The Undersea Adventures of the Little Jellyfish (JELLYFISH)
Under the little jellyfish's puzzled gaze, Shen Jixiao bent down, placing his palm on the merchant's table. "He doesn't understand the value. You overcharged him. That gold coin just now could buy three of these rings with plenty to spare, couldn't it?"
The gem merchant: "..."
The little jellyfish: "..."
"Well..." The merchant stammered, "This... this is high quality... ah, it's worth at least a few silver coins! Don't call the guards, I'll give you the change, alright?!"
He just wanted to make a little profit off love-struck fools—
"Huh?" The little jellyfish slowly parted his lips. "He said this cost two gold coins and gave me a discount for one..."
Shen Jixiao explained the price. "One gold coin can buy a lot of things."
Besides making the merchant return part of the payment, he also took another ring. He had initially wanted the two-toned earring, but the little jellyfish was sensitive all over and couldn't bear the slightest pain. The moment he heard that piercing his earlobe would require making a hole, he shook his head like a rattle drum, utterly terrified.
"If my body is broken, it's hard to fix!"
Shen Jixiao patted the jellyfish's head. "Human bodies can heal."
The little jellyfish kept shaking his head.
Today was a day to learn the harsh realities of the world.
He held Shen Jixiao's hand, both the back and palm bearing faint scars—though barely visible, one could still sense the past brutality they represented. The little jellyfish didn’t know what the merman had experienced on land, but it couldn’t have been anything good.
“Are you… close with that… lord?”
“Hmm? Why ask that all of a sudden?” Shen Jixiao’s heart tightened.
Could it be that the"Wait."
"Hmm?"
little jellyfish had noticed something…
“Just asking.” Tang You’s fingers traced lightly over Shen Jixiao’s palm.
Being a jellyfish, he had no real concept of human fingers—each digit moved independently, as if wishing to transform into tiny tentacles. As a result, his joints were incredibly flexible, soft, and seemingly boneless.
It tickled.
Shen Jixiao glanced at the little jellyfish’s eyes.
Jellyfish were transparent, and so were their eyes—utterly incapable of hiding thoughts. With one look, he knew the little jellyfish wanted to ask something else.
“We know each other. Our relationship… is quite good.”
“Really? You have so many scars.” The little jellyfish was gradually beginning to understand human hierarchies.
He found humans to be strange creatures. Despite having no physiological differences, some were called “nobles” while others were deemed lowly, referred to as “servants.” It was almost as if they were two different species.
One part of humanity feared another—something the jellyfish found utterly baffling.
And Shen Jixiao was originally a merman, a completely different species. Under such circumstances, how could he avoid suffering some terrible treatment?
There were no walls without cracks, especially when it came to certain matters that some people didn’t even bother to conceal.
The little jellyfish had excellent hearing and perception. While learning to walk during their outings, he would sometimes cheat by secretly using his psychic energy to steady himself.
His calm, water-like psychic energy spread outward, inadvertently picking up countless faint sounds scattered throughout the city.
“The price of fish is starting to rise, and grain shipments aren’t coming in.”
“The backlog of goods can’t be shipped out, and contracts are overdue—we’ll have to pay penalties… Ugh, I’d rather face a storm.”
“Taxes have gone up again this year.”
“Have you heard? That family’s daughter was taken by the lord’s son…”
He sensed waves of negative emotions.
If emotions had power, they would be like a sea full of undercurrents, crashing relentlessly against the lord’s manor—was the lord such a disliked figure? The servants and maids he had encountered in the manor seemed mostly fearful, some even numb, devoid of any emotional fluctuations.
It was said that the lord was a rank above the city lord, and the king stood even higher.
The little jellyfish’s mind was empty, but he wasn’t stupid.
If the city lord was like this, how much better could the lord be?
Judging by the situation, Shen Jixiao knew the lord, and Ji Yan was the lord’s subordinate. Ji Yan looked exhausted—though he moved about with apparent ease, Tang You, while sleeping in his little jar, had heard him still awake at three in the morning in the next room and a dark circle perpetually under his eyes while his psychic energy drained and weary.
As for Shen Jixiao—well, the foolish merman spoke for himself. With so many scars, they couldn’t possibly be self-inflicted.
It had to be the evil lord’s fault.
The little jellyfish pinched his sleeve and spaced out.
"These scars are from a long time ago." Shen Jixiao didn't realize the little jellyfish had been pondering so much. Gazing at the marks on his palm, he smiled faintly at some distant memories. "Come on, let's go see more. I'll tell you as we walk."
"Mmm."
"A long time ago, I actually attended school."
The little jellyfish tilted its head, giving the merman an utterly astonished look.
"..." Shen Jixiao's eyebrow twitched. "Don't look at me like that. I'm genuinely not illiterate—I was just terrible at general studies. At least I learned some basic magic."
"No, I'm just curious... Merman, how could you attend school on land? What even is 'school'?"
"School is..."
One of humanity's primary methods of knowledge transmission.
The little jellyfish used psychic energy to inscribe pearls, passing memories to its future self or others.
The mermaids were no different—with their formidable psychic and magical abilities, they often recorded knowledge through magical means. Moreover, much of their power stemmed from bloodline inheritance.
Or rather, most creatures possessed some form of bloodline inheritance.
Sharks knew how to hunt from birth, anemones and jellyfish required no instruction in capturing prey—perhaps because those without such inheritance simply died out.
The mermaid's psychic and magical abilities came from their bloodline. They were born knowing how to use them, needing only minimal guidance from elders. The same went for sirens.
Humans alone were different—born utterly fragile, seemingly devoid of any innate knowledge and with no bloodline inheritance, so vulnerable they could perish at any moment. Their growth period was exceptionally long, lacking any efficient means of knowledge transmission. Teacher to student, parent to child—to the little jellyfish, this seemed an extraordinarily inefficient way to disseminate information. Knowledge converted into language and then transmitted would inevitably suffer loss, especially between two distinct individuals.
The most terrifying part was the uneven distribution of talent.
Even if a genius produced an exceptional magical scroll today, there was no guarantee the next person could utilize it.
Yet under such harsh conditions, humans had become the most prosperous species on land and building civilizations the little jellyfish had never even imagined.
"Anyway, school is generally about uncovering your potential." Shen Jixiao bought the little jellyfish a box of candied apples dusted with cinnamon. "Humans are born knowing nothing, but that also means they have infinite possibilities."
The little jellyfish half-understood: "Like division of labor and cooperation?"
"Maybe?" Shen Jixiao could explain no further—his "illiteracy" was acting up. "Anyway, I did attend school."
"You still haven't explained why you went to school."
The little jellyfish had never seen apples or cinnamon before, though it recognized sugar. He had loved yesterday's dinner of sugar-glazed potato cubes—sweet and slightly sticky.
Shen Jixiao speared a piece of apple and brought it to the jellyfish's lips. He sniffed, the overwhelming cinnamon aroma making his nose itch. "Achoo!"
The little jellyfish's eyes widened in shock, bewildered by what had just happened.
"That's called a sneeze." Shen Jixiao dodged swiftly, saving the candied apple from disaster. "Don't you like the smell of cinnamon?"
"It's... strange." Tang Yu obediently opened his mouth and took a bite. The taste wasn't as odd as the smell suggested—it was actually quite good. "I prefer the natural flavor of the fruit. The sugar and cinnamon are too strong, and the apple tastes so sour now.
He had eaten an apple just yesterday.
Chewing slowly, he swallowed.
"I thought mermaids kept on land were just for display," he suddenly murmured. "I have vague memories of something unpleasant, but I can't recall clearly. It must have been a long, long time ago. Back then, mermaids probably lived much closer to the shore—where there was light, coral, and more food."
"You know, mermaids are a long-lived species, and your bloodline is precious."
The illiterate Shen Jixiao shook his head slightly.
"Ah... Anyway, races born with innate magic have unimaginable power flowing in their flesh and blood before they fully mature. This magic holds a strong allure for species with naturally low magic, like humans. Most humans seem to find mermaids incredibly beautiful."
At this point, Shen Jixiao thought of Tang Yu—a little jellyfish brimming with magic. "What do you think of mermaids?"
"They're very beautiful," Tang Yu answered straightforwardly. "Setting aside the magic influence, they're just plain beautiful. I like your tail."
For some reason, Shen Jixiao felt inexplicably happy. He speared a piece of candied apple with a skewer and took a bite.
Only after eating it did he realize he had used the same skewer Tang Yu had used earlier.
He froze for a moment, then glanced up—the little jellyfish hadn’t noticed at all.
"So, mermaids have this strange allure for humans. Back then, they were also much easier to encounter, so some humans... developed some rather unsavory ideas." Tang Yu's voice trailed off. "Keeping mermaids as pets, stealing mermaid eggs, drinking mermaid blood... things like that."
Shen Jixiao: "..."
He hadn’t known about this history, but he was well aware of the depths human nobility could sink to. This was exactly the kind of thing they would do.
He gently patted the little jellyfish's head.
"Luckily, I never suffered that fate. I’ve had legs for a very long time." To be precise, he had grown up as a human. "I... well, you could say I attended school with that lord. We grew up together."
"Wow..." The little jellyfish silently removed the label of "pervert" from the lord’s head and placed it on the lord’s elders instead. "What happened after that?"
"I spent a few years at the Royal Noble Academy. It was... dull." Shen Jixiao lowered his eyes and an involuntary cold smile flickering across his face. But in front of the little jellyfish, his mood could never stay low for long, so he simply recounted these long-past events calmly. "There was no freedom to develop one’s talents—only magic evaluations. The highest-ranking nobles were required to study magic and even refused to marry those without magical bloodlines. Students with poor magic aptitude or no magic at all were ostracized and suppressed."
And he, coincidentally, had been one of those students with weak magic.
The little jellyfish listened intently, fascinated by this unknown world. "And then? What happened next?"
Shen Jixiao had forgotten to feed him more apples. Tang Yu leaned down and nibbled at the pieces in the box himself.
"After that..." Shen Jixiao narrowed his eyes, deciding some details weren’t suitable for the little jellyfish’s ears.
He finally discovered other talents, training his body day after day, and possessed an uncanny gift for wielding various weapons—so much so that at a very young age, he had already beaten up the upperclassmen at the academy. High-level magic? Too much wind-up. Might as well just slash them with a blade.
It was truly joyful. The children at the academy were, after all, much simpler than many of the people he encountered now. Even their bullying seemed childish.
"Later, the kingdom split, and the Royal Noble Academy was blown up by a grand mage from the northern territories. I never got to study there again." Shen Jixiao thought carefully. "I guess I really don’t have any diplomas."
Tang You was engrossed in nibbling on an apple when he heard this and trembled slightly, causing a piece of sugar crust to fall onto Shen Jixiao’s hand.
He lowered his head again, picked up the sugar crust with his mouth, and inadvertently licked Shen Jixiao’s hand, cleaning off the stray cinnamon powder as well.
The sensation was warm and damp but fleeting.
Shen Jixiao stared at his hand, watching the little jellyfish’s plump, rounded cheek puff up as he chewed, momentarily stunned.
Then he heard the jellyfish mumble through a mouthful of apple, "So you’re still illiterate, then?"
"..."
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