Harker blinked back tears, and cleared his throat. "Um.. Doctor, can I ask you another favor?"

Dr. Rothstein blinked under the thick lens of his glasses that made his eyes look comically large. "What is it?"

"Well, can you perform a short blood transfusion between me and the mermaid? I want to donate some of my blood to her. Just 100 milliliters would do." Harker asked.

The doctor was even more confused. "I could but... What are your blood types?"

Harker's eyes widened. He just remembered about the blood types. That's really important, as the body would reject a donor's blood if the blood type was incompatible. It can cause severe damage to the immune system.

"Well... Fishes have different blood types from humans. But Princess Jinzhu was not a full fish either. So mermaids may have a completely different set of blood groups..." Harker thought about it. "This is really more complicated than what Yan led me to believe."

"Who?" The doctor asked.

"Nothing. I changed my mind." Harker said. "I can't endanger the princess—"

"Do it."

Princess Jinzhu suddenly awakened. No, she was probably already stirring awake a while ago and overheard the conversation. The look of disappointment in her face was evident. Harker did not like seeing the hope in her eyes disappear like that.

"I don't care how dangerous it is. I can handle it. I'm a jiaoren, descendant of the Flood Dragons." She said firmly.

Dr. Rothstein rubbed his goatee. "Yes, your immunity seems more resilient than average humans, so the effects of transfusion incompatibility reaction might be lessened."

Harker tried to reason with her. "But if this accidentally brought even worse damage to you, Princess—"

"I will take that risk. I already took a lot of risks just by staying here in America." Princess Jinzhu told him. "Receiving your blood and getting sickness from it is nothing. You will not be blamed, it will be my fault in the end."

Harker clenched his fists, and eventually relented. "About that, doctor... Can you lower it then to just a 5ml syringe of my blood? I just want to know what the effects would be."

The doctor agreed, and so he took a syringe and injected the blood to the princess' arm.

They waited for the effects. Then, the princess suddenly made a face like she was in pain. Harker instantly became anxious. He jumped from bed and went by her side despite just being under a surgery, trying to see why the princess was distressed.

"Your Highness, are you feeling alright—"

"Just get out of here. Both of you, please." She said. "Get out."

Harker furrowed his brows. "But why—"

The princess gave him that firm look, and so he eventually left the guest room where they performed the surgery with Dr. Rothstein.

They passed by Roland on the hallway, who was about to deliver what seemed to be trays of food that he cooked to help Harker and Princess Jinzhu recover. He was surprised to see Harker out of the surgical bed so early.

"What's going on—"

historical

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

An otherworldly growl came from inside the room. No doubt from Princess Jinzhu. Harker's heart palpitated even faster, as he tried to understand what the sounds were.

Was it howls of pain? Was it something else? He was more jittery than his first ever job interview where he forgot his own name.

"Princess Jinzhu received my blood, and there's a chance that this would allow her to shapeshift into a human. But we don't know if her blood could be compatible with mine, and bring risks to her immune system." Harker explained to Roland. "She asked us to leave."

Roland frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. You should be watching so you would know how the transformation works, right?"

He still opened the door, despite Harker trying to stop him. And then....

It revealed Princess Jinzhu laying on her shallow tank.

With human legs.

Harker's eyes widened. "Holy mother of corn..."

His eyes went above the smooth, human legs and then he went to cover eyes.

"I'm sorry!" Harker said.

He noticed Roland surprised and still looking, and so he covered his eyes too. "Hey, don't look at her while she's naked, Rol!"

Roland scoffed, putting his hand away. "I have seen many naked girls before. It's just a female body, aren't you used to studying this too?"

"But this is Princess Jinzhu's body! Show some respect!"

Princess Jinzhu tilted her head to the side. "Haven't you seen my genitals before when I was a mermaid, Harker sir? What's so wrong with this one?"

Harker doesn't know why he was so flustered. They were right, there's no need to be. But he just never expected that he would be seeing the princess this way...

He cleared his throat, and tried to shoo away his thoughts. "Ahem... Yeah, you're right. How are you feeling, by the way? That's the important thing."

Princess Jinzhu pursed her lips. "I feel... weird. I'm not used to moving without my tail, it feels so light too."

Roland, who used to despise her so much, went by her side and asked softly. "Can you walk?"

"I... I think so?" Princess Jinzhu said.

Besides her tail, the scales that covered her up to her torso were almost gone. There were still some of them sticking into the human skin, and there was a sticky membrane that surrounded her new patches of skin. Like that sticky goo on newborn babies.

Her fins were also gone, and her golden hair covered her now visible breasts.

However, nothing covered her lower genitals. Harker tried not to have his eyes wander off there too much, despite not really being fazed by the genitals of the dead women he encountered during his studies.

Princess Jinzhu tried to stand on her own, but slipped on the water. Harker and Roland rushed to support her. Slowly, they were able to make the mermaid turned human balance herself on two feet and stand.

"Hmm.. You might need to take some walking therapies before you learn how to walk properly." Roland said. "How long does this transformation take anyway? I'll go fetch some wheelchairs if we have one available."

"I think I know where your father placed your old one, Roland." Dr. Rothstein said. "Let me show you, it's in the attic.."

The two left, and Harker called out to Yan to ask about Roland's question.

"5 ml of your blood would not last long, Master." The eyeball explained. "The effects would eventually wear off without much contact from your DNA. But she has now acquired some of the Shapeshifting Ability too, and if she consistently has the DNA of humans, she will be able to stay in this unfinished human form longer."

Yan then frowned. "However, I have to warn that the moment your DNA runs out, she will suffer the side effects of the incompatible blood transfusion—"

Not long after saying that, Princess Jinzhu felt her knees weaken and she started screaming again.

"AHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Harker now witnessed how the transformation looked like.

Her transformation was nothing like his smooth one that goes on and off like a switch. For her....

Her skin gets peeled layer by layer, and then reconstructed again. He could see her muscle fibers, and that too got flayed until her bones showed up. Then, the bones cling and crush against each other to have a new form.

She was basically being reformed before her eyes, with the pain of each change still as vivid as having your body chopped to bits excruciatingly slow.

Harker gulped. He could almost feel her own pain too, and it was enough to make someone pass out.