Cold Storage Log
Voyage 8: April 16, 1976
Vegetables
Meat
Fruit
……
Cold Storage Administrator: Yu Hai
Event: Cao Hang was struck on the head by a wine bottle and died despite emergency care; Fu Ge was poisoned to death.
This sheet of paper, bearing the weight of two lives, wasn’t much different from the ones in the past. It remained yellowed and flimsy, feeling weightless in hand. Yet they weren’t completely devoid of difference either—if one smelled it closely, a faint, lingering scent of sandalwood seemed to cling to the paper.
April 13, 1976
There was blood at the entrance of the cold storage. How horrifying!
Ever since the Captain’s body was placed inside my cold storage, this domain of mine felt as if it had been struck by bad luck; every single corner felt deeply unsettling. Had I known, I wouldn’t have taken the initiative to suggest putting the Captain’s corpse in here… But even if I hadn’t offered, wouldn’t his body have been put here anyway? Sigh!
I suppose the Captain’s soul in heaven wouldn’t make things difficult for me—after all, I was the one who provided him with his final resting place.
Every debt has its debtor; we don’t know who harmed the Captain, but the Captain himself surely knows who ended his life.
I clutched the Buddhist prayer beads my wife gave me and instinctively began turning them between my fingers, praying in my heart for the protection of Mazu.
I wasn’t originally such a devout person. When my wife placed the blessed prayer beads into my suitcase, I was even reluctant to take them. But who could have guessed that this journey would turn out to be so—horrifying.
Yes, horrifying.
The Captain is dead. The First Mate and the Navigation Assistant have just gone missing as well. And now, their discussion has turned toward Fu Ge and Lin Xiaodao. On ordinary days, brawls and fights were certainly major incidents, but in the presence of two missing men, they inevitably paled in comparison.
However, Feng Silong had his own reasoning:
We’ve searched the entire ship. Jin Song and Qian Zhengyi are nowhere to be found, and there’s nothing more we can do about it. But as for Lin Xiaodao’s situation, we can still handle it. Right now, Lin Xiaodao is locked in his room by the management, while Fu Ge is idling outside Lin Xiaodao’s door, mocking and provoking him every now and then. If we don’t handle those two soon, I’m afraid more trouble will brew.
Of course, of course… Though between these two matters, one was major and one was minor, nothing could be done about the major one, so we could only address the minor one. The Buddha is merciful and would understand.
I turned my prayer beads, vocally and unequivocally supporting Brother Long’s words. Translator Liu looked at me with a half-smile.
He clearly had thought of something, yet he merely smiled. I recalled that when we first saw the bloodstains, the tone in which he emphasized the disappearance of the First Mate and Navigation Assistant acted like a hook—holding back mid-sentence to draw you in to listen, yet offering no follow-up.
Right, after discovering the duo’s disappearance this time, he was also the one who suggested a full ship search. He was extremely proactive at first, just like when the Captain’s death was discovered. But after searching the entire ship… no, after entering the First Mate’s room and coming back out, he seemed somewhat muted, as if he had suddenly lost his drive and became perfunctory.
What was he thinking? What did he see that caused a complete 180-degree shift in his attitude toward this matter?
Sigh, I’m not a tapeworm in his belly; how would I know?
As the saying goes—If a deed is upright, it can be spoken to anyone—matters that cannot be spoken to others must be deeds that cannot pass under the eyes of the Buddha.
Ah… speaking of which, I’ve actually pondered it in my heart, and I suppose many others have pondered it as well: Could it be that between the First Mate and the Navigation Assistant, one of them drew the short straw to dump the corpse? But that didn’t make sense either—dumping a corpse was one thing, but how could two perfectly fine, living men vanish along with the corpse as well?
Pondering this gave me a headache. I lacked the patience to think about it, and the Buddha wouldn’t force me to.
They were high-and-mighty figures who, despite being on the same ship, barely exchanged two words with us.
By right, no matter how big this ship was, it was only so big. But the gap between people… wasn’t measured by physical distance.
Better to focus on Lin Xiaodao and Fu Ge; at least these were visible, tangible matters right beside us.
Brother Long was indeed right.
Brother Long brought up the matter of Fu Ge and Lin Xiaodao with the management.
Currently, on the management’s side, the Second Mate was in charge. With the Captain dead and the First Mate missing, under the eyes of the Buddha, it was finally the Second Mate’s turn. The Second Mate was lukewarm about it. Indeed, he had nothing to be enthusiastic about: Lin Xiaodao from our side of the sailors was locked in his room, while Fu Ge from their side was completely fine, idling about out of boredom.
However, Brother Long took a firm stance, insisting on resolving this issue. Translator Liu also chimed in to support him from the side.
The Second Mate and his group were somewhat puzzled by Translator Liu’s attitude. In fact, I didn’t quite understand it either. After all, when we first boarded the ship, Translator Liu had always sticked close to the management. I don’t know when… perhaps after the Captain’s death… he suddenly grew close with Brother Long. Making friends was one thing—though having more friends meant having more paths in life, when two of your friends didn’t get along, you could only choose one and distance yourself from the other.
The Buddha actually wanted to mediate between them.
But even the Buddha cannot deliver those who do not believe in him!
I counted my prayer beads, feeling a bit nervous. Brother Long had grown increasingly tough lately; this was his first time standing firm in front of the management, and of course, it was my first time as well. But I believed in Brother Long, and the sailors believed in Brother Long too.
Evidently, the management was deeply displeased. But they backed down before Brother Long. Fu Ge made his appearance—he was originally hiding among the management, but now he couldn’t hide any longer. Lin Xiaodao appeared as well, released from his room.
“Everyone knows why I beat him up! He was skulking around Miss Huo’s door in the middle of the night—is that something a decent man should do? He harbored ill intentions!” The moment he appeared on the scene, Lin Xiaodao spoke up impatiently. His appearance was both anxious and crude, like a filthy, enraged bull.
It wasn’t that he wanted to act so crudely.
He knew, as did all the sailors, that if one didn’t speak up first, there would be no second chance to speak. Those educated folks in management were far better with words than these crude guys who barely knew a few characters.
However, as the Buddha says—All living beings are equal.
“That’s right.” Unexpectedly, Fu Ge didn’t refute it. He disdained to refute it, directly admitting to Lin Xiaodao’s accusation just like that. “There is only one woman on this entire ship, and that is Miss Huo. Miss Huo’s beauty requires no elaboration from me. I like Miss Huo, I admire Miss Huo, and I want to get close to Miss Huo—is this thought unique to me alone? Don’t tell me that among everyone seated here, no one harbors the exact same thought as mine?”
At that moment, the dining hall fell into a dead silence.
Perhaps what was terrifying wasn’t the earlier clamor, but the dead silence right now.
Fu Ge peeled off people’s skins, laying bare their naked hearts. His arrogance and directness were things that Lin Xiaodao and the sailors would never have dared to even imagine.
What a sin, what a sin. Beautiful Miss Huo had already slipped into everyone’s hearts like an illusionary dream, making these men utterly different from before. Beauty truly was a sin.
“What are you saying, you dog bastard!” Lin Xiaodao charged forward, his face flushing with blood. He was pitiable—not because he and Fu Ge had done the exact same thing yet ended up with completely different outcomes due to their difference in status, but because as a man, he didn’t even dare to admit a man’s admiration for a woman.
This immense tragedy freed him from his usual constraints of status. Right in front of the management, he threw two or three consecutive punches, beating Fu Ge’s face into a bloody mess! Fu Ge was completely no match for Lin Xiaodao; in fact, how could management possibly be a match for strong, burly sailors?
“What do you think you’re doing, dog bastard!” A voice barked out from the side as the Third Engineer rushed out wielding a wine bottle.
The Third Engineer was a relative of the Third Mate, a minor lackey belonging to the management group.
Even a minor lackey of management held a bit of authority. The Third Engineer was precisely that kind of minor official. Just like when Tang Sanzang retrieved the true scriptures, the monkey, pig, and horse beside him all gained official status.
He charged out—moving swiftly—bypassing Fu Ge, and swung the wine bottle in his hand directly toward Lin Xiaodao without holding back at all! Lin Xiaodao was agile; ducking low, he dodged the wine bottle. However, the bottle struck Cao Hang’s head heavily right beside Lin Xiaodao.
Glass shivered through the air and liquid splashed everywhere; at the tip of the pristine white blossom, a crimson red bled forth.
Without making a sound, Cao Hang collapsed limply onto the floor. Fresh blood oozed from the top of his skull, streaming down his face which was soaked with liquor.
I shuddered, almost dropping the prayer beads in my hand.
“Amitabha!” I shouted at the top of my voice. “Someone’s dead!”
“Murderer!” Hearing my voice, Brother Long snapped his arm out and pointed directly at the Third Engineer.
At this point, the sailors snapped out of their shock, and an uproar erupted among the crowd. However, several busybody sailors rushed over to Cao Hang and discovered:
“He’s not dead! He’s not dead, he’s still breathing—quick, stop the bleeding!”
Sigh…
“What are you shouting for? What are you making a scene for? The man isn’t dead, so what do you have to make a fuss about?” The management immediately seized upon this like a handle, raising a loud racket. “Claiming someone died—false alarms, harboring ill intentions! Are you trying to incite conflict among everyone?”
May the Buddha forgive me!
“I was just panicked for a moment!” I defended myself. “Collapsing like that after having his head smashed by a wine bottle—anyone would worry for his life!”
“Is now the time to talk about this? Hand over the murderer!” Brother Long raged.
Only then did the sailors notice that the Third Engineer had rapidly retreated and hidden himself among the management.
They began shouting and yelling as well.
However, the management—refused to agree.
“The man isn’t dead yet, so stop talking about a ‘murderer’—it’s way too early for that! What’s urgent right now is to get him treated immediately. What’s the point of raising a ruckus about a murderer? Is the Third Engineer going to sprout wings and fly off this ship? Put the Third Engineer in a room first and keep an eye on him. As for the rest of you, hurry up and carry Cao Hang back to a room for medical treatment and medication—don’t let him be delayed to death by your antics when the wine bottle didn’t kill him!”
The Second Mate made the final call, leading the Third Engineer away to lock him in a room guarded by management personnel.
The rest of us carried Cao Hang back to the room to care for him.
The atmosphere was extremely tense, with dark clouds hanging over everyone’s faces—the atmospheric pressure was as low as the air before a rainstorm, making it hard to breathe deeply.
Brother Long bit his lip and sat to one side, while Translator Liu whispered quietly beside him.
I looked at Cao Hang.
Cao Hang’s face was deathly pale, unmoving; if not for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he was no different from a corpse.
I pulled out my prayer beads and randomly chanted a few passages of scripture I remembered over Cao Hang.
Everyone gathered around, clustering around me to listen to my scriptures and pray for Cao Hang under my leadership.
I understood the power of the Buddha.
The Buddha is merciful; the Buddha would save him.
April 14, 1976
The Buddha failed to save Cao Hang.
Cao Hang died.
A person died—he couldn’t just die simply like that!
The Buddha has a merciful heart, but also the wrath of a furious Vajra!
Brother Long led the sailors in a grand procession to settle accounts with the Third Engineer. But upon arriving at the Third Engineer’s room, they saw that all the management personnel had arrived, standing before the door to block anyone from entering.
“What is the meaning of this?” Brother Long asked with a frown.
“That’s what I should be asking you,” the Second Mate said. “What is the meaning of all of you coming over in such a large crowd? What do you want to do? Are you trying to cause trouble?”
“Cao Hang is dead.”
“Ah…” The Second Mate uttered a forced sigh.
“A life for a life, a debt paid with money—that is the natural order of heaven and earth.” Brother Long spoke with righteous severity.
“You can’t put it that way,” Fu Ge chimed in mockingly. “If two men have a fight on the street, return to their respective homes, and one of them suddenly dies seven or eight days later, can you really blame the person who fought him?”
“Why shouldn’t we blame him?” A sailor snapped back.
“Hmph,” Fu Ge snorted from his nostrils. “Who knows if he had some underlying disease, or if his own people did something treacherous to him behind closed doors!”
“What do you mean by that?!” The sailors erupted in fury.
Fu Ge’s meaning couldn’t be clearer.
He was saying that either Cao Hang had an underlying illness himself, or we had done something treacherous to Cao Hang—in short, it was not their fault!
I tightened my grip on the prayer beads. What utter sophistry! If the Buddha possessed a divine spirit, a bolt of thunder should strike down right now to char this gibbering madman to ashes!
“Alright, alright, stop making a scene,” the Second Mate said with displeasure. “Fu Ge, say less. And the rest of you, don’t be so anxious. Regardless, Cao Hang indeed didn’t die on the spot. As I see it, claiming who the murderer is right now is still too early, wouldn’t you say? First off, we aren’t policemen, so we can’t convict anyone; secondly, we aren’t doctors, so we can’t determine how someone died.”
The sailors naturally rejected this line of reasoning.
Management was blatantly trying to stall for time. This wasn’t a matter of causing trouble today and going to a police station tomorrow; this was a voyage lasting half a year or a full year. ‘Stall, keep stalling! As long as we stall long enough for everyone’s passion to fade, no one will create further complications, and this matter will be brushed under the rug!’
They wanted to force their way into the Third Engineer’s room, but the management still stood firmly in front of the door.
BANG—
A gunshot rang out.
The ship’s only shotgun had made its voice heard.
Everyone was awed into silence.
The Buddha… even the Buddha was no match for a shotgun.
April 15, 1976
The Third Engineer was firmly guarded in his room, protected inside.
Fu Ge was locked into a room as well. Management’s official statement was “inappropriate behavior, reflecting on himself in his room.” However, all the sailors understood: during the earlier brawl at night, Lin Xiaodao was locked up while Fu Ge was not; later during the dining hall public trial, when Cao Hang fell to the floor, Fu Ge was still not locked up; now that he was suddenly locked up, it was nothing more than another layer of protection for Fu Ge.
From Brother Long on down, every single person, every single sailor, wore a deadpan, stony face.
They probably didn’t want to cast another glance at the management.
Yet they still had to wipe the decks, clean the rooms, and wash the clothes for the management people…
Today, another sailor was reprimanded.
Because the clothes weren’t washed clean.
Cao Hang entered my cold storage.
Every day when entering and leaving the cold storage, I had to grip my prayer beads tightly and chant “Amitabha.”
Amitabha, Amitabha.
I visualized the Buddha to replace Cao Hang’s pale, blood-drenched face.
Occasionally, I also fantasized about Miss Huo when I was all alone in the dark night after everyone else had fallen asleep.
Cao Hang’s face was a sin, and Miss Huo’s face was a sin as well.
Sometimes, sins that the Buddha could not cover up could instead be covered up by another sin.
April 16, 1976
Fu Ge died.
Poisoned to death in his room.
I, Yu Hai, hereby promise that this log entry was written entirely by myself and represents true content. Special note hereby given.
Ji Xun stared at the corpse in front of him.
The corpse was somewhat terrifying, kneeling on the autopsy table with a gaping, pitch-black mouth that seemed to lead straight to the underworld. Its two forward-stretched hands resembled two dry branches completely devoid of moisture, upon which lay a tongue.
It stared at Ji Xun just like that, presenting the tongue to Ji Xun.
However, the tongue wasn’t meant for Ji Xun, but for Mazu.
Ji Xun grabbed A’Tang’s finger and pressed it against the phone’s home button. After unlocking the black-screened phone via fingerprint, he swiped through it to continue viewing photos of the crime scene. The care package in the ventilation duct truly was a grand gift—not only did it provide a fully loaded gun, but it also came with clear photos of the crime scene and a master keycard. It could be said that all the information and props that Ji Xun needed to supplement had been fully provided.
Two crime scenes, two dead bodies, one corpse, a trace of blood lingering on the deck…
Ji Xun ground his molars together.
Using the phone’s light, he carefully examined the strangle mark on Boss Lin’s neck.
Looking closely, a fixed diamond-grid pattern was embedded upon the purplish bruise; it wasn’t very obvious and could easily be overlooked.
Ji Xun recalled common items in guest rooms that could serve as ropes, such as cloth strips or ties, but none seemed to feature this kind of pattern. It looked more like some type of braided cord.
However, regarding this width—roughly 0.4 to 0.5 cm—he had secretly taken photos of ropes in the kitchen, cold storage, and hallways using his phone earlier, but couldn’t find any similar pattern.
Finally, his gaze landed on electrical wires. In terms of width, wires were the closest match; combined with the pattern, the closest and most easily accessible item was a phone charging cable.
This was somewhat strange.
When boarding the ship, all the bosses had their phones confiscated. Without phones, it was even less likely for anyone to carry charging cables. Charging cables would only remain on the ship, controlled by those who needed phones—such as the bodyguards.
“Mm…” A faint groan suddenly sounded in the quiet mortuary.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Ji Xun noticed that A’Tang, lying nearby, was groggily opening his eyes.
“Awake?” He greeted A’Tang, then pried open his jaw and poured an entire glass of water laced with sleeping pills into A’Tang’s mouth.
The man, who hadn’t fully regained consciousness, gulped down three big mouthfuls. Before he could react further, Ji Xun covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. In just a short moment, the newly awakened man fell unconscious once more.
“Although it’s a bit rough… I believe you wouldn’t want to fall into the sea and end it all either, right?”
Ji Xun talked to himself, then suddenly sneezed, covering his mouth with his elbow to carefully prevent droplets from spraying into the surroundings and causing contamination.
The near-zero-degree mortuary did a great job preserving corpses, but posed a severe challenge to a living human body. Wrapping his clothes tightly—which were far too thin for the temperature—he slung A’Tang over his shoulder and walked outside.
Though the care package was generous, it wasn’t without flaws—at least the package itself was a bit too heavy.
When stepping out, he bumped into a notebook hanging by the door.
It was a logbook, a book recording major events that occurred on the ship, which Ji Xun had already scanned upon entering. There was only one entry on it:
April 28, 2016
Boss Lin’s body entered the mortuary.
After eating a round of self-heating rice meals, the bosses sat in relative silence inside the Chinese restaurant. Everyone seemed disinclined to speak; the shadow of death hung over every person’s head, plunging everyone into a low-pressure mood.
During this time, the armed bodyguards had wanted to head out to check again, but someone voiced disapproval. Deprived of permission, the bodyguards couldn’t move and could only remain idly in the restaurant.
The silence lasted for roughly half the afternoon before Short Boss finally plucked up his spirits and called everyone together to discuss what to do next. Everyone in the restaurant chimed in line by line, spending the rest of the afternoon to arrive at their first collective action plan:
Go together to the rooms on each floor to retrieve everyone’s essential personal living items, including toiletries, blankets, all unopened food in the rooms, personal medications, and so on. Tonight, everyone would dine and rest together in the restaurant.
This action plan wasn’t bad; though somewhat clumsy, it was extremely safe.
If the killer was the Ghost, moving together meant the Ghost would have no opportunity to strike; if the killer was not the Ghost, moving together while eating fast food meant the killer would likewise have no opportunity to strike.
They started gathering items from the third floor.
Moving as a collective group, the large procession headed toward each boss’s quarters. Arriving before a room, the armed bodyguard would enter first, inspecting inside and out to confirm no Ghost was hiding within before the boss entered to retrieve their belongings.
While waiting for Boss Jiang and Boss Wu to gather their things, Huo Ranyin stepped into the open physical therapy room and glanced at the medicine cabinet. Inside, every bottle of medication was arranged neatly and orderly, presenting a picture of strict regulation.
This morning, feeling that his state last night was off upon waking, he had specially visited the therapy room to inspect the medications.
Looking at these medicines now, whether in placement order or angle, there was no difference whatsoever from what he had seen this morning; they were spotless.
Too clean.
When Huo Ranyin came up this morning, he had sprinkled a tiny speck of dust on the corner of a bottle of Eszopiclone sleeping pills.
Now, that speck of dust was gone.
The Ghost had been here and touched this bottle of medicine.
—Meticulous to an extreme, so detailed that wiping away that tiny speck of dust clean ended up leaving behind a handle instead.
Why did the Ghost touch this bottle of medicine?
—A’Tang, the missing bodyguard. The Ghost hadn’t thrown the bodyguard into the sea, but had instead fed him sleeping pills and hidden him somewhere. Surprisingly soft-hearted.
The corner of Huo Ranyin’s mouth curled slightly:
Ghost, I’ve caught your first tail…
“What are you doing?” a person nearby asked.
“Getting a book to read.” Meng Fushan’s movement as he pulled a book from the bookshelf was very steady. He pulled out a collection of Baudelaire’s poetry, The Flowers of Evil.
This was the open lounge area at the four corners of the spiral staircase, a place where bosses usually drank tea and chatted. A tea room always needed a touch of literary fragrance; only when the scents of books and tea complemented each other could it carry the ambiance of cultured men. Therefore, besides tea tables and seating, there were open bookshelves stocked with various magazines and books. The magazines covered a wide variety—finance, medicine, automobiles; as for books, most were literary classics and poetry collections.
“You still have the mood to read books now?” the man muttered, smelling of grease and oil—he was an assistant cook on the ship.
“Having something to do keeps the mind from wandering,” Meng Fushan said, suggesting, “Do you want to pick one up too?”
The assistant cook hesitated briefly before taking down an auto magazine from the shelf.
Following the main group, they went up to the third floor, then to the second floor, and finally to the crew quarters on the first floor to retrieve their personal items from the dormitory. Meng Fushan placed the book in his room. He had folded two pages—one was page 228, and the other was page 304.
Everyone returned to the Chinese restaurant.
A smooth trip without a single hitch lifted a bit of the heavy shadow of death hanging over everyone’s hearts. The atmosphere in the restaurant turned somewhat livelier, and the bosses began arranging to boil water and make instant noodles.
In truth, they could have eaten self-heating rice again, but having just eaten it at noon, no one wanted to eat the same thing. For safety’s sake, cooking fresh meals was out of the question, so instant noodles were chosen—at least the first bite of instant noodles smelled delicious.
The kettle used to boil water was retrieved at noon; to guard against anyone poisoning the water, they had boiled several full kettles of water and poured them out straight away to rinse it. The water was all bottled, with every bottle opened by the bosses themselves and poured into the kettle personally.
Pouring one 500ml bottle of mineral water from their own rooms into the kettle, they would boil it and pour it directly into their own noodle bowls. Once emptied, the empty kettle was passed to the boss next in line. Handling their own food from start to finish, no step was left to others.
The crew members weren’t so particular, having the executive chef boil 2 liters of water at once and pouring it into each person’s opened noodle bowl one by one, continuing to boil more only when running short.
Huo Ranyin was in no rush to eat. Beside him, Mr. Liu wasn’t eating either.
Boss Wu tore open a bag of potato chips, eating absentmindedly, leaving his prepared instant noodles aside untouched for a long time.
Boss Radish took two quick bites, glaring with deep dissatisfaction at A’Bang, who sat next to Boss Liu eating while playing a built-in mobile mini-game on his phone, before giving a heavy cough and muttering under his breath in a low, slurred voice.
Outside the window, darkness had fallen, and the exterior looked pitch-black. Their location truly began to resemble a lonely island of light—the only illumination within the world as far as the eye could see.
After a chorus of slurping sounds, the bosses who finished their noodles put their bowls down on the table. According to past custom, cleaners would step up to tidy things away at this point.
But no one moved.
The bosses didn’t bother finding fault either, sitting in their seats staring blankly.
Suddenly—CLANG!
Everyone looked toward the source of the noise and saw Boss Jiang clutching the front of his shirt, tumbling to the floor along with his chair. The person sitting next to him tried to pull him up, but—
“He… what happened to him?!”
