Chapter 3

3: 3

3

Three in the morning. I got up for a painkiller and walked straight into the caretaker, still stationed by the tank, dutifully tidying up.

He knew that Nathaniel had kept this fish mostly to harvest a mermaid pearl and cure my migraines.

When he saw the pills in my hand, he hesitated, then ventured carefully,

【Miss Summers, why don't I take the pearl first and treat you?】

I swallowed the pills and waved him off.

【Forget it. Harvesting it must hurt like hell.】

【Besides, I already said I'd release her back into the ocean. I'm not going back on my word.】

There was another reason I didn't mention.

I was afraid this little seafood would start wailing to the heavens that I was bullying her while Nathaniel was away.

Sea fish already have louder voices than people.

Let her howl all night and I'd have no chance of sleeping.

Mid-thought, I noticed the quiet by the tank felt wrong.

I looked over. The tank was empty.

【Where's the little seafood?】

I caught the caretaker's darting eyes, and something dropped in my stomach.

Like a schoolboy caught in the act, he pointed a finger toward that shadowed corner.

【Miss Summers, I'm not trying to go against you on purpose.】

【But not only did she fail to grow new scales, she slammed into the glass during the day and scraped her skin raw.】

【I had to get her out and disinfect her, or she wouldn't have made it. Then there'd be no mermaid pearl, and not even a whole fish left……】

Only then did I let out a breath, telling him over and over it was fine.

This caretaker Nathaniel had hired had more than a decade of experience.

Running into this little seafood counted as the biggest Waterloo of his career.

But as long as the fish didn't die, it wasn't a real disaster.

Still, I couldn't just brush myself off and go back to sleep, leaving the caretaker alone to clean up the mess.

What I never imagined was that in this life I'd end up crouched on the floor in the dead of night, dabbing iodine on a fish.

By the time the tenth bottle of iodine ran out, I was tired enough to start cursing.

At the root of it, everything that had happened these past few days was the fault of Nathaniel's big mouth.

I fumed and pulled out my phone, ready to call him,

ready to tell him to get his ass back here and break up with this stupid fish to her face, or else forget marrying me!

But his phone was switched off.

I was about to blast him with a message when the caretaker suddenly looked at me, his face grave,

【Miss Summers, this fish seems to be……pregnant.】