I! Cleaner!-Chapter 1232 - 1119: Nightmare and Reef (Part 2)

"Then... it seems like the me in the dream wasn't feeling well? One day after going out, I fainted or something, and when I woke up again, it was as if thousands of years had passed on the island."

Frowning as she tried to remember, Miss Salted Fish said uncertainly:

"In the dream, after you woke me up, you told me indeed a long, long time had passed, but I didn't believe you. Then you asked me whether I wanted to continue being resurrected or forget everything and embrace a new life.

In that world, it seemed I was in great pain. Although I couldn't recall what she had gone through, there was a vague feeling of endless loss from the moment of birth.

Loss of mother, loss of companions, loss of family, loss of home... In short, the me in the dream had no regrets about her choices, but apart from you, there wasn't much attachment to life. So she decided to forget everything, and then..."

At this point, Miss Salted Fish paused slightly, recalling the mermaid woman's recent threat to embarrass her socially, and couldn't help but hum in annoyance:

"Then the me in the dream said, as long as it's not being your daughter, I could be anything in the next life!"

"..."

"?!"

Feeling a sudden weight on her shoulder and something wet, Miss Salted Fish startled.

"What are you doing?"

"..."

"You're... you're not really crying, are you?

"..."

No way!

Trying to support her a couple of times but finding the mermaid woman's face still against her shoulder, back trembling, Miss Salted Fish panicked, quickly holding her shoulders and coaxing:

"It was a dream! It's all fake! Who cries after hearing a dream? You... oh no!"

Finding that the more she tried to comfort, the more the mermaid woman's body trembled, a flustered Miss Salted Fish quickly explained:

"No, no! I didn't say that in the dream! What I said was if a new life were possible, I would still want to be your daughter!"

"I know."

The mermaid woman sniffled, wiped her eyes dry on Miss Salted Fish's shoulder, and then lifted her head confidently, saying:

"How could you not want to be my daughter? You only said that because you were too stubborn to admit it out of embarrassment."

"Then you... why did you..."

"Discharging salt~"

"?????"

"You know, I was busy merging two sea eyes, constantly moving between the Tidal Realm and the area with the highest water pressure in the present world, so the salt level in my body got a bit high."

Picking up the ribbon on Miss Salted Fish's pajamas, the mermaid woman wiped away the fine, snow-like white salt from the corner of her eyes, maintaining a calm expression amid Miss Salted Fish's bewildered gaze:

"And by the human classification, we mermaids are amphibious creatures, having too high a salt concentration is bad for the kidneys, and actively discharging more is beneficial to health."

"..."

I must be dumb to think you would cry!

Infuriated by the mermaid woman's abstract salt discharge, Miss Salted Fish couldn't help but push her hard, trying to drive the annoying entity away. However, the mermaid woman easily sidestepped and grabbed her hands with a smile:

"Don't be mad~ It's all my fault, isn't it? It's just that I've been too busy these past days and haven't been able to take care of you, causing your possessiveness to spike... Alright, alright, I'll stop talking, I won't say anymore."

Silenced by Miss Salted Fish's glare, the mermaid woman gently patted her back, promising softly:

"It'll be fine soon, just wait a few more days until I'm done, then I'll bring back everything you've lost, letting you choose once more."

"What?"

In the mermaid woman's gentle pats, Miss Salted Fish's expression suddenly became dazed, subconsciously leaning into her embrace, eyes blankly asking:

"Choose what for me?"

Choose the life you want.

Smoothing the confused furrow on Miss Salted Fish's brow with her hand, the mermaid woman laid her sleeping form back onto the shell bed, then looked up at the angels falling like raindrops outside the shell, involuntarily tightening her lips.

It's not just you; I also want our other clan members to have another choice!

...

It really is gone...

Staring at the Ruins Square before him, more shattered than before, nearly completely collapsed, and at the once leaned-upon mermaid statue's base now empty, returned "now" Leon couldn't help but close his eyes, fully confirming his suspicions.

The "Evangelin" who sent him back to the present was indeed the Evangelin he knew, not a separate entity or incarnation, but the same person all along.

The difference is, the past mermaid statue and I had no direct conflict; her attitude towards me should have been friendly, whereas the current Evangelin...

From Miss Salted Fish becoming Queen Sayo, to the inexplicable attendance at The Twelve Kingdoms assembly, ice forming underwater and the disappearance of Cancer Board members, my "mistaken" entry to the Netherworld, this entire chain is likely all her plotting!

Recalling everything from meeting Miss Salted Fish until now, Leon couldn't help but sigh internally.

Initially, he always felt some coincidences and her behavior seemed odd, and had never stopped observing her, with only two brief relaxations where she slipped out of his sight.

The first time was just arriving above the sea eye when the shell ship was hit by blocks of ice excavated by the Crab Board members; she happened to say a bunch of weird things, causing the troubled Miss Salted Fish and the eager-to-meet the two board members me to temporarily leave her behind and dive faster.

But not long after she left my sight, the ice blocks flying up from below suddenly stopped, and the two board members' auras vanished, directly frozen and plunged into the Cold Spring Realm, she most likely did something at that time.

The second was when she "persuaded" the Flowing Vortex Ancestor to help me break through the ice to find someone; because we were about to leave the present world and enter the Cold Spring Realm, my instinct was to relax my observations and pay more attention to the ice and the sea eye.

And it was also then, that the originally stable sea eye suddenly entered an expansion phase, freezing both myself and the Flowing Vortex Ancestor, simultaneously crossing time and space, dropping us into the Netherworld nearly ten thousand years ago.

Such power to send someone to the distant past, transcending millennia in an instant, among those I know, only she, who once controlled the roots of the entire Netherworld, could achieve it.

As for why the "now" her would deceive me out of the present world...

Looking back in the direction from which I came, faintly glimpsing the massive monument recording the end of the entire Netherworld, Leon couldn't help but shake his head, rising to walk towards the empty base of the reef.

From the very beginning, I discovered that the trident pinning her to the base was incorrect in both angle and wound, clearly not stabbed by someone else; it was she who reversed grip on the trident handle, pinning herself.

The purpose of this act was merely to disperse the origin remaining in her body united with it, sustaining the Netherworld as much as possible, with the Netherworld and her clan holding significant importance in her heart.

It's precisely because of her self-sacrifice to sustain the Netherworld that I grew to trust her more in the past, forming a friendship during brief interaction, but once I returned to the present, that friendship likely reached its end. Next...

"Aquarius!"

Seeing Leon, who even at this time wasn't returning to the present world, instead visiting some ruins, the Scorpio Board member, who discreetly implanted his will when crushing the wrist-devil and had searched for him in the Netherworld for over a month, could no longer contain his fiery temper, loudly shouting:

"What the hell are you doing? That Evangelin is already..."

"I know."

Replying to the Scorpio Board member, Leon climbed onto the reef pedestal, bending down to meticulously explore.

"I came here specifically to find a way to deal with her."

...

Two-in-one ha... And there was an extra sentence at the beginning of the first chapter yesterday...

The fish had a habit of sticking fragmented inspiration in the writing area, writing while comparing, but due to either a bug or something else, the first line of the fragmented inspiration used for idea searching got recorded for some reason, sorry... Or2