However, Chi Mei’s anxious, pleasing gaze clearly revealed a hint of reassured smile. He nodded repeatedly: “Okay, okay, I’ll go right away. Yang’er, wait for me, you must wait for me, I’ll be back soon.”

The merman prince dove into the water, and Jiang Yang’s ears were finally free from his anxious, incessant chatter, suddenly becoming peaceful.

Jiang Yang held her head, her heart sinking to the bottom. If she had known it would be like this, she wouldn’t have let herself discover Angry Bird in the first place. Giving her hope only to disappoint her, it would have been better to throw her into despair from the beginning.

*

“Are you sure? It’s here?” Near the coral reef, a group of merpeople huddled together, with the Left Elder asking in a low voice.

The merperson with the keenest sense of smell said with certainty: “No mistake, it’s here. I can already smell the prince’s scent.”

“Excellent, our painstaking efforts weren’t in vain. We’ve finally found the prince,” said the Right Elder.

A group of merpeople followed the one with the best sense of smell towards the tree hollow. Merpeople have excellent sense of smell and vision underwater. As they swam close to the shore, they immediately spotted the large banyan tree hollow, half submerged in water and half on land.

“Has our prince been sheltering here all this time?” The Left Elder exclaimed in disbelief, shouting loudly: “This is outrageous! When has our prince ever suffered such indignity!”

“Lower your voice! Someone’s coming out!” The Right Elder quickly covered the Left Elder’s mouth, leading the merpeople behind her to hide at a distance. They saw Chi Mei swimming out of the tree hollow, but compared to other merpeople, his movements were noticeably slower and more sluggish.

The Left Elder’s eyes widened, struggling to make sounds but still muffled by the Right Elder’s hand.

Only after Chi Mei had swum far away did she release her hand.

“Where’s the mermaid pearl! Where has our prince’s mermaid pearl gone! When we capsized the ship back then, the pearl was still with the prince!” The Left Elder shouted in shock.

A nearby merperson whispered: “Where else could it be? It must have been given to that cunning woman he rescued. Humans covet our mermaid pearls the most.”

“Despicable! Hateful! Humans are all shameless scoundrels!” The Left Elder angrily punched a coral rock.

The Right Elder calmly said: “If you think that’s hateful, didn’t you see that large wound on the prince’s tail fin?”

“Wound? What wound? Our prince is injured?! That woman, the prince even gave her his mermaid pearl, and she dares to abuse our prince? I’ll go in there and skin her alive, cut off her flesh!” The Left Elder shouted furiously, leading the charge into the tree hollow, each sound thunderously loud underwater.

Jiang Yang vaguely heard the commotion from underwater, thinking it was that stupid fish Chi Mei returning. Her tired body didn’t move an inch as she lazily said: “Back so soon today, what did you catch?”

Before she could finish speaking, Jiang Yang was grabbed by the throat with a huge, wet force. She suddenly opened her eyes to see an old woman, eyes filled with hatred and anguish, shouting: “It’s bad enough that you tricked our prince out of his mermaid pearl, but now you’re even living off him! When has our golden and jade-like prince ever hunted for anyone else? You damned phoenix woman! I’ll strangle you to death!”

Jiang Yang, choked to the point of seeing stars, finally realized that enemies had found her. However, this mermaid woman was strong, but Jiang Yang’s years of martial arts training weren’t for nothing. She grabbed the woman’s wrist, flipped her body, and kicked, not only breaking free from the restraint but also giving the mermaid woman a kick in return.

“Left Elder!” A group of young merpeople immediately swam up to support her.

“I’m fine!” The Left Elder stubbornly pushed away the crowd, her gaze fixed intensely on Jiang Yang, gritting her teeth: “You creature, how dare you seduce our prince. Today, you won’t leave here alive.”

Jiang Yang laughed: “When did I ever seduce your prince? Do you have any evidence for such baseless accusations?”

The Left Elder raged: “Pah, you freeloader!”

Jiang Yang frowned: “You’re calling me a freeloader?” For most of the time since arriving on this lonely island, she had been the one going out to find ingredients and cook. Even her birth parents hadn’t enjoyed such treatment in her lifetime.

The Left Elder retorted: “If not you, then who? Dare to do it but not admit it, right? Well, that’s just like you humans, all the same!”

“We just saw the prince personally go out to catch fish for you to eat. Look at you, and you’re a woman too, how pathetic!”

“That’s right! So useless, actually relying on a man!”

A group of gossipy merpeople pointed at her, hurling insults one after another, seemingly righteous in standing up for Chi Mei, venting their own anger in the process.

Jiang Yang chuckled softly, sighing as she held her forehead: “Well, you’ve got me figured out. I am indeed a freeloader. But it’s your precious prince who insists on providing for me, begging me to let him support me. What can I do? You say I seduced your prince, but on the night I fell into the water, I didn’t even lift a finger before he eagerly came to rescue me. I’ve tried to send him away, but he just won’t leave, insisting on staying by my side, taking care of me and serving me. Alas, what to do, I’m quite troubled by it too.”

“You! You!! You!!!” The Left Elder’s face turned the color of pig liver, looking as if she was about to die from anger.

Jiang Yang raised an eyebrow and smiled coldly, her beauty piercing: “What’s the matter? I’m just telling the truth, can’t you handle it?”

The Left Elder clutched her chest and fell backward.

“Old Stone!” The Right Elder quickly supported her, whispering in her ear: “Humans are the most cunning. Can’t you see she’s deliberately provoking you? Stop arguing with her. The most important thing now is to quickly make her hand over the mermaid pearl. We can find opportunities to kill her later.”

“Yes, you’re right. I almost forgot the main issue.” The Left Elder instantly shot out a poisonous spike from her sleeve. This poison was extracted from sea snake fangs and was extremely toxic.

Jiang Yang nimbly dodged, but the Left Elder’s sleeve kept shooting out poisonous spikes like a hail of arrows. If they were in an open outdoor space, Jiang Yang would have been confident in dodging them all. But the tree hollow was narrow, and the pool was full of merpeople. She instantly found herself at a disadvantage.

“El-Elder?” Chi Mei, holding two large, plump sea fish, stared blankly at the tree hollow packed with merpeople.

“Prince! We’ve finally found you!” The merpeople excitedly embraced Chi Mei.

Chi Mei was even more excited than them. He pounced towards the Left Elder, shouting: “Don’t hurt Yang’er.”

The Left Elder never imagined that she, a dignified elder, would one day be backstabbed by Prince Chi Mei. She was pressed underwater, unable to raise her head, until the Right Elder fished her out.