using its weight to show authority, it really looked like a mafia godfather.
"Oh..."
Even though it was just a seagull, Lansi felt a little nervous hearing it speak like that. He did not dare to push the little seagull off his stomach. He simply hypnotized himself into thinking that his belly was not a belly, but the seagull's sofa.
Then he asked curiously: "Why are you looking for me? Is something wrong?"
"What did you do to my little brother? He has been in a bad mood these days, and he doesn't want to trade with me anymore." the little seagull said.
After a long pause, Lansi let out a puzzled sound. "What?"
It turned out that the little seagull was talking about its human brother—Old Tang.
Never mind how a seagull and Old Tang became brothers. From the little seagull's point of view, its human brother (even if that brother was a big boss in the human black market) was large and could not understand its bird language. But since this human was its source of food and supplies, the seagull had to figure out why its little brother was suddenly ignoring it.
In fact, this was very easy to understand. Ever since Lansi tied up Carl and his party a few days ago, Old Tang had not given the little seagull any good looks.
From Old Tang's perspective, he had finally prepared to fight a big battle, only for their entire group to be stopped single-handedly by Lansi. What was worse was that a big, burly man like him had been pinned down by a seagull, crying for his parents.
His dignity was completely gone!
Old Tang was a black market boss, after all. If this story spread, how could he ever show his face again?
"You come with me to meet my little brother." the little seagull said unhappily. "You are the culprit."
Lansi wanted to laugh, but he was afraid the little seagull would stomp heavily on his stomach, so he just nodded his head quickly in agreement.
After listening to the conversation between the merman and the seagull, Winsor frowned slightly. "Do you want to go back and take a look?"
"Everything must have an ending," Lansi said with a smile. "Besides, it's not good to leave Carl and Rose worrying."
Lansi reached out, gently touched the little seagull, and said: "I can go, but you had better tell your little brother first, or we won't be able to get back into the human area."
After thinking for a moment, Lansi tore off a strand of his own white hair and tied it around the little seagull's leg. This would act as a clear signal. If he hadn't left the alliance in such a hurry, he would have just used his communicator to send a message.
"Alright." the little seagull nodded in a noble manner.
Suddenly, a loud scream echoed from the horizon—
"Ahhhhhhh! Get out of the way!"
Before anyone could react, a mass of white feathers came hurtling toward them at high speed.
The little seagull let out a sharp cry and immediately flew away from Lansi's belly. However, the incoming white object was not nearly as agile. It failed to change its course at all and slammed directly into Lansi's stomach.
Oof—
The heavy impact left Lansi feeling completely dizzy, and he couldn't get up. Fortunately, he had strong abdominal muscles, or he might have been crushed completely. He clutched his stomach and lay flat on the reef, looking exactly like a helpless salted fish.
"Lansi?" Winsor was startled. He quickly grabbed the large bird that was stepping on Lansi's belly, threw it away with a loud 'swish', and checked on Lansi.
"I... I am really not suited for sunbathing," Lansi whimpered, crying softly as he pulled Winsor back down into the water with him.
"Tsk tsk. How terrible." the little seagull said, hovering in the air before landing back on the reef. In truth, the little seagull had wanted to say that the reef was only so big, and Lansi lying there as a fish took up far too much space.
Lansi asked Winsor to rub his sore stomach. As he did, he looked over curiously to see what Winsor had thrown away—it was a pelican.
The pelican had been thrown into the sea by Winsor. It was flapping its wings with great difficulty, trying its best to fly out of the water. However, its efforts were not very effective, and it could barely keep itself afloat. What was interesting was that the pelican kept its large beak open as wide as possible. Its lower beak looked heavy, as if it were holding something inside.
Once his stomach felt a bit better, Lansi swam over and looked at the pelican with curiosity. "Are you a sea monster too?"
Hadn't this pelican just spoken a moment ago?
But the pelican said nothing. Instead, it opened its beak a little wider, and a clownfish emerged from its pouch-like mouth. The clownfish rested on the edge of the beak and raised a fin toward Lansi.
"We meet again, merman!"
Lansi was shocked. "You were eaten?!"
Immediately, the surface of the sea became chaotic again. Lansi grabbed the pelican, trying desperately to rescue the clownfish from its mouth. The pelican had no idea Lansi was only trying to save the fish; it grew terrified and began flapping its wings wildly, hitting Lansi.
In the middle of the chaos, the clownfish screamed: "Stop fighting, you two!"
Winsor raised his eyebrows and chose to stand aside, watching quietly. Meanwhile, the little seagull stood on the reef, staring intently at the pelican—this large bird looked like it would make an excellent subordinate.
Five minutes later, the pelican stood on the reef with a bald tail. Lansi floated in the sea with a dazed expression and two loose feathers stuck in his hair. Next to him, the clownfish floated in the shallow water.
Lansi crossed his arms and asked, "What is going on here?"
The clownfish dared not look Lansi in the eye. It blew nervous bubbles on the surface of the water and hesitated. "I was... I was just letting my friend take me around for a look."
The kind of look that involved traveling through the sky.
Ever since it had gone to the shore with Lansi, the clownfish had wanted to see more of the scenery above the water. Because of this, it spent its time swimming near the surface, not even returning to its safe sea anemones. During that time, it met a pelican who was deeply curious about the ocean.
This pelican was different from the rest of its flock. It did not want to do the same exact thing as everyone else all day long. The daily routine of fishing made the pelican wonder what lay deeper within the vast ocean. So, it dived from the sky into the sea again and again. It wasn't doing this to catch fish; it simply wanted to dive as deep as possible to see more of the underwater world.
One day, by pure coincidence, the pelican met the clownfish. The two little creatures immediately became best friends.
The clownfish had swam all around the local area, so it could tell the pelican what the ocean looked like. Whenever they reached a beautiful spot, the clownfish would tell the pelican to dive down and look. And when the pelican learned that the clownfish wanted to see the land, it would fill its large throat pouch with water, let the clownfish swim inside, and fly high into the sky so the fish could view the world from above.
"Oh, this is so moving..." Lansi's eyes grew wet with tears as he listened to the explanation.
The clownfish's explanation was actually very simple, but Lansi had a wild imagination. In his mind, he had already turned their friendship into a beautiful, dramatic love story between a bird and a fish.
Winsor, who had been listening to the exchange, looked completely confused.
Although he knew that modern sea monsters could not be understood through ordinary human logic, this kind of peculiar biological relationship was truly baffling.
"Why are you crying?"
Although the clownfish had evolved into a sea monster with its own thoughts and emotions, its mind was clearly far less complex than a human's.
"It's nothing."
Lansi brushed it off, his head still filled with the dramatic story he had imagined. Then, he asked: "Aren't you afraid the pelican will accidentally eat you?"
The clownfish lived right in the pelican's mouth. If the bird ever swallowed by mistake, the fish would go straight into its belly.
"Aren't you also staying with the one next to you?" the clownfish replied, pointing a fin at Winsor.
Although the clownfish didn't know Winsor's true identity, its long-ingrained survival instincts told it that Winsor was extremely dangerous. If Winsor wanted to eat Lansi, it would be over in seconds.
Lansi: ...
He had actually been outsmarted by a clownfish!
Lansi turned his head to look at Winsor, then back at the pelican on the rock. The pelican looked dull and silly—even more so now that it was missing its tail feathers. In contrast, Winsor was truly...
Lansi quickly turned back, held out his palm, and said solemnly to Winsor:
"My first request: don't eat me."
He flexed one finger, signaling that he was officially using the first of the five "unconditional obedience" favors he had asked for earlier.
Winsor didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I think you should use your five opportunities with more caution."
Who would waste one on something like that?
Lansi tilted his head stubbornly. "I don't care. This is the first one."
"Well, I promise you," Winsor said helplessly, agreeing to the unreasonable request. "I promise."
However, a moment later, Winsor leaned forward and put his arm around Lansi's waist. Feeling the silky touch of the merman's skin, Winsor raised his eyebrows. "But... can I change the 'way' I 'eat' you?"
Lansi didn't catch the meaning at first. When he realized it was an adult joke, his face turned bright red.
While Lansi and Winsor were surrounded by a romantic atmosphere, the little seagull walked up to the pelican on the reef with its head held high.
"Are you willing to be my little brother?" the seagull asked. "I'll include food and a place to stay."
The pelican hesitated. It looked slow, but it wasn't stupid; it was actually pondering the philosophical side of the offer.
"Our group is huge," the little seagull continued, working hard to expand its business. "You are all alone and wandering. It's very hard work."
The seagull's dedication to "recruiting" was proof of why it was a natural leader. The pelican looked at the red figure in the water below and wavered.
"You are allowed to bring family members. There are even staff dormitories." the little seagull added quickly.
The pelican seemed satisfied with these terms. It was just about to agree when a blue tang suddenly popped out of the water.
"Hey! Don't you want me anymore?" the blue tang cried out, accusing the clownfish. "Falling in love with someone who doesn't come home, waiting by a door that won't open... why bother to beg and ask..."
Lansi heard the singing and looked intently. "Hey, it's a love triangle!"
The blue tang, singing loudly and dramatically, was the same "Dory" he had rescued before. As for the singing, Dory must have picked it up from listening to human music back when she lived in a fish tank. Unexpectedly, Dory couldn't speak before, but now she could sing entire pop songs.
The clownfish froze, trying to explain: "No, listen to me—"
Dory popped her head up, glared at the pelican on the reef, and then sank back down, complaining to the clownfish: "The smell of her perfume on you is a crime... I shouldn't have smelled her beauty..."
The clownfish was going crazy. "Let me explain!"
"Those harsh sounds, I don't listen, I don't listen! I'm too easily hurt, too easily sad..." With a flick of her tail, Dory swam away rapidly.
The clownfish was filled with regret. It surfaced one last time and shouted to the pelican: "Brother, wait for me! I have to chase Dory back so we can all talk!"
With that, the clownfish dived and vanished.
Now, there were only two birds on the reef and two mermaids in the water. Everyone was silenced by this sudden, soap-opera development.
After a long silence, Lansi sighed. "I really want to write this down."
The clownfish—that little scoundrel—could actually cause a romantic drama between different species. It truly was a fish destined to conquer the sea of stars. It would be a huge loss not to turn this into a drama series.
But Winsor had a different takeaway. He leaned in and whispered into Lansi's ear, "Well, they proved one thing: it "is" indeed possible to fall in love with a different species, right?"
As for whether it was a functional relationship, they would have to wait for the clownfish to bring Dory back.
"Why are you so close?" Lansi's ear fins twitched. He glared at Winsor, feeling flustered, and stammered, "We—we don't need anyone else to prove that!"
Winsor was stunned for a moment, then he understood. A warm smile curled the corners of his lips.