“Knock—knock-knock—knock-knock-knock.”
“Knock-knock—knock—knock-knock-knock.”
When the eerie knocking sound reached Boss Wu lying in bed with its unique rhythm, Boss Wu thought he was dreaming.
It truly felt like sleep paralysis—that twilight zone between waking and dreaming.
His eyes were closed, but he could sense a spot of dim, yellow light in the pitch-black distance; that was his bedside lamp, which he hadn’t turned off. His body was completely immobilized. The air seemed to coalesce into a heavy mass, pressing down on him and making every breath a struggle. And then there was that sound, relentlessly drilling into his ears… What did it sound like?
It sounded like large raindrops, tapping against the glass one by one.
Yes, that’s it. Before going to sleep, there was a raging storm outside. The sound of raindrops is perfectly normal.
But is this really the sound of rain?
Raindrops sound crisp and soft. This sound, however, is heavy and muffled.
Rather than rain, it sounded much more like… like someone using their knuckles, knocking on the glass step by step!
Boss Wu snapped his eyes open!
Terror, like an invisible monster, leaped out from the darkness and viciously seized his heart.
He stared at the ceiling, which was covered in static-like specks reminiscent of a TV with no signal. Trembling, he looked toward the bedside lamp. That faint, weak light offered him no comfort; instead, it made him realize just how dangerous his current situation was! …Because this light only illuminated a small ring around the headboard. As for the rest of the room—the lower half of the bed, the sofa, the living room, the bathroom… everything was shrouded in darkness.
They were all hiding in the dark!
And what else was hiding in the dark alongside them?
What else? What else… Ah, right. There was more.
The sound that continued to echo—from the moment he fell asleep to the moment he opened his eyes—a knocking sound that resonated at an unhurried, steady pace. A sound hiding behind the curtains, knocking on the glass door that led out to the deck.
What was that? What on earth was that?
Boss Wu’s hand struck the mineral water bottle on his bedside table. The bottle crashed onto the floor with a loud thud.
The knocking sound stopped abruptly—
Before Boss Wu’s heart could narrowly escape the fangs of fear, the sound that had paused rang out once more.
Enough! Enough! What on earth is this?! What is it?!
His heart hadn’t escaped, and his fragile nerves had become a captive of this monster called fear.
This monster first used its teeth to jab his heart—once heavy, once light; then it used a saw to saw at his nerves—once back, once forth.
He rolled off the bed onto the floor.
First, he turned on the lights—he turned on all of them. The room became brightly illuminated, and the monster belonging to the darkness was driven into the corners. But the sound—the sound continued—and it grew faster, as if it was beginning to lose its patience!
Boss Wu shuddered violently.
His teeth, his facial features, his brains, his entire mind began to shake.
Amidst the terror, he managed to grasp a sliver of his fleeting reason. He realized he couldn’t go on like this. The unknown behind the curtains… the unknown was the most terrifying thing of all. He should pull open the curtains and take a look. Maybe it was just something blown by the wind hitting the glass door, a simple false alarm born from his imagination… that was currently driving him to the brink of life and death!
He pumped himself up.
Fumbling, he stood up from the floor and tottered toward the curtains. He began to uncontrollably miss Little Han, his loyal bodyguard. He had never mistreated the man; every year, his salary, bonuses, and red envelopes were given in full. But right now, Little Han was held up outside, forced into the bodyguard lineup, risking his life for Mr. Liu—who had never paid him a single dime…
And he!
He was trapped in here, living in constant fear!
Resentment bubbled up inside his heart like a gushing spring.
Yet, Boss Wu didn’t dare walk toward the front door of the room. It was as if, compared to the curtain emitting strange sounds, the room door—which Mr. Liu had ordered to remain shut—frightened him even more.
After all, a spring could not overflow an ocean, nor could it overflow Mr. Liu, the master of the ship atop this ocean.
He finally dragged himself to the front of the curtains.
The knocking sound was now unmistakable—so clear that it felt as if the fingers tapping were not outside the glass door behind the curtains, but inside his own ear canals, impatiently knocking again and again…
Boss Wu had never felt old.
But now, he felt old. His body was sore and limp, his limbs lacked strength, and his brain was as thick as paste. He couldn’t think of a single way to save himself and could only pin his hopes on fate…
Yes.
It won’t be a ghost.
It isn’t here to kill me.
It’s just an accident, something blown up by the wind, a false alarm… Everything is just a false alarm…
He finally grabbed the curtain and quietly lifted a corner.
Snap.
The sweet dream shattered like a bubble.
The light leaking from the room, combined with the lightning flashing in the sky, allowed him to see the masked man standing outside.
This man held a gun in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
The gun was aimed at his head, and written on the paper were the words:
“I shoot.”
“OR”
“You open the door.”
An earth-shattering scream burst from Boss Wu’s throat.
He was a frail old man… yet this frail old man fled from the deck door at a speed that was anything but frail. He scrambled and crawled, rushing toward the room’s main door. Midway, he didn’t even forget to snatch a cushion from the sofa to use as armor, shielding his vital areas! He did the exact same thing the ponytailed boss had done earlier, pounding frantically on the door while bellowing at the top of his lungs:
“The ghost! The ghost is here with me!”
He screamed, a twisted sense of gratification actually surfacing within his hoarse, desperate shouts:
“Mr. Liu! I found the ghost! The ghost is right outside my window! I’m going to open the door right now—you guys hurry up and get in here! Kill the ghost and we’ll be safe!”
However.
That cold, belated voice still said:
“Don’t you dare touch the door—”
“What?” Boss Wu roared in disbelief. “Did you hear a word I said?! The ghost is on the deck! He’s standing on the deck with a gun, separated from me by just one glass door! Opportunity knocks but once!”
Outside the window, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin exchanged a glance.
Of course, Ji Xun hadn’t come alone. Far from being alone, to his left was Huo Ranyin, and to his right was Meng Fushan. It was just that both of them had been hiding to the side as backup, just in case.
Now is the time.
Ji Xun tossed the gun to Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin raised his hand and fired.
Clang! Centered around the bullet hole, the spiderweb-cracked glass rained down like a sparkling shower.
Huo Ranyin tossed the gun back to Ji Xun.
Ji Xun let out a whistle, genuinely surprised.
Then, he gestured with the gun toward Meng Fushan, who remained hidden in the darkness like a ghost himself: See that? Trust.
Meng Fushan gave him a cold glare: You’re out of your mind.
Yet, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin did not step over the shattered glass to pull back the curtains and enter the completely exposed room.
On the contrary, they remained outside patiently, quietly listening to Boss Wu’s frantic screaming.
“Did you hear that?! Clang! The glass shattered!” That crashing sound was undeniably a heavy sledgehammer that utterly shattered Boss Wu’s remaining sanity. Regardless of the consequences, Boss Wu slammed down on the door handle, preparing to pull the door open.
However, an opposing force was applied to the door.
Mr. Liu’s aged and cold voice rang out: “You said someone is on the deck.”
“Yes!” Boss Wu roared. “Let me open the door! Come in and finish him off!”
“You said that sound just now was the glass shattering.”
“YES!!! How many times do I have to tell you?! Are you too old, deaf, and senile to understand human language?!”
“If the person is outside and broke the glass, why…” Mr. Liu paused, “…didn’t he kill you?”
“…” Boss Wu suddenly froze, dazed.
If the person is outside and broke the glass… why didn’t he rush in to kill me?
The ghost has already killed one, two, three people… With such a good opportunity, why didn’t he rush in and finish me off?
Trembling with fear, he turned his head back to look. The wind was blowing against the curtains, making them sway gently.
The curtains concealed the deck, hanging straight down to the floor. He had no way of seeing what was happening behind them… Did the ghost leave? Or is he still there? What does the ghost want? What on earth is he waiting for?
None of that mattered anymore.
“Let Little Han in!” Boss Wu blurted out suddenly. “If you guys are too scared of dying to come in, fine! But let my bodyguard in! I pay him such a high salary—he has a duty to protect me now!”
A moment later.
A long, contemptuous chuckle came from outside.
Mr. Liu was mocking Boss Wu—mocking him for playing such a flawed, ridiculous trick just to call his bodyguard back to his side.
“Boss Wu!” Little Han’s panicked voice suddenly sounded from outside the door. “I can’t go in… They’re pointing guns at me!”
“Liu Yan, I’ll fuck your ancestors!” Boss Wu screamed at a high pitch.
The cursing inside grew increasingly intense.
The three people outside were still in no rush. Ji Xun timed it carefully until Boss Wu had been cursing for about seven or eight minutes—cursing until his voice went hoarse, cursing until Mr. Liu outside lost all patience and said coldly:
“If you make another sound, I’ll shoot you right through the door.”
The timing was finally right!
Stepping over the shattered glass, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin pulled back the curtains and entered the room.
Their movements were swift yet cautious. They first confirmed that the room door was tightly shut and that there were no armed bodyguards inside—only Boss Wu, hunched over on the sofa cushion, roaring at the door.
Ji Xun stepped forward. Boss Wu suddenly realized someone was behind him. He turned his head and first saw a dark gun barrel.
He opened his mouth, wanting to shout again, but in his desperation, his hoarse throat felt as if it were stuffed solid with sand, unable to produce a single extra sound.
The gun barrel moved unhurriedly—first pointing at the door, then at Boss Wu’s legs, and finally at Boss Wu’s head.
Then, the gun barrel shifted, tapping toward the bedroom sofa.
Resigned to his fate, Boss Wu stood up and followed the ghost who had walked in, moving toward the sofa… Only when he got there did he realize that another person was actually sitting on the sofa.
That person wore an exquisite white suit, was young, and possessed a perfect figure. That was… Boss Zhou!
Boss Zhou was actually one of the ghosts too!
He couldn’t believe his eyes, but he suddenly understood. He finally realized why Mr. Liu, along with all of them, had been defeated step by step…
Huo Ranyin stuffed a towel into Boss Wu’s mouth.
Ji Xun lowered his gun. Noticing that Boss Wu’s eyes were tracking the movement of the weapon, he smiled slightly, raised the gun again, and aimed it right at Boss Wu.
“Bang—”
Boss Wu shuddered violently, and tears streamed down his face in two lines. Only after a moment of intense terror did he realize that the soft “bang” was not the sound of a bullet being fired, but a sound effect made by Ji Xun himself.
Utterly humiliated, he averted his eyes, no longer daring to look at the gun.
Ji Xun lowered the weapon once more.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few folded pieces of A4 paper.
Unfolding them, he thrust the first page right in front of Boss Wu’s face.
On the white paper, drawn with vivid skill, was a short comic strip:
First panel: A small figure bragging endlessly about an imaginary wolf.
Second panel: The small figure shouting at the door.
Third panel: The door opens, and the small figure lies in a pool of blood.
Boss Wu began to tremble.
With the preceding events laying the groundwork, facing this comic strip now made him acutely aware of what the other party was trying to say, even without a single word of conversation.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Just now, his frantic, irrational shouting—caused by the collapse of his psychological defenses—had already made Mr. Liu extremely impatient. Mr. Liu had preemptively assumed that everything he did was merely to get his bodyguard back to his side… Moving forward, no matter what desperate moves he pulled, Mr. Liu would not respond.
No, Mr. Liu would respond.
His response would be—a bullet to the head.
This… this was all the ghost’s scheme! The ghost was so calculating that he had planned everything to this extent!
Through his blurry vision, Boss Wu saw a line of words written beneath the comic strip.
A short phrase of four words:
“Cooperate properly.”
Meekly and gently, he nodded his head.
The sheet of A4 paper drifted lightly to the floor.
The content of the second page was revealed:
A ship—an old-fashioned ocean-going vessel with the three words “Dingbo” written on it!
Boss Wu let out a subtle shudder.
How did they know about this? Did they hear something even deeper than… that ghost story?
“That’s fake…” He let out muffled sounds, trying to convey his meaning.
Then, he saw a notebook.
There was nothing unusual about the notebook itself, but it opened right in front of his eyes. He saw those log entries belonging to the year 1976, and he saw the diary attached behind the log entries!
His body trembled uncontrollably.
It was then that he focused his eyes and noticed a line of text written beneath the drawing of the ship:
“Feng Silong, Liu Yan, Lu Kun, Chu Xingfa, Yu Hai, Lin Xiaodao, Xu Duo, Cao Mo, Wu Lele—who are you?”
I…
I…
A sheet of paper and a pen were handed to him by Huo Ranyin, who stood beside him.
He picked up the pen and wrote on the paper:
I, I am… Cao Mo.
This piece of A4 paper also drifted down, and the third A4 paper appeared in front of Boss Wu.
Boss Wu saw a murder scene.
A murder scene from forty years ago, where the captain, chief mate, second mate, and Fu Ge died.
He had thought he had forgotten these events.
But these things… these things… were firmly stored in his heart, not forgotten for even a single moment.
“You found out…” he wrote frantically. “You should know that I was coerced! It wasn’t intentional—they were all doing it, I had no choice…! If I didn’t go along with them, I would die! Just like the second mate! Stabbed repeatedly in turns and then dismembered!”
“Is that so?” Ji Xun whispered. His voice was kept very soft, uttering just this single sentence before stopping.
He turned the piece of A4 paper toward himself, picked up a pen, and slowly drew a figure in front of the door of the room where Fu Ge died, writing two words beside it:
“Yu Hai.”
He then presented the paper back to Boss Wu.
Boss Wu gripped the pen tightly. His gaze averted—just like it had averted from the gun barrel earlier—he began to feel afraid.
If the name Yu Hai had nothing to do with Fu Ge’s death, why would he be afraid?
Without Boss Wu needing to say another word, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin’s eyes brightened instantly.
The gamble paid off!
This Cao Mo—who had survived the Dingbo back in 1976 and transformed himself into the wealthy Boss Wu—actually knew the true killer of the murder case on the ship back then!
That meant a breakthrough could be made through him… With just a little push, the final piece of the deduction puzzle could be put together!
Ji Xun recalled Liu Yan’s diary.
Seven diaries, ending with Liu Yan’s diary as the final summary… At the beginning of these seven diaries, Liu Yan showed no clear inclination. However, after the search following the deaths of the chief mate and second mate, the diary explicitly stated…
Liu Yan was together with Feng Silong.
Cao Mo and his group had even bumped into the two of them rushing out the door on the very night they intended to discuss matters with them.
Why these two had rushed out that night was actually answered the next day…
They were discussing the treasure in Huo Qiying’s luggage that was “worth hundreds of thousands.”
However, there was a problem—a very important problem.
The discussion about the treasure in the diary was very clear. It was a dusty, unimposing treasure that didn’t look valuable at all. Translator Liu was fully aware of its value, but Big Brother Long was not.
So why did Translator Liu discuss the treasure with Feng Silong? This was very strange behavior. For a treasure that others wouldn’t recognize, standard human nature would dictate keeping it for oneself as the best option. Yet, he shared this secret with Feng Silong, someone he hadn’t had much interaction with prior to this.
This was clearly not because Translator Liu possessed some high moral character.
After the captain and chief mate went missing, Translator Liu actively pushed for a full ship search. Yet, after entering the chief mate’s room to search, he lost all enthusiasm and didn’t even complete the search.
Why did he exhibit such an attitude?
He had gone into those rooms with a purpose: to find a specific clue—or rather, a specific item.
The terracotta figurine worth hundreds of thousands was worthy of his loss of enthusiasm.
Shortly after, he unexpectedly discovered the treasure. The treasure that was supposed to be in the chief mate’s room had miraculously shifted, appearing in Feng Silong’s room, or on Feng Silong’s person.
Miss Huo’s luggage had changed hands twice: once to the captain, and once to the chief mate.
Coincidentally, both of them were killed by the same murderer.
Why would someone who didn’t really understand the value of the terracotta figurine steal it?
Perhaps it wasn’t an intentional theft, but rather something picked up accidentally during a struggle, considering it was only the size of a palm. Feng Silong obtained this unimposing cultural relic from the corpse, and precisely because of this, he vaguely realized that something carried on a person’s body must have some value, so he subconsciously stashed it away.
Translator Liu probably realized right then that Feng Silong was the killer. Shrewd as he was, he chose to pledge allegiance—or rather, use his professional knowledge to secure a spot in an alliance with Feng Silong.
When they had their secret talk, the conflicts on the ship were nearing an irreconcilable point. Translator Liu was in an awkward position, naturally leaning toward management, while Feng Silong happened to be the recognized leader of the sailors.
Thus, Translator Liu simply used the antique—which belonged to Huo Qiying but was currently in Feng Silong’s hands—as a bridge for his allegiance.
Selling antiques required a certain level of skill. Using the promise of selling it for the highest possible price as leverage made it easy to persuade Feng Silong, who had a relatively low level of education but plenty of physical strength, to accept him.
Ji Xun’s gaze shifted to Boss Wu. As if writing casually and offhandedly, he wrote:
“Did you know Feng Silong was the killer? Did Liu Yan tell you about this?”
The pen in Boss Wu’s hand dropped to the floor.
“Looks like he did,” Ji Xun nodded, continuing to write. “Feng Silong killed the captain, Jin Song, and Qian Zhenyi. But he’s no longer around—he’s dead. How did he die?”
Ji Xun wrote down these questions.
He raised his eyes slightly, looking at Boss Wu’s face.
A playful light gleamed in his eyes, like a child crouching beside an anthill watching a group of ants fight each other to the death. They fought so intently, completely unaware that if the child simply raised a foot, it would mean utter destruction for every single one of them.
“Was he…” Ji Xun wrote, “…killed by Liu Yan? When Liu Yan was preparing to kill him, did he tell you about his crimes?”
Boss Wu’s heart exploded with shock.
He trembled more violently than ever before—so hard that every bone in his body seemed to knock against another.
By now, from head to tail, every secret… these people know it all. Just how much do they know…? It’s been forty years… I don’t know… Maybe the cleverest one, Mr. Liu, could tell… But so what? Mr. Liu is outside… being played like a fool by them too!
The sins of the past have come knocking at the door—there’s no escape… I can’t escape, so how could I let anyone else escape? Should I let Mr. Liu, who doesn’t care whether I live or die outside, escape?
Clack, clack, clack.
Clack, clack, clack.
His bones rattled; they were in pain, begging for mercy.
Using what looked almost like drawing, he wrote out the shock in his heart: “How is that possible? How could you even know about this?!”
By guessing, of course, Ji Xun thought to himself.
Feng Silong’s murders were different from Yu Hai killing Fu Ge out of revenge. The sailors could sympathize with Yu Hai’s revenge because Fu Ge was discriminating against and oppressing them, and he already had Cao Hang’s life on his hands. They were paying back a blood debt in their own way.
But Feng Silong was the initiator of the murders on the ship, the purest kind of killer.
Even at the very end when everyone had gone crazy killing each other, he actually had no reason to confess his crimes—or rather, there was a high probability he wouldn’t say a word.
So how did they find out?
It could only be Liu Yan—Mr. Liu—who revealed it to convict Feng Silong when he was gathering allies and preparing to take power by eliminating obstacles!
How ridiculous.
Even among criminals, they ranked themselves into hierarchies of guilt.
Ji Xun’s questioning wasn’t over. Or rather, now that Boss Wu had completely broken down, the interrogation was just getting started.
“Back on the ship, who caught Liu Yan and Feng Silong plotting over the hundreds of thousands? How did Liu Yan kill Feng Silong?”
Boss Wu was completely limp now.
Accepting his fate, he wrote down:
“It was Chu Xingfa… We found out later that the person who wrote those notes was Chu Xingfa… This was after we got off the ship. We went to Japan to change our identities, and then to Hong Kong… During this process, Chu Xingfa ran off with a huge sum of our money and vanished… In their rage, they let it slip… A few years later, things calmed down… Big Brother Long died of an illness… On the surface, it was an illness… but in reality, he died the exact same way Fu Ge did… I suspect he was… framed and killed by Yu Hai under Liu Yan’s… under Liu Yan’s orders…”
“What did Yu Hai change his name to?” Huo Ranyin suddenly spoke up, asking in a soft voice.
And so, the trembling pen once again wrote three words:
“Yu Fanhai…”
Yu Fanhai.
Yu Cisheng’s father.
Ji Xun had met him once in Qin City alongside Huo Ranyin—a kindly, benevolent old man who ate vegetarian food and chanted Buddhist prayers.
He looked at Huo Ranyin, thinking Huo Ranyin would be somewhat moved, but Huo Ranyin remained calm and indifferent, as if this news couldn’t affect him in the slightest. He merely stayed silent, or perhaps deep in thought.
There were still two sheets of paper left.
Ji Xun showed the second-to-last page to Boss Wu.
Flowers.
Large clusters of flowers surrounding the silhouette of a woman.
Written beneath it:
“What on earth did you do to Huo Qiying?”
Boss Wu’s eyes glued themselves to this page.
His face—covered in oily sweat and contorted with fear—actually saw its wrinkles smooth out. Those withered lines relaxed into an expression of relief.
An extraordinarily eerie sense of relief.
This time, he didn’t write any words.
However, his eyes and the rest of his micro-expressions answered Ji Xun’s question.
This was a question that required no spoken answer from the person involved.
In the final diary entry by Translator Liu, which detailed Huo Qiying’s ultimate fate—as long as one stripped away the long, self-indulgent, self-satisfying babble—one could easily discover…
Every single one of them had taken turns entering Huo Qiying’s room.
Huo Qiying died.
On a ship, every single man had, in turn, entered a woman’s room.
And then, the woman died.
What happened?
What else could have happened?
Boss Wu picked up the pen once more and wrote a line on the paper:
“Spare me…”
Ji Xun closed his eyes briefly.
He showed the final sheet of paper to Boss Wu.
It bore the exact same illustration as the previous page—clusters of flowers surrounding a flawless body and soul.
“Who was there to spare Huo Qiying?”
Who was there to spare Huo Qiying?
This poor woman—gang-raped by all of you, slandered by you, robbed of her wealth, her very bones turned into ornaments by you.
