Sudden pain 3 (Part 1)

"You can sleep now. I will help you observe the level of the infusion fluid. Oh! Yes, do you want to eat something?"

The bitter-sweet taste of chocolate was still lingering in her mouth. Lusting for more, Zhao Xiaokui subconsciously replied, "... Chocolate?"

Shen Zhifei raised her eyebrows, and...

"I mean rice."

Just by uttering the word ‘rice’, Zhao Xiaokui couldn’t control herself. Her mouth began to secrete saliva uncontrollably.

It was just too miserable. During the five years spent in the mermaid world, she was really too miserable...

‘What could you get on the bottom of the sea? Obviously, the mermaids were a wise species, but can you believe that each one of them ate their food raw?’ Zhao Xiaokui cursed in her heart.

She didn’t know what those adult mermaids, who had their territories and their human servants, were eating, but as underage mermaids, they were raised in the deep sea.

Almost always, their food was raw fish. From time to time, they were fed some magical extra-terrestrial species; she wasn't sure whether or not she could call those things fish.

‘If I had transmigrated to become a terrestrial creature, I might have built a make-shift stove to cook the food, but in the deep sea... Come on, can you even make a fire?’ Her list of resentments was long.

[Lazybug: Duh! Spongebob.]

She wasn’t sure if it was because of poor food or not being able to cook under the sea, but Zhao Xiaokui was sure those were the real reason why she had lost the race of survival.

Only if she was on the land, even if she was an ordinary person, she could have been able to sow some seeds and do some farming. It would certainly have increased her chances of survival. However, there was no land to farm in the deep sea.

"Growl."

The names of countless dishes appeared in her mind. They were the dishes she'd been longing for so long; thinking about them made her more hungry.

However, when it was time to say out loud, she became extremely reserved and self-controlled, "I am okay with anything. You can make the choice."

‘Human character; the facade of human character can’t collapse.’ Zhao Xiaokui reminded herself repeatedly in her heart- she was not Zhao Xiaokui, but Zhao Zijin.

Zhao Zijin was the current stage name of her human body.

[Lazybug: This one has come out of nowhere. I'm not sure if it was the name of the human body or the name of the screen. I haven't read the next chapters, so I'm not too sure, but I think it’s a type of screen persona. Please let me know, if you have any other opinions.]

Zhao Zijin was a person who would have maintained her life with medicine and water for three days, just to put on a dress.

There was no way that she would suddenly become someone who would crave lobster and spicy griddle rabbit just because of low blood sugar.

Before, when she blurted out the ‘chocolate’, there was already a risk of exposure. But she couldn't make the same mistake twice.

Although Zhao Xiaokui had no intention of continuing to act as Zhao Zijin, she still did not want others to discover her sudden change.

She might have known this world for eighteen years, but now she possessed those so-called ‘superpowers’. On top of that, she didn't know how exaggerated her changes would be...

It was a world where most people believe in science. Whether good or bad, people would label these changes and powers as strange.

But... what if?

Zhao Xiaokui didn't dare to bet that one in case. One wrong move and she would lose everything.

Whether in the mermaid world or now back in the human world, her nerves never relaxed; she was wary of everything.

However, they were a little different. In the mermaid world, she was afraid of being killed. In the human world, she was anxious to be discovered. They might find that she was different from normal people.

What frightened her most was that she would be in some experiment lab, on some dissection table; making "contributions" to the progress of science and humanity.

As someone who had once experienced death, she didn't want to die again.

She was only trying to live a peaceful life. She was trying to live like a simple, ordinary person.

“If I remember correctly, your fans once noticed that you have a severe stomach disease. Then, how about drinking simple chicken rice porridge?"

"Sorry for the inconvenience."

"It's such a simple matter. Don’t let it bother you. Even if someone else had encountered you in such a situation, they would have given a helping hand as well.”

Zhao Xiaokui’s eyes were reflecting her complicated feeling, “...you're... you're such a good person.”

She really meant it; those words came from her heart. And according to the internet, she was one of those green tea bitches who has stolen Shen Zhifei’s fiance.

[Lazybug: Green tea bitch: Someone who sells her body to gain fame. An internet slang.]

Deep in her heart, Zhao Xiaokui was ashamed of herself. Shen Zeifei, too, understood the meaning of those words.

She wasn’t sure about what she should say. She just told Zhao Xiaokui to have a good rest. After taking a glance at the fluid level in the infusion bottle, she turned around and left the room.

Of course, she was not a good person, nor was she a Virgin Mary*.

[Lazybug: Sorry, I don't know the context. It could also mean virgin or one of the creation gods of Taoism, etc. Nothing made any sense to me.]

If it wasn't Zhao Xiaokui; if someone else had an accident and had made the same request to her, she might have called her assistant at most and let her handle it.

She wouldn’t have done this by herself. She had only done it because it was Zhao Xiaokui, and it had nothing to do with Rong Zhen or anyone else. It was simply because Zhao Xiaokui was so good-looking.

And in this world, good-looking people were always given special treatment.

Zhao Xiaokui stared at the door of the guest room as it closed with a soft clank. And her face distorted. Her body squirmed into a ball as she was having a hard time controlling her body.

"...Khuk... " She had to bury the howl in her throat. The pain washed her fragile, innocent, and affectionate expression off her face. In an instant, it became hideous.

The pain had always treated everyone equally, regardless of their appearance. Beautiful or ugly, there would be no special privileges at all.

Fortunately, the doctor used a thin needle for the infusion, otherwise, she would have considered that the needle was puncturing the blood vessel.

However, it was nothing compared to what she was experiencing throughout her body.

The bones were being shattered inch by inch and then glued together again; the muscles were being twisted and torn apart, and her nerves were like stretched rubber bands, stretched beyond their elastic limit, reinforced beyond the human limit. But it didn’t end there.

Her heart was beating thousands of times per minute. This abnormally fast speed absurdly increased her oxygen intake. Even if it was human skin, her skin, all over her body, was desperately absorbing oxygen and moisture from all directions.

In the guest room, if anyone stood by the window, he could even hear the roar of wind flowing from outside to inside.

Even then, Zhao Xiaokui still felt like a fish on the land, unable to breathe.

************

Lazybug: Even if it's 25th here, in some country it's still 24th. So technically I am on schedule.

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