Chapter 6 (1/2)

Four eyes.

Rand saw four eyes.

The fish in the bottle did not die. That moment when Rand approached the opening of the bottle, it suddenly shook its body. The four eyes were just like some kind of living creature independent of the fish, they quiver and roll over towards Rand. A complex design and color emerge from the edges, a trace of red light flits across its fluorescent pupil. Light blue fluorescent particles can be found throughout the seawater saturating the whole fish, and some semi-translucent tentacles are folded over layer by layer and stick to the wall of the bottle.

The fish drew back the corners of its mouth at Rand, and some hair-fine teeth were exposed, obstructing the sucker at the back of its oral cavity.

”Bang⁠—”

The sense of fright in that split-second compelled Rand to involuntarily loosen his grip, and the bottle dropped to the ground.

The seawater inside trickled out, and some splashed onto the top of Rand's foot.

The gray carpet became black after being moistened with water, the damp patches were like the enlarged shadow produced by a phantom, and a strong fishy smell filled the air.

Does seawater always smell so fishy?

Rand had questions flas.h.i.+ng through his mind, but soon his train of thoughts was interrupted.

The fish hopped out of the bottle and leaped with difficulty onto the moist carpet, its tail smacked the floor six times. Rand shook when the fish fell within his line of sight again and he realized that there weren't four eyes at all⁠— it was just a decorative pattern on the fish's body, nothing more.

Rand didn't realize that he immediately breathed out a sigh of relief. His shoulders relaxed and it was only then that he found his heartbeat going very fast.

This was indeed somewhat foolish⁠— Rand grumbled and felt a little embarra.s.sed. Rand acknowledged that he was really scared by the most primitive kind of camouflage for a creature.

The wound on its side seemed to be doing a bit better, Rand could no longer see that kind of horrific bright red flesh, a layer of white film was covering its wounds.

During this short period of time, while Rand was lost in thought, that fish had stopped flopping around. It was lying limp on the ground, its tail twitching slightly, and its mouth opening and closing.

When Rand's soul came back to him, he charged into the kitchen in a fl.u.s.ter, trying to find a salad pot to fill with water and then quickly rushed back to the living room. However, at the moment when his fingertips were about to touch the fish, he remembered in a flash that it was a salt.w.a.ter fish, so he had to once again rush back, crus.h.i.+ng some sea salt and throwing it into the water.

G.o.d knows how to raise a salt.w.a.ter fish, Rand thinks while stirring the salt in the water-filled salad bowl.

What he is fairly certain of is that the water needed to raise salt.w.a.ter fish is definitely not as simple as adding salt to freshwater. So, in fact, Rand already has no hope for the survival of this fish. He picked up the fish⁠— its body was much heavier than his visual estimate, and its surface had a weird tactile sensation, like swan's down or velvet. In any case, it is not slippery and moist as a fish should be, it feels warm to the touch too.

Rand instinctively fought back a s.h.i.+ver, and he quickly threw the fish into the salad bowl.

The fish sank to the bottom of the basin ramrod straight, Rand felt it might be dead. But after a moment, the fish tried to swim around slowly.

Honestly speaking, Rand felt that the fish was a bit strange. He frowned and poured some of the remaining salt.w.a.ter into the bowl in an attempt to make up for the deficiency to no avail.

He found some extremely tiny fish scales in the water from the bottle. Those fish scales were very transparent, but they reflected a faint blue gleam when illuminated by a certain angle of light. Rand noticed that there were many traces of scales falling off from the wound of the fish.

Maybe it was because of the discomfort in the bottle that made the fish lose some scales. Rand feels that the blue thing is probably the illusion caused by these scales.

Rand shrugged his shoulders. He lifted up the salad bowl and consciously placed it on the island table. The lighting of the kitchen fell on the back of the fish through the water surface, The backlighting on the surface layer looked like a layer of mother-of-pearl on the fish's moving and twisting gray body.

(TN: Mother-of-pearl or nacre is like the metallic sheen on the inner part of a sh.e.l.l, look it up if you want a better image in your head, too tired to think of any avid descriptions.)