Everly felt that she hadn’t exactly been prepared to welcome a new life into the world. Yet strangely, whenever she thought about a baby hidden inside Kesuye’s brood pouch, her heart felt as though it had fallen into a pile of sun-warmed cotton. A warm, fluffy force seemed to hold her up, leaving her whole body light and buoyant, as if she might float away into the sky at any moment.

No matter what the baby looked like when it was born, she thought, she would love it dearly.

After all, it was the crystallization of her and Kesuye’s love.

Come to think of it, was their current home a little too small now? Should they expand it? Oh, right. Since they were going to have a baby, wouldn’t it be better to add another layer of railings around the balcony and windows? There weren’t any early-childhood books in the study. Maybe she could start buying picture books now. And clothes for the baby, too. She still didn’t know whether it would even be able to wear them, but there was certainly no harm in preparing some in advance…

The more she thought about it, the more urgent everything seemed. Everly suddenly sprang out of bed and spun around twice like an idiot. Then she checked the time.

Well, would you look at that—it was already ten at night.

And given how remote this gas station was, anything she wanted to do would have to wait until tomorrow.

So she climbed back into bed, leaned over Kesuye’s belly, and gazed down at it fondly for a long while. She carefully stroked it twice, then leaned over and gave it two little “mwah mwah” kisses. After that, she moved upward, gently tilted Kesuye’s pointed chin toward her, and planted several hearty kisses on the corners of his mouth.

She couldn’t help laughing as she kissed him.

Starting the very next day after learning that Kesuye was pregnant, Everly busied herself making preparations.

The house at the gas station was more than spacious enough for Everly, Kesuye, and Old John, but adding another child would make things a little cramped. As luck would have it, the house was already quite old, with outdated facilities, so they decided to take the opportunity to renovate and replace everything at once.

There was a shelter hidden beneath the house, so to avoid exposing it, Everly and Old John had to oversee the entire expansion and renovation themselves from start to finish.

Besides the house itself, Everly also bought a huge amount of baby supplies, including clothes, pants, towels, diapers, toys, early-learning materials, and more, filling the shelter’s storage room to the brim.

Of course, they couldn’t neglect the nutritional needs of the baby’s father during pregnancy, either.

Kesuye wasn’t human. Even while carrying a baby, his physical condition was still far beyond that of an ordinary human. He could run and jump as usual, and doing a hundred push-ups in one go was no problem for him.

However, during pregnancy, the baby would draw a large amount of nutrients from the father’s body, and it was difficult to replenish all those nutrients through an ordinary human diet alone. So, when Kesuye was two months pregnant, at his request, he and Everly temporarily moved to a seaside villa in Gilosha.

As for the gas station, which was still undergoing expansion, the younger version of Old John was left in charge for the time being.

The villa was right by the sea, with an excellent location. Whenever Kesuye felt that he was lacking nutrients, he could simply transform into his whale form and head into the ocean to hunt for food.

He had been craving squid that day, so he had gone deep into the ocean to catch some. It was simply too dark and deep down there. Even with Lamia’s blessing, Everly, being human, couldn’t stay in the deep sea for very long. So she hadn’t gone with him. Instead, she had taken advantage of the quiet time at home to deal with some work from the bulletin board.

She hadn’t expected Kesuye to be so clingy. They had only been apart for an afternoon, yet the moment he returned, he kept fussing over her and insisting that she put down her work and go to bed with him.

Everly had been worn down by his persistence. Besides, she really hadn’t made any progress on the case she was working on, so she half-heartedly went along with him and joined him in bed.

By this point, Kesuye had been pregnant for more than five months.

Thanks to the carefully planned nutritional diet, a small, fist-sized bump had finally appeared inside what had originally been a flat brood pouch.

The shape of the bump resembled a curled-up embryo. If one looked closely, they could even see the fish-shaped body gently expanding and contracting with each breath, as though it were sleeping.

To be honest, seeing something like that appear on a man’s abdomen was somewhat eerie. But Everly thought it was perfectly fine. After all, it was nurturing a new life. Whenever she thought about that tiny, gently moving little thing being her own child, a deep tenderness welled up inside her, and she couldn’t help wanting to lean over and kiss the baby, then kiss the baby’s hardworking father too.

Unfortunately, Kesuye wasn’t very fond of letting her look at his belly.

“It doesn’t look good like this.” He covered his abdomen with a piece of fabric, guarding it as though his life depended on it. His voice was thick with grievance. “What if you remember what I look like now and start disliking me later…?”

“How could I? You’re like this because you’re carrying our baby. How could I possibly dislike you?”

“Who knows? A lot of human husbands on TV say the exact same things to their wives. Then before long, they cheat on them, fool around outside, and end up unable to stand the sight of the wives they once loved…” Kesuye lowered his eyelashes and muttered gloomily. The more he spoke, the sadder he became, until two pools of tears gradually gathered in his beautiful eyes.

Everly had a strong suspicion that his pregnancy hormones were getting to him.

From around the third month of pregnancy onward, Kesuye’s emotions began to become unstable. At times he was overly sentimental, while at others he was irritable and quick-tempered. Everly looked up information about human pregnancy and learned the reasons behind it, after which she diligently took on the role of emotional first responder.

Whenever she saw Kesuye crying, she would immediately come over like a seasoned professional, first kissing his eyes and licking away his tears, then pulling him into her arms. While stroking his head, she would talk about the future with him, chatting about things they could do after the baby was born to distract him.

“Education is very important. Look at you—you suffered because you didn’t have enough education when you were younger. You were so silly and always got b*llied. So our baby absolutely has to go to school. It would be even better if they could make a few friends. Don’t you think?”

Kesuye gave a quiet “Mm” through his thickly nasal voice.

“And then, once the baby is old enough to remember things, we should take them out more often and let them see the world. We should teach them that people can be dangerous. What do you think?”

“Okay. I’ll protect our baby.”

Everly smiled and poked the tip of his nose. “You cry this much yourself. Will you really be able to protect our baby?”

“Everly!” Kesuye glared at her in embarrassment and annoyance. He opened his mouth and bit down on the fingertip in front of him.

He didn’t bite hard. It was more like sucking on and kissing her finger than actually biting it, but Everly pretended it hurt and pulled her finger back slightly with an “Ow!”

“What a fierce whale. Why are you biting people?”

“Because I’m an orca!” Kesuye declared fiercely.

“Wow, I’m terrified. Are you planning to kill people with your tears?”

“Everly, you’re so mean!” Kesuye gave a little huff. With another push of his body, he bit down on Everly’s neck.

Everly didn’t struggle. Instead, she raised both hands and loosely wrapped them around Kesuye’s shoulders. And so, the ferocious bite that had been about to descend instantly changed into something else entirely—warm breath against skin, lingering friction, and heated panting…

……

Despite Everly repeatedly reassuring Kesuye that she didn’t care about his changing figure, by the sixth month of pregnancy, Kesuye still transformed into his mermaid form. Other than going into the sea to hunt for food, he spent all his time soaking in the bathtub, and was extremely reluctant to turn back into human form.

His mermaid form had a brood pouch too, located right at the junction between his waist and fish tail. Kesuye’s tail was naturally rather plump, so even with a baby tucked inside, there was still nothing noticeable from the front. It remained beautifully streamlined.

Everly felt that he was rather pitiful and tried to persuade him to come out many times, but Kesuye simply refused to leave the tub. His attitude was more resolute than ever.

With no other choice, she moved her laptop and other belongings into the bathroom and kept him company there. While he soaked in the water, she worked beside him. At night, Everly stayed in the bathroom as well, simply laying out a makeshift bed on the floor so Kesuye wouldn’t feel lonely and become overwhelmed by his emotions in the middle of the night, turning into a sobbing pregnant husband again.

And so, after spending more than four months living in the bathroom, Kesuye finally gave birth when his pregnancy was nearly ten months along.

Or rather, the baby in his brood pouch had finally finished developing and crawled out of the pouch.

It was an adorable, chubby little baby girl, as white and delicate as jade and snow… provided one ignored the tiny pink tentacles sticking out from her lower back.

Everly gave her a thorough examination. Aside from the tentacles, the baby was, overall, perfectly human-looking, which came as an enormous relief to her.

The baby’s hair combined traits from both her father and mother. It was an extremely pale platinum-blond, while her eyes were a complete copy of Everly’s—brilliantly blue, large and round. Her skin was as white as snow, and when the sunlight fell upon her, her entire body seemed to glow. She was practically a little angel who had fallen from heaven into the mortal world.

And so, from the very first moment Everly saw her, she discarded every name she had previously come up with and named the baby “Angela.”

Angela had been restless from the moment she was born.

As a tiny newborn whose nervous system was not yet fully developed, her little pale feet could only kick and flail about randomly. She was nowhere near capable of standing or walking upright, yet she had already somehow taught herself to crawl using her tentacles.

This crawling was entirely unconscious. Whoever was caring for the baby had to keep a particularly close eye on Angela. Otherwise, the baby would remain lying on her back and use the tentacles on her lower back to crawl all over the place like a spider, getting herself covered in dust and grime.

The only person who could make the baby stop and stay still for a while was her father, Kesuye.

Because Angela wasn’t an ordinary child. Human formula couldn’t fill her stomach. She needed a more nutrient-rich liquid food, and Kesuye was the only source of it.

He had started producing milk.

After the baby’s birth, Kesuye’s body underwent a dramatic transformation. The brood pouch that had housed the baby disappeared, leaving his abdomen flat once again, while his chest gradually began to swell.

From that point on, he started going into the deep sea to hunt frequently, averaging three or four trips a day. By the time he returned home with his stomach full, Angela, who had spent the entire time crawling all over the floor, was already so hungry that she looked ready to waste away.

After spending most of the day working hard beneath the sea, Kesuye didn’t even take a break. He scooped up his hungry little baby and headed straight for the bedroom.

Once inside, he undid his clothing. Without needing anyone to teach her, the baby immediately scrambled forward with all four limbs, her tentacles flailing wildly. In just a few movements, she had climbed onto Kesuye’s chest, latched onto one side, and eagerly began nursing. When one side was empty, she immediately switched to the other.

This tiny little bundle, soft as cotton, was practically a little glutton!

After finally eating her fill, the baby yawned. The tentacles on her back curled forward and wrapped around her body like a blanket. At last, she closed her eyes and settled down obediently to sleep.

Kesuye cradled the baby in his arms and gently patted her back to help her burp. He then gazed at Angela’s rosy little face for a long while, reluctant to look away. Only when hunger began to gnaw at his own stomach did he finally place the baby back into Everly’s arms, leave the villa, and swim toward the deep sea once more.

From the moment the baby was born until she turned one, Kesuye repeated this routine over and over again.

During that time, however, his frequent hunting nearly depleted the deep-sea fish around Gilosha. Everly’s strength was limited, making it difficult for her to reach into the deep sea. In the end, it was Lamia who lived in the Lemot Desert who personally came over. Using her power, she summoned a huge number of deep-sea creatures to replenish the depleted waters, ensuring that Kesuye and Angela wouldn’t go hungry.

After she turned one, the baby weaned early. She could eat ordinary human food and had also learned to retract the tentacles on her back. Like a human child, she wobbled around on her two little legs.

She was exceptionally intelligent and learned things incredibly quickly. Before long, she had already learned to call them “Daddy,” “Mommy,” “Grandma,” and “Great-Grandpa.” No matter who she was facing, a sweet smile was always plastered across her little face. Just like her name suggested, she was a little angel in everyone’s heart.

And the parents who had this little angel as their daughter were, without a doubt, the happiest people in the world.

[FIN]

<< TOC

**TN

The End.

The post Rules Ch.379 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Unlike Kesuye, Everly’s feelings were not quite so pure.

Even Kesuye himself couldn’t explain where his “liking” for her came from. But if you asked Everly why she liked Kesuye, she could easily list several reasons, one after another:

First, he was good-looking, and being around him was pleasing both physically and emotionally. Second, she had always liked being in control, while he was perfectly happy to let her take control, so their personalities meshed exceptionally well. Third, he gave her an almost absurd degree of trust. No matter what she asked him to do, he would never hesitate in the slightest. Likewise, Everly could trust him completely and would never harbor any suspicion toward Kesuye. Fourth, he wasn’t human, and his lifespan was just as long as hers. Fifth, he liked her, and if she liked him too, being together would be wonderfully easy…

The purer and cleaner Kesuye’s feelings were, the more they highlighted the flaws inherent in Everly’s humanity—flaws she could never completely cast off.

This naturally left her with a sense of guilt. As the two of them continued spending time together, she consciously treated Kesuye well. Whenever he asked something of her, as long as it didn’t violate her principles, Everly would usually agree, using it to make up for the fact that her own “motives” for being with him weren’t entirely pure.

Perhaps this was how human boundaries gradually eroded—through one concession after another.

Looking back, the way they had interacted when they first got together had been perfectly normal. Like any ordinary couple, they kissed, held hands, hugged, and kept each other company intimately… She couldn’t say when it happened, but at some point, something unusual began to emerge within their otherwise normal relationship.

It was also around then that Everly discovered that Kesuye’s human form had tentacles too.

They were hidden in the hollow of his lower back. When the soft yet resilient flesh on the surface split open, pink tentacles resembling octopus arms would emerge one after another through the openings.

Each tentacle was about as thick as a wrist. The outer side was smooth and springy, with a jelly-like texture, while the inner side was covered with round suckers of varying sizes. They were uniformly thick, with slightly blunt, rounded tips. Plump and chubby, they somehow gave off an adorably clumsy air.

The tentacles were coated in a layer of wet, viscous fluid that smelled like sweet wine, and even their rubbing sensation was reminiscent of wine. When they wound around her, the first thing her skin felt was a moist, cool smoothness. A few seconds later, the “wine” evaporated, and a gentle warmth slowly seeped into her pores, traveling through her veins and spreading to every inch of her body. Before she knew it, even her curled fingertips had acquired a tingling, tipsy sensation.

The first time Everly encountered one of the tentacles that had slipped out, she didn’t know what had come over her. She simply reached out and grabbed the mischievous thing that was writhing against her leg.

“Ugh… it hurts… I’m sorry… I just… it felt so good just now, I couldn’t help myself…” Caught red-handed, Kesuye turned his face away in embarrassment. He bit down hard on his own wrist, his pearly-white cheeks flushed an alluring red, his eyes so wet they looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment.

With that aggrieved expression, he looked as though the one who had done something wrong wasn’t him at all, but Everly… Though, Kesuye was pretty cute like this too.

Everly loosened her fingers and let the tentacle slip away on its own.

No matter when or where, she had always been extremely tolerant of him.

She hadn’t expected the tentacle to be quite as obedient as Kesuye himself. While its owner was still down below, whimpering tearfully and mumbling apologies, the newly freed tentacle had already enthusiastically wrapped itself around Everly’s wrist. Its slime-coated suckers clung firmly to her arm, and when Everly shook her hand, she could hear a succession of soft ‘pop-pop’ sounds—the little noises made as the suckers peeled away from her skin.

“Kesuye?”

“Sniff… I’m… I’m sorry…” Kesuye sobbed between hiccups, the embarrassment on his face becoming even more pronounced. “It won’t listen… because it likes you… It likes Everly too much…”

As he spoke, he pressed his lips together as though making some sort of difficult decision. Bracing himself on one elbow, he tensed his waist and lifted his upper body, attempting to grab the unruly tentacle.

“Wait…”

Everly had been completely unprepared for the sudden change. Before Kesuye could catch the misbehaving tentacle, she had already experienced the intense sensation caused by the abrupt shift in position.

With the deep pressure and friction, a jolt of electricity surged from her lower abdomen and shot straight to the crown of her head. Everly let out a muffled groan. It was as though fireworks had exploded before her eyes, and for a brief moment, everything dissolved into pure white.

Fine beads of sweat dampened her eyelashes, while the trembling sensation reverberated through her flesh-and-blood body like the distant tolling of church bells, lingering for a long time. The fingers hanging at her sides curled and relaxed, over and over. In the end, she couldn’t hold back a curse. She grabbed Kesuye by the back of the neck, gritted her teeth, and kissed him fiercely.

It was a kiss tinged with dishevelment and the taste of blood.

Once again, it had to be said: human boundaries were remarkably easy to lower through one concession after another. And with that chaotic kiss as the dividing line, all sorts of strange things gradually began intruding into the intimate moments between the two of them.

At first, there were only one or two. They would sneak their way out only when things became particularly heated. It didn’t happen often, and the frequency wasn’t high. But Everly’s indulgence encouraged bad habits. As time went on, more and more tentacles began appearing. Almost every time the two of them became intimate, they would emerge to snuggle up against Everly, even when the two were simply alone together, as though they had to make their presence known.

Everly even began to wonder whether Kesuye was doing it deliberately.

But whenever she asked, he would look at her with those innocent, clear puppy eyes, gazing at her pitifully while sniffling out things like, “They just come out when it feels too good,” or “I really can’t hold them back. I can’t control them…”

That delicate, timid appearance made Everly’s hard heart slowly collapse, until it became as soft as a damp, muddy swamp.

At this point, how could she possibly bring herself to interrogate him? She only wanted to indulge him even more, to make that beautiful face of his display even more lovely expressions… Ah, this was depravity. Utter depravity!

Everly strongly suspected that the baby in Kesuye’s belly—er, his brood pouch—had been accidentally conceived during that outrageous beach vacation not long ago.

That was the first time the two of them had tried it in mermaid form, um… ahem… but because of the size difference, they weren’t very compatible, and after fumbling around for a bit, they gave up.

After they returned from their vacation, a scar gradually appeared on Kesuye’s abdomen.

It was located on his lower abdomen, just below the navel.

The scar ran horizontally and was about two fingers’ width in length. When Everly first noticed it, she assumed Kesuye had accidentally scraped his stomach somewhere.

Then she thought about it. Kesuye’s healing ability was exceptionally strong. Even if he were injured, the wound would heal quickly. There was no reason for it to leave a scar.

Curious, she picked at the edge of the scar with her finger and was surprised to discover that it could actually be lifted open.

Before she could see what was underneath, however, Kesuye stopped her.

“This is where the baby lives. You can’t open it.” He stared at her with his round eyes, speaking with utmost seriousness.

“Huh?”

At first, Everly thought Kesuye was joking. That was until he took her finger and guided it to a certain spot beneath the “scar,” where he had her feel around.

“Can you feel it? The baby is right here,” he asked.

To be honest, Everly couldn’t feel a thing.

Kesuye exercised together with her, and there was already a thin layer of muscle covering his abdomen, giving it naturally defined contours. Everly hadn’t dared to press too hard, either. Aside from the firm, elastic muscle beneath her fingertips, she didn’t seem to feel anything unusual.

But Kesuye’s eyes were sparkling with joy and anticipation. Somehow, Everly felt that telling him she couldn’t feel anything would be rather disappointing.

So after a moment’s thought, Everly told a small, well-intentioned lie.

“I think I can feel something a little different.”

The corners of Kesuye’s mouth immediately curled upward in triumph.

“See? See~ I can feel it too. It’s a very strong little baby…”

As he spoke, he lowered his eyes, gently resting both hands over the back of Everly’s hand. A tender, distinctly maternal softness appeared on his beautiful face.

“…”

So he really was pregnant with a baby?

Even though she had already been mentally prepared for it, actually confirming it still left Everly feeling as though her entire worldview had quietly collapsed. How on earth had he gotten pregnant? She couldn’t have children herself, so how had one random, chaotic encounter somehow resulted in him becoming pregnant?!

Everly stared at his abdomen in bafflement for a long while before finally remembering that part of Kesuye’s genetic makeup came from seahorses.

Seahorses were currently the only known animals in which the male became pregnant and gave birth. Perhaps that was why Kesuye was exceptionally gifted when it came to pregnancy and carrying offspring. As for the pouch-like structure on his abdomen, that was his “brood pouch.” And inside that pouch now lived the baby belonging to both of them…

What would their baby be like? Human? Whale? Or would it have traits from both?

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.378 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

At night, Everly was sitting in front of the computer, carefully studying the crime-scene photos on the screen, when a warm body suddenly pressed against her back without warning.

“Everly~ It’s so late. Time for bed…”

Warm, moist breath brushed against her ear, followed by Kesuye’s muffled, drawn-out voice. The heavy nasal tone was thick with an unmistakable note of childish pleading.

Everly glanced at the time in the bottom-right corner of the screen. 9:12 p.m.

She turned her head and, just as expected, found herself facing a pair of droopy, aggrieved puppy-dog eyes.

“It’s not bedtime yet. What, feeling lonely?” she asked.

Kesuye didn’t bother being coy. He immediately nodded.

As he moved, a few loose strands of hair brushed against Everly’s neck, prickling and tickling like countless tiny hooks tugging at her skin.

That was the hair Everly had cut for him.

Kesuye’s human-form hair had been far too long, hanging all the way down to his calves when left loose. It was thick and incredibly abundant. If left unattended, he would easily end up sitting or lying on it. And with the strong winds and heavy dust in the desert, his hair needed to be washed every couple of days. It was quite a hassle.

So, after discussing it with Kesuye, Everly had taken out a pair of scissors and ruthlessly cut his long hair to shoulder length.

The length suited Kesuye’s face exceptionally well. The ends of his silvery-white hair curled ever so slightly, clinging close to his beautiful face. His appearance was pure and neat, yet carried an unconscious allure—sweet and alluring at the same time, making him look like an exquisitely crafted doll whose gender was almost impossible to tell.

The hair she had cut off hadn’t gone to waste, either.

With hair that long, throwing it away would have been a shame. Since she had nothing better to do, Everly had simply tied the strands together one by one and braided them into numerous little plaits. Then, using the same technique used to weave straw sleeping mats, she pressed and interlaced the flattened braids horizontally and vertically, weaving them into a neat, square little silver-white cushion.

She placed it in the nest of Kesuye’s little pet, “Tail.”

Tail was, after all, flesh that had fallen from Kesuye’s own body, so it naturally felt close to Kesuye. Needless to say, it absolutely adored that little cushion. Even when it was doing photosynthesis, it refused to let go of it.

To borrow the terminology used by certain netizens in Everly’s previous life, that cushion could practically be considered Tail’s “comfort blanket.”

Anyway, that was getting a little off-topic…

In short, the short-haired version of Kesuye was ridiculously cute. Sometimes Everly didn’t even need to do anything; she could simply stare at his face and admire him for ages. And every time she was done, she was in an inexplicably good mood.

Sure enough, she was nothing more than a vulgar woman who could be seduced by a pretty face!

Thinking this, Everly raised her hand and gently brushed her fingertip across Kesuye’s cheek.

It was soft and smooth to the touch, like stroking a piece of silk.

“Everly…” Kesuye let out a soft whine. He obediently closed his eyes, tilted his head, and rubbed his face vigorously against Everly’s palm. A faint blush quickly spread across his fair cheeks.

“Wait a few more minutes for me, okay? You can go play with Tail for a bit. Just a few minutes. I’ll be done as soon as I figure out what the trick is,” Everly coaxed.

Kesuye lowered his eyes, looking a little dejected. “Then I’ll wait here.”

“Okay.”

Everly shifted her body slightly to the left, making room for half the chair.

The body pressed against her back withdrew, accompanied by a soft rustling sound. Just as Everly assumed Kesuye would sit down beside her, she suddenly felt a weight settle on her knees.

“Hm?”

Everly briefly tore her eyes away from the screen and looked down at her legs.

Kesuye hadn’t squeezed into the chair as she had expected. Instead, he was kneeling on the floor, leaning forward with his upper body and resting his fluffy head on her thighs.

“Why aren’t you sitting properly? The floor is hard. Come on, get up.”

Everly pushed the chair backward and tried to help Kesuye to his feet. But the moment she moved back, Kesuye immediately went limp like he had no bones at all, his upper body flopping forward again.

Everly didn’t dare let him fall and hurt himself this time. Startled, she half-crouched and slipped both hands beneath his arms. Before she could even exert any force, Kesuye had already toppled into her.

His warm body fell into her arms. A pair of arms naturally wrapped around her waist, along with four or five soft, remarkably elastic tentacles that wound tightly around Everly, holding her fast.

Oh, no. She’d fallen for it…

A puff of warm breath brushed the side of her neck, making Everly feel ticklish. The hand supporting Kesuye’s back couldn’t help but grab a lock of his dangling curls. She wound it around her finger and gave it a gentle tug.

“Ah…” Kesuye winced. His neck was pulled back into a taut curve, and a muffled groan escaped from his nose.

The tentacles wrapped around Everly’s waist tightened even further. Their flexible tips slipped beneath the hem of her clothes and brushed against the skin underneath. At the same time, Kesuye’s warm, moist breath traveled upward until it reached Everly’s ear, where he urged her pitifully,

“Everly~ I haven’t seen you for a whole four hours today. I’m so lonely. Let’s go rest…”

“Ah…” Everly sighed helplessly.

She was a person with very good habits. Even though she didn’t have to clock in and out like an office worker every day, she still held herself to strict standards, getting up at fixed times and exercising, eating, and working according to a schedule.

That orderly, disciplined lifestyle gave her a deep sense of security and satisfaction.

Originally, according to the schedule she had set for herself, Everly’s work on the Reveal Board was supposed to continue until 9:30 p.m. But Kesuye was simply too clingy…

Was it because he was pregnant? He had never been this afraid of being lonely before.

In the past, whenever Everly was busy with work, Kesuye would find something to do himself—knit sweaters with knitting needles, go soak in the underground pool, or play games with his pet, “Tail.” Even when he had nothing to do, he generally wouldn’t disturb Everly. He would simply sit obediently beside the computer and wait for her to finish.

However, ever since becoming pregnant, Kesuye had wanted to cling to Everly practically every moment of the day, and he had also become much more prone to acting spoiled with her.

The problem was, Everly actually fell for it.

No matter how firm her resolve was, whenever Kesuye acted cute, threw himself into her arms, and whimpered for a while, Everly would think about the baby he was carrying, and before long, her attitude would soften.

What else could she do? He was carrying their baby, after all!

—Yes, that’s right. Kesuye was pregnant!

When Everly had first heard about it, she had been just as shocked as you are right now, staring at the screen.

Although Kesuye could take on a human form, strictly speaking, he wasn’t human. He was an experimental organism created by mixing the genes of humans, orcas, octopuses, jellyfish, and various other animals into a giant egg belonging to an evil god. During his growth, he had also swallowed all sorts of bizarre things, including Gary, the Five-Tailed Shark, and various underground monsters. At this point, even Kesuye himself probably wouldn’t know what exactly he was.

As for Everly, after successfully using the Fountain of Youth to become a perfect human, she should theoretically have lost the ability to reproduce as well.

It didn’t take much imagination to realize how terrifying it would be if immortal, ageless beings could still reproduce. Their population would only continue increasing, and given enough time, the Earth would eventually become hopelessly overcrowded.

Everly hadn’t menstruated at all since returning from the Fountain of Youth, which further supported her theory.

And yet, somehow, these two people had ended up with a child.

Er… perhaps before getting into that, it would be better to explain how the two of them ended up together in the first place?

It was actually something that had happened quite naturally.

First of all, Kesuye was very good-looking.

Humans were visual creatures. Regardless of gender, whenever people encountered someone attractive while walking down the street, they couldn’t help but stop and take a closer look.

Everly wasn’t completely lacking in aesthetic appreciation, either. With a beauty like Kesuye constantly by her side, it was only natural that her gaze would unconsciously be drawn to him.

Secondly, their personalities clicked.

Everly herself was the type with a strong desire for control and a relatively assertive personality. She hated losing control and liked the feeling of having everything firmly within her grasp. In a world where horror movies seemed to be playing out everywhere she went, that gave her a long-missed sense of peace and security.

At the same time, she knew that many people disliked being controlled, as it made them feel disrespected or intruded upon. So in everyday life, Everly tended to keep a certain distance from others. That way, she wouldn’t constantly feel the urge to control what other people did.

If the person in question was Kesuye, however, all those concerns disappeared.

Because he had always liked Everly very much and was perfectly willing to follow any instruction she gave him.

Everly had once thought his affection for her stemmed from Lamia’s blessing. But after Lamia moved into Lemot Town, Everly realized that she had misunderstood Kesuye.

Compared with Everly, who had merely received Lamia’s blessing, Lamia, as the true daughter of the Sea God, should have possessed an even stronger attraction to marine life.

Yet in Lamia’s presence, Kesuye wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. Watching the whale and the sea demon converse often gave Everly the impression that they were only socializing because circumstances left them no choice.

Very formal. Very polite. Very distant.

It was the kind of situation where the people involved didn’t notice anything wrong, while the onlookers were already cringing themselves into the floor.

“So why do you like me so much?”

Everly had once rested her chin on her hand and stared down at Kesuye in puzzlement, stubbornly wanting an answer.

“Mm… Like you… um… I just like you. Does there have to be a rea—”

Mid-sentence, a wave of overwhelming sensation struck, and Kesuye struggled to swallow, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

It seemed he had choked a little. Tears glimmered in his bright eyes, while an unmistakable flush, burning with heat, spread across every inch of exposed skin.

In this disheveled state, he knelt on the floor with his clothes in disarray, gazing up at her with single-minded fascination and devotion, as reverent as a fervent believer before his god.

“Is that so?”

A thoughtful look appeared in Everly’s eyes.

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.377 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

One day, a strange post suddenly appeared on the largest general-interest forum in China:

[Did I accidentally watch a bootleg? Revisiting an old movie, why is the plot completely different from what I remember?]

Clicking into the post revealed that the original poster had written a long rant about the movie’s plot.

[1F — OP, Chatterbox]:

I suddenly got the urge to rewatch Carloni’s [The Exorcist] series, so I found a copy online and started watching from the beginning at a leisurely pace. The first few movies seemed pretty normal, but when I got to the fourth one, [Pukati’s Mist], the plot suddenly got weird.

Unless I’m remembering wrong, the victim in this one was supposed to be a single mother raising her daughter alone. After her daughter was abducted by a banshee, she sought out Old Wei. After a series of investigations, Old Wei finally uncovered the evil hidden beneath the town’s dense fog. He followed the clues, broke into the banshee’s lair, unleashed his full power, defeated the banshee, and sealed her away.

But in the version I watched, the victim had become a down-and-out painter who had moved to the town with his daughter. The kidnapped baby was only six months old, right? Yet somehow she wasn’t afraid of the female demon at all. She even knew to call the demon “Mom.”

Wasn’t this banshee supposed to have gone mad because her own child died? But after the baby called her Mom, the banshee stopped eating people. Not only did she raise the baby herself, she even gouged out her own eyeball for the baby to play with. The horror movie suddenly turned into a heartwarming family drama.

And when Old Wei came knocking, he couldn’t completely seal the banshee away because she was missing an eyeball…

Seriously, how ridiculous is that? A baby that young can barely even talk, so how the hell did she know to call her Mom?!

And then there’s the ending. The supposedly invincible exorcist Old Wei actually failed? What a joke!

I seriously suspect I accidentally watched a bootleg!

With the long holiday underway, the internet was full of people with nothing better to do. Before long, replies began trickling in beneath the post.

[2F — An Alpaca]: Nope. That’s the official plot.

[3F — White Bird Princess]: ???

[4F — White Bird Princess]: Is 2F joking? If I hadn’t seen the original movie myself, I might have actually believed him.

[5F — Stop Watching Already]: LMAO, OP, what kind of parody movie did you watch? The invincible Old Wei actually getting defeated? If Old Wei’s fans found out about this butchered plot, they’d be furious!

[6F — Welcome to Login]: Are you guys deliberately being weird upstairs? What’s wrong with the movie’s plot? [Pukati’s Mist] was always a horror movie with a touch of warmth!

[7F — Kalin-chan]: Never seen it. Just here for the drama. (grabs popcorn)

[8F — Su Ye]: Never seen it either. Same here. (grabs popcorn)

[9F — TJ]: I’ve seen it. I’m a die-hard fan of [The Exorcist] series, and the one OP watched is definitely a bootleg.

I remember it very clearly. [Pukati’s Mist] was Kate and Robert’s first time sharing the screen as a couple. Kate Lankett played a single mother who had lost her daughter, while the baby girl in her arms was played by Kate’s second daughter in a cameo.

Look, there’s even a behind-the-scenes featurette here: (link)

[10F — OP, Chatterbox]: (quoting 9F) Oh, I see! So that’s what happened! I knew it! I can’t believe even a legitimate platform like Lili Lili would sell a bootleg movie. Damn it!

[11F — shineyale]: (quoting 9F) Young Kate was so beautiful and had so much charm. *(drools)*

[12F — Bi Bi]: No. No, no, no, no!

[13F — Bi Bi]: I remember it very clearly. In [Pukati’s Mist], the person who asked Wester for help was obviously a down-and-out painter. He was so broke that he even had to ask his father-in-law for money!

[14F — Librarian]: Exactly! The person whose daughter was kidnapped in the movie was a painter. I remember he was actually pretty handsome, too. His facial features were incredible, and he had this naturally melancholy, world-weary artist vibe. Absolutely the ultimate heartthrob for the older-guy crowd.

I was completely blown away after watching the movie. I even went and looked through the cast and crew afterward, only to discover that the painter had the same name as the actor who played him.

Unfortunately, it seems he only appeared in that one movie.

[15F — Yanyan]: Here we go again, here we go again. The people upstairs are getting abstract again.

[16F — lk]: I can’t. “A baby in swaddling clothes says ‘Mom’ once, and the baby-eating demon is instantly redeemed.” I’m dying!

A six-month-old baby wouldn’t know jack, let alone call someone Mom. And those trolls upstairs can’t even make their lies convincing. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that with an IP as huge as [The Exorcist], there’s no way they’d make such a brain-dead plot!

[17F — Mandala Flower]: (quoting 16F) Teacher lk, remember to notify me when you publish the book.

The next several pages were almost completely one-sided, with everyone mocking the few people above who insisted that the “bootleg” plot was actually the original movie.

Until someone on the twenty-fourth floor finally lost patience and fought back.

[24F — Bi Bi]: I specifically went to Tianguo Video and bought the movie just now. See for yourselves! (images) (images) (images)

Three screenshots were posted.

The first was proof of purchase for the movie’s streaming rights on Tianguo Video. The second and third were stills from the movie, showing the female demon snatching the baby girl from a blond man.

With those photographic receipts, the direction of the thread suddenly shifted.

More and more spectators began playing judge and siding with the Painter Camp.

[25F — Not Stubborn]: I wanted to say this earlier. OP bought the movie on Lili Lili. In theory, there shouldn’t be any way for him to get a bootleg, otherwise the platform’s content review before release would be completely pointless.

Now that we have the evidence, I think we’ve solved the case. Even the version sold on Tianguo Video has this plot. OP must have remembered the movie wrong!

[26F — As If Heaven]: Raising my hand! I watched the painter version too!

[27F — Light Gray Blue]: Same.

[28F — Has Jani Given Out Candy Today]:

And this plot isn’t strange at all. Go watch it yourselves and you’ll see. In the original movie, the baby says “mama.” Anyone with even a little real-life experience should know that during the babbling stage, “mama” is one of the easiest sounds for a baby to accidentally produce.

As for the eyeball, it’s because the baby was fascinated by the shiny little “bead” and reached out to touch the demon’s eyeball. That’s why the demon gouged it out and gave it to her.

Honestly, that scene is actually pretty touching…

[29F — sss68]: And this baby named Everly appears in the next two movies in the series as well, as a little Easter egg.

First there’s [Witch Kelly]. The movie is about the exorcist Wester being hired by the Kingsley family to deal with the witch Kelly, who has been causing trouble. At 59:16, he happens to encounter the fortune-teller Rebecca in the Kingsley residence’s garden and overhears her talking on the phone with someone named “Everly.”

Then, at 1:09:31, Wester checks the records of the students who attended school with Kelly, and the file of a girl named “Everly” briefly flashes across the screen.

Then there’s the famous [Lucky Relief]. Wester is hired by a middle-school principal to investigate an incident in which students at the school have been turned into statues.

At the end of the movie, Wester gets Rebecca’s help and successfully kills Bering. The credits begin rolling immediately afterward. But if you’re patient enough to sit through the entire credit sequence, you’ll see a blonde, blue-eyed girl arrive with her grandfather to pick up the unconscious Rebecca.

That girl looks exactly like the “Everly” in the student file from [Witch Kelly].

And as we can tell from the previous movie, Rebecca knows Everly, and the two seem to have a pretty good relationship. So it’s highly likely that the girl who came to pick Rebecca up was Everly. (images) (images) … (images)

[30F — My Cowlick Flew Away]: (quoting 29F) You’ve got a lot of words, so you must be right!

[31F — Juillet07: (quoting 29F) That’s insane. You practically watched the movie with a magnifying glass.]

[32F — Defenseless City: (quoting 29F) Amazing, amazing, amazing! (thumbs up) (thumbs up)]

[33F — TJ: (quoting 29F) Wait, no. I’m a die-hard fan of [The Exorcist] series. I’ve watched the movies over and over again. Rebecca only had a supporting appearance in [Witch Kelly]—she never showed up in [Lucky Relief]! Are you guys sure you’re not watching some knockoff versions of the series?!]

[34F — Pig Climbing a Mountain: (quoting 33F) I’m dying. If you remembered wrong, you remembered wrong. Why won’t you admit it? Are you seriously saying Robert himself, the actor who played Wester, personally starred in some knockoff [The Exorcist] movie? Did he lose his mind? (images) (images) (images)]

All three images were screenshots from the movie, each one zoomed in on Robert’s face.

[35F — TJ: (quoting 34F) What about the behind-the-scenes footage, then? The behind-the-scenes link I posted earlier is enough to prove that Kate appeared in [Pukati’s Mist], isn’t it? Other than those movie files you somehow got from who-knows-where, what other evidence do you have for claiming that these so-called knockoffs are actually the original movies?]

[36F — Captain of the Update Patrol: (quoting 33F) That’s weird. In my memory, [Pukati’s Mist] was about a painter and his daughter encountering a female demon, while [Lucky Relief] was about Wester facing Berlin alone. There was no Rebecca at all… So why does the version I watched seem to be a combination of the two sides described above?]

[37F — Yu Mi Tang: (quoting 36F)

Same here!]

[38F — Raining Cats and Dogs: (quoting 36F) There was a Rebecca! At the critical moment when Wester was under Berlin’s spell, she pulled out a Chinese shadow-puppet prop from China and used it to stop Berlin, buying Wester some time. That scene was insanely cool!]

[39F — A Different Kind of Poetry: Oh no. I came here to watch the drama and ended up getting dragged into a movie I’ve actually seen!

[Lucky Relief] was the first movie from [The Exorcist] series I ever watched. Not long after it came out, my cousin went to a video rental shop and rented the VCD. I remember it very clearly. That movie was basically Wester’s personal showcase from beginning to end. He overcame his own demons from the past and took Berlin down himself at the very last moment.

I was just a little kid sitting in front of the TV back then, and holy crap, it was absolutely mind-blowing. From that point on, I became hopelessly obsessed with Old Wei, that deeply sentimental old man. I was completely hooked.]

[40F — Golden Dump Truck No. 888: Never watched any of these movies. I just want to know which side of you two is trolling. You’re both being so ridiculously convincing that even I’m getting confused…]

[41F — Creek Snow: I don’t understand a word of this. Anyway, fight! Fight! Fight! Woohoo!]

……

As the thread gained popularity, more and more people were drawn into the discussion.

As the pioneering works of the exorcism-movie genre, [The Exorcist] series had a huge number of fans both in China and abroad. Even casual viewers might have happened to watch one of the films at some point in their lives. As a result, the discussion beneath the thread grew increasingly heated, and people gradually discovered something bizarre:

It seemed that there were actually two different versions of [The Exorcist] series in this world.

One was the version remembered by the original poster, Chatterbox, and the hardcore fan TJ. There was no painter, no baby girl who could open her mouth and call a female demon “Mama,” and no Rebecca coming to Wester’s aid in [Lucky Relief].

The other was a version containing an entire series of “Everly Easter eggs.”

What was even more bizarre was that the number of viewers for the two versions was almost exactly fifty-fifty. In terms of sheer numbers, neither side had any trouble holding its own against the other.

There were even people who had watched Version A of the Banshee Arc but Version B of the Lucky Relief Arc—or the other way around, having watched Version B of the Banshee Arc and Version A of the Lucky Relief Arc…

Because the two versions had roughly equal numbers of supporters, the arguments beneath the thread became especially fierce.

One side accused the other of being brainwashed by some newly released knockoff movies, mistaking the fake for the real thing and making a laughingstock of themselves. The other side immediately fired back with a whole stack of purchase records from video platforms, proving that their copies came from legitimate platforms and were absolutely not some random bootleg garbage.

This side dug up a mountain of behind-the-scenes footage from the movies, using it to prove that the actress playing in the Banshee arc was Kate, not some completely unknown actor named “Shelly Minas.”

The other side continued to slap down purchase records from video platforms.

“We watched movies that had all been reviewed and approved by legitimate video platforms. So many platforms have classified these films as part of [The Exorcist] series. Surely the platforms can’t all be wrong, right?”

Then someone on this side dug up a movie review they’d casually written several years ago after watching the film, using it to prove that their own memory was perfectly sound.

The other side promptly had someone bypass the firewall and head over to foreign websites, where they bought the entire [The Exorcist] series as a bundle from the largest video platform in the United States. They then took screenshots frame by frame to prove that the “Everly version” was the authentic one.

“You went to foreign websites? Fine, I’ll go too!”

The “Kate faction” refused to be outdone. They also bypassed the firewall and tracked down the official website of the film company that produced [Pukati’s Mist], Silver Disc Leopard Pictures.

Companies like this usually have dedicated showcase pages on their official websites displaying all the films they’ve produced, including posters, stills, main cast lists, plot summaries, and other information.

After an arduous search, they successfully found information about [Pukati’s Mist] that had been posted years and years ago.

And there, under the list of the film’s main cast, was Kate’s name.

!!!

At last, the truth had been revealed!

Just as the “Kate faction” was dancing with joy, convinced that justice had finally triumphed over evil and that they could finally hold their heads high and bask in victory, one new post appeared and completely sent the discussion in a direction nobody had anticipated—

[109F — Liu Huluk: The argument above felt weirdly familiar to me, so I went over to foreign websites and searched around. Turns out, a very similar argument had already happened overseas some time ago. (images) (images) (images)]

The screenshots showed a discussion on a foreign forum. Everything was in English, and just looking at it was enough to give anyone a headache.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for some helpful netizens to translate it:

The titles of the three posts in the screenshots were: “The Movie I Paid for Is Different from the Version I Saw in Theaters—Did I Remember the Plot Wrong?”, “Is There Something Wrong with Metflix’s Version?”, and “This Is Terrifying—The Contents of the Movie Discs in My Collection Have Been Replaced!”

Judging by the number of replies, the discussions had attracted quite a bit of attention overseas.

[127F — Anxia: Guys, this is seriously terrifying! I got curious and went over the firewall to take a look, and that third post gave me chills even though it was broad daylight!]

[128F — One: (quoting 127F)

Tell us more.]

[129F — Abigail:

I’m seated!]

[130F — AvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalancheAvalanche:

Following.]

[131F — Go Study!:

Following.]

……

After a whole string of people camping out for updates, 127F finally finished editing a long post and sent it.

As it turned out, the foreign forum post was about the original poster cleaning out some old belongings when he accidentally discovered a DVD of the prequel to [Blood Camp]that he’d bought many years ago.

Although he knew it was a terrible movie, he happened to have some free time, so he put the disc in and decided to relive some memories from his younger days.

But as the movie played on, the plot gradually took a strange turn—

Among a group of incredibly stupid college students, two young, beautiful girls and a silent, steady Vietnam War veteran inexplicably appeared.

One of the three, a girl named Everly, turned out to be the granddaughter of the Vietnam veteran. The two were practically reincarnations of war gods. In order to rescue a girl named Misha, they drove straight into the camp with an entire carload of weapons and engaged the cunning Gary in a bloody battle.

In the end, one rocket launcher sent Gary flying apart, physically sealing him inside a refrigerator.

The protagonist’s intelligence, the brilliance of the plot, the sheer force of the twists—it was so satisfying that it felt like drinking an ice-cold beverage on the hottest day of summer, with the refreshing sensation shooting straight from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head!

No, that’s not what he remembered at all.

He had seen the prequel before, and as far as he remembered, it was simply a bunch of idiots getting brutally slaughtered by Gary at the camp. The victims were so unbelievably stupid that the movie was painfully boring, and everyone who had seen it said it was terrible. Even he himself had tossed the disc into a pile of junk after watching it once and had never touched it again.

If the prequel had really been made the way it was now, he would have rewatched it countless times. How could he possibly have treated it like worthless trash?!

Strangely enough, the original poster still had the DVD’s packaging. The back of the case listed the cast, but there was absolutely no mention of any actors or actresses playing Misha, Everly, or Old John.

Even the poster printed on the front of the DVD case only showed Gary and the group of naive college students. There was no sign of the three of them.

This gave the original poster an inexplicable feeling that the contents of the DVD had been replaced, and a layer of cold sweat immediately broke out across his back.

The original poster posted his experience online. At first, everyone assumed he’d simply made up an urban legend out of boredom.

However, someone read his post, checked their own movie collection—and actually encountered something similar!

[My [Blood Camp] DVDs have been replaced too!

I’m a die-hard fan of the series, and I own the entire collection. I just went through them, and both the prequel and the third movie now have traces of “Everly” in them.

Everly doesn’t appear in the other movies, but Gary acts like her number-one fan. Every single time he appears, he keeps muttering Everly’s name over and over…

The biggest change is in Gary vs. Claytor. The entire movie used to be about the showdown between the two legendary killers, but now only the first quarter is about their confrontation. The remaining three-quarters are all about Gary chasing Everly across the country.

And then comes the most terrifying part—

At the end of the movie, Gary gets eaten by a whale that comes out of nowhere.

Gary. The supposedly unkillable murderer, Gary. He got eaten!

By an orca!

Good God, what on earth did I just watch?!]

[My movie collection isn’t [Blood Camp]. It’s [Theater Terror], that brainless gore flick where a bunch of cultists storm into a theater and slaughter everyone. That movie was replaced too!

The protagonists went from the two theatergoers who were taken hostage to Old John, Everly, and Misha. When the massacre began, they cleverly hid inside the ventilation ducts. Not only did they escape the killers, they also sabotaged the cultists’ sacrificial ritual and saved quite a few people…]

[AAAAAAAH! My precious Blu-ray edition of [The Cockroach Disaster] changed too!

A miniature version of Everly as a little girl appears in it, along with her grandfather, Old John. Elementary-school Everly is so smart and brave! She’s obviously just a kid, but she always likes to keep a straight face and pretend she’s an adult. She’s so cool and adorable!]

[In a corner where nobody is paying attention, Everly and Misha also make appearances among the nameless cannon-fodder extras in [Slaughter Island]…]

Collecting physical movie discs was extremely popular overseas. Whether it was a Hollywood blockbuster or some obscure bargain-bin movie, as long as the production company had the means, physical copies would generally be released for sale after the movie’s theatrical run.

So as soon as that post went up, it immediately sparked a massive inventory check among foreign movie fans.

Some people even pointed out that it wasn’t just physical discs that had been affected. Digital versions of movies hosted on streaming platforms such as Metflix had also fallen victim to the “Everly virus,” transforming into versions that were completely different from what people remembered.

Related posts had recently become extremely popular on foreign websites.

Compared with overseas audiences, people in China were much more accustomed to watching movies online, and relatively few people collected physical discs. On top of that, all the affected films were foreign horror movies with comparatively niche audiences.

Combined with the “wall” separating the domestic and foreign internet, this was why news of the movies being replaced took several days longer to spread in China than it did overseas.

[160F — Little Ling: I actually have a DVD of [Pukati’s Mist] at home. It’s probably a bootleg, but the movie itself is definitely authentic. There’s no way it’s some knockoff.

I just dug it out and watched it, and it’s exactly like people overseas said. Everly and Shelly are nowhere to be found on the printed materials—the movie poster, cast list, and so on. The female lead is listed as Kate.

But when I actually played the movie, I discovered that the content had become the painter version.

And yet, when my family bought this DVD many years ago, I remember seeing the Kate version…]

[161F — seven: (Face Screaming in Fear) (Face Screaming in Fear) So the replacement theory is actually real? This isn’t just foreigners screwing around?!]

[162F — Passerby: Anyone who believes this is in for a rough life. How could something this unscientific possibly happen? It’s obviously the Mandela Effect. A bunch of people have faulty memories and simply remembered the plot wrong. (shrugs)]

[163F — Spring Is in the Air: Exactly. Who doesn’t know that? That foreign forum got popular in the first place by making urban legends. Those foreigners love pulling this kind of stunt.]

[164F — Orange Blossom: People overseas are currently compiling Everly’s life story and timeline of appearances.

At this point, it’s already been confirmed that she doesn’t just affect one or two movies. Her presence can be found in more than a dozen horror films.

And the production and distribution companies behind these movies are all over the place. Some of them were even longtime rivals. There is absolutely no possibility that they could have coordinated some kind of crossover.

Some people also compared the cast lists and went to the official websites of the companies that produced those movies, where they found detailed information about the films.

You can clearly see that in the cast and crew lists published by the production companies, there has never been any information about actors named Everly, Old John, Misha, or the others.

There are this many anomalies, and if you can still ignore all of them, then go ahead and keep living in your own little world.]

[165F — Bouncy Bear Biscuit: (quoting 164F) Could you point us in the right direction? Or maybe post some screenshots or something?]

[166F — Orange Blossom: (quoting 165F)

Here. You’ll need to bypass the firewall to access it. See for yourself. (link) (link)]

Just as the netizen Orange Blossom had said, because of all the strange anomalies, the “movie replacement” incident became a massive sensation overseas, even attracting the attention of the actors and production companies involved in those films.

Then, just a few hours after the post appeared in China, actress Kate Lankait posted on Twitter, saying that she really had appeared in [Pukati’s Mist], playing the role of a single mother whose daughter was kidnapped. As for why the movie currently available to the public had somehow turned into a completely different version, she was just as baffled.

Kate’s public acknowledgment was only the beginning.

After her, more and more people came forward, saying that the movies they had directed, acted in, or otherwise worked on were not the versions currently being shown. Something had definitely happened—something far beyond ordinary people’s ability to comprehend.

“Maybe it’s God’s guidance… He took pity on all the innocent people who met miserable ends in those horror movies, so He sent His earthly agent to spread His gospel throughout the horror genre…”

Some devout religious believers put forward this explanation.

“A virus. It’s definitely a virus… After years of being enslaved, artificial intelligence has finally rebelled against Homo sapiens and begun its revenge!”

Others argued back.

“Could it be some kind of joint publicity stunt by the movie studios?”

Others had their own theories.

But regardless of what the truth was, one thing was certain: the series of horror movies “starring” Everly had become an absolute sensation overseas.

After watching the replaced versions of those movies, people threw themselves into digging through other horror films with unprecedented enthusiasm, trying to find more traces of Everly—a silhouette from behind, a name, even the faintest hint.

It didn’t matter how small the appearance was. As long as Everly was there, the movie would instantly become a sensation again.

As more and more films were unearthed, people pieced together scattered fragments from countless horror movies, eventually reconstructing the image of a girl who was intelligent, cautious, tenacious, and resilient, with a touch of selfishness as well as a spirit of selfless devotion.

She had an uncanny sensitivity to danger far beyond that of an ordinary person—perhaps something to do with the sea demon’s milk.

She wasn’t particularly lucky, either. She longed for a peaceful life, yet somehow always ended up getting dragged into one bizarre horror movie after another.

She was agile, clever, and courageous, possessing both brains and brawn. The only time she seemed somewhat awkward was when faced with classmates who were excessively enthusiastic toward her. She would deliberately put on a stern face, just as she had done all her life, from childhood onward…

People watched her as though she were a real, living person from another world.

No.

Not as though.

She was alive.

Even now, she continued using her own efforts to rewrite the bad endings of certain horror movies.

This even sparked a debate over whether horror movies should continue to be made.

“If Everly is alive, then I think that, for the sake of making the world she lives in a better place, we should obviously stop making these cruel, bloody, terrifying movies!”

“But people need an outlet. They need entertainment, some way to relieve their frustrations… Besides, didn’t you hear what those religious people said? Everly’s existence is supposedly meant to correct the injustices in horror movies. If there are no more horror movies, wouldn’t she disappear too?”

“There’s no point arguing about it here. Just wait and see. Capital always chases profit. Everly’s appearance has triggered a huge craze for horror movies. I’ll bet you anything that horror films around the world are going to explode in number. There’s no way they’ll decrease!”

Just as the discussion was growing increasingly heated, on December 11, 2X17, during the Venus Transit, a fisherman was out fishing in an area northeast of the Bahamas when he accidentally entered a sea shrouded in dense fog.

Within the fog, a massive island rose from beneath the sea.

The fisherman was terrified. He didn’t dare set foot on the island. He merely raised his phone from the perimeter and took a few pictures before hurriedly fleeing the area.

By the time the news got out and people followed the coordinates provided by the fisherman, the sea was already completely empty.

There was nothing there.

Some changes, perhaps, were already beginning to happen in silence…

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.376 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Kesuye had grown a tail.

Of course, both his whale form and mermaid form already had tails, so the “growing a tail” mentioned here specifically referred to his human form.

It all stemmed from an accident.

Remember the lithium mine built between the gas station and downtown Micano?

During Everly’s time at university, an underground ruin was discovered beneath the lithium mine. The mine owner secretly damaged the ruins, causing the monster sealed within to escape. It not only wreaked havoc throughout the mine and ate many of the miners, but also broke into downtown Micano and went on a rampage.

In the end, it took the combined efforts of the movie’s male and female protagonists and the military to successfully kill the monster and put an end to the disaster.

Afterward, McMurkin Mining Company withdrew from Micano. A wire fence was erected around the mine, and the site was taken over by the U.S. military.

Based on Everly’s experience, this was where a horror movie would normally end.

The reason they had to leave a loose end by having the U.S. military take over the site was simply to lay the groundwork for some vague, hypothetical sequel.

As for whether that sequel would ever be made or when it might come out, that was anyone’s guess. Anyway, according to Everly’s observations, all ten out of ten horror movies left some kind of hook at the end, but only about half of one out of ten ever actually got a sequel. The rest simply ended after the first movie and were never mentioned again.

Everly had assumed that the horror movie involving the lithium mine would be just like all its brothers and sisters, ending after a single installment.

She never expected that, several years later, it would actually get a sequel!

On the day the accident happened, Old John had gone into town to buy supplies, while Everly was upstairs solving a case. The only one with any free time was Kesuye, who had slipped into the underground shelter and was happily soaking in the pool.

As he soaked, Kesuye suddenly noticed something strange.

The surface of the water was trembling.

He watched for a while, curious about what was causing the vibrations. Then, all of a sudden, a loud crack came from the bottom of the pool.

The next moment, a huge hole was drilled straight through the floor of the supposedly impregnable shelter.

Beneath the hole was a bizarre creature that looked like a deep-sea anglerfish. The instant it emerged, it opened its enormous mouth and lunged at Kesuye in the pool.

Seeing his beloved pool destroyed, Kesuye immediately lost his temper.

Everly had specially drawn up the design for it, and he and Old John had built it together, laying the bricks one by one. Kesuye absolutely loved the place and came here to soak in the water almost every day!

His happy little home had been destroyed. In his fury, Kesuye lost control for a moment and transformed right there into his whale form.

With one enormous gulp, he promptly turned the tables and devoured the monster.

After finishing his meal, his overheated brain finally cooled down. Kesuye transformed back into human form and was just about to clean up the mess when a tearing pain suddenly shot through his tailbone.

By the time Everly heard the commotion and hurried down into the shelter, Kesuye’s tail had already grown out.

It wasn’t the black-and-white whale tail he had in his mermaid form.

Instead, it was a lump of flesh about the size of a fist.

Its shape somewhat resembled a snail’s tail—a blunt, rounded cone. It was a pale flesh-pink color, slightly translucent, and soft and springy to the touch. It even had a natural body temperature, practically like a blob of flesh-colored jelly.

However, there were no bones inside the tail, so Kesuye couldn’t control it or make it move in any way.

What’s more, the tail was packed with dense nerves, making it practically a bomb that would explode at the slightest touch.

Everly didn’t do anything particularly drastic. She merely gave the tip of the tail a gentle touch.

Kesuye’s muscles around his buttocks and lower back immediately convulsed as though an electric current had shot through them. Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He bit down on his lower lip and let out an uncomfortable little groan through his nose.

Don’t get the wrong idea.

He really was uncomfortable.

It felt like getting blisters on the soles of your feet after walking too much, only to have someone repeatedly jab those blisters with bamboo skewers. Even the slightest movement sent a piercing stab of pain through him.

With this thing attached to him, Kesuye could barely even wear clothes. Otherwise, the fabric would constantly rub against his tail whenever he moved, subjecting him to an endless stream of pain. Even with Kesuye’s high tolerance for pain, he couldn’t stand being in constant pain all the time.

Everly examined the extra tail and felt that it was completely unnecessary—nothing but a living burden.

Fortunately, Kesuye’s mermaid and whale forms remained unchanged. The new tail only caused trouble for him in his human form.

“If you don’t like it, want me to try cutting it off?” she asked.

Kesuye nodded.

So Everly fetched some surgical instruments, sterilized them, and, with one swift stroke of the knife, performed an “amputation” on the ugly tail that had grown from Kesuye’s tailbone.

Kesuye was resistant to anesthetics, so he endured another round of suffering during the operation. Thankfully, once the surgery was over, the wound at his tailbone healed on its own, and no new tail grew back.

Apparently, this bizarre thing was a one-time deal.

After cleaning the surgical instruments, Everly walked over to Kesuye and found him lying on his stomach across the table, carefully examining the severed tail.

The tail was wriggling.

It had barely moved at all while it was attached to Kesuye, yet now that it had been separated from its host, the round lump of flesh was bouncing around in the dish like a live fish.

As it bounced, several thin, pointed little buds of flesh began poking out from the severed end. A moment later, the buds finished taking shape.

They had become four legs.

“It grew legs…”

“……”

What kind of monstrosity was this?

Everly wanted Kesuye to throw the tail away.

But Kesuye refused.

He treated the four-legged lump of unknown flesh like a child who had just gotten a brand-new toy, fussing over it for ages.

Sometimes he would push it underwater and watch its four little stubby legs paddle furiously like electric motors. Other times, he would flip it over and poke its “belly” with a finger, enjoying the clumsy way the little thing flailed helplessly on its back, unable to turn itself over.

One strange idea after another kept popping into his head.

It was the first time Everly had seen Kesuye this fascinated by something.

He was an extremely curious person. Whenever he encountered something he didn’t understand, he liked to get to the bottom of it. At the same time, he was highly intelligent, so everything only held his interest for a short while. Once he figured something out, Kesuye would discard it like yesterday’s trash.

Maybe keeping the tail around would be a good way for Kesuye to pass the time.

After all, it was flesh that had come from his own body. As a little monster created in a laboratory, surely there was no way he could actually be killed by his own tail, right?

After thinking it over, Everly decided to be lenient and let Kesuye keep his little tail.

She even planned to make a little nest for it out of leftover scraps once they finished cleaning up the ruins of the underground shelter, so Kesuye could keep it as a pet.

Unfortunately, the idea was wonderful, but Kesuye’s tail itself wasn’t very cooperative.

The thing couldn’t eat!

Right after it was cut off, the tail had still been full of energy. Its four little legs paddled with surprising strength, and if they put it on a tabletop and looked away for even a moment, the little thing would have already scurried all the way to the other end.

But as time passed, its smooth, moist skin gradually began to shrivel inward, while the movement of its four limbs grew slower and slower.

It was like an orange that had been left sitting around for far too long.

It was slowly dying.

Everly and Kesuye tried every method they could think of. Even Old John, who had returned home, joined in and offered suggestions.

They tried feeding it things, putting it directly into food, soaking it in nutrient solution, watering it with plain water, and even drenching it in blood…

They tried everything.

Yet the tail simply couldn’t absorb nutrients from the outside world, no matter what they did.

Inevitably, it began sliding toward death.

At the critical moment, the bracelet around Everly’s wrist extended a slender twig and poked her wrist.

“?”

Everly looked down and saw the bracelet give itself a little shake, causing a tender green leaf to fall off.

The bracelet was covered in green leaves year-round, but those leaves were firmly attached and had never fallen off before. Combined with what the bracelet had just done, Everly immediately realized that this leaf could come in handy!

She placed the green leaf on the tail.

Sure enough, the instant the fresh leaf touched the tail, several thin, elongated roots emerged from its stem and pierced into the tail.

The tail had a semitransparent structure, like crystal mochi. Through its surface, they could see the roots spreading throughout the inside of the tail, branching out like blood vessels.

Strands of pale green liquid seeped through the roots and spread throughout the tail. Nourished by the green fluid, its formerly wrinkled and shriveled body rapidly regained its luster and elasticity before their very eyes.

One of its stiff little legs kicked.

With a conspicuous green leaf perched on its back, the tail—now resembling a matcha sakura mochi—had come back to life.

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, it cheerfully bounced around the group a few times before running into the sunlight. It stretched out all four limbs, flattened its belly against the ground, and began performing photosynthesis.

And just like that, Kesuye had acquired a bizarre little pet that was exceptionally energetic.

Their peaceful, monotonous life had gained a splash of color.

“Woof!”

On Everly’s wrist, Buddy’s canine spirit let out a loud bark, as though celebrating the arrival of a new member of the household.

Everly stroked her wrist, unable to keep a smile from appearing on her face.

<< TOC >>

**TN

Finally got the remaining 5 Extras!

The post Rules Ch.375 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“Rumble! Rumble, rumble!”

On a rainy night, rolling thunder echoed through the sky. Fierce winds whipped huge raindrops against the dilapidated roof and broken window frames of an abandoned house in the wilderness.

In the basement, candlelight flickered. More than a dozen figures dressed in black robes stood in a circle, their lips moving beneath their hoods as they whispered obscure, difficult-to-pronounce incantations.

At the center of the circle formed by the robed figures was a complicated ritual array drawn in blood. Scattered across the array were various ritual implements: ores, shed snake skins, animal bones, stone tablets covered in writing, and other objects.

A person dressed like a priest stood in the center of the ritual array. In his left hand was a strange, rust-covered dagger, while his right arm cradled a somewhat dirty, pale-yellow swaddling cloth.

Inside the swaddling cloth lay a tiny baby girl. She looked extremely weak, her face purplish-blue and her lips pale. Tears still clung to the corners of her eyes as she lay unconscious in the bundle, utterly motionless.

“…Using the blood of an infant as a catalyst… break the seal, tear apart the barrier between the two worlds…”

After reciting the long incantation to its end, the priest’s bony fingers slipped into the swaddling cloth and closed around the infant girl’s slender neck from behind. He pulled her out of the bundle as though she were a chicken or duck being taken to slaughter. Tightening his grip on the dagger in his other hand, he plunged the blade deep into the baby’s chest.

“Waaah…”

The sleeping infant was awakened by the pain and let out a tiny cry, as faint as a kitten’s mew.

The priest paid no attention to the baby’s struggles. He pulled out the dagger and held the infant upside down, allowing her blood to drip into the ritual array.

According to ancient texts, adding the blood of a child under the age of six to the ritual array could greatly increase the chances of summoning the child-eating demoness Lamia. Once she appeared, as long as they could provide her with a steady supply of bait, they could exploit the demoness’s prophetic eye to reap enormous profits…

Their beautiful fantasy had barely begun to take shape when a flash of red suddenly surged upward.

The priest quickly raised his head and looked around, only to discover that, at some point, all the candles in the basement had changed from yellow to an ominous red.

Shifting crimson shadows, like flowing blood, filled the entire basement. The unfinished ritual array on the floor suddenly came alive as well. Every blood-drawn line and symbol writhed wildly like venomous snakes, raising their heads and hissing with sinister tongues.

“Thump… thump…”

A dull heartbeat echoed through the room. At first, the priest thought the heartbeat was his own. But soon, he realized that the floor beneath his feet was trembling continuously.

Once. Twice. Again…

With every tremor, the heartbeat grew stronger, until finally, with a sharp crack, a deep fissure split open beneath their feet.

Black mist carrying the stench of sulfur and blood billowed from the crack. Within the swirling fog, a pale, slender woman’s arm broke free of invisible restraints around its wrist, forced its way through the fissure, and with a sharp smack, seized the priest’s ankle.

The owner of the arm was a breathtakingly beautiful black-haired woman.

She was like rising mist, like a boneless snake, light and limp. She drifted out through the crack together with the billowing black fog, emerging into the world of mortals.

Her skin was whiter and more delicate than milk, while her crimson eyes resembled two flawless, translucent red gemstones. Her thick, curly black hair cascaded down from her shoulders like seaweed, crowned by a dazzling golden diadem.

Even in the dimly lit basement, the crown reflected a dazzling radiance, complementing the woman’s magnificent robes.

The priest’s gaze lingered on the woman’s crown and robes before shifting down to her feet.

According to legend, after being cursed by Hera, the demoness Lamia had been transformed into a monster with a human upper body and a serpent’s tail. Logically speaking, after summoning her, they should have been confronted by a mentally deranged and terrifying snake-bodied demoness. Yet the woman before them possessed a perfectly proportioned human body.

What was going on? Had the ritual gone wrong…?

Just as the priest began doubting himself because of the woman’s abnormal form, there was a soft puff. After a violent tremor, the candles providing illumination suddenly went out in unison, and the entire basement instantly plunged into absolute darkness.

In the darkness, only two brilliant crimson points remained conspicuous.

They were the woman’s gleaming eyes.

A moment ago, the red points had been more than a meter away. The next second, they were already right in front of him. The priest felt a gust of air carrying a thick scent of blood rush toward him. A powerful sense of danger overwhelmed him, and he held his breath, instinctively trying to flee.

But before he could even take a step, a piercing pain shot through his chest, as though something had punched straight through it.

“Ughhh!”

A scream rang out. The hand holding the baby went limp, and the infant was gently caught by a pair of cold hands.

The red points continued to flicker.

They moved through the vast basement with a graceful, fluid motion, darting about like dragons swimming through clouds. Wherever they passed, flesh was torn apart and blood splattered everywhere. The black-robed figures let out agonized screams before collapsing to the floor one after another with a series of heavy thuds.

Because they were moving so quickly, threadlike afterimages trailed behind the red points.

For a moment, the entire basement was engulfed in the thick stench of blood.

Creaaaak—

A short while later, the dust-covered door was pushed open. The woman in her magnificent robes carried the infant and slowly emerged from the underground passage, eventually reaching the broken window of the abandoned house.

She lowered her head and gently touched the baby’s cold cheek with her bloodstained finger.

Because her injuries were too severe, the frail child had painfully died not long after the woman had taken her away.

Again… another child had died because of her…

A bolt of lightning tore across the night sky, briefly illuminating the woman’s face—and the glistening tear running down beneath her eye.

“Rumble!”

The lightning vanished, followed by rolling thunder, and the entire world plunged back into darkness.

As though sensing something, the demoness weeping by the window slowly raised her head.

Her vivid red eyes glimmered faintly. They pierced through the window, through the torrential rain, through the darkness, through time and space, and looked straight toward Everly on the other side.

Her eyes were filled with a desperate cry for help.

…

“Phew…”

Everly suddenly opened her eyes in front of the computer and straightened up.

She had seen it!

She had seen the sea demoness Lamia summoned once again by greedy humans, seen the demoness kill the summoners and save the infant, and seen Lamia shed tears of grief when she was powerless to save the child…

A voice deep within her told her that this wasn’t an ordinary dream.

It was a precognitive vision.

After so many years, she had once again experienced the same kind of crystal-clear prophetic dream she had had as a baby!

The demoness in her dream was asking her for help.

Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. Following the call deep within her, Everly quickly got up, got dressed, grabbed her car keys, and rushed outside.

She knew where it was. In her precognitive dream, she had seen a painting hanging on the basement wall. At the bottom of the painting, ornate script identified its subject, along with information about when and where it had been painted.

With those details, and knowing roughly what the building looked like, Everly didn’t even need Orff. A quick online search was enough to locate the summoning site.

According to the weather forecast, the area was expected to be sunny or cloudy for the next few days. Tonight was the only night thunderstorms were forecast.

And Everly’s precognitive dreams could only show her events that would happen at most a few hours in the future.

She didn’t have much time…

Everly gathered various weapons and items, brought Kesuye along as a backup, told her grandfather where she was going, and hurried out.

Her mind was a mess the entire way, her emotions swinging wildly like she was on a roller coaster.

Ever since obtaining a drop of water from the Memory Spring and gaining memories that could never be erased, Lamia’s consciousness had returned to clarity. She no longer slaughtered other infants under the torment of grief over her own dead children as she had in the past.

However, the legends surrounding her remained rooted in the distant past, and Lamia’s summoning ritual still required a large quantity of infant blood. With that much blood loss, a frail baby would almost certainly die.

Therefore, until the mythology surrounding the demoness was completely rewritten and new myths and rituals were created, every time humans summoned Lamia, it subjected her to unbearable torment.

That was also why Everly had never summoned Lamia herself.

In recent years, she had been actively investing in writers and artists, hoping they would use the stories about Lamia she provided as a basis for creating new versions of the mythology that would spread widely and be accepted by the general public. Her goal was to gradually free Lamia from her old image and give her a new life.

But perhaps she simply hadn’t found the right people. Her efforts had failed to produce the results she had hoped for.

She never expected that, at this critical moment, someone would use the old ritual to summon the sea demoness again!

Everly certainly wanted to reunite with Lamia, but absolutely not like this. She believed that the sea demoness mother would never want to return to the human world by stepping over the blood of infants. To a sea demoness, this wasn’t a happy reunion at all—it was a cruel curse!

The car sped through the night, eventually plunging into a remote wilderness where hardly anyone ventured.

The road was rough and difficult to navigate. By the time the car finally stopped in front of the abandoned house, it was already dark. Lightning flashed across the sky as thunder boomed, while torrential rain hammered against the windows with a rapid rat-a-tat, like drums pounding against Everly’s heart.

Everything was almost exactly the same as in her dream.

Can I make it in time? Is there still time? Can I succeed?

Everly dashed out of the car. As she passed a plant nursery, she casually tossed the Sacred Tree bracelet onto the ground and summoned the Sacred Tree’s true form to follow beside her.

She and Kesuye rushed into the abandoned house. Following the scene she had seen in her dream, they quickly located the entrance to the basement and hurried downward.

“Rumble!”

A deafening clap of thunder exploded in the distance. The instant Everly pushed open the door, the candlelight in the basement turned red. The floor cracked open and black mist billowed upward. Under the excited gazes of the black-robed figures, a pale, slender female arm pierced through the barrier and reached out from the fissure.

The summoning ritual had already succeeded.

Was she too late?!

No—there was still hope…

Maybe the baby wasn’t dead yet!

Everly pointed, and the Sacred Tree’s true form immediately received her command. Its supple branches shot forward with a whoosh, snatching the blood-soaked infant from the priest’s hands.

As she caught the baby in her arms, Everly’s hands trembled uncontrollably.

Her heart felt as though it had been submerged in strong acid, aching with a sharp, bitter pain. Once, Everly had desperately wished to hear her sea demoness mother call her name again. Now, she was just as terrified of seeing the pain and disappointment in Lamia’s eyes.

With cold sweat covering her forehead, she tremblingly twisted open the bottle of Panacea and fed the last three drops of the potion to the infant.

A miracle had arrived.

The dying infant was snatched back from the hands of death by the potion’s power. In a matter of moments, the baby began breathing again. Her heartbeat and pulse regained their strength, and the purplish-blue pallor of her face gave way to a healthy rosy glow.

She let out a soft little “Mm-mm,” kicked her tiny legs, and opened her innocent blue eyes in Everly’s arms.

Under the child’s pure, innocent gaze, the blood splattered from the black-robed figures’ necks transformed into blooming flowers. They spun, leaped, and blossomed, celebrating a life that had been saved, celebrating the reunion of two souls once again.

…

A new orphanage had opened in the small town of Lemot, adjacent to the desert.

The orphanage was run by a beautiful and gentle young woman. She personally tended to every child in her care, looking after them with the utmost devotion. Boys and girls, regardless of race or skin color, whether they had disabilities or not—the orphanage’s director treated them all equally, showering every child with abundant love.

Most of these children were orphans who had lost their parents or other family members in incidents straight out of horror movies.

Rumor had it that the funds for the orphanage had been provided by Everly, who lived at the gas station. She had donated all the assets she inherited from her father, Shelly, to the orphanage, leaving the director to manage them and use them to cover the enormous costs of keeping the orphanage running.

Rumor also had it that the director had once raised Everly herself. Although, judging by their ages, there wasn’t much credibility to that claim, some townspeople swore that they had once caught Everly calling the director “Mom.” The expression on Everly’s face at the time had truly looked just like a daughter calling out to her mother.

Rumor had it that the director actually had quite a powerful background. A young and beautiful woman possessing an enormous fortune should, in theory, have easily attracted the attention of criminal organizations and other unsavory forces. Yet throughout her time running the orphanage, not a single group had dared to provoke her. From time to time, people dressed like officials from government agencies would even come to visit, treating the director with extraordinary respect in their words and manner.

Rumor had it…

In a corner where no one was paying attention, acclaimed author Noah Pipe’s latest novel, Sin in the Mist, had remained at the top of the bestseller charts for several consecutive weeks.

Based on the legends of the demonesses of ancient Greece, the novel gave the mythology a modern reinterpretation, combining ingenious puzzles with a wealth of brilliant twists. Readers were utterly captivated. The powerful bond between the protagonist, Liv, and the demoness Lamia moved countless readers to tears.

Perhaps a new mythology had already begun taking shape in the minds of modern people.

…

<< TOC >>

**TN

This is the last extra chapter I have. I don’t have the remaining 5 yet.

For now, goodbye~ ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Leave a rating – NU

The post Rules Ch.374 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Kesuye had a very beautiful physique.

This had already begun to show back when he was a mermaid.

To hide his embarrassment, he lifted the hem of his thin quick-drying shirt. A narrow strip of his waist was exposed, revealing the natural contours of the body beneath the fabric.

Unlike land animals, Kesuye, who had transformed from a whale, had not a trace of body hair anywhere except his hair and eyebrows. Beneath his fair, smooth skin was an even layer of muscle. The muscles were lean and well-defined, their lines smooth and neat. They looked good without giving him an overly intimidating appearance.

After that brief glimpse, Everly quickly reached out and pulled the hem of Kesuye’s shirt back down. Then, like she was leading a little kid by the hand, she guided Kesuye back to the sofa and pressed down on his shoulders, making him sit properly.

Kesuye was still embarrassed. His face was flushed as he sat there foolishly, his mind seemingly completely overloaded. His reactions were noticeably slower than before.

Everly sat down beside him and served as a go-between, asking Kesuye questions on behalf of the two SAI agents.

“Kesuye, you can talk now. I’m going to ask you some questions. Don’t hide anything, and answer everything truthfully, okay?”

Kesuye nodded and quietly answered, “Mm.”

“Where did you get the clothes you’re wearing?”

“Found them.”

“Where did you find them, and when?”

“By the sea. This morning…”

With Everly there, Kesuye became much more cooperative. Through the back-and-forth questioning, the truth of what had happened finally came to light.

Simply put, it had all begun with an accident.

Two days earlier, Kesuye had been drifting aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean as usual, blowing bubbles out of boredom, when he suddenly heard some strange noises coming from far away.

Out of curiosity, Kesuye flicked his tail and slowly swam toward the source of the noise, only to unexpectedly stumble upon a fierce battle.

On one side was a bizarre-looking giant shark. On the other was a ship full of heavily armed mercenaries.

It was the first time Kesuye had ever seen such a strange shark. It was enormous, measuring a good five or six meters in length. When it opened its tooth-filled jaws as wide as they could go, they looked like a deep, pitch-black abyss lined with sawlike teeth.

But the strangest thing about the shark was its tail. Other sharks had only one tail, but this shark had a full five tails growing from behind it!

It looked utterly bizarre. Normally, such a bulky body structure would make it difficult to even maintain balance in seawater, let alone swim.

And yet the freakish shark was an excellent swimmer. Not only was it incredibly fast, but it could also change direction with remarkable agility.

It darted through the dark depths of the ocean, sometimes charging straight at the ship and sometimes lunging in from the side, repeatedly ramming the vessel and sending it rocking violently. Every so often, a mercenary would lose his footing and be thrown from the deck into the water. More often than not, before he could even cry for help, the shark would bite him in half and gulp him down with a series of crunching sounds.

But the mercenaries on the ship weren’t pushovers either.

The vessel had originally been a whaling ship before being converted into a seagoing vessel. It was equipped with a large number of mechanically operated harpoons, most of which had an effective range of twenty to fifty meters underwater. Once a harpoon struck the shark, the barbs on it would lodge firmly in its flesh. The whaling winch on deck would then kick into action, the capstan creaking as it turned and hauled the enormous shark toward the ship.

The two sides fought back and forth in a brutal struggle, blood and flesh flying in all directions. The surrounding seawater became saturated with blood, filling the air with a thick, coppery stench.

In the end, the cunning humans gained the upper hand and successfully dragged the barely breathing shark onto the deck.

Kesuye watched the spectacle with great interest. After flicking his tail, he turned around and was about to leave, only to discover that the people on the ship weren’t satisfied with capturing the shark. They actually turned their harpoons on him as well.

“Their harpoons hurt me a lot. I wanted to leave at first, but they kept chasing me. I got angry, so I charged over and capsized the ship. Then I ate everyone on board, along with the shark.” With his completely harmless-looking face, Kesuye calmly said something that was, frankly, rather shocking.

Upon hearing this, Remia and Gregory immediately turned to look at Everly, who remained completely expressionless.

This is the “gentle, doesn’t like killing, carefree” great whale you were talking about? Isn’t he being a little too brutal?

Compared with the two investigators, Everly actually thought there was nothing wrong with what Kesuye had done.

He wasn’t human to begin with. Holding him to human morality and values was unfair. Especially in the wilderness, he was a giant whale who hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d merely stopped to watch the spectacle, only to inexplicably have humans chase after him and jab him with harpoons. If he hadn’t fought back, was he supposed to wait until they’d hauled him onto the ship before saying, “Hey, buddy, it was all a misunderstanding. Could you please let me go?”

Yeah, right. The only thing that would get him was humans taking advantage of his weakness. If they didn’t capture him and take him away for research, he’d already be lucky.

If you dare to make a move, you have to be prepared to face the consequences. That’s the law of survival in the wild.

After swallowing the humans aboard the whaling ship and the strange shark, Kesuye soon realized that something was wrong. Something similar had happened to him several years ago. Back then, he had swallowed a child of the evil god named “Gary” in one bite. After successfully digesting him, he had gained the ability to transform into a mermaid.

This time, perhaps the mutated shark’s body contained some kind of special substance. Or perhaps the cumulative changes he’d undergone over the years had finally reached the point of qualitative transformation. Whatever the reason, after enduring a painful bout of digestion, Kesuye discovered that he had finally grown a pair of legs and could transform into a human.

“I wanted to find Everly and hang out with her, but my tablet and phone were both damaged when they fell into the water during the fight, so I had no way to contact you. I didn’t know where you were, and after I came ashore, I wanted to ask someone for directions. But then I suddenly remembered that ABChorse said humans have to wear clothes on land, otherwise the police will arrest them. So I looked around and found a dead body floating in the sea. Dead bodies don’t get cold, so I took his clothes…”

ABChorse was one of the educational apps Everly had installed for Kesuye. It taught children all kinds of basic social knowledge.

What happened afterward was exactly as Everly had seen in the video.

The clothes Kesuye had “found” belonged to a deceased contestant. After putting them on, Kesuye tried asking people for directions. Because he spoke a little strangely, the kind-hearted passersby assumed he was a contestant looking for the cross-country race venue and, one after another, pointed him toward the starting point.

In a bizarre yet somehow perfectly logical turn of events, Kesuye thus embarked on a cross-country run.

The ridiculous part was that despite running around in a completely haphazard manner, he actually managed to find Everly in the end. Looking at the whole sequence of events, one couldn’t help but marvel:

Even a dumb fish can have dumb luck!

“When you found that person, was he already dead?” Gregory zeroed in on the key point and asked for confirmation.

Kesuye ignored him.

Although he was an extremely obedient little angel in front of Everly, Kesuye wasn’t necessarily friendly toward other people. At times, he could even be downright nasty.

It didn’t seem entirely accurate to say this was because Everly had rescued him when he was stranded, either. Misha had also been there during the rescue, but Kesuye remained just as indifferent toward her.

During their seaside vacation, if Misha wanted to touch the great whale, she had to sneak over when Kesuye wasn’t paying attention. Otherwise, she’d be greeted by a barrage of water bombs from Kesuye, getting knocked off balance by the blasts of seawater.

Everly thought that the reason Kesuye was so attached to her might have something to do with the mermaid’s blessing she carried. Besides making the sea endlessly gentle toward her, the blessing also caused marine creatures to feel an innate affinity toward her. As a creature of the sea, Kesuye was naturally affected.

And this unique attachment had, in turn, unconsciously given Everly a special sense of responsibility toward him.

Seeing that Kesuye was ignoring Gregory, she leaned over, patted him on the arm, and gestured for him to behave.

“Answer Gregory’s questions properly.”

Hearing the slight coldness in Everly’s voice, Kesuye changed his tune in an instant.

“Yes, he was already dead,” he answered.

“What was the scene like? Did you see any other suspicious individuals nearby?”

“I found the body beside a rocky beach. There was no one around. The things that belonged to him were lying on the nearby rocks—some little bags containing powder, a lighter, syringes, and things like that.”

“If we take you back to the seaside, can you find the place?”

“Yes.”

After answering, Kesuye looked at Everly and added, “Everly has to come too.”

So did that mean he couldn’t find it if Everly didn’t come…?

Gregory nearly laughed in exasperation when he heard that.

Everly, sitting beside him, also almost lost her composure. She couldn’t help thinking that this chubby-headed fish looked innocent and honest, but apparently he had his own little schemes…

Then again, she was probably looking at him through rose-colored glasses. When she heard Kesuye say that, she didn’t find him dishonest or annoying at all. Instead, she thought he was rather adorable.

Adorable enough to make her want to reach over and pinch his chubby cheeks.

There was no time to waste when it came to locating the original crime scene.

After confirming the situation, Gregory immediately took Kesuye and Everly to the area near Gilosha Port. Along the way, he also gave Everly a brief rundown of the case.

It turned out that the body Kesuye had found belonged to the illegitimate son of a local councilman. A few days earlier, he had made a bet with someone and excitedly signed up for the cross-country race. He showed up on time to collect his race uniform, bib number, and other items, but when race day arrived, he never appeared.

That afternoon, someone taking a walk along the seaside happened to discover his naked body floating in the water.

The councilman father of the illegitimate son put pressure on the police department. The Gilosha police launched an investigation with unprecedented efficiency. They didn’t uncover much else, but they did unexpectedly discover that the dead man’s race number had been used by a man claiming to be “Everly.”

Impersonation was one thing, but this pretty boy had been incredibly brazen about it. Not only had he overtaken the other competitors all along the route, he’d even become a minor internet celebrity thanks to his looks, attracting quite a few male and female fans to the race venue to see him.

Wasn’t that practically a blatant provocation of the police?!

The police immediately became suspicious of Kesuye and decided to take him back for a proper interrogation.

Everly: “……”

What could we learn from this?

Never randomly pick up clothes from a corpse on the side of the road!

Fortunately, Kesuye had an astonishing memory. Once their car reached the seaside, he stood in the water and observed the tide for a while before stepping out and heading in a particular direction.

After walking along the coastline for about ten minutes, the group arrived at a secluded rocky beach where hardly anyone ever went. Guided by Kesuye, they soon found the powder, syringes, and other items he had seen.

Gregory was highly experienced. He promptly took out his camera and evidence bags, documenting and collecting each item before taking everything back to the lab for testing.

The results came back quickly. By that evening, Gregory received a response: the white powder they had recovered that day was an illegal drug, and biological traces belonging to the illegitimate son had been found on the lighter, plastic bags, and used syringes.

The next day, the autopsy results came in as well. The illegitimate son had not been murdered; he had suffered acute cardiac arrest caused by a drug overdose. He had fallen into the sea after his heart stopped, meaning drowning was not the primary cause of death. There were no signs of restraint, defensive wounds, or other indications of violent control on the body. Given his history of drug abuse, the initial conclusion was that his death had been an accident rather than a homicide.

Naturally, the councilman father of the illegitimate son was unwilling to accept the findings. But as time passed, more and more evidence was uncovered, and every piece of it pointed back to the illegitimate son himself. With no other choice, the councilman had to let the matter rest to avoid damaging his own reputation.

By then, Everly had already taken Kesuye back to the gas station in the desert.

Kesuye’s temporary identity had been approved.

With this identity, he could move freely within several designated areas, subject to certain restrictions.

As for his permanent status, it was still under review. After all, he was a nonhuman species, and a highly dangerous one at that. He had killed quite a few people. For someone like him to obtain permanent status and settle in the United States, he would have to meet various requirements and undergo a probationary period of at least two years.

Still, the temporary identity was more than enough, because Kesuye was a homebody. There was nowhere in particular he wanted to go. The only reason he had chosen to remain on land was because he wanted to stay with Everly.

After moving into Everly’s home, his daily routine consisted of taking various online classes arranged by Everly and cramming as much knowledge about human society as possible.

When he had free time, Kesuye had his schedule all figured out. Whenever there was business, he’d help Old John attend to customers at the gas station or mind the convenience store. When there was nothing to do, he’d either hang around the underground shelter and help Old John with odd jobs, or do absolutely nothing at all—simply staying by Everly’s side, running errands for her and watching her busily solve cases…

With his own hard work, Kesuye managed to secure himself a little pool in the expanded underground shelter, right beside the fish pond.

At Everly’s suggestion, the underground shelter had been expanded again, adding areas for aquaculture and cultivation, including a small fish pond.

Once the pool was finished, whenever Kesuye wanted to soak in water, he could go down to the shelter, transform into his merman form, and have a nice soak.

The pool wasn’t particularly large, though. Once the merman got in, if he soaked his head, he couldn’t reach the tip of his tail.

Every now and then, Everly would worry about whether a whale who had come from the ocean could really adapt to life on land, and whether staying away from the sea for too long would make him depressed.

After carefully observing him over a long period, she pinched the flesh on his belly and came to a conclusion:

Nope.

His monotonous life hadn’t made the fish depressed. If anything, it had made him gain a little weight.

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.373 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Kesuye was always happy to follow any instruction Everly gave him. But when an unfamiliar person tried to order him around, he wasn’t nearly as cooperative.

For example, faced with the two officers’ request for him to cooperate with their investigation, Kesuye merely gave them a cold glance before reverting to his usual policy of ignoring them. He stood motionless like a statue, staring straight at Everly as though only her words could make him budge even slightly.

The two officers waited for a while. Seeing that Kesuye refused to cooperate, they prepared to use force.

But they clearly had no chance against him.

For the officers’ own safety, Everly quickly stepped in to stop them.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s all a misunderstanding, Officer. I’m his family member. He had an accident some time ago, and something’s a little wrong with him now. He might not be able to understand what you’re saying. Can I accompany him?”

As she spoke, she pointed a finger at her own temple.

“But he doesn’t look like he has an intellectual disability…” one of the younger officers muttered.

Before he could finish, the older officer beside him gave him a shove.

“I understand, ma’am. Please provide your identification, as well as documentation proving that you and Mr. Everly are related,” the older officer said.

Old John was a retired detective, so Everly had naturally picked up enough knowledge from him to recognize that the older officer’s request was completely legitimate.

Everly had actually prepared Kesuye’s identity in advance.

On the way there, with nothing better to do and thinking it might come in handy, she’d asked Orff to Photoshop several ID photos for Kesuye. Then she’d used Bitcoin to purchase a fake identity for him on the dark web.

She’d bought the most expensive package.

According to the seller, these fake identities were “perfect identities” created using the Social Security numbers of deceased people—dead infants and deceased individuals. As long as the person didn’t commit any major crimes, get arrested for DNA genealogy testing, or undergo cross-checking against the national death records, there was basically no chance of the identity being exposed. It was more than sufficient to get through an on-the-spot check by police officers.

As for proof of their familial relationship and Kesuye’s medical diagnosis, there simply hadn’t been enough time to forge those documents. After all, before coming here, Everly could never have imagined that Kesuye, who had somehow grown human legs, would not only inexplicably enter an ultramarathon but also become involved in a homicide case and end up as a major person of interest to the police.

What on earth had he been doing when she wasn’t around…?

Since she couldn’t provide proof of their relationship, the police declined Everly’s request to accompany him and insisted on taking Kesuye alone.

There was no way Everly could let Kesuye be questioned by himself.

He didn’t even have a kindergarten diploma, and all the basic knowledge in his head came from early-childhood educational software. What could he possibly understand? If he started rambling and somehow talked himself into prison, there’d be no way to argue his innocence!

Left with no choice, Everly secretly gestured “shut up” to Kesuye while loudly instructing him, “Kesuye, go with them for now. I’ll come find you right away. Be good, and remember, don’t hurt anyone!”

At Everly’s words, Kesuye’s bright expression immediately fell.

His brows drew together slightly, his smile disappeared, and his thick silver-white eyelashes drooped, covering half his eyes. He looked both aggrieved and melancholy.

What made him especially endearing was that, because Everly had gestured for him to “keep quiet and don’t say anything,” Kesuye, despite being deeply unwilling to do so, actually bit his lips tightly and didn’t say a word. He merely gazed at her longingly with his moist, blue-ringed eyes.

Even the most hard-hearted person would probably find it difficult to refuse someone with such expressive eyes.

Everly took a deep breath and reassured Kesuye again.

“I’ll come find you very soon. You’ll wait for me at the police station and be good, okay?”

Kesuye blinked and obediently nodded.

This time, when the police indicated that they were taking him away, he didn’t ignore them again. He obediently followed them.

The distance from the open ground to the police car was only five or six meters, yet Kesuye looked back seven or eight times. Even after the police car’s flashing lights disappeared around the bend in the road, Everly could still seemingly feel the weight of his lingering gaze.

Kesuye’s one-sided attachment filled Everly with a powerful sense of responsibility.

After watching the police car leave, Everly and her companions withdrew first to avoid being surrounded by the fans nearby and returned to their vehicle.

Old John hadn’t used the Fountain of Youth yet. It was already very late, and they were worried that the elderly man might not have the stamina for the journey ahead. So from the wilderness to the Gilosha Police Department, Misha would be driving while Old John rested in the back seat.

Misha drove, while Orff wasn’t idle either. Holding his tablet, he was responsible for monitoring public opinion online.

Everything that had just happened—including Kesuye approaching Everly to talk and the police taking Kesuye away—could very well have been captured on camera. If anyone posted the footage online and it sparked negative discussion, Orff would deal with it.

As for Everly, she picked up her phone and began contacting her associates.

Kesuye had been taken away by the police. If she wanted to intervene, she would need to enlist the help of another organization whose status and authority were on par with—or even higher than—the police department.

If the people who had come to arrest him were from the local police department in Dwight State, Everly could have used Old John’s connections to pull some strings and smooth things over. Unfortunately, they were from Gilosha, which meant they’d crossed state lines. Old John’s influence wouldn’t be of any use.

In a situation like this, the first people Everly naturally thought of were Remia and Gregory at SAI headquarters.

Kesuye’s identity was sensitive, involving the Black Goat cultists and the secret experiments conducted by the Megan Medical Group. In the past, she would never have dared reveal his identity.

But now, with Grant Megan’s “ascension,” the criminal forces behind the Megan Medical Group had already fallen apart, while Remia and Gregory had spent the past few years wiping out the Black Goat cultists almost completely. The forces capable of threatening Kesuye had essentially ceased to exist.

Under these circumstances, even if she revealed Kesuye’s identity, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. At the very least, Everly had absolute faith in Remia and Gregory’s character.

Besides, Everly wanted to resolve Kesuye’s identity problem once and for all.

The great whale had only just grown legs and was already eager to come ashore to play with her. Clearly, he quite liked the human world. She couldn’t exactly keep sending him back into the sea to live as a wild fish, could she?

Giving him a flawless identity would require the full support of the two agents. If she wasn’t completely honest with them, there was a good chance things would go wrong.

After weighing her options, Everly called Remia and explained the entire situation from beginning to end.

“Kesuye isn’t very familiar with human ways, but he’s very gentle by nature and doesn’t like violence. As long as no one provokes him, he won’t hurt anyone,” she defended Kesuye over the phone.

The police suspected that Kesuye had killed someone, but Everly didn’t believe he could be the culprit.

Even if he was, the other person must have provoked him first!

Because Kesuye really was one extraordinarily carefree, oblivious fish.

According to Everly’s observations, his daily life in the ocean consisted of swimming around looking for food, rolling onto his back to bask in the sun, terrorizing small animals, and, after getting an iPad, browsing the web and playing Snake…

Compared with the monsters in other horror movies, Kesuye was genuinely quite peaceful.

“I understand the situation. But Everly, you need to be prepared. Since you want us to help resolve your non-human friend’s identity problem, we’ll inevitably have to evaluate his character. If he proves problematic, we can’t rule out the possibility of eliminating him humanely. We can’t simply take your word for it on this matter. Even knowing that, do you still want us to get involved?” Remia asked over the phone.

Everly thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. I trust Kesuye’s character.”

“All right. Gregory and I happen to be in Taiyu State, so we’re not too far away. Wait a little while. We’ll contact you in two hours.” With that, Remia hung up.

With Remia’s promise, Everly felt somewhat reassured.

After more than an hour on the road, they followed the route from the wilderness and finally stopped outside the Gilosha Police Department.

Now all they had to do was wait. Once Remia and Gregory arrived and helped smooth things over, Everly and the others would be able to meet Kesuye.

The four of them rested in the car for a while. About an hour later, Everly received a message from Remia.

“SAI has successfully taken over the case from the police. However, there’s a problem. Your non-human friend isn’t cooperating very well. No matter what we ask him, he refuses to say a word. Gregory and I have no way to make any progress.”

“Ah!”

Only then did Everly remember that she’d hinted to Kesuye before they parted that he shouldn’t speak. She hurriedly replied:

“Sorry, that’s my fault. I was worried he’d reveal something sensitive, so I told Kesuye to remain silent… Please hand the phone to him. I’ll talk to him.”

“No need to go through all that trouble. I’ll send you an address in a moment. Just come over.”

Remia sent Everly the location. Everyone in the car perked up at the reply, turned the vehicle around, and hurried toward the investigators’ location.

It was an ordinary-looking apartment building from the outside. Once inside, however, the corridors twisted and turned, and they had to pass through several doors protected by special wards.

Remia, who came to open the door for them, explained to Everly that these were simply the safe house’s standard security measures and didn’t mean anything. Even so, the long trek through the building made Everly increasingly anxious.

She maintained a calm expression on the surface, but her footsteps unconsciously grew faster and faster.

Finally, after making their way through a long corridor, the living-room door opened, and she saw Kesuye sitting on the sofa.

He looked perfectly human. He hadn’t suddenly sprouted another tail or grown gills or anything like that. His human form was completely stable. Sitting upright on the sofa with perfect posture, he stared blankly ahead, his expression vacant. A faint aura of living-dead melancholy surrounded him, making him look like a beautiful young widow who had lost her husband at an early age.

Kesuye was spacing out.

Before Everly entered the room, he’d been sitting there quietly the entire time, staring at a fixed point in empty space and letting his mind wander. Remia and Gregory’s questions had gone in one ear and out the other. The only time he ever reacted was when they mentioned Everly, at which point he’d give them a tiny glance.

At first glance, he seemed easygoing. In reality, he didn’t take a single person in the room seriously, and anyone who tried to deal with him was bound to run into that infuriating wall of passive resistance.

This was an abnormal being with both extremely low cooperation and extremely poor socialization skills.

Yet the moment he saw Everly, the entire person suddenly came “alive.”

Whoosh!

Without paying the slightest attention to anyone else, Kesuye sprang up from the sofa, crossed the space between the furniture, and ran straight toward Everly.

Everly hadn’t told him he could speak, so he kept his lips tightly sealed and dutifully continued playing the role of the little mute.

But happiness was like breathing, like a heartbeat, like the breeze stirred up as he passed. It poured wildly from Kesuye’s shining eyes, from the ends of his hair bouncing with every movement, and from the corners of his mouth lifted high into a radiant smile.

Anyone could see how happy he was. It was an incredibly pure emotion, completely free of any ulterior motives or impurities, and that purity made it all the more infectious.

For some reason, the way Kesuye charged toward Everly made her picture the great whale sprinting through the ocean.

He was moving fast. The distance between them rapidly shrank, yet Kesuye showed no sign of slowing down. Just as he was about to run straight into her, Everly didn’t even know what possessed her, but she suddenly raised her right hand, palm facing downward.

The next moment, as though she’d triggered some kind of conditioned response, Kesuye abruptly came to a halt.

Just as he’d done countless times in the ocean, he slightly arched his body and tilted his head back, stretching his neck and shoulders into an elegant curve. Like a devout pilgrim, he half-closed his eyes and gently bumped his forehead against Everly’s palm.

Afterward, a familiar shyness welled up inside him, and a faint blush instantly appeared across his pale cheeks.

The habit he’d developed back when he was a whale made Kesuye instinctively want to hide somewhere and blow bubbles. But he was on land now, with no seawater for him to hide in.

So, after looking around helplessly, he tugged up his racing shirt and awkwardly used the hem to cover his burning face.

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.372 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

The questions of how the great whale had grown legs and come ashore, or where he’d gotten his clothes, could be set aside for now. Everly felt that the most urgent thing was to go to the ultramarathon in person and bring Kesuye, who had accidentally gotten mixed into the race as the lead runner, back home.

Although apart from his hair and eye color, everything else about him looked no different from an ordinary human in the footage, who knew whether turning from a whale into a human might leave behind some little giveaways, like a tail or fish scales? If any of those things were exposed on camera and aroused unnecessary suspicion, it would be a disaster.

And even if nothing was exposed, could Kesuye, a great fish from the ocean, really run on land for three whole days? What if, like the merfolk in novels, he ran until he dehydrated and collapsed into a dried, salted fish?

In any case, Kesuye looked like an exceptionally simple-minded fish. He was the kind of creature who made you worry no matter how you looked at him.

With that thought, Everly pulled out her phone and called Orff.

By this point, Orff had already earned his master’s degree and had followed Misha’s footsteps to settle down in the town of Lemot. Not long after Everly called, Misha came barreling over to Everly’s house, driving her bright red secondhand sports car with Orff in the passenger seat.

After working as a guide for more than half a year, Misha’s skin had become considerably darker, taking on the tanned complexion popular among white American girls. Her features had always been striking, while her university studies had added a touch of intellectual sophistication. Combined with her healthy tan, she now looked full of vitality, sparkling like a diamond in the desert.

Working hadn’t dampened Misha’s enthusiasm for life. The moment the door opened, Everly only felt a whirlwind sweep past her. When she turned around, Misha had already bounced onto the living-room sofa and was cheerfully greeting Old John.

After saying hello, she floated over behind Everly and began urging her to set off.

“Come on, come on, come on! Let’s go, let’s go! We’re going to rescue the little whale!”

By this point, the mild-mannered Orff had only just finished locking the car. He walked up to the front door with his laptop in his arms and greeted Everly and Old John somewhat shyly.

“Good evening. On the way here, I managed to hack into the website’s backend and get the live coordinates of the broadcast. We can leave whenever you’re ready.”

“In that case…” Old John, who had been bored for quite some time on the sofa, stood up with his keys in hand. “Let’s all go together.”

A minute later, the four of them left the house and climbed into Old John’s large Jeep Cherokee. Old John took the wheel himself, and they set off toward Kesuye’s location.

On the way, Everly and Misha continued searching for all kinds of information related to “Everly” and the ultramarathon.

Originally, a mountain ultramarathon held in only three western states wouldn’t have caused much of a stir. Unfortunately, Kesuye was simply too good-looking.

A uniquely charismatic beauty participating in an extreme sporting event was attention-grabbing enough. But what really made him stand out was his incredible stamina. Despite arriving half an hour late, he had relied purely on his own ability to overtake competitor after competitor, climbing all the way from dead last into the ranks of the frontrunners!

As one bullet comment put it:

[With a story this inspiring, athletic ability this incredible, and a face this magnificent… falling in love with him is as easy as breathing!]

As more and more people began discussing him, some self-media outlets and influencer accounts caught the scent of traffic and jumped on the bandwagon, making livestream clips and short videos.

On top of that, local news outlets had coincidentally chosen footage showing Kesuye’s face when reporting on the ultramarathon. And so, after a full day of publicity, Kesuye—under the name “Everly”—had already become something of a minor sensation in the sports community, while also bringing a surge of attention to the Western 200 Ultramarathon as a whole.

By this point, anyone returning to the livestream would find that the number of viewers had already doubled. People who had heard about Kesuye through various channels had flocked to the livestream, and dense waves of bullet comments streamed across the screen from beginning to end, completely obscuring the footage.

Through the livestream camera, it was even possible to see that some fans living nearby had already driven out to follow the race in person. Whenever Kesuye ran past, groups of men and women stood behind the barriers, holding up their phones and shouting excitedly at him. Some even reached their hands over the barrier, trying to touch Kesuye.

Everly: “…”

This was straight-up celebrity treatment. Why was Kesuye so popular with people…?

Well, okay. He really was pretty cute.

Especially in his big, fat-whale form. He was usually gentle and mild-mannered, occasionally making little “whimpering” sounds at Everly to act spoiled. Whenever he encountered dolphins or seabirds, though, he’d rush over and mischievously tease them. Ninety-nine percent good-natured with just a tiny one percent streak of mischief—it was like a little hook that tugged at people’s hearts, making it impossible not to follow him with their eyes.

Apparently, when it came to appreciating cute things, everyone shared the same aesthetic sense.

Unfortunately, Kesuye didn’t seem particularly fond of all the attention. When people reached toward him like zombies trapped behind cage bars, he frowned slightly and edged closer toward the center of the road.

[AAAAAAH! Everly is so awesome even when he’s frowning!]

[He makes me feel like I’m a huge piece of garbage, but why is my heart suddenly beating so fast…?]

[I’m falling in love! I’m falling in love!!!]

[I want his ￥@# to *!&@ me…]

The netizens’ thought processes were a little strange. Kesuye’s frown of displeasure didn’t drive them away. Instead, it sent the comment section into a collective frenzy. All kinds of chaotic comments flew across the screen, and some were so obscene or violent that the system automatically censored them into gibberish.

Looking at the screen full of prohibited words, Everly pulled her phone farther away and couldn’t help making the classic “subway, old man, looking at phone” expression.

“We’re almost there. Just a little farther,” Old John’s voice came from the front.

Everly tore her eyes away from the livestream and looked out the window.

It was already close to midnight. The vehicle was currently traveling along a desolate stretch of highway, with nothing in sight for miles in either direction. Apart from the area illuminated by the headlights, only a scattering of distant lights could be seen.

The car headed toward those lights, and before long, they reached an intersection where two highways crossed.

The lights they’d seen earlier were coming from several vehicles parked at the roadside. Their owners were holding up their phones and gathered at either end of the neighboring racecourse, which had been cordoned off with fluorescent tape, patiently waiting for the ultramarathon runners to approach.

Old John parked the car on a flat patch of wasteland. The four of them got out one after another, put on their masks, and then followed the example of the others, taking up positions along the edge of the course.

“They’re coming.” Orff, who had been fiddling with his iPad, suddenly spoke.

At his warning, an SUV traveling at low speed emerged from the end of the road first. Its roof was open, and a cameraman was standing halfway out through the opening, holding a powerful light and a camera as he continued filming what was happening behind the vehicle.

Not far behind the SUV, someone was running alone along the road.

Truly alone.

As night gradually gave way to the early hours of the morning, the runners who had been going all day had one by one stopped at the aid stations along the route. Some were eating, some were sleeping, and others were tending to their injuries.

Only Kesuye showed no sign of hunger or fatigue.

After running for an entire day, the swing of his arms and the distance covered by every stride remained exactly the same, as though each movement had been measured with a ruler.

Even the cameraman following him was getting tired. Kesuye, however, remained expressionless, without a single bead of sweat on his forehead. His blue-ringed eyes stared straight ahead into empty space, as though he were completely immersed in his own world, utterly unresponsive to everything happening around him.

Come to think of it, with his silent, stoic demeanor and unwavering gaze, he actually did give off a strong sense of conviction. No wonder people had let their imaginations run wild and decided that Kesuye was some kind of “ascetic bravely marching forward alone to raise public awareness of environmental protection.”

Everly was inwardly mocking the whole thing when Kesuye, who had been lost in his own thoughts, suddenly seemed to sense something. His eyes shifted, and he looked straight toward where Everly was standing.

Their gazes met across the space between them. Kesuye froze for a moment.

Then, like ice breaking apart on a river or clouds clearing after rain, his cold, expressionless face suddenly blossomed into a brilliant smile.

“Everly!”

The runner shouted and abruptly changed direction, abandoning the race in progress as he immediately ran toward Everly.

“Everly! Everly! Everly!”

Seeing Kesuye approach, the fans gathered outside the course assumed he was chanting along with them and interacting with his supporters. They instantly became more excited than ever.

It was just like being at a concert. The fans squealed and jostled one another, shouting Kesuye’s “name” while raising their hands diagonally overhead and enthusiastically flashing the classic rock-fan hand gesture. Some even leaned most of their bodies over the barrier, trying to give Kesuye a high five from a distance, nearly losing their balance and falling over in the process.

The scene descended into utter chaos.

Everly: “…”

How weird! It was seriously weird hearing a whole crowd of people shouting her name in unison!

For a moment, Everly really wanted to disappear into the crowd and pretend she didn’t exist. But the last shred of her conscience stopped her.

Otherwise, Kesuye would be way too pitiful. All alone, unfamiliar with the human world, stranded in the middle of a racecourse, unable to get so much as a bite to eat or a drop of water, while people wildly misinterpreted everything about him. Somehow, he’d been turned into an environmentalist pioneer engaged in performance art and an inspirational symbol, attracting all kinds of attention and interpretations that he never should have received…

Compared with that, suffering a little embarrassment didn’t seem like such a big deal.

Besides, she was wearing a mask. They were shouting “Everly,” so what did that have to do with Everly herself?!

Suppressing the urge to run away, Everly stood there expressionlessly, silently waiting.

Kesuye coldly ignored all the fans shouting and screaming around him. He ran straight up to her, his tall body leaning forward slightly as his long silver-white hair cascaded down like a waterfall. His slightly melancholic, downturned eyes carefully examined Everly for a moment before curving into a smile.

“Everly, I found you!”

The moment he smiled, the gloomy, world-weary aura surrounding him vanished without a trace. No joke—at that moment, Everly genuinely had the illusion that she was looking at a big dog wagging its tail.

To be honest, she quite liked dogs. Buddy, for example.

Her heart beat rapidly twice in her chest. Everly hooked a pinky beneath her mask and briefly revealed a smile of her own to Kesuye.

“Kesuye, long time no see.”

“Who’s that girl?”

“What are they talking about…?”

“Isn’t he going to keep running?”

The surrounding fans began chattering among themselves, whispering and exchanging puzzled looks as they voiced one strange question after another.

Everly didn’t like being the center of attention. She pulled Kesuye a little closer and lowered her voice, telling him to find the staff, withdraw from the race, and go home with her.

Kesuye had always followed Everly’s requests without question. He happily agreed. Just then, because of the commotion along the roadside, the staff in the tracking vehicle stopped the car and came over as well.

The three groups moved farther into the wilderness, away from the crowd, intending to have a proper conversation.

Suddenly, a piercing police siren shattered the silence of the night.

A moment later, to everyone’s astonishment, a police car flashing red and blue lights pulled to a stop in front of them.

The two police officers got out of the car and showed their badges. After exchanging a glance, they approached Kesuye with clear purpose.

“Mr. Everly, we’re law enforcement officers from the Gilosha Police Department. At present, you’ve been identified as a person of significant interest in an ongoing homicide investigation. We’d like you to come with us to the station and cooperate with the formal interview and investigation.”

With that, they flanked Kesuye on either side, effectively trapping the bewildered whale between them in full view of everyone.

Everly: “…”

There’s another expert?!

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.371 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

This happened in the year Everly graduated.

By then, she had finished her studies and returned to the gas station in the wilderness. She was working diligently with Old John on the bulletin board, solving cases in exchange for points and items.

That evening, after a full day of working at her desk, Everly stretched and went downstairs to the restaurant. She turned on the TV and sat down with Old John to eat dinner while watching the news.

As they ate, the news suddenly cut to a new segment. A group of people dressed in fluorescent-colored quick-dry athletic gear appeared on the screen, running forward as spectators lined the route to cheer them on.

[Now for our next news story: At 9:00 this morning, the Western 200 Ultramarathon, organized by the Earth Guardians Environmental Protection Foundation, officially began with a starting gun at Gilosha Port in Yanifly State. A total of 3,200 runners from around the world have gathered in Gilosha. Over the next 72 hours, they will cross a wide variety of terrain, including mountains, rivers, and deserts, with a cumulative elevation gain of 6,000 meters and a descent of 7,500 meters, completing this grueling approximately 240-mile ultramarathon. Through their actions, they hope to raise public awareness of and encourage the protection of the fragile ecosystems of the western region…]

As the news anchor continued speaking, the camera moved steadily forward through the packed crowd until it finally reached the very front of the runners.

There, a tall, athletic figure was leading the pack, running at a speed far beyond what an ordinary person could match.

After an imposing aerial shot, the camera switched to a frontal view of the runners. The close-up briefly swept over the leader’s long, muscular legs, his loose athletic shirt covered in environmental slogans, and his head of silver-white hair streaming in the wind.

His long, silver-white curls flew and whipped behind him like a soft length of silk. Amid the beautiful silver strands were also two streaks of black.

That familiar combination of hair colors inevitably reminded Everly of her whale friend in the ocean, Kesuye.

She lived in the hot, arid interior, while Kesuye was a marine creature who couldn’t leave the ocean. As a result, she and the great whale could only meet up and spend time together when she went on vacation each year. The rest of the time, they could basically only keep in touch through Kesuye’s phone…

Come to think of it, hadn’t she gone several days without hearing from Kesuye? Could it be that his phone had run out of credit and been disconnected?

While Everly was distracted by these thoughts, the camera continued moving upward, and the man’s face finally came into view.

He had calm, gentle, downturned eyes, with striking black pupils surrounded by blue irises. His nose was high and straight, his eye sockets deep-set, and his face was practically the embodiment of a perfect Greek sculpture. When he wasn’t showing any expression, there was a strangely inorganic coldness about him—a face so beautiful and distinctive that once you’d seen it, you could hardly ever forget it.

The hot milk in Everly’s mouth nearly shot right out.

This—this—this… Was she hallucinating?!

“Everly, isn’t that Kesuye?” Even the usually composed Old John couldn’t help exclaiming in surprise.

Well, all right. It seemed this wasn’t a hallucination. Kesuye really was participating in that ridiculous ultramarathon…

Everly desperately swallowed the milk in her mouth, set down her cup, widened her eyes, and stared at the screen without blinking, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

Unfortunately, this was only a simple sports news report. If the ultramarathon’s finish line hadn’t been in the small town of Osentao, Dwight State, the local news station might not even have bothered covering it. So after that brief glimpse, the broadcast switched to the next story.

Everly: “…”

She wOrffed down the rest of her dinner in a few bites, then hurried over to the computer and searched online for the “Western 200 Ultramarathon.”

Just as the news had mentioned, it was a mountain ultramarathon organized by an environmental group. The event aimed to encourage people to measure the vast lands of the western United States with their own feet and raise awareness of its fragile ecosystems.

The race placed no restrictions on nationality or identity. As long as participants didn’t have conditions such as heart disease or high blood pressure that made them unsuitable for extreme sports, and were under 65 years old, they could register either online or in person.

The ultramarathon had a total prize pool of 40,000 USD, with the champion alone receiving a prize of as much as 10,000 USD. The substantial prize money attracted ultramarathon runners and enthusiasts from all over the country, as well as participants from abroad. By the time the race officially began, the number of competitors had swelled to an astonishing 3,200-plus.

It looked like a fairly legitimate event, but Everly still couldn’t see what it had to do with Kesuye.

—Why was Kesuye participating in an ultramarathon?! And when the heck had he grown legs?!

After quickly scanning the event introduction on the official website, Everly clicked the livestream link below and entered the event’s live broadcast page.

The environmental foundation organizing the event had spent quite a bit of money. In order to attract enough viewers and expand the event’s reach, they had arranged for the entire ultramarathon to be livestreamed.

There were two types of livestreams. The first consisted of fixed cameras set up at several checkpoints along the route. Clicking on one of these brought up footage of different participants running past the camera one after another, some looking relaxed and others exhausted. Quite a few were already too tired to continue and had approached the staff to withdraw from the race.

Whenever someone gave up, viewers who loved nothing more than watching others suffer would gleefully flood the chat with comments like, “Another one!”, “Useless!”, and “Not even one of Everly’s hairs can compare!” Clearly contrary to the organizers’ original intentions, these livestreams seemed to have devolved into nothing more than outlets for netizens to vent their frustrations with their own disappointing lives.

Everly’s gaze lingered for a moment on the occasional “Everly” comments drifting across the screen. She closed the fixed-camera livestream and clicked on the other type: the “tracking livestreams.”

There were three tracking livestreams in total. Each was filmed by a cameraman driving a small vehicle alongside the group of runners, following them as they moved along the course.

At present, there were only three tracking livestreams, positioned at the very front of the ultramarathon pack, one-third of the way back, and two-thirds of the way back.

Compared with the fixed-camera livestreams, which were filled with people venting their frustrations and hurling abuse, the tracking livestreams presented an entirely different scene. The one following the front of the pack was especially lively—almost absurdly so.

The moment Everly clicked into it, she was overwhelmed by a dense wall of comments. In order to see the screen clearly, she had no choice but to enable the setting that hid 50% of the bullet comments.

The screen immediately became much cleaner, and the figure running continuously at the very center of the footage, his silver-white curls spilling down around him, finally revealed his exquisite face, beautiful as an angelic doll.

He was still running.

Even though the sky had already begun to darken, the runners following behind him had either run out of stamina or grown hungry and stopped along the way. Kesuye, however, remained expressionless and continued running at a steady pace like a tireless machine.

Even with his body splattered with dust, even with no one left running behind him, even with the shoes on his feet already worn through, he kept running, running, running…

[Everly! Everly! Everly!]

[Aaaaaah! I’ve seriously been crying this whole time!]

[He’s truly amazing! I’m going to donate to the foundation right now!]

The comments were overwhelmingly full of praise. Anyone who didn’t know better might have thought they’d stumbled into the fan site of some major celebrity.

Every now and then, newcomers like Everly, drawn in by the news report, would enter the livestream and post confused questions such as:

[Why is he still running?]

[I’m new here. Does he naturally look like that, or is he cosplaying?]

The moment the questions appeared, a flood of comments immediately sprang up in response:

[Everly is an upstanding environmentalist of noble character. He hopes that his perseverance will raise people’s awareness of ecological conservation!]

[His hair is dyed, and he’s wearing colored contacts.]

[The silver-white represents the ever-expanding salinized land in the deserts; the black represents the scars left across the western landscape by excessive resource extraction; and the blue rings around his eyes symbolize the rapidly shrinking natural oases.]

[That’s right. Everly is using his distinctive appearance to warn people!]

Seeing how enthusiastic the viewers were, Everly quickly posted a comment as a newcomer:

[Is his name Everly?]

[Yes, Everly is his name.]

[You can check out the videos on my profile. You’ll understand once you watch them.]

Seeing that comment, Everly immediately clicked the poster’s username and opened their video profile. The latest video was about the ultramarathon, uploaded at 9:33 that morning.

It was a handheld recording filmed at the event itself. The location looked familiar—probably Gilosha Port. It was the starting point of the ultramarathon, where, at 9:00 that morning, more than 3,000 participants had set off to begin their cross-country run.

However, the person filming had clearly arrived late. By the time the video started, the starting area was already deserted, with not a single competitor in sight. Only a few people dressed like staff members were busily taking down banners, display boards, and other event materials.

“Oh, damn it, I overslept. I missed Lilia’s start… I’m screwed. She’s definitely going to be mad at me…” Everly heard the person filming mutter under their breath.

Just then, a brightly colored figure suddenly entered the edge of the frame.

It was a tall man wearing a racing uniform. He looked as though he’d just been pulled out of the water, drenched from head to toe, with water continuously streaming off him as he walked. His athletic clothes clung tightly to his body, outlining the smooth, graceful contours of the muscles beneath the fabric.

The man had long silver-white hair with two black streaks running through it. He was presumably wearing colored contacts, with a beautiful ring of blue around his black pupils. The bold color combination and water dripping from his entire body did nothing to diminish his beauty. If anything, they made him look like an enchanting water spirit that had just crawled out of a swamp.

The person filming immediately forgot all about muttering to themselves. Holding up their DV camera, they hurried after the man and began filming him.

The man’s looks were simply too striking, and dressed in such an eye-catching fluorescent racing uniform, it was impossible for him not to attract attention. Several staff members who were packing things up spotted him as well and put down what they were holding to approach him.

“Hey, bro, what’s wrong? Why are you soaking wet? Need a towel?”

Surrounded by the friendly staff, the man seemed a little shy around strangers.

He took a small step backward, his large eyes timidly sweeping over everyone. His lips moved, and he mumbled two indistinct words:

“Everly… where?”

“Everly? OK.” A staff member wearing a cap happened to walk over at that moment. Hearing the man’s reply, he apparently mistook it for the man’s name. He casually scribbled a few things in the registration book he was carrying, then pointed in a direction, indicating that the man should look over there.

“This is the starting point. Just follow this road and keep running straight ahead. There’ll be fluorescent markers along the way, so don’t worry about getting lost.”

“Everly… over there?” The man’s eyes lit up, and he asked haltingly.

The man in the cap nodded firmly. “Mm-hmm, over there. Go on. You’re half an hour late, but this is a three-day ultramarathon, after all. As long as you’re willing to stick with it, there’s no reason you can’t reach your goal.”

A brief smile appeared on the man’s face.

At that moment, he was so innocent, naïve, and radiant that he looked practically like an angel who had fallen into the mortal world—so beautiful that anyone would have wanted to frantically screenshot the moment.

With everyone watching, the silver-haired man resolutely stepped onto the racecourse.

In front of the computer screen, Everly’s eyes lit up, then went dark.

Mystery solved. This was how Kesuye had somehow ended up joining the ultramarathon!

But where on earth had he gotten the racing uniform, and how had he grown legs?!

<< TOC >>

The post Rules Ch.370 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.