"The route is wrong."

The leader of the Shark Man, Jaeger, followed Rita, and while swimming along the ocean current to the east, he asked strangely: "Where are we going?"

Rita turned around and said: "Most of the mermaids choose to land their residences on the north shore of Waiheke Island. Now, the place I take you to is our residence on the coast."

Ye Ge was confused: "You, live on the coast? Give up, the ocean? The sea, guard, graze, food, what should I do?"

Rita replied: "Except for a few mermaid fighters, who stay on the border to take charge of investigation work. In the mermaid waters, few people are willing to live and graze."

Yego said with contempt: "Mermaid, lazy."

Rita said nonchalantly: "You are right to say that we are lazy. Compared with grazing and planting, we have put our focus on trade and seafood."

"Trade? Seafood? I don't understand."

Rita swam the fish's tail, looked towards the distant coast, and said softly: "When you get to the gathering place of mermaids, you will naturally understand everything I'm talking about."

Yego glanced at the back of the mermaid, closed his mouth, and stopped talking.

Half an hour later, Rita took Ye Ge to swim to the north shore of Waiheke Island, where the mermaid lives.

He emerged from the water and looked at the hundreds of exquisite stone buildings built on the shore. Jaeger opened his eyes and said in an incredible tone: "You, live on land?!"

Rita didn't answer Jaeger's question, but raised her arm and waved to the mermaid village.

"It's the patriarch, the patriarch is back!"

In a burst of cheers, dozens of heavily armed mermaid warriors swam to the shore and pushed open the wooden gate like a sluice.

Passing through the strong and huge gate, Jaeger swam into a large waterway that was three meters deep and five meters wide and poured with cement.

This long waterway leads all the way to the hinterland of the mermaid village and branches out numerous small waterways leading to every house.

Just when Ye Ge looked at everything in front of him in surprise, the mermaids in the village also found this uninvited guest.

The ugly and fierce appearance of the shark man immediately caused commotion and panic among the mermaids.

The mermaid children were immediately taken home by their parents and locked in the door; the mermaid soldiers took up their weapons and yelled at Yege and his people.

Rita raised the trident in her hand high and slammed it against the water. The splashing waves and loud noise made the mermaids in the village immediately calm down.

"Quiet!" Rita said loudly, "I invite these neighbors to come as a guest! Everyone must not be rude!"

Seeing the mermaids look like enemies, Jaeger shook his fins and bared his teeth, and said to Rita in a mocking tone: "Mermaid, cowardly."

Ignoring Jaeger's provocation, Rita continued to swim along the waterway in the village until she reached the largest building in the middle of the village, and then stopped.

Looking at the building built on the water, Ye Ge opened his mouth unconsciously.

This elegant and beautiful building is white in appearance, with windows made of transparent crystal, and curtains made of pearl tassels.

In Jagna's not rich memory, this building is comparable to the legendary temple of the ancient ocean god.

The two mermaid maids swam out of the room, opened the tassel curtain, bent down to respectfully welcome Rita's arrival.

Rita handed the trident to the attendants behind him, and said to Jaeger: "My neighbor, we are here, this is my home."

"You, home, here?" Jaeger's words were full of surprise, and when he followed Rita into the building, the surprise turned into shock.

A wide round pond similar to a swimming pool is located in the center of the room. Handrails and shallow pools are installed around the round pond for mermaids in the water to climb onto the floor of the room.

On the surrounding shore, with the specially customized sink sofa, the roaring flame fireplace, and the magnificent exquisite harp, Jaeger, who looked around, began to feel that his eyes were not enough.

Rita swam to the marble sofa that was half immersed in the water and half built on the shore, grabbing the armrests with both hands, one turned over and lay in.

The smooth touch and cold temperature made Rita let out a sigh of satisfaction.

"Jaeger, do you remember those past days?"

Rita's question caused Jaeger to turn his head, and said puzzledly: "In the past?"

"I still remember clearly that eleven years ago, the volcanic eruption that erupted under the sea destroyed nearly 60% of the pastures of our two races. In the month after that, the mermaid and the shark man experienced the most since I was born. A severe famine."

"Among the mermaid tribe, in order to save rations for children and young adults, a large number of elderly people spontaneously formed a group and left the group. Since then, they have never returned." Rita took a glass of freshly squeezed juice from the maid. While drinking, he said with emotion: "Among those people, there is my grandmother."

Turning her gaze to Jaeger, Rita continued: "In the shark people community, I have even heard of such a tragedy. Due to the lack of food in the family, the parents had to let their children draw lots, and the young sharks who were drawn were Take it to the dark seabed far away from the ethnic group. In order to prevent these children from swimming back, parents will even tie their tail fins to the rocks with seaweed and leave them cruelly despite their crying. I heard that you used to..."

"Enough!" Jaeger slid his fin angrily, shouting loudly: "No, listen! No, say!"

Rita looked at Jaeger's desperate appearance and smiled.

She drank the juice out of the glass and whispered, "We are all idiots."

"what?"

"I said, we are all idiots!" Rita raised her voice: "Our race, for generations, has believed in the ancient ocean **** Klakosh, obeyed his decree and avoided everything on the land. In the end, we are like rags drinking blood. Like a wild beast, lingering alive!"

Ye Ge opened his eyes, hit the water hard, and roared: "Profanity, ancient god, guilty!"

Rita looked at Jaeger with a look that was almost compassionate and said slowly: "Well, let's not talk about gods, let's talk about the present. Look around, this is the life of the mermaid now, what do you think? "

Jaeger looked around, and said with unreliable anger: "Weird!"

Rita put down the cup in her hand and clapped her hands.

Soon, dozens of mermaid fighters carried heavy wooden boxes and slowly swam into the room along the waterway.

Placing the wooden boxes one by one on the bank of the room, under Jaeger's suspicious gaze, Rita ordered the boxes to be opened.

Seafood sausages, each large wooden box is filled with large seafood sausages.

Seeing all this in front of him, Ye Ge took a deep breath. He, who doesn't know arithmetic, knew that the food here would be enough for his people to eat for a long time even if he didn't count them down.

"25 wooden boxes, 7,500 seafood sausages, if you save a little bit, it is enough for two weeks of rations."

Ye Ge slowly climbed ashore, reached into the box, flipped through the food excitedly, and said, "Food! Precious!"

Rita smiled and said: "So many rations, do you know what I got in exchange for?"

Jaeger raised his head with a blank face: "What?"

Rita took out a small leather pouch from her arms, opened the seal and unfolded it flat, filled with pearls one or two centimeters wide.

"The creatures on land seem to be particularly interested in such things in the sea. They are willing to exchange rations for these pearls."

Jaeger glanced at the pearl and said contemptuously: "Bah! Rubbish! I have it, bigger and brighter!"

Rita poured the pearls on the palm of her hand and said with a smile: "A hundred of these pearls can be exchanged for these rations in front of you."

Yego was stunned, and didn't move for a while.

After a long time, he asked in an uncertain tone: "Garbage? In exchange, rations?"

"It's true, 100 such pearls can be exchanged for 25 boxes of rations."

Confirming that the other party was not joking, Yego shook his fin and laughed happily: "Land, creatures, stupid!"

Rita followed him and laughed: "Yego, let's work together. You and your people are responsible for collecting garbage in the sea. It is not necessarily pearls, coral, chalcedony, ore, gold, gems... these cannot be eaten. You can exchange food with those people on land. We, the merman, are responsible for selling garbage and bringing food for you. What do you think?"

Jaeger lowered his head for a moment, and suddenly asked, "You guys, why don't you go, collect, rubbish?"

Rita shrugged: "As you know, the merfolk are not a warlike race. When facing the predators and other threats on the seabed, we can't be as brave as the shark men. So, compared to gathering, Mermaid is more suitable for bargaining with land people."

Ye Ge nodded, agreeing with this statement.

Rita clapped her hands and laughed: "Since you agree to my proposal, then we should swear in the name of the ancient gods to formally conclude the agreement of cooperation. As a manifestation of the sincerity of the merman tribe, we are willing to give these 25 boxes of food to the shark with reluctance. people."

Jaeger grabbed the wooden box with both hands, as if afraid that Rita would regret it, and said quickly: "Conclude, vow! Now! Now!"

Half an hour later, the mermaids who signed the co-op vow watched the shark man dragging the wooden box swim farther and farther~lightnovelpub.net~ a mermaid maid swam to Rita's side and said with a smile: " This time is great, we are all worried that no one wants to eat those meat sausages, and now someone helps us move them away."

Another maid said: "At first I felt that the taste was not bad, but the more I ate, the more greasy I was. In the end, no one wanted to touch it at all. I could only watch the food past the expiration date."

"Moreover, the value of those 25 boxes of food is only 10 pearls. If those idiot shark men really trade for 100 pearls, we can make a lot of money!"

Listening to the comments of the people around him, Rita said blankly: "You only fools who eat, drink and have fun in your mind! Do you really think that working with the Shark Man is just for making money?"

"Master Patriarch, is there any other reason?"

Rita turned her head, looked west through the window, and slowly said: "In a while, as the black plague spreads, more and more ocean races will come to take refuge in the Dragon God. , We need to find a reliable ally to deal with the next dispute."