My Merman Husband Won't Admit He Loves Me - Chapter 1

I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub when I saw the comments.

The man before me was still half human, half fish. My shameless teasing had left his skin flushed pink and his ears scarlet. A few blue scales had appeared beneath his eyes as his control slipped.

His eyes shimmered with tears. Biting his lower lip, he let one spill down his cheek. It turned into a pearl and struck the bathroom floor with a sharp little clatter.

What a poor, respectable merman, suffering such a terrible injustice.

Or so I might have thought if I hadn’t seen those comments.

According to them, Shen Qingyan and I were the leads in a novel. Unfortunately, the male lead was so stubborn that he refused to admit he loved the heroine. What began as a sweet romance built on coercion turned into all-out war and a desperate attempt to win his wife back. In the end, we both died horribly. A thoroughly unhappy ending.

My gaze drifted to Shen Qingyan’s vivid lips. They were so soft when I kissed them. How could everything coming out of them be so unyielding?

Oblivious to my thoughts, he kept crying. White pearls pattered onto the floor and into the bath.

“Jiang He! I will never like a shameless woman like you!”

He still sounded defiant, though his voice caught with tears. He looked mortified and furious.

I gave him a wicked little smile.

Oh, really?

Normally, I would have kept pestering him. Today, however, I rose with a smile while Shen Qingyan stared up at me, stunned.

“All right. Since you don’t like it, I’ll leave. I won’t bother you anymore, either. Don’t worry.”

I even gave him a polite smile.

He still looked dazed, his lips slightly parted, a tear hanging beneath his eye before it could turn into a pearl.

Without another glance, I left the bathroom. I was even considerate enough to close the door.

The comments seemed taken aback.

[Why stop? I wasn’t done watching!]

[Has the heroine turned over a new leaf?]

Turned over a new leaf? Not a chance.

I was going to make Shen Qingyan walk willingly into my trap.

I wanted to hear him admit, in his own words, that he liked me.

Our marriage had been an accident.

On the twenty-fifth birthday of every animal living concealed among humans, the Animal Affairs Bureau did its best to find them a partner with the highest possible compatibility.

My original match had been a young lion. Our compatibility was ninety-five percent, which was already an exceptionally high score in the matching system.

But the day before we were due to register our marriage, the bureau contacted me.

They had found a merman who was a one-hundred-percent match for me.

Being matched with an animal wasn’t unusual these days. A merman, though? That was a first for me.

The bureau told me Shen Qingyan was a prince of the merfolk. His people would never have come ashore to be matched and married if the growing connections between land and sea, and advances in information technology, hadn’t extended coverage across the ocean and brought them into the household registration system.

On the day we registered our marriage, one look was all it took. I was gone.

He was breathtaking. His blue eyes seemed to hold an ocean full of stars; you couldn’t help falling into them.

Perhaps I was too happy throughout the registration process to notice how cold he was.

It wasn’t until our first night at home, when he proposed separate bedrooms, that I realized he didn’t like me.

He had only married me because the bureau made marriage mandatory for one-hundred-percent matches.

For six months after the wedding, I was gentle and attentive. Shen Qingyan barely acknowledged me.

Finally, after yet another cold shoulder, I snapped.

Fuck that. We’d already been intimate, and he still ignored me all day! I’d spoiled him rotten!

Who could have guessed that just when I thought he might hate me for the rest of his life, I’d discover he’d actually fallen for me ages ago?

So that mouth of his was just stubborn. No problem. A few more kisses would surely soften it up.

Grinning from ear to ear, I closed my eyes.

The next morning, I came downstairs to find Shen Qingyan sitting on the living-room sofa with a newspaper.

I stopped short at the sight of him.

A white shirt. Pale blue jeans. Add that devastating face, and he looked every inch the gorgeous college boy.

I loved seeing him in light colors, especially white. Whenever he wore them, I showered him with compliments, telling him there was no one like him in heaven or on earth. My lust for him had only grown by the day.

He must have noticed. Before we’d even been married a month, he’d replaced everything in his wardrobe with dark colors.

Was he trying to seduce me now?

I caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye. His already straight back stiffened a little more.

I saw every tiny movement.

Pretending otherwise, I walked straight to the dining table.

The comments appeared.

[Disaster! The white-shirt seduction has failed. Shen Qingyan, your wife doesn’t want you anymore!]

[He’s been holding that newspaper open to the same page for over half an hour. Sir, are you memorizing it?]

I nearly laughed out loud.