Chapter 1

Oh, hey. So, yeah, I'm literally in my kitchen right now, and I just rescued a merman cub.

Things are super complicated:

The original me treated the male lead like a personal cash cow, hanging him upside down and forcing him to cry pearls.

My own daughter is a total nightmare.

And that egg, the one that was about to be boiled alive? Yeah, that's his sister.

So, question: Is it too late for a redemption arc? Seriously, asking for a friend. Help!

I burst through the kitchen door. The first thing I saw was a battered blue fishtail, hanging suspended in mid-air.

A flood of memories, or rather, *information*, slammed into my brain. I’d transmigrated into a novel, becoming Chloe, the male lead Leo’s wicked aunt.

The original Chloe, greedy for her sister Rainey’s estate, had ostensibly adopted Leo, a merman hybrid, and his unhatched sister, Anya. But in reality, she’d turned the boy, who could shed pearls when he cried, into her personal money-making machine. Along with her biological daughter, Hazel, the original Chloe had cruelly abused the little merman. And twenty years later, the adult Leo had brutally sliced her up. Literally, like *sashimi*.

The child hanging from the kitchen beam in front of me couldn't have been more than six or seven years old. His small body was tightly bound from head to tail.

Most of his beautiful scales had been pried off, revealing raw, pink flesh underneath. Directly below him, a small wooden bucket held a handful of rice-sized pearls.

*This* was Leo? The future male lead?

"Mom, what's up? Is the egg almost ready to cook?"

A little girl with bouncy pigtails trotted up behind me, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she peered at the stove.

Only then did I notice the large pot full of water on the stove. Inside, a pale blue egg glowed faintly.

My heart hammered in my chest. I quickly turned off the burner. The water was already close to boiling. I carefully wrapped the egg in my apron and lifted it out.

"Mom, what are you doing? Didn't you say we were having boiled egg today?" Hazel pouted, clearly annoyed by my actions.

"This isn't an eating egg."

I carefully placed the pale blue egg in the sink and turned on the faucet, trying to cool it down.

Then I turned back to the boy still hanging. He'd been struggling frantically since I walked in, his blue eyes continuously shedding tiny pearls. Muffled whimpers escaped his bound mouth.

"Don't be scared, your sister is fine." I moved towards Leo, but realized I couldn't reach the rope tied to his fishtail.

I grabbed a chair and stood on it. As I worked on the knots, I said to Hazel, "Hazel, sweetie, can you go grab two towels for Mom? The softest ones you can find."

The moment the rope loosened, his skinny body plummeted. I frantically caught him.

He was terrifyingly light in my arms, his ribs starkly visible. A faint scent of blood and seawater clung to him.

"Mom, are you crazy? If you let him down, where will we get pearls? What about Dad's medical bills?"

Hazel had just brought the towels when she saw me putting Leo down. She tossed the towels at me, yelling.

"Hazel! This is your cousin!" I snapped at my daughter, then wrapped Leo in a towel and removed the gag from his mouth.

"Sis..." The first thing he did, free from his restraints, was reach for the egg in the sink.

I quickly wrapped the other towel around the egg and tucked it into his arms.

Only then did Leo truly calm down, clutching the egg tightly. His blue eyes, filled with distrust and fear, stared straight at me.

"I won't ever treat you two like this again."

I murmured softly, my fingers gently brushing over Leo's wounds, my heart aching with sympathy.

But Leo clearly didn't trust me. He flinched, curling back, his gaze fixed on my hands.