Chapter 9: Ghost Ship (II)  

The nailed wooden box was extremely large, and from the size of it, Luo Jian believed that a person could fit inside. However, the foundation of the box wasn’t solid due to regularly being exposed to the fluctuating weather. The surface had been worn down and many screws had come loose.Luo Jian poked a few holes in the box using his knife, and he dismantled the rest using his bare hands. Soon, one side of the box was completely torn apart, and the contents inside were revealed under the faint light of the stars.

“Oh, fuck me!” Luo Jian couldn’t resist covering his mouth and nose the moment he took a look at the box’s contents. Fate truly happened to bring them together, or else, how was it that he seemed destined to always encounter dead bodies? The box actually contained a curled corpse. Its entire body was rotting, becoming a repulsive pile of black, foul meat. The stench of its putrefaction was unbearable, the bones were showing in some places, and the clothes covering the corpse made it difficult to determine the body’s original form, but it was most likely a man judging from its skeletal framework.

When Luo Jian opened the box, that revolting smell permeated his nostrils; at the same time, a strange, nauseating taste filled his mouth.

Luo Jian stumbled back a few steps then stood on the edge of the ship, breathing in the fresh ocean breeze, but in the very next second, he started retching. The heavy sea breeze reeked of a salty, fishy odor, which made Luo Jian feel unusually queasy; his stomach kept churning.

After ages of just puking until there was nothing left, he eventually had to crawl back to the wooden box. There weren’t any other options left; it could be said that the body was the only thing Luo Jian found on this deck, and he firmly believed there would be some clues or useful items hidden on the cadaver. Besides, ever since he entered the chamber, Luo Jian vowed that he would never neglect a single detail.

So, against his better wishes, Luo Jian had to lean against the box’s edge and examine this awfully unsightly carcass. The body wasn’t fully decomposed into skeletal remains yet; there were still lots of putrid meat hanging from the bones and some voracious worms crawling in that meat. Luo Jian guessed that the person must have been forcibly stuffed into the box before he died because his posture was contorted, but after observing carefully, Luo Jian discovered cracks in the man’s joints and bones, suggesting that he might have had his limbs broken before he was crammed into the box.

Luo Jian was quite impressed by his own ability to analyze the cause of death and the dying process of the other just from studying a mere corpse. He wasn’t a forensics medical examiner, so being able to deduce this much was pretty good. With his new heightened ego and his increased narcissism, Luo Jian stood up and turned the box over making the corpse tumble out by itself. He didn’t dare touch the corpse directly with his bare hands, as it was too disgusting.

Unexpectedly, what dropped from the box wasn’t just a dead body however. There were also other items: a quill pen, a palm-size journal covered in sheepskin, a box of matches, and an ancient holy cross pendant.

These things must have belonged to the deceased.

Luo Jian picked up the sheepskin notebook and studied at it. This journal, which fell from the corpse, was filthy. There were several dark splotches of unknown substance, and its appearance per se was repulsive. Luo Jian managed to endure his distress and averseness, and he opened it to read. It was a pity that it was written in English, since Luo Jian’s English was definitely not the best. Although he was able to carry out simple English conversations, it was still too recondite for him to comprehend. What’s more was that the contents of the sheepskin journal were all handwritten, narrow and illegible cursive. One glance was enough to see that the text was written by an actual Englishman. Who knows how long Luo Jian struggled with these writings. He simply couldn’t make out any words from those slanted combinations of letters.

Luo Jian grudgingly flipped through the pages of the notebook and soon decided it was worthless. Just when he was ready to fling it away, a photo fell out of the journal.

It was a vintage black and white photograph of a couple, a wedding portrait from the looks of the complicated suit and gown the man and woman were respectively wearing. The people in the photograph were slightly blurred, but that was reasonable given that it seemed rather old. The date the photograph was taken was printed on its back: May 5, 1645, Rowan and Julia.

Luo Jian tightly grasped the photo in his hand. His face held a complicated look as he glanced back at the body lying on the floor.

The year 1645, roughly during the earlier stages of the 17th century, was the age when colonialism first developed. At the time, China was still under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. But hundreds of years have passed since then; it was now the 21st century.

Wait a second! That’s strange!

Luo Jian, who was still holding the photograph, suddenly thought of a major concern.

Were there even any cameras in the 17th century?

From what he knew, cameras didn’t appear until around the 19th century. And even then, the most basic camera, which only took extremely blurred, monochrome pictures, had just been invented. In other words, photography was extremely rare at the time! There was already a massive gap of two hundred years between the 17th century and the 19th century, so how could there possibly be a photo like this in 1645?!

Thinking of that, Luo Jian felt shivers crawl up his spine. He stared at the picture in his hands in horror. The photo was aged, and the couple’s faces were hazy. The woman sat on a chair, and the man stood right behind her. These two individuals, whose faces one couldn’t discern, were positioned near each other, emitting solemnity. And that, coupled with the fact that their attires only reflected a pure black color because it was a monochrome photograph, made it resemble a memorial service rather than a wedding ceremony. Luo Jian felt that the more he stared at this decrepit photo, the creepier it became, and so he shoved the faded photograph back into the journal and hurled it into the broken box.

Apart from the journal, there were still a few items left: the quill pen, the cross pendant, and the box of matches. The quill pen couldn’t be used without ink, so Luo Jian unhesitatingly tossed it to the side. The cross pendant, however, appeared somewhat peculiar, so after some thought, Luo Jian picked it up and put it in his pocket.

The matches seemed to be the most useful. They were still dry and could be lit, and Luo Jian just happened to be in need of some fire. But he couldn’t find any material that he could burn. The wooden box was damp; in fact, most of the wooden items on the ship’s deck were damp.

After much deliberation, Luo Jian finally eyed the corpse.

Human bones were able to be burned. A rotting corpse would secrete oils, a mixture of yellow fats and other greasy residues, that made the body easily flammable. The flames would eventually burn the whole body to ashes, but regardless, a human body could still sustain a fire for a very long time.

Luo Jian wavered for a moment, but he finally shook his head and chided himself, “What are you so afraid of, Luo Jian?! If you don’t make up your mind, then you’ll end up dead like him!”

Thereafter, he crouched down, grit his teeth, took ahold of one of the corpse’s leg, and briskly snapped the femur bone.

Luo Jian successfully ignited…the leg. Carrying his newly made torch, he made his way towards the door to the lower levels. Under the light of the flames, the ship became much brighter. Luo Jian entered the hold of the ship with the torch in his hand. Unlike the ship’s deck, which was freezing because of the sea breeze, the hold of the ship was warm, but Luo Jian was afraid to put his guard down. He vigilantly surveyed the area with wide eyes.

The hold of the ship referred to a space beneath the deck, which included the aft cabin, the forepeak compartment, the cargo hold, the engine or boiler room, and so on. Furthermore, the hold of this ghost vessel was relatively large. The first room Luo Jian entered was chaotic mess, as if a violent brawl had occurred; tables and chairs were scattered across the floor and a thick layer of dust covered the entire place.

There wasn’t anything valuable in this room, but Luo Jian searched again, and he eventually found a navigational chart that he couldn’t make sense of it and a log book that was, unfortunately, written in English. An oil painting, which was also covered in dust, hung on the wall. Luo Jian gathered the painting and carefully brushed the dust away. It was a painting of a vessel being engulfed by the raging seas.

“What kind of person would actually hang a picture like this on the wall? Were they that eager to die at sea?” Luo Jian was at a loss. He shook his head in bafflement then left this small room to search through another. But before leaving, he made sure to collect the log book. Although he didn’t know who his partner was, he still intended to find this partner of his, hoping that he or she might be able to understand English.

The ship’s hold was quite large, but Luo Jian managed visit some rooms. There were provisions stored in the cargo compartment, but most of the food was inedible. In one place, there were some weapons, gunpowder, and a few explosives, but they were all drenched in water and thus useless. Luo Jian also found a heap of gold and silver treasures in another room, but those things couldn’t compare to a loaf of bread.

Luo Jian was hungry.

He went to the ship’s boiler room; the engines were rusted and inoperable. The engine room, the forward cabins, the bow cabins, the aft cabins, the port-side cabins, the starboard-side cabins, practically every cabin and compartment had been overturned by him, but Luo Jian still couldn’t find anything, not even a corpse like the one he found on the deck.

“What the hell’s up with this place?! Why’s everything so empty?” Luo Jian went around in circles. There were just too many rooms to cover. He was somewhat lost, and he wasn’t sure if there were any cabins he’d accidentally overlooked. The fire on the torch was slowly dying out, and he soon entered a lively-looking area, seemingly the crew’s lounge. He found some heavy coats and directly put one on, but feeling that one wasn’t quite enough, he decided to wear another. Though the coats were covered in dust, at least he wasn’t cold anymore.

Soon after, he found an oil lamp that actually contained fuel. Luo Jian lit the lamp, and threw away that human bone torch.

The inner cabin of the vessel was stifling and dark, the floor swayed under his feet, and he could hear the sound of the roaring waves slapping beneath the hull. To say he was scared would be an understatement; he was unarguably terrified to death, but he had to get over it and find his partner. He glanced at his pocket watch; it was 12:48. Without knowing, an hour had already passed. If he didn’t find his partner any sooner, that person would probably die.

After walking through the dark corridor for a long time, Luo Jian suddenly heard a tapping sound coming from the room in front of him.

It sounded like something was fiercely banging against the door.

Luo Jian’s heart rate increased and his heart violently pounded against his ribs, tuning in sync with the strange knocking noises. He raised his lamp as he boldly approached the door of the room from which the sounds came. There was, in fact, something striking at the door; the door rattled non-stop and the noise echoed all around.

“Is anyone inside?” Luo Jian yelled at the door. Surrounded by darkness, he didn’t dare raise his voice. He felt that if he shouted any louder, his voice might attract something bad, which could only result in unpleasant consequences.

When Luo Jian called out, the impacts from the door being knocked stopped. Time seemed to come to a standstill. There weren’t any sounds or movements for a long time; it was as tranquil as the eye of a hurricane.

After a while, the poor door began to shake from the reverberating impacts that ensued once again. Luo Jian swallowed hard, drew his tactical knife, put it in his mouth, and bit on the knife’s blade, keeping it steady. While one of his hands held the lamp, the other reached out and gripped the door knob, twisting it slowly…