This is a very regular long straight channel, but the outer case of the channel forms a spiral pattern and shape. Although it looks slender from a distance, it is actually very spacious inside.
When the camera was closest to the wall, because of the cold light source, Yin Lian vaguely felt that the surface of the passage had a texture like a shell or even a pearl. But even if she didn't know enough about the Mermaid Kingdom, she could still find that the passage itself was not a natural shell, but some kind of artificial product.
It may be that mermaids live in the sea, so many projects also use shells or corals as various construction materials. In fact, according to human standards, this passage is very unqualified as a passage, because even if the pattern is fine and uniform, it cannot hide the fact that the top, bottom, left and right of the passage are uneven.
But the mermaids don't care about this - when they pass through, they essentially swim in the water and don't really touch the surface of the channel.
Walking through this passage in this way, Yin Lian noticed that the algae seemed to have entered a huge cave on the bottom of the sea. To say it is a cave is an understatement, it is more like the belly of a whole mountain.
There is actually a conch-shaped castle in the middle of the mountain.
Yin Lian asked Zaosheng: "What kind of building is that?"
Zaosheng replied: "This town belongs to Princess Bai Beilang, and it is the princess's castle. However, my relationship with her is not very good, so it is not convenient for me to take you to see it."
Then he paused for a moment, then said: "...If you really want to see it, when there are fewer people around, I will find a road with fewer people and take you to sneak in and have a look."
Yin Lian thought for a while and then said considerately: "If it's dangerous, I'd better not do it. But you and the princess have conflicts, is there no problem?"
Zaosheng said nonchalantly: "It's not that serious of a conflict. Besides, if we really have to fight, she may not be able to beat me."
Yin Lian also noticed from his tone that just like Zaosheng considered himself to be of noble status but did not bring an entourage when he went to the Xiating base as an envoy, the mermaid's class concept seemed not as obvious as that of humans. Or their class concept is indeed obvious, but it is just because of their own social system problems that their power overrides their class.
Zaosheng did not seem to take the conflict with the princess to heart. She looked around, seemed to think for a moment, and quickly took the camera through a group of seaweeds and came to a place with a relatively large number of mermaids.
Although the number is relatively large, it cannot be compared with the cities on land, and even the number of people in the countryside is not as good. There were only a dozen or so mermaids in the water, and there were only a dozen of them within sight.
Yin Lian asked: "Where is this place?"
Zaosheng said: "It's a market, but there's no one around now because it's working time." Then she flicked her tail, turned around, and swam into a shop disguised as a giant coral, and asked, "Is there any good one?" Is it smooth?"
I don’t know if the person in the store was the clerk or the owner. She was sleeping in a corner of the store before. When she heard the sound of algae growing, she woke up immediately. Then when she saw her in person, she immediately shouted: "Algae." Sir.”
Yin Lian thought for a while and asked a little strangely: "Your appearance has changed, can he still recognize you?"
The clerk was a little surprised when he heard Yin Lian speaking, and then asked: "This is the... human lady, right?"
Yin Lian said: "Hello."
Although they are from a different race, hearing that the other person can speak the language of their own race will inevitably make people feel a sense of intimacy, so the clerk also smiled and said, "Hello."
But I heard Zaosheng explain softly to Yin Lian: "We do not rely on the shape of the head to identify each other, but mainly on the shape and distribution of the scales and light spots on the body. Is this different from you humans? Because You are all wrapped in an opaque film."
Yin Lian understood immediately.
The clerk said: "Is this the human being who can speak our language? Although she looks a little strange, she is so beautiful, like an ornament made of shells. But Master Zaosheng, you'd better not let the princess see her, she I will definitely be angry.”
But Zaosheng was very indifferent and said: "So what? What does it have to do with me?"
The clerk saw her indifferent attitude, hesitated for a moment, and then stopped talking.
Zaosheng thought for a while and felt that she had good intentions after all, so he said: "Don't worry, I don't want that guy to see it either. I agreed to take Li An to visit our city, and I didn't want anyone to ruin my good mood. "
The clerk took out the light grease that Zaosheng mentioned, and only then did Yin Lian know what it was. This thing turned out to be a cold light source that could be applied to the scales. Zaosheng demonstrated it to Yin Lian. Yin Lian saw that she put a little bit of this thing on the scales, and very beautiful light appeared on the scales. The light spots, I immediately realized that this must be the cosmetics of the mermaid tribe.
But it doesn't feel like fluorescent powder - the texture is more delicate and the light source is brighter. It should be some kind of seabed creature or mineral material.
Zaosheng said to her: "We are of different races, and we like very different things. I don't know what to give you, but this light fat is quite popular here. And I discovered that although you humans are not physically fit, It emits light but likes to use various light sources. This may be useful to you."
Yin Lian said: "You are so polite, which makes me a little embarrassed. I don't know what to prepare for you in return..."
However, Zaosheng's tone sounded a bit lonely and uninterested, and he said: "No, it's just an ordinary gift. If you are still a cub, just keep it. Speaking of which, how much do you humans need as adults? Year?"
Yin Lian thought for a while and replied, "About twenty years."
This is the standard of Xia Kingdom.
Zaosheng misunderstood, thinking that Yin Lian would not reach adulthood for another twenty years, and immediately fell silent.
The voices of mermaids are full of emotion, which makes it difficult to distinguish their expressions, but their emotions are easily leaked from their voices.
But she quickly cheered up and took Yin Lian to see other shops. If there was anything Yin Lian found interesting during the trip, she would buy it without hesitation and then put it into a fake shell.
This fake shell seems to be quite high-tech, and it will automatically follow her even without dragging it with algae.
But the size is not very large, and it doesn't look like it can accommodate a mermaid.
Yin Lian couldn't help but ask: "You have a shell like this, can't you make it bigger and travel in it?"
Zaosheng glanced down at her, seeming a little confused, and said: "This shell... It's okay to make it bigger, but if it is bigger, it will probably swim slower. In fact, it is already slow enough now, and it is far from swimming on its own. It’s convenient to get up. And if you encounter a battle outside, it’s very inconvenient to have to hide it in order to avoid damaging things.”
Following the mermaid's train of thought, Yin Lian actually felt that it made sense.
I can only regret that after all, I don’t know enough about the actual situation on the seabed, and my ideas are still limited to the human way of thinking. When she realized this, she suppressed many questions and tried to think about these problems from the perspective of a mermaid.
Then she discovered a lot of details.
Mermaids habitually make all technological items extremely natural and confusing. In fact, it may be because there are many dangers under the sea, or perhaps because their technological coverage of the entire underwater world is insufficient, resulting in most places still belonging to the Wilderness areas.
This involves various issues, such as the frequency of regeneration of seabed resources and the development of mermaid planting and breeding. But more importantly, it is a key point that Yin Lian noticed - population and fertility rate.
Although the size of this town does not appear to be very small, and it stands to reason that the fertility rate of fish is not low, but when any creature develops to a high-end level, the fertility rate is likely to decrease. Of course, this is not a conclusion, it is an inference and conjecture, but based on some of the clues that Yin Lian saw, she thinks that at least for the mermaid, this inference is reliable.
First, when the mermaids reach the breeding season, they will be forced to undergo transformation in order to reproduce. If the population was large enough, or the fertility rate was as high as real fish, then there would be no need for such a legal system in this underwater kingdom.
Secondly, although Zaosheng said that it is not normal for people to be sparse on the street, if you take a look at the situation in the entire town, you will find that it is much smaller than human towns, and shell or spiral-shaped houses are located... Also scattered. This is still the territory of a princess. If the princess herself is not of high status, then the population of the mermaid clan is not dense.
Zaosheng went in and out of a few more shops, and then the situation in the street market changed. It looked much livelier than before.
More and more mermaids came from all directions.
But under such circumstances, Zaosheng deliberately avoided the crowd, found a sparsely populated path, and slowly walked around to the side and rear of the castle.
When she was taking a detour, Yin Lian could occasionally see the situation near the castle - it seemed that a pair of mermaids slowly began to swim out of the castle. The leader's tail had gorgeous patterns, and the white jade-like scales were flashing with bright spots. Hong, Yin Lian suspected that it was Princess Bai Beilang. They seemed to be preparing to leave the town. They didn't know whether they were going to hunt or patrol, or what property they were patrolling.
Zaosheng seemed to want to wait for them to leave before sneaking into the castle.
Yin Lian was very considerate of her. Although she didn't understand the social situation of mermaids, but based on the general situation of human society, she felt that it was not right to sneak into a princess's territory without authorization.
So she took the initiative to persuade Zaosheng a few words: "Actually, I don't necessarily want to see the castle. I think it's better to forget it and stop causing trouble for you."
As a result, Zaosheng was very insistent and even snorted and said disapprovingly: "Am I afraid of her!?"
Seeing her conceited look, Yin Lian felt that her identity might be very extraordinary, and she might really not care about such things, so she stopped persuading her.
After the others had almost left, Zaosheng took Yin Lian and sneaked into the princess's palace.
She covered the camera with her webbed palms, and the scales on her body slowly changed color, and she quickly blended into the environment, as if she was invisible.
Yin Lian didn't realize this at first. He noticed the change when he saw the mermaids around him reacting inappropriately. After questioning the algae creature, I found out that this was not the mermaid's natural ability, but a special technological power.
Yin Lian was surprised and said, "But I didn't see any equipment you were carrying."
Zaosheng smiled and said, "You humans seem to like to carry conspicuous instruments, but our instruments are usually eaten."
Yin Lian: "..." She only knew that mermaids could analyze the composition of some materials by eating. She didn't know that they even put instruments into their bodies for use.
Yin Lian was taken around the castle and saw many amazing decorations. The underwater kingdom really has a unique sense of beauty. Obviously the aesthetics of the mermaids...or the aesthetics of the upper-class mermaids are still very good.
As a result, when he was about to leave, a silver light suddenly appeared from the side. It was unknown whether it was a creature or a weapon, and it suddenly shot towards the two-way camera device in Zaosheng's hand.
That thing was so fast that Zao Sheng was afraid that he would not be able to protect the lens in his hand, so he suddenly turned around and fell directly to the ground. The silver light seemed to be frightened, and turned around in mid-air, dangerously and dangerously. It just happened to brush against her shoulder and arm.
Then Yin Lian heard a high-pitched mermaid voice shouting: "Are you crazy!?"
