When the Dream Ends

Chapter 1

To stop the mermaid massacre, I decided to seduce my childhood sweetheart, Chase Sterling, now a top scientist, using my looks.

He still loved me deeply, and he wouldn’t let me go for seven days and nights.

I woke up from the ecstasy, only to have a bucket of concentrated sulfuric acid dumped on me.

Chase watched me scream in agony, but he laughed coldly.

“So immortal mermaids feel pain, huh?”

“But this pain is nothing compared to the loss of my parents!”

“This is just the beginning. Unless you tell me where my parents are, you’ll never leave!”

For two years, I was forced to watch him marry another woman.

He threatened me with the lives of my people, forbidding me from leaving.

He repeatedly cut open my heart, extracting my pearl, using its essence to improve his new wife’s health.

Chase shackled me, ordering me to clean up his used condoms all night without sleep.

I had to listen to their lovemaking, enduring the excruciating pain as I danced on the knife’s edge to lull his wife to sleep.

Later, when his wife became pregnant, Chase started cutting off my mermaid flesh to supplement his wife’s nutrition.

He hated me deeply, yet every time I was near death, he gently fed me medicine.

“You’re relying on my love for you. Tell me, where are my parents?”

I silently felt his conflicting love.

Soon, I wouldn’t have to keep the secret anymore.

Because mermaids who stay on land for three years die if they don’t return to the sea.

And there were only three days left until my death.

…

At three in the morning, the storage room door was kicked open.

I was grabbed and slapped repeatedly.

The blows only stopped when my mouth was ripped and bleeding.

Chase’s assistant dragged me out, cursing.

“The mistress is hurt, and you’re still sleeping so soundly!”

The salty sea breeze carried the stench of blood.

The trail of blood led to Chase’s bedroom.

Seeing the blood trail, Chase frowned.

“Mandy’s hurt. Go treat her.”

I looked up, at Mandy’s rosy cheeks and swollen belly—

“Slap!” Chase slapped me.

He looked down at me from above.

“I told you to treat Mandy. Do your eyes even deserve to look at her?”

I immediately lowered my head.

“Sorry.”

Then I slowly crawled to the bed.

I then learned that Mandy had been bitten on her fingertip while feeding the mermaid in the middle of the night.

Over the years, I had become accustomed to Mandy’s various ailments.

So, skillfully, I lifted my clothes, pierced my chest with my sharp nails.

Sweating and enduring the excruciating pain, I extracted the pearl from my heart to heal Mandy.

In silence, Chase’s voice was cold.

“Lily, you’re just playing the victim.”

In his eyes, this was me playing the victim.

Because mermaid blood could also heal.

But my blood was no longer useful.

Mandy coughed and woke up, Chase immediately hugged her.

“Does it still hurt?”

Mandy bit her lip, glancing at my chest.

“Honey, I don’t know why, but the smell of blood makes me want to throw up since I got pregnant.”

Hearing this, Chase kicked me away.

“Get out and guard the door!”

I crawled away, listening to the man’s gentle voice behind me.

“Mandy, you haven’t been sleeping well lately, is it the baby? Let me listen.”

My heart, which had been calm, ached. More blood flowed from my unhealed wound.

A maid threw a bucket of foul-smelling water on me.

Her face was full of disgust.

“Monster, don’t you heal? Why are you still bleeding? So dirty!”

A mop hit my forehead, and I flinched in pain.

“Clean the floor, or I’ll go get Mr. Sterling!”

For the rest of the night, I mopped the floor.

Listening to the amorous entanglement inside the room, I shed a tear.

Chase’s disgusted expression magnified endlessly in my mind.

Soon, I would be free.

Even immortal mermaids die, and I only had three days left.

When I cleaned the last drop of blood, my wounds finally healed.

A new day began at the seaside manor.

Chase, with tiny red marks on his neck, walked out of the bedroom.

He frowned at the now blood-red mop.

“How much blood is this?”

I didn’t explain, bowing my head.

“Sorry, I’ll clean it up immediately.”

In the distance, a maid was pruning flowers, speaking loudly on purpose.

“You wouldn’t believe it, that monster actually asked me how to please a man. She must be trying to seduce Mr. Sterling!”

“Definitely. A woman like her dares to dream of becoming Mrs. Sterling? If it wasn’t for her, Mr. Sterling’s parents wouldn’t have disappeared!”

I wanted to leave quickly, but Chase was faster.

He kicked things aside and dragged me to the lab.

I sat on the electric chair, my head dizzy and nauseous.

Chase held the remote, legs crossed, his face gloomy.

“Almost forgot, it’s been a month since I interrogated you.”

“Tell me, where are my parents?”

Before he pressed the switch, my hands instinctively scratched at the armrest.

Until my fingers were bleeding.

“I don’t know.”

As soon as I finished speaking, 100,000 volts of electricity surged through my body.

I screamed and convulsed, hot liquid flowing from my lower body.

Even after the first shock ended, I was still twitching.

Chase couldn’t sit still, gritting his teeth, he asked again.

I spat out blood, every organ in my body ached.

“I won’t tell you.”

I couldn’t tell him. It was a secret concerning their safety.

This time, Chase didn’t press the button again, but instead had someone bring several pearls I’d hidden in a crack in the wood.

My eyes widened, my pupils trembling.

“What are you going to do?”

“You should be able to guess, shouldn’t you?”

Chase sneered, throwing a pearl on the ground and crushing it with his foot!

Listening to my bloody screams, he laughed.

“Is this your father’s or mother’s pearl? I heard that to kill you, you have to crush the pearl, otherwise, you’ll revive.”

“You’re so tenacious…still unwilling to speak?”

My fingernails had broken, revealing my white bones.

Tears of blood streamed down my cheeks.

“Chase, I hate you.”

In response, Chase’s kiss was almost enough to bite my tongue off.

Chase’s kiss made me dazed.

I’ve been getting weaker lately, I almost forgot how much we loved each other.

Mermaids love humans, often transforming and going ashore to form relationships with humans.

When I was three years old, I met Chase for the first time.

When he saw me, he asked his mother.

“Mom, is this the bride you found for me?”

Mrs. Sterling chuckled and gave him a tap on the head.

Later, our families became close friends, often getting together.

Until I was fifteen, mermaids were hunted and killed by humans, and I had to leave.

But sometimes, I would secretly go ashore to see Chase.

When someone asked me who I was, I was about to say I was his sister.

But he said seriously.

“She’s my girlfriend, and my future wife, Lily.”

At that moment, I was truly moved.

Later, the mermaids and a group of top scientists made a deal.

The contact persons were my parents and Chase’s parents.

Chase’s parents disappeared.

I was one of the suspects.

He hates me, I know, but I can’t tell him.

Years later, Chase became a top scientist.

And I, had to get close to him for my people.

Many times, I wanted to tell him the truth directly.

But I couldn’t.

But it doesn’t matter, I don’t need to endure it for much longer.

Chase’s fingers set fire to my skin.

He suddenly stopped, looking at his bloody hands.

I noticed that the old wounds from the flesh-cutting had started to relapse.

I laughed numbly.

“I’m going to die, Chase.”

But Chase acted like he heard a forbidden word, and went crazy.

He found a bottle of pills and forced them into my mouth.

His voice was like frozen ice.

“You dare to die without my permission?”

He unlocked my shackles and pressed my head into the sink, watching me choke on water.

Chase’s eyes were bloodshot, he panted heavily, as if he was suffocating.

To prevent the water from flooding my lungs, I held my breath.

The feeling of suffocation made my face turn blue and swollen.

Only when the strong healing pills took effect and my wounds stopped bleeding, did he pull my hair and lift me up.

As soon as I regained consciousness, Chase put my shackles back on.

Like a dog, he chained me to the bed.

Mandy, with seductive eyes, leaned against him.

Her gaze shifted, looking at me with a strange and vicious look.

Her red lips moved silently, saying to me.

“Lily, I want you to die!”

Half asleep, I felt someone stroking my hair.

That person’s tears flowed into my mouth, salty.

“Lily, if none of that had happened, how wonderful it would have been?”

Was it Chase?

Was he crying?

I tried to open my eyes, but there was no Chase.

His assistant dragged me by the rope on my feet to the manor’s courtyard.

Mermaids don’t like sunlight, especially me, who is about to die.

Mandy greeted me with a smile, a malicious curve on her lips.

“Lily, do you want to eat?”

Chase, holding Mandy, seeing me not answering, kicked me.

The kick landed on my near-bursting wound.

Blood immediately soaked my clothes.

Chase was irritated and didn’t want to give me a glance.

He threw the windbreaker on the lounge chair over me.

“Mandy gets motion sickness from blood, cover her quickly!”

Mandy’s eyes flashed, and she threw large chunks of raw meat and muddy vegetables in front of me.

Her voice was tender.

“Lily, eat quickly.”

For some reason, I looked up at Chase.

Why did I feel that he pitied me?

Without expression, I bent down and gnawed on the muddy cabbage, my fingers scratching at the dirt on the ground.

Mandy’s concerned voice was beside me.

“Lily, why don’t you eat the meat? You need to eat meat to be healthy!”

Without thinking, I tore off a piece of meat.

My sense of smell was almost gone, I didn’t know what kind of meat it was.

“Is it delicious? Mermaid meat is very nutritious!”

My eating movement stopped, I looked at Mandy.

Her smile widened, making my stomach churn.

“Ugh——”

“Ah, my shoes!”

The filth soiled Mandy’s shoes.

The assistant didn’t need to be told, he grabbed my collar and slapped my tear-stained face.

Chase had a severe cleanliness fetish, but he bent down to wipe Mandy’s shoes with a handkerchief.

So gentle, so meticulous.

Before, after using me to vent his desires, he wouldn’t even bother to wipe me down.

Now he was unhappy.

“What a waste! Since you don’t want to eat, feed it to the dogs!”

Mandy smiled softly.

“Lily is just not hungry, don’t force her.”

“Why don’t you have her help me with my painting, as atonement?”

Chase smiled helplessly.

“You’re too kind.”

He looked at me coldly, wanting to say something, but a phone call interrupted him.

Chase said something affectionate to Mandy, and then gently leaned down and kissed her pregnant belly.

For some reason, my nose felt a little sour.

After he left, Mandy’s expression turned cold.

“I don’t like people watching me paint. Go to the basement.”

I said nothing and went to the basement.

A maid threw me a few buckets.

She looked disdainful, and said in a pinched voice.

“Hey, the mistress’s painting needs red paint, nothing is more beautiful than blood red. Get three buckets of blood now!”

A rusty blade was thrown over.

“Use this to cut yourself.”

I stammered.

“It’s rusty.”

The maid spat.

“Do you think you’re a lady? A monster that won’t die doesn’t deserve good things?!”

Then, she watched me with her arms crossed.

Without saying a word, I picked up the blade and cut my wrist.

Bright red blood dripped into the buckets.

Until I was shivering and my lips were blue, I filled three buckets.

I leaned against the wall, lost in thought.

The maid who went to wash clothes gossiped.

“The mistress’s painting is beautiful, but the materials are hard to find, you have to kill several mermaids to get a little mermaid pearl powder.”

“Some blood isn’t pure either, monsters are monsters, they’re different from us humans.”

My hair stood on end, I supported myself on the wall to stand up.

I trudged to the courtyard and heard a piercing cry.

Broken mermaid corpses littered the ground at Mandy’s feet.

She stepped on a fishtail, cut out a clear pearl, and crushed it forcefully.

I felt my heart break too.

Mandy smiled at me, a malicious curve on her lips.

“Lily, I only found out today that every pearl has a different color!”

“Unfortunately, I only want white ones, why don’t you help me, dig out all their pearls——”

I saw my younger brother in the water tank.

He was only ten years old and couldn’t even transform yet.

“Sister, save me!” He hit the glass, his tears turning into pearls.

Mandy pouted, her eyes full of malice.

“Oh, he’s your brother. So cute! Why don’t we try him first!”

Two bodyguards grabbed my brother and brought him to Mandy’s knife.

I could no longer control my emotions, I knelt on the ground and kowtowed frantically.

“Mistress, please, please let my brother go!”

“Use my pearl, mine is white!”

Mandy twirled the knife.

“But I want to open a blind box today, it’s so interesting!”

“Little brother, today sister will open yours first, then Lily’s——Ah, what are you doing!!”

“Don’t hurt my sister!”

My brother, red-eyed, struggled hard, biting Mandy’s wrist.

In a second, he was kicked away by Chase who rushed over.

His teeth were all gone, he fell beside me.