The room surfaced once more in the darkness.
Amidst the surging pitch-black, there was only a small desk lamp on the tabletop, radiating an orange glow akin to a setting sun.
The dark shadow bore down heavily onto the edge of the desk once more. It unlocked and opened the drawer, pulled out the record notebook from within, and flipped to a new page.
The dark shadow removed the sheet of paper tucked into this page and unfolded it. On the front of the yellowed paper, it read: “Kitchen Log.”
Kitchen Log:
Voyage No. 8 — April X, 1976
Staple Food:
Vegetables:
Meat:
…
Utensil Disinfection & Log:
Sanitation Personnel: Lin Xiaodao
Incident: Person delivering meal to the Captain’s quarters found the Captain dead.
Flipping to the back of this log page, a handwritten diary entry was still pasted there as well.
March 31, 1976
Things have gotten a bit awkward. The Captain discovered Miss Huo and insisted on taking her to the Captain’s quarters to look after her. Of course, not the kind of “looking after” in the same room—the Captain’s quarters is a suite with a living room and a bedroom. The Captain intends to yield his own bedroom to Miss Huo while he sleeps outside in the living room.
I actually find this acceptable. After all, it’s a private bedroom that can be locked, and it even connects to the deck for sea viewing; the conditions are far better than a box in the sweltering engine room anyway.
It’s just that Lu Kun’s face has remained gloomy throughout, and the sailors have very strong objections as well.
Sigh! This is also the Captain’s fault. If you’re going to take Miss Huo away, then just take her away. Why did he have to shred and tear apart the dress the sailors worked overtime to make, stomp it underfoot, and even claim the sailors were a chaotic bunch of many hands, where it was impossible to guarantee some corrupt minds wouldn’t steal Miss Huo’s luggage?
Once Miss Huo clarified that she hadn’t lost anything, he backtracked, saying someone might covet Miss Huo’s beauty. As Miss Huo’s ship owner, he had a duty to protect her safety.
He really thinks too highly of himself. This ship belongs to Boss Huo, not him! Still, he really is the highest authority on board; if he insists on acting like this, there is nothing anyone can do.
In short, thanks to the Captain giving everyone a haughty, arrogant dressing-down in full view of the public, now everyone on the ship—including the seabirds occasionally flying across the sky—knows that the beautiful Miss Huo is on board!
April 4, 1976
They say stopping the mouths of the people is harder than damming a river; it goes to show that even people in high positions cannot act without restraint all the time. Today is the fifth day since Miss Huo was taken away by the Captain. Over these five days, far from abating, the general discontent has only intensified.
The reason lies in the Captain’s quarters. Although it’s a suite, there is only one bathroom, which is located in the living room area. That means whenever Miss Huo needs to use the bathroom, she has to come out of the bedroom and enter the bathroom located in the living room.
The walls on the ship are very thin…
In short, regarding the fact that Miss Huo’s every move—and even all her privacy—must be exposed under the Captain’s very nose, no one can stomach it. Everyone from the sailors to Lu Kun has desperately begged Jin Song for help in visiting Miss Huo.
Jin Song is the First Mate on the ship, second in rank only to the Captain. The room he stays in is adjacent to the Captain’s quarters. Best of all, standing on Jin Song’s deck, one can hear the sounds from next door and converse with them.
Jin Song originally didn’t want to meddle in this matter, but too many people begged him, and coupled with a bit of his own curiosity, he ultimately agreed to everyone’s request and made contact with Miss Huo once.
After this contact, the gloom on Lu Kun’s face spread to Jin Song’s face like a contagious disease.
Coming face-to-face with him, my heart felt uneasy, sensing that something was bound to happen today.
And indeed, something did happen.
Lu Kun suddenly called me to the engine room. I wanted to go, yet I worried about what I would encounter after going. I dawdled for a long time. When I arrived and looked, Lu Kun, the sailors, Jin Song, and his good partner and close friend Qian Zhengyi, and even Lin Xiaodao from my kitchen were all there, waiting for me.
As soon as I arrived, Jin Song spoke frankly and openly: “Old Fang has improper intentions toward Miss Huo. We can’t let Miss Huo stay in Old Fang’s room any longer. We plan to lay our cards on the table with Old Fang, take Miss Huo out, and arrange another safe place for her.”
“We”—who is “we”? I really wanted to ask that question, but judging by the situation, I already understood that the so-called “we” meant everyone present except me.
Flustered beyond control, I said after a long pause, “Old Fang… the Captain is already in his forties or fifties, could it be a misunderstanding?”
“I heard it with my own ears on the deck,” Jin Song said with a displeased expression. “He said the bedroom was meant to accommodate Miss Huo, yet Old Fang entered the bedroom, pressing Miss Huo step by step, spouting filthy words. I really never expected him to be so blinded by lust to this extent. Setting aside how Boss Huo usually treats us, just talking about Miss Huo’s age—she’s younger than his own daughter!”
“A thief crying ‘stop thief’!” one of the sailors shouted indignantly. “The one harboring improper intentions toward Miss Huo isn’t us at all—it’s him!”
Everyone chipped in with one comment after another, every single word a critique and condemnation of the Captain, as well as pity and worry for Miss Huo.
One moment I was worried and afraid, and the next I recalled Miss Huo’s weak and helpless state. Finally, without knowing how, I agreed to the matter.
It was late today, so they set the time to confront the Captain for the following day.
April 5, 1976
Upon waking up, I regretted it again.
I figure they can get Miss Huo out. After Miss Huo comes out and this voyage ends, she can return home safely. But the Captain is still the Captain. If I join the crowd now to coerce the Captain, the Captain is bound to remember me afterward. Miss Huo will leave, but I still have to work on this ship.
The time for everyone to head collectively to the Captain’s quarters arrived quickly. Lin Xiaodao came to call me. I used the excuse that the pork trotters were stewing on the stove and needed minding, telling him to go ahead first. I clearly saw the corners of Lin Xiaodao’s mouth turn downward… but he said nothing, simply turning around and walking away. I couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief, yet I also felt a sense of loss…
Time flew by—probably about twenty minutes, not even enough time for the pork trotters to absorb the flavor—and bustling noises already echoed outside. I stood in the kitchen looking out and saw a group of people laughing and clamoring. Everyone was so happy; they sang loudly in unison, their voices echoing far across the sea.
Miss Huo stood right in the middle.
Blocked by the crowd, I couldn’t see her face, only her long black hair.
That hair was truly beautiful—like silk satin, black and lustrous.
Later, Lin Xiaodao returned. I asked him about the situation. He chuckled, clearly not yet over his earlier excitement. Turns out, those who went to find the Captain weren’t just the people I had seen before; even the Deck Master and his crew had joined in. Nearly two-thirds of the people on board gathered in front of the Captain’s room, demanding that the Captain release Miss Huo.
Not only was the Captain forced to release Miss Huo, but Jin Song also took charge and temporarily locked the Captain in his room.
April 8, 1976
The Captain has been locked in his room for three days.
Over these past few days, all kinds of matters on the ship have been managed by Jin Song. I feel a bit regretful again… I should have gone to the Captain’s quarters with Jin Song back then after all. Who’s to say that when this voyage ends, the Captain might have to leave the Dingbo, and Jin Song would serve as the new Captain!
Miss Huo finally has her own room and can move about the ship freely. It’s visible that she is very happy, though amidst the happiness, there is also a shadow. I had always felt guilty about failing to help her before, so I sought her out to chat, wanting to know what kind of shadow had clouded her beautiful face.
A chubby person doesn’t easily earn a woman’s romantic affection, but easily gains a woman’s trust—and among them, a chubby chef is especially prone to gaining trust. The reason? I’m not too sure either. Perhaps women can feel a slight sense of homey peace from the greasy smoke smell that never leaves me day or night?
My image worked to my advantage. I racked my brain to tell lots of jokes to amuse Miss Huo. Miss Huo has such a good personality, lacking even a bit of the arrogance typical of pretty women; she even searched through her own jokes to swap with me.
When the jokes were done, I finally asked Miss Huo if she had any troubling matters lately. Miss Huo bit her lower lip and spoke hesitatingly…
Someone was peeping at Miss Huo while she bathed and used the toilet!
I immediately told Jin Song about this. Jin Song took it very seriously, turning around to fetch Lu Kun and the Deck Master, and finally calling a meeting with the others.
This time was unlike the Captain’s unprovoked accusations earlier; these words were spoken by Miss Huo herself. Everyone was neither suspicious nor angry; instead, they were instantly filled with righteous indignation, wanting to drag out the person who did such a despicable and vile thing.
However, Miss Huo had never seen the peeper, so catching the offender had no starting point. After discussing it, everyone actively proposed no longer acting individually, but pairing up in teams of two to eliminate such incidents from the source.
This was everyone’s intention, so Jin Song naturally nodded in agreement.
However, right around dinner time on this day, when the pair assigned to deliver meals to the Captain opened the door, they discovered:
The Captain was dead!
Not only was the Captain dead, but he died inside a locked room!
The door in the bedroom leading to the deck was locked, and the door in the living room connecting to the outside was also locked. Inside the locked rooms, the Captain was murdered! Who killed the Captain, and how was the Captain killed?
Because the Captain’s quarters were always locked, the three people on board who held the keys to the Captain’s quarters became the primary suspects.
Strangely enough, these three people had been together with others all day today; they simply had no time or space to murder the Captain.
So how did the Captain die inside a locked room?
Rumors started spreading on the ship…
A ghost is killing people!
I, Chu Xingfa, hereby promise that this diary page consists of true contents written by my own hand. This statement is made explicitly.
Things were not right.
Meng Fushan stood in the corner, nervously pinching a cigarette. The cigarette bent and twisted in his palm, its wrapping paper tearing, and bits of tobacco fell continuously onto the ground through his fingers.
Since when had things gone wrong? Last night. Last night during drinking, even though he had controlled the amount and drunk very little, he still felt heavily intoxicated, as if caught in layered illusions.
By the time he woke up, his head hurt as if drilled by an electric drill. Before this sensation could subside, an alarmed shout rang out outside: “The ship is broken…”
The ship is broken?
How was it broken—did it hit an iceberg?
In a split second, Meng Fushan recalled the classic plot of Titanic and thought with a laugh: Hitting one would be fine too, ending everything once and for all.
However, immediately following that, looking at the short sleeves he was wearing, he couldn’t help sneering in his heart: At the turn of spring and summer, where would an iceberg come from for you to hit?
Then he stepped out the door, only then learning that “the ship is broken” meant the ship had been sabotaged.
Now, Mr. Liu had also brought his bodyguards to the main hall, his expression dark and heavy, looking much like the sky outside—flashing with thunder, roaring with lightning, and on the verge of wind and rain.
It was just that at this moment, no matter how dark Mr. Liu’s face was, it was of no use. The major incident of the ship being sabotaged shocked everyone into unease and set them whispering among themselves.
Ship staff rushed back and forth to various parts of the ship’s body, bringing back all sorts of less-than-ideal news:
The Captain’s quarters were completely destroyed.
The cameras and the monitoring room were both destroyed.
Neither the radio nor the satellite phone could be used.
The keypad lock on that big door beneath the deck was also destroyed!
Mr. Liu, sitting in the main hall, remained motionless like a heavy stone elder. Was he thinking about who had eaten a bear’s heart and a leopard’s gall, daring to stir up trouble on the Tai Sui’s head?
Meng Fushan surmised, while also analyzing the current situation:
The destruction of the Captain’s quarters meant the ship had completely lost its navigation capability; the damage to the surveillance probes and equipment blinded more than half of Mr. Liu’s “eyes”; the inability to use the radio and satellite phone caused Mr. Liu’s “ears” to follow in the footsteps of his eyes—and of course, it also meant Mr. Liu could not directly seek help from the outside world.
This luxurious palace on the sea truly seemed to have turned into an isolated island.
But what was the purpose of damaging that door beneath the deck?
Was it done in passing, simple casual destruction? Or was it to prevent Mr. Liu from wielding too much armed force? Meng Fushan stood in the corner, his body motionless for half a day while his eyes never stopped moving for a single second, already taking in everyone present at the scene.
A lot of people had gone down.
Bosses, women, security guards, waiters, doctors.
It could be said that ninety percent of the people on the ship were beneath the deck at this moment, participating in the “Game,” including Ji Xun.
“What the hell? The women are all gone; do those of us not participating in the Game not even deserve to have women anymore?” the eight bosses standing at the scene complained loudly.
Mr. Liu, flanked by two private bodyguards, knitted his brows tightly without speaking. At this time, the three masked bosses who had stayed beside Mr. Liu during the introduction of the “Game” last night also walked down with their respective private bodyguards.
Right at this moment, another crew member rushed into the main hall, bringing the latest news:
“Mr. Liu, the lifeboats hanging on the broadside are all gone!”
Mr. Liu raised his eyebrows suddenly.
At the exact same time, Meng Fushan grasped the truth behind this destruction—
The disappearance of the lifeboats meant someone had escaped on the lifeboats.
That made sense now. Destroying the ship’s power, cutting off channels of communication with the outside world, isolating Mr. Liu’s manpower, and taking away all the lifeboats—the sole purpose of all this was to prevent Mr. Liu from searching for and capturing them.
So who would the escapees be?
The women and the ship’s employees, Meng Fushan concluded. On this ship, only the women wanted to escape; they had convinced one to several employees, carried out this sabotage, and then used the lifeboats to flee!
Just as Meng Fushan smoothed out the details from head to tail, he noticed that Mr. Liu’s knitted brows had smoothed out as well. Mr. Liu relaxed—and naturally so, for an enemy hidden in the shadows was the truly terrifying enemy; human imagination excelled at embellishing and attributing much fantastical color to the unknown. Yet once the enemy was exposed to the daylight and clearly seen with one’s own eyes, they became a simple trouble, differing only in magnitude.
To Mr. Liu, the current enemies, despite creating quite a few problems, were merely a minor nuisance like a louse.
Meng Fushan abruptly glanced into the group of masked bosses.
Not a single boss was looking at him.
Yet the gaze he had sensed just now was no illusion. While he was observing this ship in secret, among these bosses, someone had also been observing him in secret.
Why? Had he exposed some flaw?
Mr. Liu spoke, his voice very gentle: “Everyone, do not worry. A minor incident has indeed occurred on the ship, but we can resolve it.”
“Resolve it how?” one of the bosses said in dissatisfaction. “We can’t even communicate with the outside world now!”
“That is because someone turned on signal jammers on the ship. As long as we find them, communications will be restored. My personnel will handle this matter as quickly as possible.”
“There are only seven bodyguards left here; having them search the entire ship is asking too much, isn’t it?” Another boss seemed to speak with sarcasm.
“There are more people,” Mr. Liu smiled, his gaze shifting toward the three bosses with bodyguards.
On this trip aboard the ship, because it was the Mazu Festival with a “Game,” none of the bosses had brought private bodyguards, except for the three beside Mr. Liu.
The three bosses also understood Mr. Liu’s meaning. With a wave of their hands, they signaled the bodyguards following them to join forces with Mr. Liu’s men. This way, the bodyguards became ten people in total.
Ten people was still extremely few compared to normal circumstances.
However, under the condition where the upper and lower decks were isolated and outside contact was impossible, Mr. Liu couldn’t conjure up more people out of thin air either.
Meng Fushan gave extra scrutiny to these three bosses. All signs from last night to the present indicated that these three bosses, who were around the same age as Mr. Liu, were insiders within Mr. Liu’s organization. Even if their status was inferior to Mr. Liu’s, it couldn’t be much lower.
Among these three people, one was very fat, one had a face the color of pig’s liver, and one had no distinct features other than having a considerable amount of age spots on his face and hands.
“During the daytime today, please try your best to stay in your rooms. At the latest, by evening when the search is conducted, I think we will see some results,” Mr. Liu said. “When the time comes, if these bodyguards knock on your doors, please cooperate as much as possible. The sooner we find the signal jammers, the sooner this place returns to normal.”
“What a joke. The women are gone, and we can’t even watch TV. Boarding the ship wasn’t for relaxation; it’s turned into serving a prison sentence.”
The eight bosses began complaining right in front of Mr. Liu.
Since it was a blunder on the ship’s part after all, Mr. Liu had no choice but to pretend not to hear. As for the eight bosses, there was nothing they could do either; at this point, they still had to rely on Mr. Liu’s men to get the ship back to normal, so they could only return to their respective rooms cursing and swearing.
After the bosses left, Mr. Liu assembled all the crew members.
Counting himself, there were eight crew members present. Combined with the ten bodyguards, Mr. Liu, the other three bosses, and the eight bosses who had just left, there were currently thirty people in total staying above the deck.
The bodyguards were dispatched to search for the jammers, while they, the crew members, were required to stay in their rooms for the time being.
Meng Fushan followed the crew members two steps toward the quarters, found an excuse, and slipped away. He made a lap around the ship and arrived below the deck. The deck where they had boarded the ship was the stern deck, whereas this area was the bow deck.
Walking down along the stairs at the deck, after descending a distance of roughly half a flight, Meng Fushan finally saw the entrance to the “Game”—an entryway-like space facing a set of human-sized statues positioned directly opposite the main door. Cameras were mounted at the corners of the ceiling, though the cameras were naturally no longer functional.
Meng Fushan took a rough glance around and focused his attention on the main door.
Presented before his eyes was an alloy door twice as massive as the door displayed in the banquet hall yesterday. Its golden hue occasionally flashed a dark green under the dim lighting beneath the deck. The fingerprint lock and keypad lock on it were damaged beyond recognition, and the keyholes were jammed. For this kind of heavy door, once the opening mechanisms were destroyed, it was absolutely impossible to break through using ordinary axes, saws, or firearms.
To open the door, Mr. Liu would either have to find the jammers to restore smooth communication and bring in professional personnel and equipment from the outside.
Ji Xun was inside… there shouldn’t be any safety issues… It was just a pity that while the ship’s functionality was paralyzed and the ship’s defenses were as leaky as a sieve, if Ji Xun were outside, the two of them working together could accomplish so much more…
Lost in thought, Meng Fushan was suddenly startled.
His ears heard no sound, but his spiritual intuition issued a warning to him. Without a second thought, he ducked and hid behind the human-sized statue nearby.
After roughly several dozen seconds, a person walked in.
He was wearing a suit with a silver mask fastened over his face. He came before the main door and stared silently at this massive door.
Who was he? What was he doing here?
Meng Fushan thought, peering outward from the edge of the statue, observing this person’s height and build… Compared to ordinary bosses, his physique was kept far too well, without any of the deformation from gorging on food and wine or the flabbiness from lack of exercise; his height was quite striking as well…
As he watched, the person’s build and height aligned with someone he knew. An absurd thought flashed through Meng Fushan’s mind:
Could this person be Huo Ranyin?
Yet he immediately laughed at himself:
Even if Ji Xun revealed this ship, and even if Huo Ranyin knew about this ship, how could Huo Ranyin get on board?
The reason why Mr. Liu’s ship could exist for a long, long time in safety was that Mr. Liu’s vetting of guests and employees on board was incomparably strict. The reason Ji Xun was able to board the ship smoothly was that he used the matter of Chen Jiashu to win Mr. Liu’s trust, gaining control of a small boat and holding the route leading to the big ship. Even after expending so much effort to reach that position, the route back then was not fully known from the start; rather, Mr. Liu’s side transmitted a forward heading to him every once in a while. He then arranged for Ji Xun, wearing diving gear, to wait at that location in advance to board the ship, substituting for an original boss to successfully pull off the deception.
Under such circumstances, what could Huo Ranyin rely on to successfully board the ship?
The person didn’t stay long in front of the door, quickly turning around and leaving the area.
After the other party left, Meng Fushan waited inside for a few more minutes, making sure there would be no surprise turn-around before coming out from behind the statue and returning to his room.
For a team composed of ten bodyguards, walking through the entire ship wasn’t hard, but searching every single corner of the ship gradually seemed to turn into a somewhat difficult task to complete at once. Therefore, two hours after the search began, crew members like Meng Fushan were called out to join the search team.
This was actually a good thing.
Meng Fushan could now walk through every corner of the ship openly and legitimately.
Setting aside the space beneath the main deck, the space above the main deck consisted of 3.5 levels in total. The top 0.5 level was Mr. Liu’s domain, off-limits to outsiders. Yesterday’s evening banquet was held in the ship’s main hall, which ran continuously through Levels 1 to 3 of the ship. The crystal chandelier suspended within it spiraled downward from the ceiling of the third floor all the way to the first floor.
Flanking the main hall on the left and right were spiral staircases ascending upward, with a transparent sightseeing elevator positioned right between these two staircases.
On the left side of the first-floor main hall, within the corridor from which they entered, were scattered the kitchen, cold storage room, security check/item storage, and monitoring room; the passage leading from the main hall into this corridor was already locked.
On the right side of the first-floor main hall, the area was divided into the gambling area, staff lounge, and Captain’s quarters.
On the left side of the second-floor main hall were the restaurant, bar, and coffee shop outdoor swimming pool area, with the coffee shop surrounding the open-air pool on the deck. The restaurant could descend directly into the first-floor kitchen. On the right side of the second-floor main hall were the boss guest rooms, followed by the “Game Sightseeing Hall.” Here, there was a sheet of tawny one-way vision glass. Near the end of the “Game,” when women escaped from beneath the deck to above the deck and climbed all the way to the second floor, the bosses would watch through this thin sheet of glass the ecstatic postures of the women who successfully escaped as they scrambled to find lifeboats.
Behind the “Game Sightseeing Hall” was the wheelhouse, located directly above the Captain’s quarters, from which one could descend directly into the Captain’s quarters via a separate staircase.
Reaching the third level of the ship’s structure, it was still divided into left and right by the main hall. On the left side were the residences of the three bosses accompanied by bodyguards; these were their permanent rooms, featuring a private deck belonging exclusively to them on the outside. To the right of the main hall were the multi-function hall, indoor golf, gym, spa room, and the ship’s presidential suites; outside the presidential suites was a sightseeing deck as well.
Meng Fushan and the other ship employees followed the security guards on a patrol around the first and second floors, searching for about another hour and a half, yet still failed to find the jammer. After three and a half hours back and forth, there were no results whatsoever.
Now, only the presidential suites on the third floor and the internal bosses’ rooms, as well as Mr. Liu’s room on the top floor, remained unsearched.
No one felt the jammer would be hidden in these places, but a check still had to be conducted.
Hidden really discreetly, Meng Fushan thought with secret approval.
They could only ascend to the third level. Inside the presidential suites on the third level, two bosses were staying. One of them was the person Meng Fushan had seen beneath the deck. Seeing the bodyguards coming to knock on the door, these two bosses allowed the bodyguards inside to search; naturally, the bodyguards found nothing.
Leaving the presidential suites, they headed further toward the left side of the third level—the residences of the internal bosses. This time, the three bodyguards belonging to the internal bosses led the way.
In this area, there were six rooms in total: five were residential suites for the bosses, and one room was a Buddhist prayer room and private therapy room.
They knocked on the first door on the right-hand side. The boss inside was named Wu—the boss whose face was the color of pig’s liver. They went in to conduct a search, coming up empty-handed.
Everyone then moved on to knock on Boss Wu’s neighbor, the second door on the right-hand side. The boss inside opened the door; this was the boss with age spots on his face and hands, surname Jiang. Searching inside yielded no findings either.
At this point, everyone went to knock on the third boss’s door—the residence of the boss at the very end on the opposite side of the hallway. But this time, the boss did not open the door.
Taking advantage of this gap, Meng Fushan thought to himself: There are five rooms here, but only three bosses came. Could there be two other bosses who didn’t board the ship this time?
“Why hasn’t he come to open the door yet?” After about ten minutes back and forth without a sound from inside, doubts finally arose. The bodyguard brought up by this boss raised his voice: “Boss Lin, are you inside?”
There was still no answer, so the bodyguard pulled out a keycard to swipe the door.
The keycard was swiped, but the door didn’t open. The room was deadbolted from the inside, meaning the boss was definitely inside.
Everyone looked back and forth at each other in hesitation, and someone went up to invite Mr. Liu down.
Mr. Liu came down quickly. Not just Mr. Liu, but the two bosses from the presidential suites next door also seemed to have overheard the minor incident here and came over around the same time.
After these few people arrived, everyone knocked on Boss Lin’s door once more in front of Mr. Liu.
There was still no response from inside.
Mr. Liu glanced at the bodyguards. A bodyguard picked up a prepared axe and began chopping at the door.
Once, twice… After heavy chopping for about ten minutes, the wooden door uttered an unbearable groan and opened.
Inside was a suite.
There was no one in the living room of the suite, and the door inside was also tightly closed. Knocking on the door again yielded no response. The inner door was merely closed rather than locked, so the bodyguard wielding the axe took the lead and opened the main bedroom door.
The moment the door opened, a strong odor rushed out. The smell was extremely familiar, but before everyone could identify it, they saw Boss Lin, and so paid no further attention to the smell.
Boss Lin’s back was facing everyone, kneeling in worship toward the Mazu statue beside the head of the bed. Beside him, the door leading to the deck was locked as well. Even with everyone having entered the room, he showed no reaction; even if one were worshipping with utmost devotion, being too bothered to pay mind to everyone was still a bit excessive.
Mr. Liu was slightly displeased and called out, “Old Lin.”
Boss Lin did not respond.
Everyone stepped forward, came to Boss Lin’s side, and cast a glance at his face.
A scream burst out from their mouths.
They saw Boss Lin kneeling on both knees, hands loosely cupping a bright red, blood-drenched strip of object in his palms—that was actually a severed human tongue! Looking at his face again, Boss Lin, still wearing a half silver mask, had his unmasked mouth wide open. Dried blood was scribbled recklessly across his chin and inside his mouth, and that purplish-black trace leading all the way into his throat looked so much like a narrow path to hell!
Boss Lin was already long dead.
His final posture left behind in this world looked as though he were cupping his own tongue, presenting it as an offering to Mazu!
