"All hail Your Majesty."
On a majestic gilded throne inside a golden underwater temple in the depths of the ocean, a delicate young mermaid with silky white hair and sapphire blue eyes sat with a dazed expression, her silvery fishtail shifting uncomfortably from time to time as if to express it's owner's inner turmoil.
In front of her, underneath the glowing marble stone steps, thousands of merpeople, schools of fishes and crustaceans coming in a dazzling array of colors bowed their heads in reverence.
"...You may all rise." A complicated look flashed in Ming Yue's eyes for a brief moment. Looking at these familiar yet unfamiliar 'people', she couldn't help but fall into trance.
Obviously, she was just in her room playing her favorite game, "Sovereign of the Seven Seas" when suddenly, a dark blue vortex appeared in front of her and sucked her into it, transforming her body in the process while she remained disorganized due to the tossing and turning. When she finally gained her sanity, she had already appeared out of thin air in the divine underwater temple in place of the sea goddess' golden statue which was carved in likelihood with the image of her avatar in the game.
Her sudden appearance caused a commotion among the merpeople and it took less than a day for the citizens of the underwater kingdom to gather from all over the seven seas in a rush to celebrate the manifestation of the goddess, an illusory existence who once appeared in their darkest times and aided their ancestors when their race was still weak and ignorant while under persecution and being kept in captivity by other races for their beauty, ethereal voice, and body full of treasures.
Looking at their enthusiasm, Ming Yue couldn't help but feel helpless yet also quite proud. It turned out that she didn't spend all her effort and money in vain.
"Sovereign of the Seven Seas" was a mobile business and infrastructure building game she had played tirelessly for years, starting from when she was still a freshman until she graduated from college and became an idle young lady at home who spent most of her time in leisure while squandering the huge inheritance left behind by her parents who died in a car accident when she was barely three years old.
At that time, she was lucky enough to have been sent on a vacation to her grandparents' home. Otherwise, if she had been with them in that car since her parents were used to bringing her with them wherever they go, she would have also lost her life.
It was just a pity. After she graduated from high school, her grandparents died one after another due to illness and old age, leaving her all alone with nothing but the huge wealth of the aristocratic Ming family which made her a delectable piece of meat among the upper class society.
She had experienced being flattered and praised to the skies like the bright moon surrounded by stars and had also tasted being schemed at and stabbed in the back by people and friends whom she once cherished to fill up the emptiness caused by the death of her loved ones.
Thinking of her fiance' who pretended to love her yet inwardly only desired to acquire her properties through marriage and distant relatives who flattered her on weekdays, Ming Yue's lips slowly curled into a pleasant smile.
There was a reason why those people never dared to do anything too underhanded which put her life at risk and choose to grind slowly even though they desperately wanted her to die. This was because before her grandparents' died, they made her sign a will that states that only her child can inherit the Ming family's property. If by any chance she disappeared for more than a month or died in an accident, all of Ming family's wealth shall be donated to the poor mountainous areas to build schools and provide for the education of poor children in the form of scholarships.
Even if those people searched hard for a substitute that looked exactly like her to take her place, it wouldn't work at all since the team of lawyers, doctors, and personal psychologist hired by her grandparents weren't exactly vegetarians who can be fooled so easily. Every end of the month, those people were required to take a bit of her blood and hair to test her DNA and also subject her through various physical and psychological examinations to ensure her identity and well-being.
This time that she was transported into the game and disappeared from reality, the outcome is inevitable.
Since she, the owner herself, couldn't eat it, it made her all the more happier to know that those wolves couldn't get a piece of this meat either.