But he foolishly thought that he was different because she praised him and told him that he was a lot better than the others but one day he got caught up in the rain and under the lack of treatment he caught pneumonia.

Day by day he got weaker and without any medication, he couldn’t even drink water without puking it all over, he felt sick and tired, back then he wasn’t so obsessed with his looks. He thought that he was beautiful no matter how he looked but then the woman whom he has been pinning for told him that he was a fool.

His sickness went after a month and he, the stupid mer who fell for a woman who was years older than him rushed to see her. He didn’t care about shoes or even brushing his hair, all he wanted was to see her but when he came to a stop in front of that woman, she looked him in the eye, with a subtle frown on her face as she said, ” Who is this ugly mer?”

For the first time Xiao Hua felt like his world was being ripped down to pieces, he wasn’t even joking when he said that he felt like someone has smashed into him with a carriage head-on.

Ever since then he learned that women all loved only his face, so he has made sure to give them what they wanted. He gave them his beauty, the exact thing that they loved instead of his heart.

” Xiao Hua?” Yu Dong called seeing that he wasn’t responding.

Xiao Hua snapped out of his daze and looked at Yu Dong warily, should he trust her? But what if she too thought that he looked ugly and then leave him? He was too scared to start his life all over again.

He was scared of being called ugly and scorned.

Because beauty was all that he could give her.

And more importantly, he was a threat to her family and her as well, he should let her see his ugly face and the ugliness that he has been hiding that way she will leave him.

“You..you are not allowed to laugh,” he said softly, his voice muffled because of his hands that were covering his mouth.

“I won’t,” Yu Dong promised, she was someone who had to see rotting corpses moving around the streets with flesh peeling off their forehead and cheeks, there was one time when she saw a zombie that had his entire body peeled off like a freaking banana, she was sure that no matter how sick Xiao Hua was, he could match those creepy little things.

Only then Xiao Hua hesitated and then dropped his hands because he hadn’t washed his face, his entire face was dry and scratchy, and his lips were in an even more bad condition. He seemed to have not drunk a sip of water from the morning and now his lips were almost bleeding…as for his nose and the area around it has gone all red and blotchy.

Maybe he ate something hot to get his body to sweat because now he was sporting two pimples on his cheeks most probably his body wasn’t able to stomach the heat.

” Well?” He asked nervously as he looked at Yu Dong, was she going to look at him in disdain as well?

He was too scared to raise his head and clenched his fingers tightly in his lap. Beauty, that was all he had and yet … he closed his eyes already expecting to hear Yu Dong call him ugly but then something pressed something against his mouth.

Startled, he opened his eyes and looked at Yu Dong in surprise. ” Dong Dong?”

” Come on eat or else the porridge is going to get cold,” she told him as casually as she used to talk with him, causing his eyes to turn slightly red as he asked, ” D..Don’t you think that I am ugly?”

” Why would I find the mer that I want to get married to ugly?” she questioned with a genuine voice as if she couldn’t understand what was going on in his head.

” You still want to get married to me?”

” Of course not only do I want to get married but I also want to have kids with you, now open your mouth and take a bite of this porridge,” she said as she pressed the chopsticks against Xiao Hua’s lips.

This time Xiao Hua opened his mouth and took a bite, his cheeks getting hotter by the minute. Yu Dong actually told him that she wanted to get married to him even after looking at him like this, she even said that she wanted him to have her kids! This was enough for him to stay with her memories.

Slowly the porridge was finished bit by bit before Xiao Hua opened his mouth and said, ” There was a time when I used to like a woman.” Yu Dong raised her brows at his sudden confession but didn’t say anything else. A bit confident, he continued speaking, ” She told me that I was ugly and then it ..kind of broke my heart.”

” I see,” was the only thing Yu Dong said as she brought another mouthful of rice towards his lips.

” Aren’t you angry?” He asked generally women would hate it if a mer had a relationship before her or so much as like someone else.

“Do you mind that I have four husbands?” She questioned back taking Xiao Hua by surprise. He thought about it and then shook his head before speaking, ” Why will I mind it? I came to love you knowing that you have four husbands already. If anything if you were to break my heart then it was my fault for trusting you.”

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