Tianjin people will never lose SAN

Chapter 2 Buying Fish
In the dark kitchen, Yulia was chopping turnips and potatoes with a numb expression. Water was boiling on the stove. She was preparing dinner for tonight.

Even during the day, the thick curtains were still drawn at home. The camel-colored plush curtains had not been cleaned for a long time. The frayed edges were dragged on the ground by the woman's fallen long hair, and were covered with damp dust.

The second hand of the clock in the corner swung mechanically, and the lower half of the bright wooden base was covered with moss-like mildew, making it look like a shipwreck salvage bought from an antique shop.

There was a sound of dripping water overhead, and drops of water were dripping from the ceiling from time to time. The white wall had long since turned yellow-brown, forming a spider-web-like crack.

Julia married here from Edinbury County eight years ago. As the daughter of a pastor, she met Isaac Jefferson at a church school when she was 18. At that time, he was polite and humorous. He said he was born in a small town on the southeast coast, and the two fell in love quickly.

At the wedding the following year, Yulia met Isaac's mother for the first time. She heard that she had just recovered from a fatal pneumonia and was receiving rehabilitation treatment in a local sanatorium.

Poor old Jenny was so thin that she was just skin and bones. After the wedding, she and Isaac sent her back home in a hurry. They both believed that Jenny would receive the best treatment there and would recover soon.

The sanatorium was located on a small island seventeen nautical miles from the coastline. She still remembered seeing a lot of cane toads on the shallows when she got off the boat. The sanatorium was located on the top of the island, and sitting in the courtyard she could see hundreds of seabirds circling overhead.

In the following year, she and Isaac lived a peaceful life. Later, she became pregnant, and Isaac received a call from the nursing home saying that old Jenny had improved greatly and could be taken home.

Double happiness? No, that's the beginning of a nightmare.

When old Jenny walked into the house, Yulia was almost unrecognizable. She had originally been skinny, but now... it may be disrespectful to say this, but she had become a giant, with layers of white fat hanging down, covering her neck and waistline. Her eyes were slightly bulging, as if she couldn't bear the pressure of the fat on her face.

Her behavior had also changed. When they first met, she was very weak but indeed a well-educated older woman. But after returning home, Yulia often had trouble understanding what she said. Although her tone was loud, it was all vague guttural sounds. From her eyes, Yulia could always feel greed and hatred.

Usually, old Jenny would soak in the bathtub on the second floor for two hours at a time. Her overweight body would squeeze into the narrow cat-legged bathtub, and a large amount of water would overflow and spill onto the floor on the second floor. Gradually, the house would be shrouded in a layer of moisture all the time.

Sometimes Jenny would sit in the living room and watch herself cook. She asked Isaac and herself not to open the curtains in the living room at any time. She would sit quietly on the sofa behind her, like a milky white ghost, stroking the strange stone she brought back from the sanatorium.

Two months later, on a thunderstorm night, Jenny made her a cup of coffee. In the dark, she couldn't see what was in the cup, but she smelled a fishy smell and her teeth could touch some slimy bubbles like frog eggs.

When she asked Jenny what it was, she was told it was a type of seaweed coffee she had brought from the sanatorium.

After drinking it, she fell into a deep sleep. When she woke up, she found Jenny's strange stone next to her pillow.

She couldn't help but touch it. It might not be stone, because it had the special fibrous texture of plant fossils, but it was heavier than a fossil, like a lead block, with some unnamed aquatic plants and animal patterns faintly carved on it.

The moment she touched it, she saw a frog-faced baby, looking so disgusting, twisting and struggling in the dark placenta.

Yulia was so scared that she dropped the stone. From then on, she had nightmares every night. In the dreams, the frog-faced baby gradually lost its human physical characteristics, webbed feet grew on its hands and feet, and a crack appeared between its head and neck. Was that a gill?

When the child was born, a strong wind blew at sea, and Isaac had to bring the midwife home. Yulia fainted from the pain in the thunder and lightning.

When she woke up, the doctor told her that the baby was stillborn.

Dead baby? Why is this happening? A few days ago, she could still clearly feel the life moving in her body. She could even see the little hand slightly supporting her belly!

After losing her child, Yulia developed serious mental problems. The slightest noise could cause her heart to stop and she would suffer splitting headaches.

She begged her husband to think of a solution. She heard that a neighbor went to New Newland to find an expert to solve this problem. She cried and kissed her husband's hand. She thought of her dead child, the poor child who went to another world before she even met him.

"Woo woo woo." The kettle on the stove screamed as the water boiled.

"Yuli...ya! Yuliya!" Old Jenny's roar came from the second floor, and drops of water fell from the ceiling.

Poor Julia covered her head and shrank into the corner, shaking like a frightened quail.

……

Liu Yonglu walked out of the hotel wearing his brown wide-brimmed hat.

He was in a bad mood because the lunch provided by the hotel was black bread, tomatoes, beans, baked potatoes and carrots and a cup of black coffee.

The people in this place all came from Buddhist temples, right? The food in Shaolin Temple isn't that bad. The broken black coffee tastes like water used to wash pots.

It would be nice to have a bowl of noodles and a bottle of iced black tea at noon. He missed the small restaurant in front of the Quyi Troupe. Walking on the streets of Pormouth, Liu Yonglu tightened the collar of his windbreaker. The sea breeze from the sea brought a chill to his neck. He shivered and looked around, looking for the Hog's Head Bar.

He walked towards the pier while asking for directions. He didn't find the bar yet, but he did find a fish stall.

When Liu Yonglu saw the fish stall, his eyes lit up. For a kid from Tianjin who is working outside, the most soothing thing might be a plate of stewed hairtail fish.

Before leaving the hotel, he specifically asked old Frensen that the kitchen at the back of the hotel was open and could be used at will as long as one stayed in the hotel.

The fish stall owner was a down-and-out middle-aged man in his forties, with a long face, a beard, a dull expression, and for some reason half of his left ear was missing.

There were all kinds of dead fish piled up on the fish stall, most of which Liu Yonglu couldn't name. Among them, there was a kind of small fish that looked particularly strange. They had a slender body, a big head, and sharp teeth. The most unacceptable thing was that they had densely packed suction cups in their mouths, and at the end of the suction cups there were pink buds like anemone tentacles.

"Master, how about the salted hairtail?"

Liu Yonglu greeted the stall owner with his signature smile, but the stall owner just slowly shifted his gaze towards Liu Yonglu without saying anything.

Oh, hard of hearing. Liu Yonglu repeated it twice, gesturing and talking, and the stall owner raised his hand and pointed to a corner. Wow, there were more than a dozen salted hairtail fish.

"Hey, not bad, wide enough, give me two (calculate the weight)."

The stall owner mechanically took out a piece of newspaper from under the stall, wrapped two hairtails and handed them over.

"One pound and eighty-five pence." The voice was dry and hoarse.

The prices are not bad. If you want to eat seafood, you have to go to the seaside. Before going out, Liu Yonglu counted his wallet and found that he had about 16 pounds in his pocket.

"Master, don't pay me 1 pound and 85 pence. I'll give you pounds and give me two more."

Seeing that the stall owner still looked hapless and depressed, Liu Yonglu put down the coins, took the paper bag, and simply did it himself.

He was too embarrassed to take other people's hairtail fish, so he grabbed two small fish at hand and threw them into the paper bag. One of them was a strange fish with a suction cup in its mouth.

"Go away, master. If it's delicious, I'll come and buy it next time." Liu Yonglu waved his hand with a grin.

The fish stall owner unexpectedly broke into a cold smile at him, revealing his broken teeth.

Hey, it's about how people get along with each other. Now we are familiar with each other. I have strong social skills and Liu Yonglu is beautiful.

After passing the fish stall, I saw the sign of the Pig's Head Bar. This bar is right next to the pier. The place is crowded and the drinks are of poor quality, but the price is cheap. Sailors and boatmen who get off the ship are used to coming here for a drink or two.

Pushing open the wooden door, Liu Yonglu looked around while holding his hairtail.

In the bar, sailors who had come ashore were drinking strong liquor and making rude jokes. There was a pool table at the end, and several young people were smoking and playing pool. At the bar, a bearded bartender wearing a turban was washing glasses.

Finally, he found Isaac Jefferson next to the coat rack.

The man looked to be in his thirties, but his hair was already graying. There was a cup of coffee in front of him and he was wearing a pair of round glasses. Perhaps because he was nervous or the temperature in the room was too high, he would take off his glasses from time to time and wipe them with the corner of his shirt.

Isaac was indeed worried. In the past two years, the family's situation had taken a sharp turn for the worse. His mother had returned from the sanatorium like a changed person, and his wife had also suffered from severe mental illness after a miscarriage. He thought of the strange rumors he had heard in his childhood, the rumors related to the rise and fall of the town of Pormouth.

The person he was going to meet today was said to be an expert in dealing with this kind of problem, but he did not hold out much hope for this. He was a believer of the Saint's sect, and if the light of the Saint could not dispel the haze brought by the pagans, what help could these people give?
But he was desperate and had no other choice. His wife was on the verge of a mad breakdown. No matter whether it worked or not, he had to at least try it and fulfill his responsibilities as a husband.

"Isaac, nice to meet you, nice to meet you, thank you Ricky."

"Bang" a newspaper package with a fishy smell fell on the table. Isaac looked up and saw a thin young man in a windbreaker and a wide-brimmed hat standing in front of him with an inexplicable smile on his face.

Welcome to comment, muah

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(End of this chapter)