The exact moment I found out my terrifying husband was actually a merman whose tears turned into high-grade pearls, I dug my discarded pregnancy test out of the bathroom trash can and marched straight toward the rooftop terrace. Eighteen stories above the city lights, Lucian was halfway over the ledge, looking like the tragic, gothic antihero he was destined to be. “Excuse me,” I called out over the howling wind, waving the plastic stick in the air. “Quick question. How many babies does a merman usually drop at once? And do they drink formula, or do I just sprinkle fish flakes into their crib?” Lucian’s boot slipped. He nearly took a swan dive into the concrete eighteen floors down. His fingers clamped onto the aluminum safety rail with a frantic scrape of knuckles, his entire upper body dangling in the void. He hoisted himself back up just enough to stare at me, his sharp, aristocratically pale face bleached completely white. “What… did you just say?” I sighed, shaking my head with exaggerated disappointment. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re not going to take responsibility. Fine. If that’s how it is, the second they pop out, I’m just driving down to the marina and dumping them in the ocean.” Before the sentence even finished leaving my mouth, a dark blur vaulted over the railing. A heartbeat later, Lucian had me slammed flush against the brick wall of the stairwell, his chest heaving, his fingers biting into my shoulders with terrifying precision. Deep beneath the obsidian dark of his irises, an oceanic tempest surged—furious, possessive, and wildly undone. “Don’t you dare,” he rasped, his voice dropping an octave into a low, predatory vibration. I lowered my eyes, quietly curving my lips into a satisfied little smirk. “Perfect. The walking gold mine wasn’t going to jump after all.” 1 I had known from day one that Lucian was the undisputed villain of this world. I was just the sacrificial bride his dying grandfather had forced him to marry on his deathbed. Technically, my system had dropped me into this universe with a classic mandate: rehabilitate the villain. Save his soul. Prevent him from burning the city down out of bitter, unrequited love for the story’s saintly female lead, Cynthia. Naturally, I had completely quiet-quit. Not only had I refused to rehabilitate him, but I had also actively spent his billions like monopoly money, stolen his designer silk sheets, and hijacked his king-size mattress every night while relegating him to the study sofa. My system, watching his corruption meter hover stubbornly at ninety-nine percent month after month, had finally succumbed to absolute despair. The last time its robotic voice pinged in my skull, it had left me with a chilly send-off: “Host, when the villain finally kills himself, I will initiate extraction.” So I had waited. For six months. Today had supposedly been the day. In the grand narrative of this world, Cynthia had chosen the righteous billionaire hero, Justin, breaking Lucian’s cold heart once and for all. When Lucian retreated to the roof with that haunted, suicidal look in his eyes, I had already raided his private vault, draped myself in every diamond and sapphire I could physically carry, and stood on the terrace stairs eagerly waiting for the system to beam me out. Then the system materialized and uttered its very first words: “Host… why on earth are you wearing the villain’s tears around your neck?” “Excuse me?” I’d frozen, glancing down at the strand of luminous, iridescent pearls resting against my collarbone. “Lucian belongs to the royal line of merfolk,” the system informed me dryly. “Those pearls are literally his crystallized teardrops.” A merman? A merman who wept multi-million-dollar jewels? My entire worldview didn’t just shift; it shattered into glittering dollar signs. This wasn’t a psychotic mafia don. This was an unharvested diamond mine with cheekbones. I had found this particular necklace hidden inside a velvet-lined secret compartment in his mahogany desk weeks ago. I’d assumed it was a birthday present meant for Cynthia that he’d chickened out of giving her. So, on one particularly quiet Tuesday night, I had simply liberated it. I remembered the odd, strangled expression on Lucian’s face the next morning when he saw me wearing it over breakfast. “You… like this?” he had asked, his voice unexpectedly rough. I had rolled my eyes back then. “Who doesn’t like nine figures around their neck? I had it appraised. It’s worth a hundred and twenty million.” Looking back, that bewildered, vulnerable twitch in his jaw hadn’t meant “You thief”. It had meant: “You actually treasure my tears?” “System,” I had whispered on the stairs, ripping the necklace off and sprinting down to the trash bin to retrieve the positive pregnancy test I’d tossed in denial that morning. “I’ve changed my mind. I think he’s completely salvageable.” Which brought us back to the present. The moment Lucian escorted me back downstairs, he looked like a man having a quiet, internal nervous breakdown. He carefully deposited me onto the plush velvet sofa in our master suite, locked the study door, and immediately began pacing. I pressed my ear against the polished mahogany wood. Inside, his clipped, baritone voice was trembling in a pitch I had never heard before. “Calcium intake during human gestation… kelp extracts… wait, Doctor, what do you mean a human carrying merfolk progeny requires daily submersion in saltwater?” His voice spiked an octave. “She’s pregnant! Do you want her catching pneumonia?!” I had to clamp both hands over my mouth to keep from snorting. Who could have guessed that the ruthless boss of the Nocturne Syndicate—the man who made Wall Street tycoons sweat through their bespoke suits—was pacing a rug while frantically consulting an OB-GYN, his hands shaking so hard I could hear his pen rattling against the desk? The door swung open abruptly. I almost tumbled forward, but Lucian’s arms caught my waist with lightning speed. The heat radiating from his palms was searing through my cotton tee. He stared down at me, his gaze dropping involuntarily to my flat belly. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You…” “I’m starving,” I cut in smoothly, giving him my best imperious glare. “And I want seafood chowder. Made by you. From scratch.” Ten minutes later, the distant clatter of pots and pans echoed from the gourmet kitchen downstairs. The butler stood at the foot of the stairs, looking as though he were watching a funeral procession. 2 “Madam,” the butler whispered, wringing his white-gloved hands. “The last time Mr. Lucian attempted to use the induction cooktop, we had to replace the entire western wing’s cabinetry.” “It’s fine,” I said, leaning back against the sofa cushions. “He’s loaded. If he burns this penthouse down, we’ll just buy the penthouse across the street.” The butler’s jaw twitched, but he wisely remained silent. An hour later, Lucian emerged. There was an undignified smudge of soot across his high, porcelain cheekbone, but the porcelain bowl he held was pristine. I peered into it. Smelled surprisingly edible. Probably non-toxic. I lifted a spoon to take a sip, but a pale, scarred hand clamped down on my wrist. “Wait.” Lucian meticulously inspected the spoon, picked out an imperceptible speck of clam shell, tasted a drop himself to check the temperature, and only then guided it back toward my mouth. I swallowed, then deliberately scrunched my nose. “Too bland.” His hand reached for the salt cellar, paused mid-air, and then he pulled out his phone instead, furiously googling “safe sodium levels for first-trimester pregnancy”. I swallowed another spoonful in silence, hiding my grin behind the rim of the bowl. From that day on, my existence was elevated to that of an empress dowager. Every morning began with freshly squeezed Valencia orange juice hand-pressed by the terrifying syndicate lord. When I took a shower, he paced outside the frosted glass as if I were a Fabergé egg on the edge of a marble counter. When my calves cramped in the dead of night and I kicked him awake, he didn’t snap; he simply slid out of bed, knelt on the hardwood, and rubbed my arches with warm, calloused palms. One morning, waking up through a haze of sleep, I found him leaning over me with a tailor’s measuring tape, wrapping it around my waist with the grave intensity of a bomb technician defusing an explosive. “It’s been four weeks, Lucian,” I murmured, amused. “What are you expecting to find?” The tips of his ears flushed a dark, dusky red. Without a word, he logged the numbers into a locked memo on his phone titled: “Mer-pup Growth Log.” The crowning moment came the following Tuesday. A high-profile investor arrived at his penthouse office unannounced. When the security desk buzzed up to ask if Lucian would take the meeting, he was currently down on one knee on the living room rug, patiently re-tying my velvet sneakers. He pressed the speakerphone button and said, cold as an arctic draft, “Tell them to get lost. My wife is taking a nap.” Then, without missing a beat, he tucked a cashmere throw gently around my knees. Right now, I was lounging on a chaise on the rooftop terrace, watching Lucian assemble an elaborate cedar swing set in the garden below. The afternoon sun hit the tousled dark waves of his hair, turning the tips to spun amber. It was, against all odds, sickeningly domestic. A blue chime chimed softly in my brain: [Warning! Villain’s corruption level has dropped to 90%.] [Host…] The system sounded deeply unsettled. [Are you certain this is how one rehabilitates an apocalyptic antagonist?] I brushed the iridescent pearls around my throat. “Well, he doesn’t want to jump off a roof anymore, does he?” Lucian drove the final bolt into the cedar beam, dusted his hands, and walked up the terrace steps. I wiggled my toes at him. “Hubby. My foot fell asleep.” He wiped his hands on a clean towel, dropped to one knee without hesitation, and began kneading my calf with just the right amount of pressure. The system pinged again: […Impressive.] “Lucian,” I said casually, resting my chin on my hand. “I want a pink pearl.” A few weeks ago, an ultra-rare natural pink conch pearl had gone up for auction at Sotheby’s. It was mesmerizing. Unfortunately, Justin had outbid everyone to buy it as a grand romantic gesture for Cynthia. “Cry for me,” I said, sliding a silver fruit saucer under his sharp chin. Lucian froze. He looked up, his deep, ocean-blue eyes wide with sheer disbelief. “…The coloration of a tear is entirely dictated by emotional volatility. I cannot simply produce them on demand.” “I don’t care,” I said, patting my flat stomach with an airy sigh. “Cry, or I’m releasing your pups into the Atlantic the second they’re born.” His expression drained of all color. Three minutes later, I sat there in stunned delight as the fearsome underworld mogul sat on his knees before me, eyes rimmed with raw pink, tears spilling silently over his dark lashes. “Clink. Clink. Clink.” Pale, blush-pink pearls tumbled into the silver dish, rolling against each other with a melodic, expensive chime. [Ding! Villain’s corruption level dropped to 85%.] I happily scooped the warm pearls into my palm. This mission was a walk in the park. At this rate, I was going to turn the deadliest predator in the city into a soft, domesticated pearl dispensary. But just when I thought I had the narrative entirely under control, Cynthia showed up. She stood at the iron gates of the courtyard wearing a delicate white linen dress, her eyes red, her lips trembling. She looked like a rain-beaten white rose, fragile and completely tragic. “Lucian… please,” she sobbed, clutching the wrought iron. “You have to help my father. He’s been taken… only you have the kind of people who can find him…” I stepped out to the grand foyer, blocking the door. “Go find Justin.” Cynthia bit her lip, fresh tears spilling down her pale cheeks. “Justin doesn’t… he doesn’t have those kinds of connections. He’s a legitimate businessman. He can’t get his hands dirty…” 3 I blinked, the reality of the situation clicking into place. Of course. In every commercial romance, the male lead gets to be the shining beacon of corporate virtue, untouched by the grit of the real world. And the villain? The villain is relegated to the damp, shadowy corners, handling the violence, doing the dirty work that clean hands refuse to touch. Whenever this universe needed blood spilled, the first person Cynthia thought of was the very monster she claimed to fear. I glanced over my shoulder toward the foot of the stairs. Lucian stood in the shadows, his face obscured, completely silent. In his right hand, he was still holding the plush house slipper I had kicked off ten minutes ago. A sudden, sharp spike of irritation flared in my chest. “You’re not going,” I snapped at him. Cynthia lowered her head, looking utterly desolate. “If Joanna forbids it… then forget it. I shouldn’t have come.” She turned, her dress fluttering in the autumn breeze like a wounded bird preparing to take flight. As she reached the front gates, Lucian’s deep voice cut through the air. “Wait.” My jaw dropped. He walked past me, knelt at my feet, gently slipped the warm plush slipper onto my foot, adjusted the heel strap with absolute tenderness, and then— The absolute bastard stood up and walked out the door with Cynthia. “Lucian!” I ripped the slipper off and hurled it with pinpoint accuracy at the back of his head. “If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back!” “Thwack!” The slipper hit the crown of his dark hair with a satisfying slap. He paused for half a second. He didn’t turn around. He merely reached up, rubbed the spot where the slipper had landed, and kept walking into the mist. I stood there on one bare foot, so furious I nearly hurled the other one through the stained-glass transom. By three in the morning, I had checked my phone for the twenty-eighth time. The screen remained completely, infuriatingly black. Suddenly, a loud electronic siren blared in my skull: [WARNING! Villain’s corruption level has spiked by 12%! Current reading: 97%!] “What?!” I shot upright in bed, nearly throwing out my lower back. “I’m sitting here incubating his mutant fish-spawn, sweating blood to shave off fifteen measly percent, and he spends four hours with the female lead and undoes all of it?!” The system offered meekly: [Technically, it has been four hours and thirty-eight minutes.] “What did she do, use him as human collateral for her deadbeat dad?” I growled, clutching my belly. Headlights swept across the bedroom ceiling. I vaulted out of bed and rushed to the terrace window. Lucian’s black Maybach was gliding smoothly through the iron gates, cutting through the heavy downpour. What made my blood boil even hotter was the sight of him stepping out of the driver’s seat holding a high-end takeout bag stamped with the gold foil logo of “Ocean Pavilion”—the obscenely expensive Michelin-starred raw bar that Cynthia publicly raved about on social media. “Fantastic,” I hissed, my teeth grinding together. “System, pull up the shop right now. Buy the “Threatened Miscarriage Simulation” perk.” The system’s code practically glitched in panic: [H-Host! Calm down! Merfolk embryos are incredibly resilient! That simulation perk costs five thousand points—] “Do I look like a woman who gives a damn about points?” The only reason I had been slacking off in this world was because my pension fund from my previous dozens of successfully executed missions was already maxed out. I had points to burn. When Lucian quietly pushed the bedroom door open, what greeted him was me curled into a tight, trembling ball on the sheets, my face chalk-white, clutching my lower abdomen in apparent agony. “Joanna?” The luxury takeout bag hit the floor with a dull thud. Thinly sliced king salmon and ice shavings scattered across the antique Persian rug. I cracked my eyes open weakly. Under the dim chandelier light, I saw the stark, crimson outline of a palm print across his left cheek. Lucian’s hands were visibly shaking as he scooped me off the mattress. He carried me down the stairs in three strides, threw me into the passenger seat, and tore through the rainy streets toward the private hospital like a man possessed. Twenty minutes later, I lay on an examination cot, deliberately keeping my back turned toward him while listening to his ragged breathing as the doctor delivered the prognosis. “Early signs of a threatened miscarriage,” the doctor’s tone was razor-sharp and severe. “Absolute bed rest is mandatory. Most importantly, the mother cannot be subjected to emotional distress.” Lucian’s voice was hoarse, scraped raw. “Is she… are the babies…” “Stable for now. But another shock like this? I can’t guarantee anything.” The doctor sighed heavily. “Sir… a human physiology is already poorly suited to carry the bloodline of the deep sea. The first trimester is inherently perilous. If this volatility continues, I fear…” The heavy clinic door clicked shut. Then came a heavy, hollow thud—the sound of knees striking the linoleum floor with brutal force. 4 “I’m sorry…” His voice was a broken whisper against the back of my neck, his forehead resting against the edge of the mattress. “I shouldn’t have…” I pricked up my ears beneath my messy hair, waiting for the rest of his confession. “I shouldn’t have left you alone in the house…” His calloused fingers reached out, barely grazing my shoulder, trembling as if terrified I might shatter under his touch. I whipped around, nearly colliding with his nose. “I am furious with you! Get out!” Just moments ago, the system had delivered the full debrief in my mind: Cynthia’s father hadn’t been kidnapped by random thugs; he had run up a two-million-dollar gambling debt with a rogue crew. Cynthia didn’t want to borrow the money from Justin and ruin her pristine image of a proud, independent woman, so she’d decided it would cost her nothing to have Lucian intimidate the loan sharks instead. When they arrived, it turned out the leader of the crew was an ex-member of Lucian’s syndicate who had been brutally exiled years ago for dealing hard drugs. The man held a massive grudge. Cynthia, in her boundless moral superiority, assumed Lucian had orchestrated the whole kidnapping to look like a hero. So she had slapped him across the face in front of everyone. Lucian looked at me now as though he’d been struck by a sledgehammer. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, his arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a crushing embrace so tight I could barely draw breath. “Let go! You’re crushing my stomach!” I pounded against his broad back. He flinched as if electrocuted, instantly releasing me. He backed away on his knees, staring at my belly with undisguised terror in his eyes. “Joanna… please don’t be angry… I bought you salmon.” I blinked. “What?” “It wasn’t for Cynthia?” “You woke up at two in the morning two nights ago and muttered that you wanted salmon sashimi,” he murmured, his eyes downcast like an admonished schoolboy. “I wrote it down in my phone.” I stared at him, utterly speechless. “So…” Lucian stayed on one knee beside the hospital bed, his long fingers gently, cautiously wrapping around mine. “Can you forgive me?” I looked at the bright red rim around his ocean-blue eyes, and a sudden, wicked thought struck me. “Cry me a purple pearl,” I said, lifting my chin. “Then maybe I’ll think about it.” Lucian: “…” Three minutes later, I was sitting comfortably against the pillows, lazily rolling a flawless, shimmering violet pearl between my fingers while the system chimed in my head: [Villain’s corruption level has dropped to 70%!] During my three-day hospital stay, I stumbled upon a mind-boggling secret. The attending OB-GYN performing my ultrasound was an undercover clownfish-merman from the deep sea. I had been covertly watching his slightly bulbous orange-tinted eyes for two days. When he leaned down to calibrate the monitor, I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper: “Can you cry pearls too?” The doctor’s hand jerked so violently his stylus nearly skittered across the floor. He nervously pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Madam… not all aquatic folk possess the tear-crystallization trait. That is an ancient, royal genetic lineage…” I sighed with deep disappointment. Then I turned my head toward Lucian, who was quietly paring an apple in the armchair by the window. “So you’re a shiny limited edition?” I murmured. The paring knife paused. Lucian handed me a translucent apple slice with a completely flat, impassive expression. “Eat your fruit.” I popped it into my mouth. “Fair enough. An infinite pearl-printing husband really was an endangered species.” Over those three days, Cynthia called his phone no fewer than ten times. The first time the ringtone chimed, Lucian was peeling green grapes for me. His screen lit up with her name; his fingers stiffened slightly. I narrowed my eyes. “Answer it.” Lucian silently swiped the red button, declining the call. I extended my palm. “Cry.” Lucian: “…” Five minutes later, a delicate lavender pearl rolled into my hand. The second time the phone vibrated, he was gently massaging my ankles. The buzz broke the quiet rhythm of the room. I fluttered my eyelashes lazily. “Go ahead. Take it.” Without a word, Lucian tapped decline. “Cry.” Lucian took a slow, deep breath, his lower lids reddening instantly. “Plink.” Another pearl. 5 By the fourth and fifth call, Lucian had developed an involuntary conditioned reflex. The moment his ringtone sounded, his eyes would automatically well with water. Before I even had the chance to open my mouth, a tear would already be trembling on the edge of his dark lashes. I laughed so hard I slapped the hospital mattress. “Lucian! Are you on a hair-trigger tear gland now?!” Lucian’s face darkened to the color of storm clouds. He aggressively switched the phone to silent mode, his jaw tight. “Joanna. Do not push your luck.” I blinked innocently. “What did I do? I didn’t say a word.” He stood up, looking thoroughly exasperated, and stepped out onto the balcony to get some air. But not even two minutes later, he quietly walked back in, reached over, and pressed a tiny, perfectly spherical pearl into my palm. “…Stop being mad,” he muttered, looking anywhere but at me. I tilted my head, looking at the jewel. The system was practically howling with digital laughter: [Host, you’ve fully domesticated the city’s greatest menace into a vending machine!] On the day of my discharge, I carried a velvet pouch heavy with pearls, entirely satisfied with the idea of stringing them into a beaded curtain for our master bedroom. Lucian handled my overnight bag with one hand while keeping the other firmly braced around my waist, navigating the hospital corridors as though the floor were paved with eggshells. We had just stepped through the main glass doors when Cynthia suddenly darted out from behind a marble pillar, blocking our path, her face pale and streaked with fresh tears. “Lucian! I need to talk to you!” The second her voice registered, Lucian’s lower eyelids flushed scarlet by pure biological reflex. A fresh tear welled instantly at the corner of his eye.
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