"Security! Security!"
Another slap, "You gonna call again?"
"Police! I want to call the police! Call the police!"
Dubian Che didn’t say a word, just smacked the guy’s face with another slap.
This time, he used a bit of skill, and the man’s mouth started to bleed. Otherwise, given this woman’s craziness, Dubian Che was afraid he’d swell the poor fellow’s face.
Seeing the blood, the woman stopped shouting; she just glared at Dubian Che, scared and angry, waiting for the security to arrive.
It didn’t take long for the aquarium’s closest security staff to push through the crowd and come over.
The woman immediately yelled, "Arrest them! I want to call the police! They..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Dubian Che slapped her boyfriend’s face again.
"Sir! Please stop! Whatever the issue, we will handle it properly!" The security guard intervened with a stern tone.
"Arrest them! I want to call the police! I want to..." The woman’s voice carried far in the dim and quiet aquarium.
Dubian Che turned his head and saw Jiutiao Meijie watching him with a smile.
He understood the expression on her face: she was still angry, meaning the noisy woman’s life was still in danger.
He walked over, and as a security guard reached out to stop him, Dubian Che found one hand inconvenient, so he twisted and kneed the guard in the stomach, sending the guard immediately to his knees, clutching his belly.
The remaining two guards charged at him, but Dubian Che easily took them down.
He silently apologized in his mind once more, approached the couple, and gave the man another slap.
The woman looked at him in terror, while the man had a complicated expression—part anger, part fear, but also innocent.
"You disturbed the jellyfish," Dubian Che said, exhausted.
"Pfft," Jiutiao Meijie’s laughter drifted over.
Dubian Che breathed a sigh of relief and said to the couple in a more cheerful tone, "Next time you dare to touch my woman, it’s a beating each time I see you."
Finishing his sentence, Dubian Che turned and walked back, asking Jiutiao Meijie, "You all right? If anything’s wrong, tell me; I’ll hit them again to vent for you."
"Forget it," Jiutiao Meijie waved her hand, "I’m in a good mood, let her off."
The four of them left the jellyfish area, and surprisingly, no staff came to stop them.
Dubian Che, drinking his beverage, casually remarked, "Is my temper too bad? Just a touch and I beat them to this state?"
"What’s that to say?" Jiutiao Meijie answered nonchalantly, as if she didn’t catch his implication, "To survive after touching my body makes her the second one already, she got off easy."
How many had she killed... Dubian Che felt the deep blue light around him was eerily chilly.
Jiutiao Meijie, seeing through his thoughts, chuckled, "Don’t worry, it’s not as much as you think; ordinary people can’t even get near me."
Dubian Che laughed awkwardly, "Let’s go see the sharks."
The sharks were in a massive aquarium, along with many other species of fish. To view them, one had to walk down a spiral ramp to get right beneath the enormous aquarium.
Halfway through, Shizuru’s phone suddenly rang. Jiutiao Meijie frowned slightly.
Shizuru ended the call in two seconds and whispered something to Jiutiao Meijie.
"A bunch of useless trash; they just can’t do without me," Jiutiao Meijie turned and headed for the exit, with Shizuru quickly following.
As they left, the crowd on the ramp, once packed, cleared out instantly—these men and women were all Jiutiao Meijie’s subordinates.
Suddenly only Dubian Che and Kiyono Lin were left on the ramp.
"Do you want to see the sharks or the dolphin show?" Dubian Che asked.
The always stoic Kiyono Lin replied, "The dolphin show starts in twenty minutes."
So the two walked the rest of the way down the ramp in silence, arriving beneath the huge aquarium where a twenty-meter long "underwater tunnel" was located.
Countless schools of fish danced around their heads and sides, swiftly swimming then suddenly stopping in their tracks.
Each of their turns flashed scales reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors, like a moving mosaic.
"Aren’t you curious?" Dubian Che’s gaze was on the information board listing all the fish in the tank: Devil Fish, sharks, snapper, and others.
"Even though I don’t know why, you must have their best interest in heart," Kiyono Lin stared at the roughly eight thousand Spotted Shanao Fish, "You’re a good person; I can see that."
It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but Dubian Che thanked her anyway.
He also said, "Ordinary people would be curious, right? About things like the drugs you mentioned last time, what’s happening in Ochazuke, and so on."
"’The Kiyono family is troubled by an heir like you’... but you didn’t ask either, did you?"
"I’m waiting for the day you fall in love with me and tell me on your own."
After saying that, Kiyono Lin giggled softly.
Dubian Che was not joking on purpose. He wasn’t interested in her affairs; his words were even a challenge, but he ended up laughing as well.
Kiyono Lin’s pure smile was indeed rare. Her previous smiles were either provocative or triumphant, always deliberate.
"I, too, am waiting for the day you fall in love with me and tell me on your own," she replied with a smile.
Dubian Che looked at the other side of the tank, at a shark opening its gaping maw towards him. He kept a straight face but was actually a bit frightened as he said to the young girl beside him:
"We’ll see who ends up the uncivilized ape."