Connor returned from fishing at sea, bringing back a beautiful mermaid. The woman had snow-white skin, her upper body bare, while her lower half shimmered with light blue scales. “Aria, after I skin her, I’ll make you a flowing celestial dress. How about that?” Connor said, grinning at his sister. But at night, I saw Connor forcing the mermaid to kneel before him, emitting strange and pleasurable sounds. It wasn’t until later that I suddenly discovered scales growing on my own body. Late at night, Connor returned from fishing, wearing a straw raincoat. He looked tired, but his eyes were bright. He dragged a sack behind him, smiling as he said, “Aria, we’re going to be rich.” I hurried forward to take it from him, but when I pulled the open sack, the heavy contents inside startled me. “Connor, did you catch a mermaid?” I asked, my voice trembling slightly. Our village was called Pearl Village, and it had a long-standing tradition of hunting mermaids. Every part of a mermaid was valuable. The fabric they wove was called mermaid silk, as light as floating moonlight, worth a thousand gold pieces per yard. The tears they shed were rare mermaid pearls, exclusively for royal use. The candles made from mermaid fat could burn for a thousand years without extinguishing. The skin and scales could be made into flowing celestial dresses, and even the bones could be used in medicine to cure all diseases. When my grandfather was alive, he was the best fisherman in the village, almost catching a mermaid every year. This skill was passed down to my father, and after my father became lame, it was passed on to Connor. However, as humans overfished, mermaids became increasingly rare. It had been five years since anyone had caught one. Our family’s fortunes had declined as a result. This was also why Connor, in his twenties, still hadn’t found a wife. The market price for mermaid products had been steadily rising, reaching the value of tens of thousands of gold pieces. The female mermaid Connor had caught was exceptionally beautiful. Although she was still unconscious, she had a pair of mesmerizing eyes, a willow-like waist, and an unusually full upper body. Her cherry-red lips opened and closed slightly. Her long hair clung to her snow-white skin, and her arms seemed cold, hugging her trembling bosom. Mermaids were known to weave their own silk, but this mermaid was completely naked when Connor brought her back, her skin covered in bruises. I wondered why such a beautiful mermaid wasn’t wearing clothes in the sea. Mom and Dad quickly rushed over when they heard the commotion. They were delighted to see the mermaid locked in the iron cage by Connor. They decided to skin her and render her fat into oil the next morning. “My good son, you’ve finally made something of yourself. Now our family’s fortunes will improve. You’ve truly brought honor to our family!” Mom exclaimed. But Connor hastily stopped them. “The mermaid I caught with my own hands, only I can decide when to dispose of her,” he said firmly. “Besides, she’s so thin. Even if we rendered her fat now, we wouldn’t get much. It’s better to collect some mermaid pearls first and fatten her up before skinning her. There’s no rush.” Mom and Dad looked at each other, finding his reasoning sound, and happily went back to sleep. Connor turned to me and said, “Aria, go to sleep now. When it’s time to kill this mermaid, I’ll skin her and make you a flowing celestial dress. How about that?” I shuddered, looking at the injured mermaid, and shook my head. “Connor, I don’t want a dress. As long as it can help improve our family’s life, that’s good enough.” That night, I curled up in my small thatched hut, unable to sleep. Suddenly, I had a strong urge to see the beautiful mermaid from earlier that day. So, I tiptoed to the barn where she was kept, only to find the iron cage empty. I was about to shout that the mermaid had escaped when I noticed the light still on in Connor’s room across the yard. I quietly walked over and heard strange sounds coming from inside.
“Mmph—” From the narrow, cramped room came the muffled sounds of a woman’s discomfort and the rattling of chains. Terrified, I peeked through the slightly ajar door. The mermaid was still completely naked. Female mermaids were generally smaller in stature, and she was almost buried in Connor’s large shadow. Connor had his back to the door, allowing the mermaid to kneel on the bed. The mermaid was in great pain, a chain around her neck, but it seemed as if something was blocking her mouth, only allowing her to make muffled groans. After about fifteen minutes, Connor finished. He narrowed his eyes in satisfaction, casually pinching the mermaid’s delicate body once more. “You’re truly a beauty. It’s a pity you don’t have legs. Almost perfect,” he murmured. I didn’t understand what Connor was doing, but I felt scared because the room was littered with mermaid pearls—they were the mermaid’s tears. The next day, Connor caught another mermaid in the same bay, and the whole family was overjoyed. However, this one wasn’t as lucky as the previous mermaid. Mom and Dad decided to kill him quickly to sell for money. This was a male mermaid, seemingly quite young, his scales not as shiny. That night, he was skinned and his tendons and bones were removed. His screams and struggles lasted half the night before Dad and Connor finally pinned him down, and he fell silent for good. “Aria, why are you just standing there? Come and help!” Dad called out, his forehead beaded with sweat, asking me to come in and help tend the fire. This was the first time I witnessed the slaughter of a mermaid, and the shock and fear were indescribable. Blood trickled out of the room, and the pungent smell of blood filled the air. Two eyeballs, empty and lifeless, had fallen to the ground, along with strangely shaped mermaid pearls. The male mermaid’s head was hung on the wall, like a victory banner. Chunks of mermaid meat with snow-white fat were cut into pieces. The fat layer was sliced off and thrown into a boiling pot to render into oil. Under Mom’s stirring, it quickly turned into a pot of pure white, smooth mermaid oil. A strange, sweet scent spread through the air, mixing with the smell of blood. Connor’s eyes narrowed in a smile, the freckles on either side of his nose twitching with excitement. “Aria, tonight we’ll have a mermaid feast. Mermaid meat is good for longevity, you know!” They busily prepared a table full of dishes made from mermaid meat. The plates were filled with white fat, and they devoured it like three gluttonous beasts. I lied about catching a cold and having no appetite, not eating a single bite. The next day, the villagers thought we were killing someone and even reported it to the authorities. When the officers came, Dad just packed some things and went to the magistrate’s office with them. Not only was he quickly released without charge, but he also brought back a box full of gold, silver, and jewels. He explained with a broad smile that he had sold them the mermaid skin and candles. Although they weren’t top quality, their rarity made them valuable. The rich and powerful in the city loved these things. I felt very uncomfortable, but Mom told me that Pearl Village had lived this way for thousands of years. Killing mermaids was no different from killing other fish, she said. That night, the mermaid locked in the barn let out a heart-wrenching cry. It turned out that the male mermaid Connor had killed that day was her younger brother. The mermaid stopped eating and drinking, heartbroken in her iron cage every day. Mom and Dad became anxious. If this continued, her scales and skin would be damaged, and naturally wouldn’t fetch a good price. Mom asked me to feed her. “You’re a young girl, the mermaid won’t be wary of you. Go and persuade her to eat something,” she said. I made food they liked with seaweed and scallops, arranged it nicely on a plate, and handed it to the mermaid in the cage. She still had her back to me, not saying a word. I tried to persuade her kindly, “You should eat something. If you starve yourself, my parents will only kill you sooner.” “I won’t eat your food,” she replied softly. I became anxious, “If you don’t eat, Connor says he’ll teach you a lesson. I’m being the gentlest here! You should think it through.” The mermaid finally turned her head, her bright, clear moon-blue eyes looking at me. In the next moment, she revealed a shocked expression. For some reason, that look made me very uncomfortable. “Fine, if you won’t eat, so be it,” I said, standing up. As I was about to turn and leave, a jade-like arm gently grabbed my hand. “Little girl,” the mermaid said softly.
“Would you like some candy?” she asked, opening her palm to reveal a translucent light red candy. In this small fishing village, candy was a rarity, something only rich people in the city could afford. Even I only got to eat rice candy that Connor bought back during festivals. Dad had told me that mermaids were best at bewitching people’s hearts. She was probably just trying to lure me because I was a child, using candy as bait. I shook my head. “Are you trying to escape? Don’t play any tricks. My parents won’t let you go.” The mermaid sighed. “I just saw you and remembered my younger sister back home. I’m a bit homesick, that’s all. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine.” My heart pounded. “I admit you are indeed very beautiful, but our family makes a living by catching mermaids. If we let you go, we won’t be able to maintain our livelihood,” I said, quickly adding, “But I’ll try my best to persuade Dad to just let you produce mermaid pearls and not harm you.” She regretfully put away the candy, saying that since I was so kind to her, she wanted to tell me a secret. I pretended to be angry, putting the plate on the ground with a huff. “What secret? Unless you eat properly, I won’t listen.” The mermaid obediently started eating. As she took small bites, she said: “Actually, this isn’t even the best candy.” “I know of a kind of candy made from moonlight grass. That’s truly a heavenly delicacy. The moonlight grass grows on the sandy beach under the moonlight. If you hold the stem in your mouth, it’s sweet and slightly cool, like seawater.” I fell silent. I had never seen moonlight grass. Mom and Dad said the seaside was dangerous, and because I was weak, they never allowed me to touch seawater. But the mermaid’s description of the sweetness aroused my intense curiosity. I had a sweet tooth, but candy was expensive, and given our poor family circumstances, I had never dared to hope for it. That night, I snuck out of the house and went to the beach. Sure enough, as the mermaid had said, it was full of moonlight grass with silvery-white leaves swaying. These plants, invisible during the day, quietly swayed on the beach in the silent night. As if possessed, I stepped forward, picked a blade of moonlight grass, and put the stem in my mouth. A strange, clear sweetness filled my mouth. It was so delicious that I forgot to spit it out and swallowed the sweet juice with a gulp. I hurriedly threw away the stem and ran back home. But that sweet taste lingered in my mind, growing stronger in my memory. The day after eating the moonlight grass, something terrifying happened. Because the next morning, I discovered that a small patch of skin on my wrist had started to grow scales. It was a small patch of light purple fish scales, shimmering with a beautiful blue-purple light, but it scared me to death. Mom and Dad rarely got angry with me, but thinking about how they looked on those rare occasions when they were angry, I became frightened. It must have been the mermaid’s doing. The moonlight grass was poisonous! When I angrily went to confront the mermaid in the iron cage, questioning why she had harmed me, she laughed coldly, as if she had expected this. “Silly girl, you were always a mermaid. We are the closest kin, yet you’ve been deceived by them and are even helping them do evil. Don’t you know that they’re raising you, and the next one they’ll skin and remove tendons from will be you…” I staggered back a few steps in shock, shaking my head continuously. “You’re lying!” I exclaimed. Mom and Dad treated mermaids like animals to be slaughtered, mercilessly removing their scales, skinning them, and removing their bones. Everyone praised our family for being kind-hearted. In this village where boys were favored over girls, most baby girls were drowned in chamber pots at birth. But my parents had picked me up and brought me home, raising me well with good food and care. I had Connor who doted on me and was never made to do hard work. I thought I was the happiest person in all of Pearl Village. How could I possibly be a mermaid?
I ran back to my room, using my wide sleeves to cover my wrist, hoping the poison would dissipate on its own. Passing through the main hall, I saw the mermaid’s head with empty eye sockets and the bloody fish tail hanging on the wall. I couldn’t help but shudder. In the evening, Connor came back drunk from the city. Since we had some money, he had been spending his days visiting brothels and gambling dens in the city. “I’ve lost all the money. Let that damn fish cry again, give me a pile of mermaid pearls, and I’ll definitely win it back tomorrow,” he muttered. At night, Connor went to torment the mermaid again. As usual, the room filled with sounds of pain and pleasure intertwined. This time it lasted for a full half hour. I heard Connor whipping the mermaid. I knew he was trying to make the mermaid cry to get more mermaid pearls. However, after Connor left, to my surprise, Dad also snuck into the barn while Mom was sound asleep. When he went in, his face was flushed red, and he was carrying an opium pipe. The mermaid’s cries became even more heart-wrenching. Her voice was filled with despair, and I broke out in goosebumps. I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling an inexplicable sadness wash over me. What was happening to me? The summer heat was stifling, and I had a habit of bathing before bed. Just after I finished my bath and was drying myself, I wiped a streak of red blood from between my legs. It turned out I had gotten my first period. I immediately felt relieved. Mom had said that girls would get their period when they came of age, and it was a sign of becoming a woman, so I was mentally prepared for this. The mermaid was indeed lying. Only human women would have periods. I was coming of age this year, and my body was developing well, but I was conservative and always used a chest binding to hide my growth. Now, standing in front of the bronze mirror, I removed those constricting bandages. My full, snow-white breasts could no longer be contained. At that moment, I suddenly noticed a face in the mirror, peering through the door crack. I let out a small cry, covering my chest with my hands. “Who’s there?” I called out. Connor pushed open the door and walked in, his smile deepening as his gaze roamed over me. “Don’t shout, it’s me. I came to get something,” he said, his eyes still examining my naked body up and down. “Connor, why didn’t you knock? You scared me,” I said, my face burning hot as our eyes met. Although Connor had bathed me and put me to bed since I was little, now that I was older, it felt inappropriate for a man and woman to be so close. “Aria has grown up. You’re almost a young woman now,” Connor said, leaving behind a meaningful comment as he retrieved what he came for and left. When Mom learned I had gotten my period, she was overjoyed. She even went to the market to buy a bolt of red silk, saying she would make me new clothes. But I couldn’t shake the strange feeling in my heart. I didn’t dare tell anyone about the scales growing on my wrist. That small patch of scales was like a thorn, pricking at my heart. One day, while washing dishes, I took the bowls to the backyard to clean. Unintentionally, I overheard Mom and Dad talking in the kitchen. They were both deliberately lowering their voices, but I still caught fragments of their conversation. I heard phrases like “in a month,” “conceive,” and “useless money-losing goods.” I widened my eyes in shock. “After ten years, it’s finally ready!” Dad exclaimed. “Aria will come of age in a month, and their marriage should be arranged. Now her body is plump and round, perfect as a vessel,” Mom said with a hint of pride in her voice. She paused for a moment, then added, “Her skin should be peeled off now.”
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