Chapter 192 — A Fish, What a Huge Fish

Bucket in hand, Pea arrived at the square. It was quiet there at this hour, and across the square she could see a construction site where the preparations for the day's work were under way. That was the new residential district. Since the entry into the Month of Mists, the last batch of homeless arrivals in the territory were hauling materials and handing out tools under the watch of soldiers and overseers, their faces still wearing looks of bewilderment and numbness, as though they did not quite understand why work must go on in winter. But Pea knew these people would soon be bustling with fervor—once they understood the "Cecil housing system" that the soldiers read out to them, and grasped that the very houses they were building were the ones they themselves would live in.

Pea came to the well at the center of the square. The water in this well was in fact channeled straight in from the Whitewater River. Though the lord had spoken of some notion of "piping water into every household," no one had understood what that meant, and everyone in the district drew water from this well. To Pea's mind, this was already very convenient.

She set her own bucket to one side, then released the catch on the well's windlass and tossed the rope-bound wooden bucket down into the well.

A strange clatter—"clang"—came up from the well, and Pea could not help but start. But the next moment she heard the normal sound of a bucket entering water, and so was reassured.

It must have struck the wall of the well just now, surely?

She gripped the windlass handle with both hands and pushed hard, trying to wind the bucket back up.

Yet it would not budge an inch.

Pea tilted her head and tried pushing again, but still it would not budge.

The little girl grew perplexed; she had never met with such a thing before. Though she was still a child, she had labored since she was small and had always been strong, and lately, with proper nourishment and a body well cared for, she had grown even stronger than before. Drawing a single bucket of water from the well ought not to be so laborious.

Pea leaned close to the mouth of the well, cautiously steadying herself against the windlass frame beside it, and peered in—but all within was pitch-black, and she could see nothing at all.

Just then a voice came from nearby: "Isn't that the Byron girl... what's the matter?"

Pea turned her head and saw a carpenter she knew, who had perhaps been passing by and had come over on seeing her craning into the well. Two of the carpenter's apprentices stood beside him.

"Ah—ah—ah!" Pea made a vague, wordless sound and gestured toward the mouth of the well, indicating that something or other had jammed the bucket inside. The carpenter and his two apprentices exchanged glances and soon understood what she meant.

"Stand aside and watch—we'll get your bucket up for you."

Pea obediently stepped back and watched the three grown men strain together to turn the handle. The windlass, made of sturdy iron posts and hard wood, actually began to creak and groan, as though a living person were hanging from the rope below. But no matter what, the rope at last began to rise.

"It's coming up, it's coming up! Don't you let go now!"

The carpenter said this loudly, and the instant his words fell, Doudou suddenly heard a tremendous splashing from the well.

Splash!

A figure wreathed in flying water burst out of the well, and one could vaguely make out a human upper body and the tail of a fish...

Doudou stared at the figure, eyes glazed.

Cecil Territory was different from other towns: here, fish leapt out of the wells, and such enormous fish at that...