chapter 192

Yoon Taehee listened silently to Shin Jihye's story, deep in thought.

According to her, she was a half-mermaid born to a human father and a mermaid mother. Mermaids could gain legs by eating human gallbladders, but for Shin Jihye, even if she ate a human gallbladder, scales would grow back after a few days and soon her lower body would become that of a fish again.

"It seems you've been through a lot. I'm sorry to hear that."

Yoon Taehee tapped the table with his fingertips and opened his mouth.

"Your story is unfortunate, but I have some questions I'd like to ask first. Three things."

He spread his empty hands as he continued speaking.

"First, is it true that eating mermaid flesh and blood makes one immortal? Second, if it's true, is there a way to reverse the immortal body? Third, does the

'immortality pill' that uses mermaids as sacrifices really exists?"

At his businesslike attitude, Shin Jihye, who had been wiping away tears, furrowed her brow.

"Wait a minute. Come to think of it, this is suddenly ridiculous. You said you wanted to 'talk' with me. But what kind of conversation is this? You're just interrogating me one-sidedly."

Isn't that right? Shin Jihye glared at Yoon Taehee fiercely.

"So, why do you want to know about mermaids?"

At her sharp question, Yoon Taehee opened his mouth in a low voice.

"I'm looking for a way to undo immortality."

Suddenly, what's this about immortality? Just as Shin Jihye was opening her eyes wide in confusion, Jaegyeom came into view. Quickly putting the pieces together, she asked in surprise.

"Don't tell me... when you said you came from the Joseon era... was that true?"

Jaegyeom silently nodded his head once.

"But why did you become immortal? Don't tell me it was because of a mermaid?"

"We called you here because we want to know for sure if it's because of a mermaid or not."

Yoon Taehee answered instead of Jaegyeom.

"So, where is your mother?"

"She's not here. She returned to the sea a few years ago."

"Why?"

"Because she no longer had a reason to stay on land."

As if to ask what that meant, Yoon Taehee narrowed his eyes.

"Mom came to land because she loved Dad. But Dad got addicted to gambling and borrowed from loan sharks, which ruined our family, so Mom divorced him."

"..."

Yoon Taehee wore an expression of disbelief at the unexpectedly realistic ending.

"Anyway, I'm only a half-mermaid. I'm not a full mermaid, so I don't know much."

"Then, have you ever been to the homeland where mermaids live?"

Shin Jihye carelessly peeled off a piece of tissue stuck to her face and shook her head.

"Just once, a few years ago. I went with Mom. No matter how many gallbladders I ate, scales kept growing on my legs, so I wanted to ask if there was a way to fix my legs. But I came back to land less than a day after entering the sea. Because the other mermaids were extremely wary and hateful of me, saying I had human blood mixed in. So I waited on the island."

As she spoke, Shin Jihye looked somewhat lonely. She could neither become a human nor mermaid. Jaegyeom, who had been listening attentively to her words, carefully asked.

"So... so you couldn't... couldn't find a way?"

Knowing that she had lived longer, Jaegyeom subtly dropped formal speech.

"I did find one. Mom met an elder mermaid and explained my situation..."

Shin Jihye paused for a moment before continuing with a dark expression.

"As it turns out, there was a condition that neither Mom nor I knew about."

"Condition?"

"To gain permanent legs, you have to eat the gallbladder of someone you love. We thought any gallbladder would do, but that wasn't the case. That's why eating just any gallbladder makes the legs revert back quickly."

Shin Jihye shrugged nonchalantly with a smile.

"So I tried my best to make someone fall in love with me, but how could I develop feelings for human men?

Even if I change boyfriends every week and go on dates, I couldn't develop any feelings."

"..."

Yoon Taehee, who had been silently fiddling with the ends of his eyebrows, suddenly asked.

"You seem to dislike humans?"

"No, I mean you."

"Me? I hate human men."

Shin Jihye firmly set her face and specified the range.

"Why?"

"Because of Dad. Because of Dad, I came to dislike all human men."

"..."

Well... Yoon Taehee nodded as if in agreement.

"Look at my parents. This is why love is scary. There's a saying that if you like someone, you'd give them your gallbladder or liver, right? That's actually a saying derived from mermaids. Love is just a momentary

emotion. At first, they probably thought they'd be together forever. But in the end, look how it turned out."

Shin Jihye sneered, crossing her arms. Jaegyeom, who had been watching carefully, cautiously asked.

"But how did your mother come to love your father, who was human?"

"There are mutants everywhere, I guess. My mom must have been one of them."

Shin Jihye replied indifferently, then let out a gloomy sigh. 

"I used to resent Mom and Dad. If they loved each other, that's fine, but I never asked to be born, so why did they bring me into this world? I blamed them every day. It's so hard for me, being neither human nor mermaid. If they had at least lived happily in love for the rest of their lives, it might have been different. But in the end, they split up."

That's why Shin Jihye didn't believe in love. Her parents' generation of love had imprinted on Shin Jihye that eternal love doesn't exist. Everything was just a fleeting moment of emotion, and it was foolish to devote one's life to being captivated by that momentary feeling.

"Mom fell in love with Dad, who was a sailor, 30 years ago."

She continued her story:

The story I'm about to tell you is everything Mom told me directly.

From ancient times, mermaids, considered mythical creatures, served as messengers of the sea god protecting sailors and guarding islands. Mom was very proud of being a mermaid. When sudden storms or typhoons hit, they would signal the sailors and drive fish towards them, and people would show their gratitude by holding fishing festivals or making offerings.

Mermaids are among the most special of mythical creatures.

Mermaids have extraordinary regenerative abilities, so they heal quickly when injured, and even if an arm is cut off, it will regrow on its own. Because of this exceptional regeneration, they don't age. But strictly speaking, mermaids are ageless beings, not immortal ones. Mermaids also face a form of 'death' when their time comes. Among mermaids, this is called 'eternal rest.'

So unlike humans, mermaids who don't visibly age can live for a very long time, but there's one way to escape this seemingly endless time.

That's by eating a human's gallbladder.

This is a very old story.

In the days when they lived and mingled with humans, mermaids often fell in love with humans.

For a mermaid living in the sea to be with the human they love, there were two choices. One was for the mermaid to feed their blood and flesh to their loved

one. The one who consumed the mermaid's blood and flesh would gain a mermaid's body that healed on its own and didn't age, just like a mermaid.

The other option was for the mermaid to eat the gallbladder of their loved one. A mermaid who ate the gallbladder of the human they loved would gain permanent legs and become an ordinary body that aged and died naturally like humans. Ah, but even with this ordinary body, traces of being a mermaid remained, so they could still breathe underwater. They could freely change between human and mermaid form at will. That's why l've seen Mom change into a mermaid a few times.

Anyway, the relationship between mermaids and humans started to sour when this fact became known on land. As information passes from person to person, misinformation tends to spread. Some sailors spread rumors, and it became distorted to say that consuming mermaid blood and flesh would unconditionally grant eternal life.

From then on, humans hunted and captured mermaids indiscriminately.

This is when mermaids began to hate humans.

Because of humans, mermaids were on the brink of extinction, with their numbers drastically reduced. I heard that there used to be hundreds of mermaids, but now there are only about twenty left. So the mermaids, who became hostile to humans, eventually left the shores of humans, moved away from their original home of Geomun Island, and distanced themselves from humans.

Humans believed those rumors and ate mermaids recklessly, but nothing changed. Because that method only works for humans loved by mermaids. But then one human used a special spell to create something called the 'immortality pill' by sacrificing mermaids to become immortal. But I don't know much about the immortality pill. Mom said it was too horrible and didn't tell me the details.

Anyway, that's all I know.

Shin Jihye, having finished her explanation neatly, stared intently at jaegyeom.

"So, did you eat something wrong in the past?"