Lil Pea swam in circles in the basin and spouted water at Hao Ren naughtily. She looked normal. Though feeling a little less worried, Hao Ren still found something amiss about her. She swam with her body leaning to aside, and her movement was not as agile as before.
Hao Ren had been keeping Lil Pea for two years now and accumulated a ton of strange knowledge about the mermaid. Normal parents would not keep checking if their daughter’s tail was okay, but Hao Ren did. He began to think that he would be a fishery expert in two years.
“Do you feel any discomfort?” Hao Ren poked at the small arm of Lil Pea. The little mermaid might look active, but considering that she was hyperactive and naive at her age, it was difficult to say whether she could tell if she knew what was wrong with herself.
Lil Pea ran around Hao Ren’s finger before she clung to his thumb. “I felt bloated, but I’m okay now,” she said.
Hao Ren turned his head around and asked Y’lisabet, “What did she eat this morning?”
Y’lisabet scratched her horn and tried to recall by tilting her head. “Papa’s newspaper, Vivian’s comb, and gnawing at your desk too, just the usual stuff she would eat any other days.”
Anyone fed on this diet should be in the ICU by now. Hao Ren thought for a while and found that the little mermaid’s food was healthy today. At least, she did not gnaw at the lamp holder; the lamp holder was made of bakelite, which the mermaid would not be able to digest.
At this time, Nangong Wuyue came over, learning about Lil Pea’s condition, she swept the mermaid out of the water with her hand and placed her under the sunlight and scrutinized her. Using a water-made magnifying glass, she studied the scales on the mermaid’s tail. Hao Ren looked on nervously. After a long while, he could not wait to ask, “How is she? Bad stomach or gastroenteritis?”
Nangong Wuyue put the little guy back in the water, face serious. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. Mermaid and cutlassfish aren’t quite the same. My experience in treating fish is of no help here.”
Lil Pea lay her head on the edge of the water basin and looked up. She could not make head or tail of what the adults were saying. Soon, her patience ran out. She began beating the water trying to attract Hao Ren’s attention. “I’m bored! I’m bored! I’m bored!” she yelled.
Hao Ren petted Lil Pea on her head with his finger. “Still feeling bloated?”
The little mermaid nodded.
Hao Ren turned his head and called out the MDT in the living hall, “MDT! Go and prepare the medical pod. I need to give Lil Pea a CT scan.”
The MDT answered with an “okay” before remotely activating the equipment in the basement and then ran into the washroom. “Let me see what’s wrong with her!”
Lil Pea saw the stranger blonde, bewildered. “Who are you?” she asked.
Hao Ren smiled wryly. “It’s your lantern; it just changed a new shell.”
Lil Pea heard this and was delighted. She jumped out of the basin and lunged towards the MDT. The MDT, who was in girl form, opened her arms ready to catch Lil Pea. While Lil Pea was halfway towards it in the air, the MDT suddenly realized something. “Hold on! I’m just a holographic—”
Hao Ren caught Lil Pea with his hand and then shot the MDT a glare. “Change back! Wait until you get onboard the spacecraft, you can vent your girl’s feeling at Nolan as much as you want but not here at home.”
When he was about to take Lil Pea down to the basement, Lil Pea wriggled in his hands and grabbed his sleeve. “Dad-dee, belly not bloated anymore,” the mermaid said.
“Oh yeah, you’re okay now?”
Lil Pea twisted and put up a weird face. “Yup, suddenly not bloated anymore and…”
“And what?”
Lil Pea fumbled around and then handed a peanut-sized white ball to Hao Ren. “I have laid an egg.”
Hao Ren was flabbergasted.
Everyone suddenly became as quiet as a church mouse, and it remained for a good half a minute before Lil Pea pulled Hao Ren’s sleeve again. “Dad-dee, I’ve laid an egg.”
“Ahh, okay.” Hao Ren blinked at her and did not know what to make of it. Dumbstruck, he turned to look at Nangong Wuyue. “Hey, do you know what’s going on?”
“How the hell do I know?” Nangong Wuyue glared at him. “Hurry her to the medical pod first. Then we’ll figure out the rest.”
Hao Ren ran down to the basement with Lil Pea in his hands while the others were right at his heels. The check-up result soon came out but found no anomalies in Lil Pea’s body; she was full of beans. The only odd thing was she had laid an egg.
Hao Ren brought Lil Pea back to the living room and put her on the table, where the peanut-sized white ball was on a dip bowl next to her. Lil Pea and they stared at each other for a long while, no one talked. Hao Ren reached to touch the little ‘fish egg’ and was very careful not to break it, as the thing that was no more than one centimeter in diameter looked very fragile.
Lily looked at Lil Pea, and then Hao Ren before said in a whisper, “Mr. Landlord, do you think this is normal?”
“Laying egg should be pretty normal. After all, Lil Pea was hatched from an egg.” Hao Ren scratched his hair. “But it’s still too early for her to lay an egg. She is only a year old!”
“I’m more concerned about the egg,” Vivian said with her brows knit together. “I remember the mermaid egg that Mr. Landlord brought back was as big as a fist and was as hard as a stone, but the one we’re looking at here is so tiny that even shrimp would find it too small to hatch.”
Lily squinted at Vivian. “Look at Lil Pea’s size; you need to compare things in perspective.”
“The main problem is that Lil Pea is unique in the world. We have no way to find another mermaid to make a comparison.” Nangong Sanba scratched his hair. “Only God knows if this is normal. By the way, TV has always reported that hormones intake in children will cause precocious puberty. Is this what happened to Lil Pea?”
“Nonsense. Lil Pea eats only wood. There’s no hormone in the wood.” Nangong Wuyue sneered. She then said thoughtfully. “As she likes to eat books, could it be that the problem lies with the ink?”
While the others joined the discussion hammer and tongs, Hao Ren stared blankly at the egg. After a long while, he looked up and asked Nangong Wuyue, “Do you know anything about postpartum care?”
Nangong Wuyue’s expression became very weird. “Why should I know this?”
“Are you not a siren?”
“A siren is not a mermaid, and I don’t lay eggs!”
“But I do remember that when you were born, it was also a ball?”
Nangong Wuyue’s face turned red. “Who told you that if it were born a ball, it was oviparous? The truth was that I didn’t know how I was supposed to look like when I was born; it was a random selection, mind you. I was born a meatball; was it oviparous or viviparous?”
Hao Ren buried his face in his hand and his head on the table. “Too complicated. What are we looking at now?”
Lil Pea looked confused. She could not make sense of what the adults were discussing. After laying the egg, the mermaid was full of vigor. She scampered about on the table before jumping up to Hao Ren. “Dad-dee, I am hungry!” She grabbed Hao Ren’s hair while saying.
She was the least worried one.
Y’zaks suddenly broke the silence. “Why don’t you ask the Goddess?”
Everyone quieted down before they made an “oh” sound almost in unison. Hao Ren smacked himself on the head. “Darn! Why didn’t I think of this before? MDT, make the call!”
By now, the MDT had changed back to the PDA form. It flew up to him. Just when it was about to make the call, Raven 12345 called in instead. “Hey, Hao Ren?”
“I was about to call you!” Hao Ren edged closer. “My daughter has laid an egg!”
It seemed Raven 12345 had something to tell Hao Ren, but after hearing what Hao Ren said, she suddenly choked back her words. After a few seconds, she muttered with a strange tone of voice, “Hey, you seem to have a lot of things going on there, eh? I need to see you. Come over with your daughter. And Vivian too.”