Li Ziyang dismissed the meeting and everyone promptly left the room. He tapped on the table thoughtfully.

It had almost been 3 weeks since Li Shen’s disappearance and they couldn’t find any trace of him, the agent, or the scientist. However skilled that agent was, he couldn’t have left no trace at all. Their lead disappeared at an abandoned school.

Were they under someone’s protection? The Li Family was completely gone, so it couldn’t be any of them. Was it Yu or Wan Family? No, he didn’t get any report from his people there.

Bai Liang already seemed satisfied by Li Shen’s current situation, but he would be ashamed of himself if he couldn’t do this simple thing for his lover. He would get Li Shen to be publicly executed like everyone else. He might be a mermaid now, but that changed nothing. His power was given to protect Bai Liang and he still identified himself as an Aria.

The door opened and Bai Liang entered the meeting room, “Li Ziyang, I saw everyone has left. What are you still doing here?”

“Sorry, I made you wait,” Li Ziyang got up from his chair.

“Was there any problem?” Bai Liang wondered.

“No, I was just thinking of something,” Li Ziyang touched Bai Liang’s ear. “We’ll get Li Shen soon.”

“There’s no need to rush. I doubt he has any evidence against us. Maybe he’s already captured by the anti-mermaid faction somewhere,” Bai Liang leaned to Li Ziyang’s touch.

“The anti-mermaid faction is funded by me. They haven’t found him yet either.”

Bai Liang, “…”

Why was he not surprised?

They went to have lunch at Li Ziyang’s regular restaurant together and Bai Liang surfed the news about the latest update. After the entire play between Li Family and ‘the anti-mermaid faction’, from Li Wen-Gui’s first video until the last video where he got killed, the country was thrown into a mess. Fights broke out everywhere on the street just from the smallest mistake and police cars were frequently seen rushing from one spot to another.

Many stores became either humans or mermaids only to avoid conflict. Most of the officers who patrolled were Arias to prevent any more chaos. There were cases of vandalism and arson against small to medium shops and violence in mixed households. The government implored the citizens to stay indoors as much as they could for their own safety.

“Seems like the united nations and international mermaid council will be getting involved soon,” Bai Liang said. He looked at Li Ziyang, “Are you going to take over Li Wen-Gui’s seat at the council?”

“The council seats are given to the old mermaid families who served as council members in the past kingdom. Now that I’m a mermaid, Li Wen-Gui’s seat is already mine,” Li Ziyang nodded. He smiled at Bai Liang, “I’ll seize the throne and make you the king of our future kingdom.”

“I rather reserve my energy to heal you in bed,” Bai Liang offered a piece of scallop to Li Ziyang with an ambiguous smile.

Li Ziyang accepted Bai Liang’s feeding in amusement, “I doubt you’ll spend more energy than I do.”

Minding where they were, Bai Liang held back from defending himself. If it was any other person accepting Li Ziyang’s ‘love’, they would be paralyzed waist down for at least 3 days.

“It’s best to have a ‘heart to heart’ talk with Yu and Wan Family before they make a move."

***

Bai Liang walked down the concrete corridor, his footsteps echoing throughout the underground facility. The 4 heavily armed soldiers guarding the door up ahead had been notified of his arrival and readily opened the door for him.

He entered the workshop to find the workers inside welcoming him in a neat line, all of them were ragged and had bags under their eyes. Evidently, they were worked to their bones. In front were Li Shen, Han Wubin, and Qin Xia-Yu, accompanied by her parents.

“It’s done. Somehow,” Qin Xia-Yu exhaustingly croaked. “But we didn’t get to do the final tests yet when you suddenly called.”

“Show me,” Bai Liang ordered.

Qin Xia-Yu walked ahead and led him to the center of the workshop. Secured inside a large bulletproof glass case were 3 identical cubes 5 times bigger than him. They weren’t polished and didn’t have any deliberate design, but from Xue Liang’s comparison with the original trajectory’s purifiers, Qin Xia-Yu already got the essentials right.

“These devices’ mechanism is to use sulfur itself as their energy. This raises their efficiency by 5 times and we won’t need to worry about energy shortage. The problem is, we don’t know how strong of sulfur it can handle yet,” Qin Xia-Yu explained.

“Then run the test now,” Bai Liang crossed his arms.

With a gesture from Qin Xia-Yu, the engineers started the simulator. Thin green, yellowish smoke sprayed into the case and rapidly filled its entire space. The monitor next to it showed the live reading of the purifiers and the sulfur’s acid level indicator spanning from 1 to 10.

“Prototype 1: All normal. Prototype 2: All normal. Prototype 3: All normal. Activating HSP’s energy absorption.”

The main engineer pressed a button and the cubes whirred into life, emitting a faint white glow from the circles on all 6 sides. Soon, the smoke inside was rapidly sucked into their vacuum lines which turned the light green. The shades grew darker and darker by the minutes until they slowly shifted to vibrant aquatic blue.

“Prototype 1: 20% energy regeneration. Successfully synthesizes LX83. Prototype 2: 17% energy regeneration. Successfully synthesizes LX83. Prototype 3: 34% energy regeneration. Successfully synthesizes LX83. No abnormality detected. All components function normally.”

“Begin purifying sequence,” Qin Xia-Yu ordered.

The cubes whirred louder and they promptly sprayed out mist-like smoke with a subtle hint of blue. The sulfur smoke was engulfed and cleansed without the cubes stopping their absorption.

The engineers continued dictating the readings and increased the sulfur’s acid level once Qin Xia-Yu deemed it safe to proceed. It wasn’t until the acid level reached 5 did the prototypes showed a performance decline.

Eventually, the cubes barely reached acid level 7 when Qin Xia-Yu stopped the test.

“There you have it,” Qin Xia-Yu put her hands into her lab coat pockets. “This is already very good if I can say so myself, but I know this is not enough for you. They can’t be dumped into the sulfur cores.”

“Not necessarily so,” Bai Liang raised his hand.

Wondering what he was trying to do, everyone then saw blotches of water forming above each prototype. They proceeded to trickle down to the device and coated their surface before penetrating inside.

The engineers quickly ran the scan and were astounded by the meticulous protection Bai Liang’s water gave to the components. Not only it cleaned the sulfur residue, it also enhanced the quality of the remaining LX83 by 130% and still improving.

Bai Liang wasn’t surprised. He went to the sea to test his speculation once. With the divinity in his spirit now, it naturally became pure and holy. Something pure and holy more often than not had a healing and cleansing effect.

“Try it again,” he said.

Qin Xia-Yu nodded and ordered the engineers to restart the test from acid level 4. The performance was clearly better than before and easily reached acid level 7 without any decline.

Everyone held their breath as the acid raised a level. It passed level 7 safely and entered level 8. Seeing the performance decline slightly, Bai Liang concentrated and infused 10% more of his divinity. He didn’t know how long had passed in the previous world but the divinity inside him already worth 200 years. He still had a lot to spare though he had to save it for the real thing.

The numbers immediately returned to normal.

Bai Liang ordered Qin Xia-Yu to stop the test and she complied. He retracted the water and let his control go.

“What was that?” Li Shen couldn’t understand what just happened, looking at Bai Liang in disbelief. “What kind of water are you making?”

“You won’t understand even if I tell you,” Bai Liang brushed it away. “We’ll depart to the cores tomorrow.”

“That’s so sudden. We haven’t prepared anything,” Qin Xia-Yu said.

“There’s a mermaid council meeting tomorrow. It’s our only chance,” Han Wubin understood.

“Why can’t we let the public know about what we’re going to do? Isn’t this a good thing?” Li Shen asked.

“It’s good if we succeed, but if we don’t, we’ll be in a lot of danger,” Han Wubin answered. “Not everyone wants mermaids to return to the sea. It’ll be troublesome if someone interferes. Moreover, we’re still fugitives, remember?”

“As your boyfriend said,” Bai Liang nonchalantly said. “We’ll meet at the airport tomorrow morning, 9 AM.”

Li Shen blushed and wanted to retort but Bai Liang already walked away. He looked at Han Wubin only for the other to look away, a hint of red tinted the tip of his ears.

Qin Xia-Yu, “…”

Go die.