An Jin tilted his head and smiled at Norman, his finger pointing to the terminal bracelet on Norman’s left hand, and his eyes shining with anticipation. This man talked too little, and trying to learn a language through this man talking is too slow. He wanted to learn by watching videos.
Norman lifted his left hand, slightly surprised. “Want the terminal?”
An Jin didn’t understand, thought about it, and raised his hand to draw a box, almost the size of the virtual screen that he was watching the video on before.
Norman understood and opened the previous video.
An Jin immediately wagged his tail and moved closer, almost touching Norman’s knee. An Jin did not watch the video content, but carefully observed the interface on the screen. After a while, he raised his hand as if waving randomly, and his finger touched the virtual button and switched to the next video.
A man was tying shiny hair accessories in the mermaid’s hair.
“…” An Jin was silent. The owner must not learn this! He was about to wave his hand again and pretend he didn’t mean to switch videos, when Norman pointed to the ornament. “Like it?”
An Jin didn’t get it, and when he saw Norman pointing at the hairpiece, he quickly made his attitude clear. “Yuck.”
His cheeks puffed out, he’s a man, he doesn’t want accessories!
Norman’s eyes moved from his slightly puffed cheeks to his white cheeks, and for a moment there was an illusion.
This was not just a mermaid, but a young teenager. He looked slightly moved, the little mermaid’s intelligence was indeed like a human’s. His imitation ability was very good. He had only shown once that the little mermaid was already very good at expressing dislike with ‘yuck’.
Pure color mermaid’s preference was not the same as the general mermaid’s. Could it be similar to humans?
An Jin saw the man lingering on the video of the dressed mermaid and quietly turned his head to look at the man. Seeing the man’s face pondering, a bad feeling rose in his heart. The master is not studying, right?
He hurriedly raised his hand to skip the video, and the virtual screen returned to the file panel.
An Jin pointed at the screen with an innocent face and made an ah-ah-ah sound, a soft voice with a hint of urgency.
Norman thought for a moment, operated the terminal, returned to the search interface, and typed in “toddlers favorite videos”. The screen was immediately occupied by all kinds of childish videos. He clicked on the most played cartoon and watched the little mermaid’s expression.
An Jin’s eyes lit up as he listened to the short lines spoken in the child’s voice and watched the unfamiliar subtitles on the screen.
This was the video he wanted! He turned his head towards Norman and raised a big smile, pointing at the video with obvious happiness.
Norman saw him smile and thought, Sure enough, this little Mermaid has an IQ similar to that of a child, as well as similar preferences.
Norman turned off the terminal, leaned down and wrapped his arms around the little Mermaid’s shoulders, and with a little effort, gently lifted the little Mermaid out of the water.
An Jin was startled and struggled subconsciously, his tail bobbed up and down, and a lot of water was thrown onto their faces.
Norman said in a deep voice, “Don’t move.” As he spoke, his hand fished forward to catch the sliding tail.
An Jin’s body shook, and he realized that the upper part of the mermaid’s tail was very sensitive. His ears were slightly red and he tilted his head to quietly look at the man.
The man’s face was straight. His eyes looked ahead, and did not fall on him. It seemed that the man just accidentally touched his buttocks. He held his hand in front of his body, stiffening his body and not daring to move.
Norman put the little mermaid in the gym shower and turned on the shower to drench the fishtail.
An Jin, his back against the wall, his tail flat on the floor, watched the man’s back as he left, puzzled. Why send him here all of a sudden?
Half an hour later, he found out why. He was carried back to the mermaid room by Norman, and on the right wall of the room, there was an extra large display. Apparently, the man had had it installed while he was in the shower.
He looked at Norman in surprise and couldn’t help but say, “Thank you.”
He was so happy, the man was so responsive to him, the best master in the world!
The expression and tone of the little mermaid’s voice showed that he was happy. Norman looked at the little mermaid seriously and waited in silence. Waiting for the little mermaid to sing.
However, after the little mermaid smiled, he turned his little head away and gave his full attention to the display.
“…” Norman was silent.
It seemed that the level of happiness was still not enough. If he got the accumulation of happiness to a certain level, the little mermaid would definitely sing! He bent down and put the little mermaid in the bottom right corner of the sink and squatted down. “Look here.”
After attracting the little mermaid’s attention, he pointed to two buttons on the floor by the shore. He pressed the red button, and the wall display lit up and was playing a program. He pressed it again and the display went black.
Norman pressed again, turned on the display, then pressed the green button, and the video content immediately changed. He pressed the green button several times, and the video changed once, showing all kinds of cartoons or toddler programs. He looked at the little mermaid. “Got it?”
An Jin did, but so as not to be too clever and eye-catching, he pretended to be excited and pressed the button blindly.
Norman taught him two more times before he showed that he had learned. Norman silently equated the little mermaid’s intelligence with that of a three- or four-year-old.
An Jin, completely unaware of how much the man misunderstood his intelligence, looked at Norman and smiled like a fool. Norman looked at the silence of the little mermaid’s smile and suddenly had a very unpleasant suspicion.
Pure color mermaids would not sing when they were happy?
Norman looked at the little mermaid whose attention had shifted to the video, turned around, and went out of the mermaid room.
He went into the study and looked up everything he could find out about the pure-colored mermaid. There was very little information, almost all of which had to do with the good effects of treating spiritual riots, along with a mention that if you want to make a pure-colored mermaid sing, you have to make him happy.
Norman stared at the information with a sullen face, the recorder was so bad that he didn’t write down how to coax it!
—
An Jin waited for Norman to leave, stopped watching blindly, changed channels, and finally chose a channel suitable for learning. The channel was showing a cartoon series, a story about a five year old, Joey, chronicling his schooling.
An Jin guessed that this was the early childhood education station in this world. Joey’s lessons were so detailed that watching the video was equivalent to learning along with him.
An Jin quickly learned the various terms of endearment between close relatives, as well as everyday questions. Throughout the morning, he didn’t even eat the crab snacks he had prepared and kept watching the videos.
At noon, Norman brought him lunch, which was exactly the same as the breakfast he had chosen.
An Jin was touched, his master was so tidy and thoughtful!
The evening meal remained the same.
Early the next morning, Norman walked into the mermaid room with a tray.
An Jin froze when he saw Norman.
The man was dressed in a straight black uniform, with gold round epaulets shining slightly, and his feet were wearing leather military boots, with his calves wrapped tightly in the barrel of the boots, looking straight and long.
An Jin looked enviously at the man’s long, straight legs. Norman noticed the little mermaid’s ogling gaze and frowned. He had changed his clothes and the little mermaid didn’t recognize him? He seriously introduced himself, “An An, I’m your master Norman.”
An Jin understood the three words “I am your” and combined them with the context, guessing that the preceding An An was the name given to him by his master.
As for the rest, he didn’t get it.
Norman pushed the food towards the little mermaid and saw the little mermaid smiling up at him with a slightly relieved expression that he didn’t seem to have forgotten. He turned and left the mermaid’s room.
Before going to the military headquarters, he instructed the butler droid, “An An’s lunch and dinner will be delivered at twelve o’clock and eighteen o’clock respectively.”
He thought of the mermaid’s poor memory and added, “If I’m home, I’ll deliver.”
The robot said, “Yes, master.”
An Jin finished his unchanged, but still delicious, breakfast and continued watching the video to learn. When he saw the robot delivering at noon, he realized that the man may not be home. Thinking about the man’s formal dress in the morning, he guessed that the man had gone to work.
An Jin finished his meal and continued to watch the video.
A few days passed, and An Jin lived his life as if he was copying and pasting every day.
On the fifth day, he couldn’t take it anymore.
These days he only saw Norman once in the morning and once in the evening. He didn’t communicate with anyone during this period and stayed indoors to watch videos.
At first he was absorbed in his studies and felt nothing, but now that he was distracted from his studies, he felt bored. He had mastered the everyday language and had the ability to simply talk to people. But he wasn’t sure if the mermaids of this world would talk and didn’t dare to open his mouth freely.
He needed to find out what normal mermaids were like!
Norman returned to the palace at 7:30 P.M. He changed out of his military uniform and into a casual suit before walking into the mermaid room.
An Jin had been waiting for him. Before he entered, An Jin sensed the sound of footsteps and swam to the position closest to the door to wait. As soon as Norman entered the room, he hurriedly straightened up while deflating his mouth and looking over with wet watery blue eyes. His face was delicate and small, so it looked pathetic.
Norman was slightly stunned and walked over to the little mermaid, sizing him up. “Not feeling well?”
An Jin pointed to the wall screen, where a group of children were playing a game, very lively.
Norman looked at the screen and didn’t understand what little mermaid meant.
An Jin blinked his wet eyes, turned and swam to the bottom corner of the pool, turned his back to Norman holding his fish tail and lowered his head.
The mermaid huddled in the corner, surrounded by a low mood, looked lonely and somewhat pathetic.
Norman soon understood that the little mermaid saw the children playing, and was envious. Norman’s eyebrows knitted slightly and he opened his terminal to check his schedule.
Last week, he had no time to take the little mermaid to the mermaid center. He pondered for a moment and dialed the communication of his good friend Admiral Mu Chen.
“Your Majesty,” Mu Chen sounded surprised, “what’s wrong?”
“A personal matter.”
Mu Chen was even more surprised, and jokingly said, “It’s rare that you have personal matters.”
Norman directly stated the purpose. “I want you to bring your mermaid to the palace to play.”
“Are you sure you want me to bring, little silver?” Mu Chen reminded, “I suspect Little Silver has not forgotten that you broke his hand, he holds his left hand every morning with a fierce expression.”
“Hard for him to remember.” Norman’s face was expressionless. “Bring him here, An An wants to play with a companion.”
“You finally gave up on letting me meet a pure color mermaid! But…are you sure you didn’t misunderstand the mermaid’s meaning?” Mu Chen asked.
Norman looked at the little mermaid huddled in the corner. “No.”
“Be there in twenty minutes.”
Norman went ahead to the living room to wait, and Mu Chen arrived in less than twenty minutes.
An Jin was very much looking forward to meeting the mermaid, holding his hand on the shore, hesitating to go to the living room to greet him.
Just thinking this, he suddenly heard a different sound from the human pronunciation. The sound quality was crisp, but the voice was a sharp roar. “Bold two-legged beast, today I will break your hand!”