Chapter 75: Hopeless Sea |
In the first-floor hall, the players made do with a simple dinner and took the opportunity to introduce themselves.
Besides Lu Li, seven other players claimed to have guild affiliations, but they were all from small, unknown guilds.
"It's getting late," Lu Li announced. "Everyone should search their own rooms for clues, then get some rest. I don't care what your plans are for the side quests, but I sincerely hope that tomorrow we can split into three teams to explore the clock tower, the altar, and the coconut grove."
"No problem!" Angela was the first to voice her support. A smile revealed two faint dimples, making her look exceptionally radiant. "Which area are you planning to explore, boss? Can I tag along?"
"Of course," Lu Li nodded.
Angela beamed. "Thanks, boss! I’ll be on my best behavior!"
Everyone appreciates a pretty girl with a silver tongue. Lu Li offered a gentle smile and continued, "However, I still recommend that we don't send too many people to the altar. It’s connected to two rules involving the Sea God, so it’s incredibly dangerous. It would be easy to lose your life there."
A short man chuckled. "Don't you have an old saying? 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.'"
Zhang Hongfeng hadn't been able to get a word in, but he finally found his chance. "Young Brother Lu, Chang Xu and Si Qi already went upstairs. Is there anything important I should note down to tell them?"
Lu Li’s expression remained unchanged as he smiled and said, "They might have other plans. I’ll go talk to them later."
Hearing this, Angela’s eyes flickered with thought.
She had noticed Chang Xu leaving, and now that she thought about it, the whole thing seemed exceptionally strange.
Weren't they afraid of being isolated and targeted for breaking away from the group as a two-person alliance?
Or did they know something the others didn't and have a different agenda?
Angela subconsciously stroked an item card in her pocket. The sharp, distinct edge of the card grazed her fingertips.
[Name: Insight Card (Consumable)]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: In a faction-based instance, designate one player to view their identity card.]
[Note: Peeking at your hand. Yep, it’s cheating~]
...
"A friend of mine knew someone who died in the *Flesh Eating* instance," Chang Xu said, his voice as still as water in a deep well. "I let my concern get the better of me. I’m sorry for pressing you so hard before."
He inserted the key into the lock. With a rough, dull click, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"I understand," Qi Si replied, following him in with a wry smile. "I wasn't actually angry with you. I just have a long-standing aversion to the presumption of guilt."
"Justice built on the presumption of guilt is nothing more than mob violence. Sacrificing an innocent person to close a case quickly and boost performance numbers; sacrificing an insignificant nobody to protect the tangled web of interests behind the scenes—I’m all too familiar with the Federation’s playbook."
Listening to these words, which were clearly politically incorrect, Chang Xu felt no animosity.
'He’s an old acquaintance the Public Security Bureau has been watching for a long time. His background is cleaner than most investigators. We watched him for six years and couldn’t find a shred of evidence that he’d broken any laws.'
Mu Dongxu’s words echoed in his mind.
No one would feel good about being suspected for no reason, let alone being inexplicably monitored for six years...
He didn't agree with him, but he could understand.
By taking a step back, Qi Si had effectively labeled himself as someone dissatisfied with the Federation, providing a plausible explanation for his previous actions.
He entered the room, his eyes falling upon a space of about twenty square meters, dim and cramped. The wooden walls were covered in spots of mold, the edges stained a nauseating pale green, like discarded paint.
The wooden window directly opposite the door was wide open, revealing a golden sky clustered with yellow clouds. On this island, where day and night were meaningless, an eternal twilight reigned. The sight of such a sky was as eerie as the vaulted ceiling of a medieval cathedral.
Qi Si walked straight to the window. His footsteps on the salt-corroded floorboards made a hoarse, rustling sound.
He reached out and pulled the wooden window shut. It closed with a long, drawn-out *creak* that set one's teeth on edge. A corner of the window was broken, so it couldn’t close tightly. Through the crack, the yellow sky was still visible, and a draft of sea breeze could be felt.
Qi Si turned to survey the room. Chang Xu had already lit the oil lamp on the bedside table. In the orange-red glow, a richly atmospheric religious oil painting could be seen hanging on the wall opposite the bed.
The painting depicted a man in a long robe standing on a reef, holding a staff high. Before him, the dark, churning sea had mysteriously parted, creating a path.
"It’s Moses leading the Exodus from Egypt," Chang Xu said, his expression calm as his fingers traced the frame. "According to the legend, Moses, guided by God, rescued the slaves from Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. When they reached the Red Sea, he parted the waters to let them pass, then closed them again to drown the pursuing soldiers."
Qi Si had heard the story. Its symbolism could be interpreted in many ways: as a tale of resistance and perseverance, or one of guidance and revelation.
"Brother Chang, you know so much. I always thought your line of work required a mandatory belief in materialism..." Qi Si teased with a smile, then pointed to the large black areas in the painting. "Does the legend say they departed at night?"
Chang Xu shook his head. "No. Most paintings on this theme depict a daytime background." "Then this must be a clue unique to this instance. I bet a lot of clues can only be found at night."
"Considering there’s no real night here, I’m guessing it means we need to stay awake during the designated sleeping hours." Qi Si paused, his eyes crinkling into a smile as he looked at Chang Xu. "Brother Chang, interested in pulling an all-nighter tonight?"
Chang Xu: ...No, thanks.
The rules had specific requirements about sleeping. Pulling an all-nighter in an instance was, by any measure, a dangerous—and unnecessary—risk.
As an official player, how could he not know that?
Qi Si paid no more mind to the question marks practically floating over Chang Xu’s head, acting as if his suggestion had just been a fleeting joke.
His gaze swept over the two narrow beds placed side by side, and the low table between them. The table drawer was half-open, revealing something inside.
He walked over and pulled out all the yellowed pages from the drawer.
On the retro-style manuscript paper, English words snaked across the page in a messy scrawl. It appeared to be a diary. The moment his eyes fell upon it, the Weird Game helpfully provided a translation on the system interface:
[Before I record my seafaring life, I must first introduce myself. I am Zdravko Crouch, and my family has been settled in York City since my parents’ generation...]
The first entry was full of fluff, mainly introducing the author’s family background. This Viscount Crouch came from a family in decline but was skilled at social climbing and seizing opportunities. With the Queen's support, he set off on a long voyage, planning to cross the "Central Route" to trade for gold.
"If I remember correctly, the captain of the ship at the start of the instance was also named ‘Crouch,’" Qi Si remarked, handing the first page to Chang Xu.
Chang Xu quickly skimmed the page, his brow furrowing slightly. "The captain was shipwrecked at the same time as us, yet he arrived here first and left these notes. It could be a time distortion, or it could be that he was already dead and what we saw on the ship was a ghost."
Qi Si leaned toward the latter explanation but offered a third possibility with a smile. "Or maybe the captain just belongs to the same family as this Viscount Crouch and came here looking for his relative?"
He lowered his head and continued reading the next few pages of the diary.
[Everything is going more smoothly than I imagined. I have filled the hold with cargo and am following the planned route to the Americas. An unpleasant incident occurred along the way. An old sailor got drunk and started shouting that the waters between the Bermuda islands and Miami were cursed by the Sea God, and that if we insisted on passing through, the ship and everyone on it would vanish. His ranting caused a panic, so I had no choice but to throw the fear-mongering bastard overboard to feed the fish.]
...
[We haven’t docked for several days, and the vegetables on board have run out. My gums are bleeding a little, but my health is otherwise sound. Several more sailors have started making trouble, demanding I change course. It’s a real headache. I have studied the diary of a pioneer who passed through the Bermuda area. He did encounter a significant storm, but he weathered it safely thanks to his seafaring experience.]
[There are countless storms, big and small, at sea; we can’t just scurry away like cowards every time. Shipbuilding technology has advanced rapidly over the past century. If the ancients could pass through Bermuda, what do I have to fear at the helm of the world’s most advanced sailing ship?]
...
[There is a terrifying legend passed among sailors: the souls of those who die at sea know no peace. They willingly submit to the enslavement of sea sirens, to bring more souls to the ocean's depths.]
[When a ship on a long voyage is targeted by these spirits, sailors will spot an extra crewmate on deck—a black, shadowy figure that doesn't respond when spoken to. In the dead of night, it will endlessly repeat the last few seconds of its life, leaping from the deck into the sea, over and over.]
[Gradually, the sailors lose their minds and follow the spirit, jumping into the sea to sink beneath the waves, never to resurface. The spirit only rests when every living person on board has been devoured by the sea, leaving an empty ship to continue along its set course.]
[For the past few days, I’ve been having a recurring dream. I see the spirit leap into the sea and transform into a merman... Dammit! It must be because those bastards keep whispering that horrid legend in my ear!]
...
There was another thin stack of pages behind these, stuck together as if they had been soaked in water. The ink on them had bled into an illegible mess.
Qi Si guessed that those pages likely detailed Viscount Crouch’s experiences after encountering the supernatural event and arriving at the Hopeless Sea.
It was a shame there was no way to know what the good viscount had encountered on the island, or whether he had lived or died. At best, the diary provided some background information, but it wasn't much help for the exploration ahead.
"From the diary entries, it seems this Viscount Crouch wasn't on the same ship as us," Qi Si noted, his tone lifting at the end of his sentence as a thought occurred to him. "But where did our captain go? Don’t tell me he really ended up as fish food?"
Chang Xu shot Qi Si a sidelong glance, unimpressed by his teammate’s sense of humor. "We know that we saw the spirit fall into the water in the Hopeless Sea right before we were shipwrecked and washed up on the Sea God's island. According to the diary’s description, we must have been targeted by one of these so-called sirens or spirits."
"I have three questions. First, what triggers the terrifying legend? Second, what is our current status? And third, do we need to factor in the spirits if we want to leave the island?"
"I don't know. All I know is that we've solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle—all the missing sailors ended up in the Hopeless Sea," Qi Si joked, a corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk.
He selected the pages that were still legible, placed them back in the drawer, and then took the remaining waterlogged, pulp-like sheets to the window. Patiently, he tore them into strips and used them to stuff the cracks in the window frame.
"The other rooms should have similar clues. If we pool them together tomorrow, we might find some answers—assuming anyone is willing to share their findings selflessly, that is."
Once all the gaps were plugged with paper strips, Qi Si waved his hand in front of the window to confirm that no more light or air was getting through. Satisfied, he stepped back and sat down on the edge of the bed.
He looked at Chang Xu with a mischievous grin. "It’s still early. If you’re that eager for answers, Brother Chang, I could always go pick the locks on all the other rooms."
Chang Xu: ...Wow.
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