Chapter 115: Nursery Rhyme
It was clear the speedboat owner was quite wealthy, with many external equipment on board, but most of it was flashy and somewhat impractical, like tens of thousands of dollars worth of branded speakers, televisions, and so on. These things weren’t important and would only add to the burden.
Drake and Li Nuowei were still very gentlemanly. They could have thrown all the cleared items into the sea, but they still moved them to the shore, hoping the boat owner could find his lost belongings. In the end, Li Nuowei even left an IOU, but signed it with Drake’s name.
“Why leave my name?” Drake asked with some dissatisfaction. Stealing the boat was this kid’s idea, and if he was going to steal it, why leave his name?
Li Nuowei said sternly, “I’m still a student.”
“You’re a university student, not a primary school student!” Drake said, annoyed, but considering the guy had saved his life several times, he decided not to argue too much with this little madman.
The speedboat sailed into the mist. The fog around them was so thick it was like a boundless wall. Apart from the seawater in front of them, they couldn’t see anything else. Occasionally, they could see some sinister black reefs emerging from the sea. These were natural traps, the furtive malice of death, but Li Nuowei’s driving skills were excellent, and he could skillfully avoid them almost every time.
“How long have you been learning this?” Drake asked curiously. As a versatile detective, although he could also drive a speedboat, he was nowhere near as skilled as Li Nuowei.
Li Nuowei chuckled and explained, “It took me a week to learn to drive, but it took me two years to reach this level.”
“You probably don’t get involved in this matter in every reincarnation, do you?” Drake looked at him deeply and guessed, “I don’t think you, as a student, would have that much time to specifically learn these things.”
He guessed that most of Li Nuowei’s knowledge and skills came from learning during his reincarnations.
“That’s right,” Li Nuowei admitted generously. “To solve the anomaly event happening in Liuhua Port now, I’ve made many preparations, such as learning to drive various types of vehicles, researching various histories, regional languages, and ancient texts. To be honest, only after truly experiencing various kinds of learning do you realize where you have a special talent.”
“I see,” Drake nodded, just as he had speculated. He crossed his arms and said, “I agree with your view. Many things can only be understood by trying them out.”
As he spoke, Drake asked the question he had always wanted to know, which was also the question Li Nuowei had always avoided. He took advantage of the relatively calm atmosphere and asked, “You have the special ability of death reincarnation and have gone through thousands of reincarnations. I imagine most people who appear in your life are like ordinary NPCs in a game to you. You have countless better ways to live, so why get involved in my troubled waters? Is it really just as simple as repaying kindness?”
Li Nuowei steered the boat, the sound of the engine cutting through the water between him and Drake. After a long silence, he replied, “I think you might misunderstand me. It is precisely because I have this ability that I cannot simply treat everyone in this world as NPCs, nor can I treat every life as a game.
No matter how many times I die and restart, my feeling about death is deeply impressed. Every feeling of death is an extreme blow on a spiritual and soul level.
Most people have only one complete death experience, while I have experienced thousands, and each one is still vivid in my memory.
Reincarnation does not make me disregard death. Although I may become numb to being alive, I cannot shake off the shadow of death.
Of course, through countless reincarnations, I have also come to understand that there are many things in this world more cruel than one’s own death, and that is watching others die.
If I had continued to ignore the anomaly event in Liuhua Port, whether I tried to escape the city or chose to give up completely and let things develop, the strange thing is that you always managed to save my life at just the right moment, even when I deliberately stayed away from you. We always meet by fate, heh, even if it’s a fated karma of death…”
Drake listened to Li Nuowei’s self-mockery intently, fell silent for a moment, and said, “Can you tell me under what circumstances you saved me?”
“How can you be so shameless, asking a person you’re doing a favor for to describe your heroic deeds?” Li Nuowei frowned and looked at Drake, displeased.
Drake bared his teeth, grinning, “Hahaha, let’s just say it’s to satisfy my curiosity. I also want to know how I became so obsessed with you in different reincarnation lines.”
Li Nuowei pouted but still satisfied Drake’s curiosity. “Before I first experienced the ability of death reincarnation, when I went to the hospital to visit the female classmate I liked, just as I was about to be killed by her, you, who were investigating the disappearance case, also came to the hospital and saved me from her.”
“Wait, what did you do for your favorite female classmate to want to kill you?” Drake looked shocked.
Li Nuowei glanced at him. From Drake’s teasing eyes, he knew Drake had already guessed the truth, but he still explained, “I wish I could have done something. Unfortunately, like you, she is also a patient of Mermaid Disease, and by then she had basically completed her transformation and completely lost her human rationality. She killed the nurse and the doctor, and naturally, she wanted to kill me too.”
“After that, although I narrowly escaped thanks to your help, on the night of a meteor shower a few days later, a heavy sea fog like today’s drifted from the sea to the shore, hiding towering giant beasts that emerged from the waves. A tsunami swept through the city, and countless city residents died in the flood. Although I was fortunate enough to escape death by drowning, I was eventually helped by you, who were about to transform into a merman, to escape the city submerged by the tsunami… Well, I didn’t survive in the end and was captured and eaten by other mermen.” Li Nuowei recalled his first experience with a sigh.
“Later, I entered reincarnation for the first time.” Li Nuowei narrowed his eyes and continued to recall. “I thought it was a real nightmare, but it wasn’t until I visited the person I liked at the hospital again and encountered the same situation that I finally confirmed it wasn’t a dream. However, I was not mature enough then and was a bit reckless. After you saved my life again, in order to understand what anomaly event had occurred in this city, I plunged headfirst into this bottomless pit and ended up dying at the hands of that taxi driver.”
Drake also remembered that remnant of the Anhai Divine Society. Listening to Li Nuowei’s calmly described account, he felt a deep resentment. He wondered how much psychological trauma that taxi driver had inflicted on the child during that particular reincarnation, or how much trouble he had caused the child in different reincarnation lines, that made Li Nuowei unable to resist “ruthlessly” sending him to his end.
Drake listened to Li Nuowei recounting Drake’s help on different reincarnation lines, each instance almost a life-saving favor. Even if Li Nuowei gave up on visiting the girl he liked, the two would still meet in the same city, and then Drake would save his dog’s life.
When he heard Li Nuowei mention the fifty-seventh time he saved him, Drake interrupted him and asked, “In those few reincarnation lines where you avoided this anomaly event, I probably wasn’t there, right?”
Unexpectedly, Li Nuowei looked at him with a complex expression and said, “Yes, there were. In those reincarnation lines, I married the same wife, and it was precisely because of those instances that I finally understood the ‘Mermaid Disease,’ this anomalous curse.
I believe you’ve guessed it. That’s right, my wife, like you, carries the descendant bloodline of the cursed members of the Anhai Divine Society. My wife and children, at the age of forty-two, on a night when another meteor shower appeared, returned to this city that had already been submerged by the sea. On my way to rescue them, I encountered a special merman with a lecherous demeanor.
Yes, don’t look at me like that. My description is accurate, and don’t be modest. I can tell you frankly, that special merman was you. You are a special merman who awakens the human side of your memory when you are full. You helped me a lot on my way to find my wife and children, and it was from you that I learned about the origin of Mermaid Disease.
In the end, you helped me find my wife and children, but you also lost your life…”
Drake listened to Li Nuowei’s narration, lost in thought, his mind in a daze, his eyes slightly unfocused. He really couldn’t imagine that his fate with Li Nuowei was so deep that even if he turned into a merman, he could still save his entire family.
Li Nuowei looked at Drake helplessly. “Are you satisfied now? Can you understand my feelings a little now? It’s not that I’m unwilling to explain why I’ll repay your kindness; it’s just that explaining it is too troublesome…”
Drake came back to his senses, sighed, and nodded. “I believe you now.”
“But I still think the motive of repaying kindness is a bit weak,” Drake said, his pale yellow eyes fixed on Li Nuowei, his voice becoming hoarse. “I believe that besides repaying kindness, you also have a reason for your future wife and children not to suffer anymore.”
Li Nuowei did not argue with this and frankly admitted, “Yes.”
Drake bared his teeth and smiled. “And, as you said before, every death brings you immense pain, and watching others die is more difficult than dying yourself. Let’s just classify you as someone with a relatively high sense of moral honor.
After personally experiencing the destruction of the city of Liuhua Port countless times, even though you know everything that’s happening in the city and possess this miraculous ability, you cannot save it. That must be a form of mental torment for you.”
Li Nuowei glanced at him, his breathing slightly unsteady, and sighed, “Yes.”
“So, to sum it up, your active participation in the anomaly event of this city is not purely to save me, although that might be a major reason. You also have selfish motives to escape the nightmare and protect your future wife and children.” Drake analyzed.
Li Nuowei said helplessly, “Are my motives really that important?”
“Important, very important,” Drake said seriously. He patted Li Nuowei on the shoulder. “This means you have earned my double trust.”
“You have to explain a long passage to me every time, and it takes a long time to win my trust, right?” Drake asked with a smile.
“Yes, your rationality as a detective makes you very suspicious,” Li Nuowei also curved his lips.
Drake tightened his grip on Li Nuowei’s shoulder slightly and said, “If this reincarnation line also fails, then the next time you find me, recite a nursery rhyme to me.”
In Li Nuowei’s surprised eyes, Drake recited the nursery rhyme in New York dialect.
“Above the sky, the stars have reached their rightful place.
The past is gone, the end has arrived.
The seal is broken, the ancient dominators will awaken.
Humanity will realize the ultimate fear of all things.
They will spread their true names.
They will bring hope into the abyss and despair to the present world.
Blindness and foolishness will rule all.
They are the realms, they are the rules.
The stars shine, all things boil.
The doomsday is approaching.
They are about to return…”
Li Nuowei listened to the lyrics of the entire nursery rhyme in astonishment, then asked blankly, “May I ask, what kind of education did you receive as a child? This heretical nursery rhyme, which I’ve never heard of, is completely abnormal.”
Among the lyrics recorded in this nursery rhyme, a part of the content corresponds to the disaster that Liuhua Port is about to face. It is clearly abnormal, and he doesn’t think Drake made it up. It’s not that he doubts Drake’s abilities, but with Drake’s current understanding, he couldn’t possibly have fabricated these lyrics.
“I know it’s abnormal too,” Drake said in a deep voice. He grabbed his scalp, his left hand growing sharp fingernail-like plates. Every scratch on his head caused strands of black, moist hair to fall. “This is a song that has appeared in my dreams intermittently since birth. Over decades, I have gradually been able to distinguish the originally indistinct words and have recorded the melody.
For example, the merman nightmares that have been troubling me recently, in the dream scenes, this nursery rhyme often plays on a loop as background music. I don’t know why, but that singing voice possesses a contradictory power that is both terrifying and reassuring.”
“Do you think it might be the singing voice of one of your parents?” Li Nuowei guessed.
Drake gazed into the mist ahead, the mist a reflection of his inner state. He said in a low voice, “I don’t know, but I hope so. That way, at least I can confirm that besides giving me life and a curse, they also gave me a ‘warm’ reminder.”
Yes…
If this nursery rhyme is a reminder, then I really shouldn’t have stepped foot in this hometown…
