Chapter 26 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 26: Lament of the Deep Sea 02
It came.
Lucita's gaze swept past Lily and Javena's moving lips and the figures of people running on the beach. Her brow furrowed slightly.
This was really bad timing.
"Aunt Javena, Lily, I can't hear anymore." Lucita stated flatly. Javena and Lily's conversation was interrupted.
The two looked over and said something to her.
Lucita helplessly pointed at her ears.
Few people knew about her losing her sense of smell, but she had been blind for most of a month. Almost all the neighbors in town knew about this past. Later, when she regained her sight, everyone expressed astonishment and asked what had happened. She had simply played dumb to get through it.
Now that she had suddenly lost her hearing again, even a ghost could see that something was wrong with her body.
But Lucita played dumb, and others couldn't grab her by the collar and ask if she was lying.
Most of the time, even if they guessed something unusual, others wouldn't dig to the bottom of her secrets.
After all, this was a magical world.
Fortunately, the Residents' Center had everything. Javena went to the duty room to get paper and pen, writing for her to see.
"Do you need any help?"
Lucita shook her head: "Thank you for your kindness, but I don't need it at the moment. But I have a question I want to ask Sister Lily."
Both of them turned their gazes toward Lily.
“Such a beautiful pocket watch,” Lucita asked: “Where did you buy it?”
Just a pocket watch, why so solemn?
Javena looked at the two in complete bewilderment. Unexpectedly, Lily pressed her lips together and showed a thoughtful expression.
After a moment, Lily picked up the quill pen and wrote on the paper: "It's an old item from the last Merfolk King five hundred years ago."
Regarding merfolk history, Irttat's library had detailed records.
After the merfolk were defeated, the Merfolk King was captured.
Unlike the Elven King who mysteriously disappeared without a trace, the Merfolk King was truly killed. The body was hung on the curse altar, scales stripped and bones dismantled, used to impose an eternally inescapable curse on the merfolk race.
Due to the danger of the curse materials, the curse the merfolk faced was much more terrifying than what the elves faced—cursed merfolk would forever be prohibited to use their mental talents. Once used, corruption would invade their psyche and gradually devour the rational mind of an intelligent being.
Merfolk originally had human upper bodies and fish tails. The legs they used to walk on the continent were all transformed by illusion magic. When the curse descended, there were still many merfolk on the continent. Because they couldn't undo the illusion to change back to fish tails, they were forever left on land, separated by water and land from their kin in the sea, migrating to Irttat to multiply and thrive.
This was the origin of almost all merfolk mixed-bloods in Irttat.
Of course, now five hundred years had passed. The original pureblooded merfolk had long since passed away. Only mixed-bloods with increasingly mixed and diluted bloodlines remained on land, testifying that they once existed.
According to Lily, after the Merfolk King learned human craftsmanship, this pocket watch had been a gift she personally made for her daughter.
As the daughter trapped on land migrated to Irttat, this pocket watch was also passed down as a protective charm. This generation, it happened to be passed to Lily.
Lily wrote on the paper again: "Is there something wrong with it?"
Lucita pointed at it: "She's singing."
"She?" Lily emphasized the word "she" on the paper and added a question mark.
This was clearly an object.
"Yes, I mean a person—or a merfolk." Lucita said: "A wisp of her true spirit resides inside, constantly singing. I can tell the breath is very weak, I don't know if it's because of the passage of time."
Lily's lips moved, murmuring something to herself.
"What?" Lucita wanted to ask what she remembered.
Lily shook her head, indicating it was nothing, then said nothing more.
Lucita could only put this matter aside for now, waiting for an opportunity to investigate after the rescue ended.
The rescue teams quickly assembled.
Javena said something in the square. Before long, Lily came over to distribute the processed stones.
The Residents' Center door was open, with people passing by from time to time. Lucita looked at the square through the door. The crowd's reaction seemed very intense.
She smiled slightly.
With Javena's endorsement, doing this business in the future would be much easier.
Lucita had already been mentally exhausted and needed rest. Now she was also deaf, so she was naturally required to go home and rest.
She didn't insist on boarding the boat either. She followed those left behind to see off the first batch of rescue personnel going to sea.
A trembling sunset lay over the sea. The sky was dim. Occasionally a seagull's cry echoed in the distant sky.
Under normal circumstances, fishermen wouldn't choose to go to sea at such a time, but due to the urgency of the rescue, everyone could only steel themselves and go.
The sea breeze was strong. Several boats successively filled their gray sails and gradually shrank in their field of vision.
The crowd dispersed. Lucita followed the flow of people back to the farm.
That night she slept very deeply. In her dreams, that mournful song seemed to constantly linger, accompanied by the sound of rising and falling tides, like maggots in the bone, impossible to shake off.
When she woke, the sun was already high in the sky.
Violet knew about her deafness yesterday and hadn't woken her. She'd gone to the grassland with her storybook to herd sheep, leaving a note on the living room table explaining the situation.
Somehow, last night's dream kept lingering in her heart. Lucita intuitively felt it was related to that singing pocket watch and was constantly uneasy. She simply hurriedly nibbled a piece of bread and headed to the seaside.
On the road, she saw many people with exhausted expressions walking on the street. Looking carefully, she discovered they were the rescue workers who had set out yesterday evening.
They'd returned to port so quickly?
Had Sylvette been found?
Lucita couldn't communicate conveniently now and had no way to inquire about the situation. After thinking for a moment, she turned directly to the tavern.
As expected, Lily had also returned. She was using a key to unlock the tavern door. She looked very unwell, whether from exhaustion from not sleeping all night or for emotional reasons was unclear.
Seeing Lucita, Lily raised her eyebrows questioningly and invited her in.
Lucita first asked about the rescue situation: "Was Sylvette found?"
Lily shook her head gravely.
"Then why did everyone come back so early? I thought you'd stay at sea for several days, after all you brought enough food and water."
Lily tore off a piece of paper to write for her to see: "The mayor arranged to come back."
This answer was practically the same as not answering.
Javena was the coordinator. If she didn't arrange to come back, would everyone suddenly come back together on their own?
Lucita frowned.
Lily was evasive, as if there was something she couldn't say.
But Lily didn't ask about her deafness, and she would respect Lily's secrets. Moreover, so many people went yesterday. If Lily didn't say, would everyone keep it secret?
At worst she could directly ask Javena.
Lucita changed the topic: "Last night I dreamed about the sea to the east. Something in the sea was singing."
Speaking to this point, she paused and stared into Lily's eyes, carefully watching her expression: "That song was exactly the same as the song the pocket watch sings."
Lily looked back at her for a while, then wrote with a thoughtful expression: "You are very special."
"Thank you for the compliment."
Lily continued writing: "Having everyone come back was my idea. The mayor agreed."
Lucita didn't know why Lily suddenly brought up the previous topic she'd refused to discuss and showed signs of wanting to be frank, but she was willing to listen attentively.
Ah, no—to read attentively.
Townspeople only knew that the merfolk left on land back then came to live in Irttat, but what about those merfolk trapped in the sea who could never come ashore again?
"In the deep sea to the east. Many..." Lily wrote rapidly. Then she stopped, her expression dark and complicated.
Merfolk were a race that yearned for freedom.
After all, they weren't pureblooded fish—having human upper bodies meant they were destined not to belong only to the deep sea.
The deep sea was perpetually silent and lightless. Sound and light were both difficult to preserve there.
Too lonely.
Merfolk before the final battle often transformed legs to play on land, learning human poetry and arts. They would also appear at the seaside to frolic with fisherwomen, sometimes teasing adventurers sailing the seas. Thus, their figures often appeared in adventure journals in the human world.
Unable to ever come ashore again, merfolk dwelling only in the deep sea bore eternal loneliness.
If they could live normal lives, perhaps the fires of hatred ignited by war would gradually extinguish. But merfolk trapped in the deep sea. Their hatred would only gradually accumulate, eventually beginning to attack humans sailing the seas.
Attack with what?
Lucita immediately thought of it.
Lily calmly wrote: "They used their sealed mental talents, then under the curse, began to go mad day by day."
Madness was an invisible, intangible thing, but in a population, madness would spread like a plague.
The entire population rapidly degenerated, becoming bloody, violent, full of aggression, carrying out indiscriminate attacks on ships passing on the sea.
The deep sea became dangerously unpredictable.
"I told her. When she officially became a fisherwoman, I warned her again and again not to leave the shallow waters. The deep sea is very dangerous."
"She always listened to me. Once."
Lily's pen paused again, then continued: "I don't understand why she suddenly went to the deep sea..."
The shallow waters were not very large. The six rescue boats had spent most of the night thoroughly searching the area. They didn't find Sylvette, nor any wreckage of boats.
Everyone wanted to search the deep sea area but was stopped by Lily.
When searching the shallow waters without finding her, Lily had basically ruled out other possibilities and had the worst speculation.
That place in the deep sea…the chance of survival was almost nonexistent.
Lily immediately told Javena everything. Javena decisively halted the search and persuaded everyone to return to port.
"How do you know these things?"
"Probably the destiny of every fisher." Lily wrote with a bitter smile: "My grandmother was an excellent fisherwoman. In the end, she died at sea. At that time, I didn't know why someone with such strong merfolk bloodline would still have an accident."
"Because of Grandmother's incident, my mother always prevented me from going to sea as a fisherwoman. But I yearned for the sea from childhood. It's so mysterious and abundant. When my grandmother was at sea was when she had the most charm."
"Despite my mother's opposition, I began going to sea to fish after coming of age, until I encountered merfolk in the deep sea area."
"They enchanted me with song. I jumped into the sea. They circled around me, constantly giggling. That terrifying scene, I'll never forget it."
"Probably discovering I couldn't drown even after being dragged into the water, one merfolk suddenly became lucid and secretly let me go."
"Fortunately, I hadn't gone too deep. I swam for two days and reached shore."
A mist gradually filled Lily's eyes.
She was silent for a while, then picked up the pen to continue writing: "I'll never forget that merfolk's gaze. I knew her life had dried up. Many like her had already dried up."
"They were once our kin, or rather, were once kin with our ancestors. Now in this state, I can neither put them out of their misery nor lift the curse..."
"After that, I no longer went to sea. That child Sylvette thought I betrayed her dream. From then on, she didn't like talking to me much."
Lily sighed and stood up to go to the kitchen to find dry rations.
She'd persuaded the rescue personnel to return, but she herself still planned to continue going to sea to find Sylvette.
What if Sylvette was like her in the past and still had a thread of hope?
She wouldn't send others to die, but she wouldn't give up herself.
Sylvette was her student.
Lucita thought for a moment, then stepped forward to follow her: "I'll go with you."
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