Flower bud

The mark of the Houdie family did not appear at birth, it was only when the cub was a year old that it started to show.

The mermaids in the Houdie family all had a light golden mark on their forehead. One just had to look at the photos from Connor branch to see that without exception, every mermaid cub bearing the Houdie name had this golden mark on their foreheads.

Among the employees, Xia Qi was the first to join Yunbao Branch. It could be said that Xia Qi had watched the little mermaid cub grow up from the moment that kind man had brought the cub to their club.

The mermaid cub did not have a mark at first and although she later discovered a very shallow golden patter on the cub's forehead, Xia Qi had not thought much about it at that time.

Coming across this huge information now, Xia Qi felt as if her brain had been stirred and could only sit down in her seat for a moment, absentmindedly staring at the comments under the forwarded post.

With a sluggish spirit, Xia Qi then picked up the connector and left the office in a hurry.

In the living room at the cub house, several adults were currently playing with the cubs.

Xie Tao raised his eyes when he heard someone enter and noticed that the expression of the other person who walked through the door seemed unnatural. As he had many fluffy cubs presently trying to climb his body, Xie Tao only threw an inquiring look at her.

"I don't know how to... It's better if you see for yourselves." Xia Qi's mind was still a complete mess. She therefore simply held the connector up in front of everyone and closed her mouth.

Looking at the content shown on the virtual screen, the expression on the surrounding people's faces immediately changed. This was especially true for the three people aside from Xie Tao, who could only look at each other in dismay. They obviously did not know how to deal with the massive news they had received.

When it came to the Houdie family, the present people's knowledge was limited to the extent that they had only barely heard of the name before. After all, they were not a member of the mermaid race.

It was true that the family was prestigious among the mermaid race, but it was not easy to have one's name spread throughout the universe and have it reach the ears of the many other races.

However what was important was not to think about that family but what their family, the club, would do now that they knew who the mermaid cub's family was.

Xie Tao first coaxed the cubs clinging onto his body and told them to play next to him, leaving the Knox cub lying quietly on his shoulder. He then took the initiative to break the silence, "Actually, I don't think we need to think too much about this."

"Little Gale was deliberately abandoned here on Gaia. We have already confirmed this. Nothing has changed." Xie Tao voiced his thoughts, the tone he spoke with was calm, but his attitude was undoubtedly serious.

Hearing the youth's words, the surrounding people whose heads had been filled with various thoughts and worries, suddenly changed expressions and calmed down a bit.

The mermaid cub had been abandoned. Xia Qi had been thinking about this from the very beginning and felt that if the cub truly was born in the Houdie family, then it was even more likely that he had been intentionally abandoned by his family.

If that wasn't the case, wouldn't a big family like that intently look for their lost cub? How come that there had been no movement from the other these past years?

The only way for it to make sense was if the family didn't want to find the cub.

"Ah Tao is right. We just need to take good care of little Gale like we always have. It doesn't make any difference whether we know who his family is or not." Xia Qi was the first to react and agree with the words of the youth opposite her.

The mermaid cub belonged here at their club now. They were no longer short of funds, so of course they would continue to raise him.

No one in the club had any objections regarding this. However, seeing their carefree attitudes Zheng Zhou felt that he had no choice but to bring up a scary possibility.

On the assumption that the cub was intentionally abandoned, they did not intend to contact the cub's family on their own accord. This, however, did not mean that it was entirely impossible for the Houdie family to come looking on their own.

"If no one comes for little Gale, we will of course do as Xia Qi said. But if people from the Houdie family want to take Gale back, no matter if they are sincere or not, we don't have the right to stop them..." Zheng Zhou calmly analyzed the situation and the conclusion he came to was not very optimistic.

"If they publicly recognize Gale as one of them and demand him back, they will not let little Gale stay at our branch. If not, how would that look to the public?"

On that Xingyou page, Zheng Zhou had seen that there were already a few hundred comments below the forwarded post. He estimated that most of the people debating over it were from the mermaid race.

Originally, it was still impossible for Zheng Zhou to say whether the Houdie family would hear about it just from this. However, soon thereafter, he had seen someone go directly to Connor's official home page to leave a message for inquiry, and he now felt that there was a very high possibility that the Houdie family would learn about this matter...

"They deliberately threw away their cub on Gaia, which is so far away from Haliumite, how can they have any of speck of sincerity left in their hearts?" Xia Qi bluntly retorted.

If the Houdie family really sent people to take the mermaid cub back, Xia Qi felt that it would only be to publicly save face. However, she had to admit that what Zheng Zhou said was very likely to happen.

But how could they let the cub go back to a family who ruthlessly abandoned him?

What kind of interstellar joke was this?

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Translator's note:

As I was translating this chapter I got so pissed off at those Houdie people for abandoning our precious Gale like that, sentencing him to a slow death, that my brain suddenly decided to become sassy and I just couldn't stop reading Houdie as Ho-u-die, you know, cough, "Hoe you die", haha.

Anyway, on another note →

Yesterday I discovered that a lot of ads had started showing up on my site, in mid-text. I didn't enable it so I don't know when it started but I was probably a bit slow to notice. I contacted wordpress support and it seems that they are testing inline ads. Anyway, since I can't turn them off or choose how many are shown, I have asked to be excused from the test.

So, to summarize, only the two ads at the bottom should now show like usual.

They shouldn't get in the way of your reading experience, so if you want to support my translations please test turning off your ad blocker while viewing my site. ^^

Also, many thanks to all of you who already do that ♥︎