Mermaid Effect 《人鱼效应》 Chinese BL Translation by: 黑猫白袜子

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The surface level of the bluish artificial seawater decreased with Rand completely oblivious as to why— the water in the fish tank was less than a quarter full.

The large empty section of space that was vacant made the whole aquarium seem a bit odd.

Rand took a step forward in shock and began examining the aquarium. In his initial thoughts, this sort of situation naturally occurs due to a crack in the aquarium. He stooped down and surveyed as he looked for possible cracks inch by inch, but in fact, every inch of the aquarium was in good condition.

Rand felt utterly perplexed. He even kneeled down and crawled behind the table to inspect the water supply line. He then proceeded to feel around the carpet under his knees to see if there was a moistness there that shouldn't be. He reached out with his hand and felt around the carpet, the liquid seeping from the underside of the thick gray fibers dampened his palm. He soon found that the wallpaper at the back section of the aquarium was also wet, the surface of a nearby leather ottoman was covered with fine water droplets... It feels like during the time he was unconscious, an invisible flame caused the water in the aquarium to boil over and then vaporize into steam to soak the furniture in the vicinity.

Everything is all so confusing, and...

There is something about it that doesn't feel right.

A few seconds later, Rand discovered where that feeling of unease came from— he found that Munster had sunk to the bottom of the water and was just stopped motionless on the coral stones that were already broken down into slag.

This is clearly very rare for it. Munster is always swimming, even when it was injured and forced to stay in the salad bowl nothing changed, it kept on swimming around. But now, however, that sort of astonishing vitality was completely gone. It powerlessly floated in place, its fins sway slightly, and at the same time, the scales on the body turn into a faint greenish-gray.

A clear and easily seen display of weakness.

"Oh no."

Rand's gaze went blank for a moment and after a careful observation of Munster's state, he produced a distressed cry. He thought in alarm that perhaps in the short period of time when he was unconscious because of his damn neurofunctional asthma, a problem also emerged with Munster who might have been sparing no effort to struggle to make the water in the aquarium splash out (it's hard to explain how those tiny droplets that appeared on the surface of his home, but Rand obviously did not think too much).

Not long after, Rand fished out the oxygen pump from the fragmented coral stones. It had already ceased working and the plastic casing was filled with baffling veined patterned cracks (that thing looked rather like it had received an enormous impact). He wasn't too sure if this was the cause for Munster's poor health, but he still tried to change out the fish tank with a new oxygen pump and allocated artificial seawater to fill up the aquarium.

Yet apart from this, Rand found himself unclear of the root cause for Munster's unexplained weakness.

He attempted to call the numbers of some pet hospitals within the city of Kansas according to the phone numbers written down on the yellow pages, but the doctors said one after another that they did not have much treatment experience for an unknown pet fish. A few people recommended him to quickly dredge up the sick fish in order to avoid infecting other fish— this sort of remark made Rand feel a burst of anger. He directly hangs up his phone and returns to the side of the aquarium.

The color and luster of Munster's body grays out at a speed visible to the naked eye. Rand gazes at it sadly and began to feel that he was going to lose him.