When land people look at me, their eyes always go to my ears first.
Behind them are three slits that open underwater. You call them gills. In the East Sea, nobody stares. Up here, even children come in for a touch. Fine, fine — one touch, one pearl. Fair's fair.
My name is Fuzhu. I'm a trader. Mermaid silk, sea pearls, pearl powder, ambergris — if the East Sea has it, I carry it. Flower-Fruit Mountain is my seventh stop. At the previous six, people asked me the same three questions: Do you merfolk live in the Dragon Palace? Do you work for the Dragon King? Do your tears really turn to pearls?
The first two questions — affairs of the Dragon Palace are not for shore folk to pry into. The third —
It's true. Which is why I don't cry.
Think about it. If every time you wept, strangers gathered your tears to string into necklaces, mount on hairpins, and sell back and forth — would you dare cry? Our elders teach the young not "mother" or "father" as their first word, but "hold it in." Happy — hold it in. Heartbroken — hold it in. My mother said: a merfolk may be poor, may be sick, but must never shed a tear in front of land people. Once it falls, it isn't yours anymore.
Last year the East Sea flooded and took three of our villages. I stood on the reef and watched all night. At dawn I swallowed back what had risen in my eyes. Then an old fisherman rowed past, tossed me half a flatbread, and said: it's salty, girl — make do.
That flatbread was the best thing I've eaten since coming ashore.
So don't ask me why I sell pearls. Did I cry them myself? No. They are the tears our ancestors swallowed back, generation after generation, that sank to the sea floor and slowly hardened. Every pearl I sell is a night one of my forebears refused to cry out.
You buy, I sell. You don't buy, I won't beg. But next time you see one of my kind gazing at the sea, leave her be. She's not admiring the view. She's practicing not crying.