Chapter 97: Landing On The Island
In order to figure out the truth of the matter, Yu Lianyun visited two more survivors in succession, and reviewed the list of personnel who had unfortunately died as well as their reports. In the end, Yu Lianyun discovered that all these personnel had shown symptoms of Mermaid Disease, just to varying degrees.
“In this way, the common trait among the victims of the disappearance case can basically be determined—they all contracted Mermaid Disease.” After coming out of the inpatient department of a hospital, Yu Lianyun sat in the car, looking at the coastline outside the window while saying so.
Shang Wei, who was with her, nodded with some emotion: “The mission progress has jumped ahead by a lot all at once. As expected of Captain Yu.”
Yu Lianyun shook her head with a smile, the smile carrying a barely perceptible bitterness, as if she herself did not enjoy such praise. “The top priority is still to figure out the reason why these people contracted the disease. Since it’s called an epidemic, there should be a source, right?”
Shang Wei thought for a moment. “Then should we go to that island mentioned in the archival material now?”
“Perhaps only after going to the island can we find more clues, but searching from aspects like the victims’ relationship network and personnel trajectories might also yield other discoveries.” Yu Lianyun pondered for a moment before answering.
Then she glanced at the rearview mirror in the car. In the mirror, the two humanoid evil spirits—one was clinging to her seat, the other was maliciously reaching a hand toward Shang Wei’s neck—and Shang Wei was completely unaware of it, only feeling a chill on his back. He thought it was because the car air conditioning temperature was set too low, so he raised the temperature a bit.
“Cough.” Yu Lianyun suddenly coughed heavily. Blessing Incarnation Yao Zhenzhen immediately withdrew her mischief-making hands, then stiffly turned her eyeballs, staring at her fixedly with eyes showing no change in expression.
Shang Wei still thought he had set the car air conditioning too low, causing this big shot from headquarters to show signs of catching a cold, so he quickly expressed concern and apologized: “Ah, this… Captain Yu, is your throat uncomfortable? Sorry, I set the air conditioning temperature too low and made you uncomfortable.”
“Uh, no, it’s fine. It’s just chronic pharyngitis, an old ailment.” Yu Lianyun gave a dry laugh and waved her hand, then quickly changed the topic. “By the way, the personnel dispatched to us by the World Investigation Bureau are also investigating this case now, right?”
“Yes, an F-grade mysterious investigator. He used to be a famous detective.” Shang Wei immediately replied.
“F-grade?” Yu Lianyun was slightly stunned. “New to the field?”
“I heard that when the World Investigation Bureau was just established a year ago, he became one of the first batch of civilian selected members. Oh right, his name is Drake Wu, and he is a mixed-race from the New York region and the Shenzhou region.”
“A year ago?” Yu Lianyun fell silent. She suddenly had some doubts about the ability of this dispatched personnel. “I remember that promoting from F-grade to E-grade isn’t that difficult, right? He hasn’t been promoted in a year—is there some reason?”
Shang Wei pondered slightly for a moment before saying, “I’ve wondered about that too, but from the resume provided by the World Investigation Bureau, it seems this Drake went silent for over a year after becoming a mysterious investigator, and during that time, he didn’t take on any missions issued by the organization.”
“Didn’t take any missions? Then no matter what, for now, let’s treat him as an outsider. We won’t have him come to the island with us. We’ll share a copy of the collected clues with him and have him stay on the mainland side to investigate the common traits among the victims and find other clues.” Yu Lianyun thought for a moment and made the decision.
“Got it.” Shang Wei was somewhat surprised by Yu Lianyun’s decision, because if it were him, even the captains of other Twelve Zodiacs main teams wouldn’t so easily share the results they had just obtained so readily with a stranger dispatched personnel—let alone without having met the other person and without confirming their character.
That afternoon, Drake received an email from the Mysterious Group. The attachment content in the email made him feel a sense of suffocation.
“Mermaid Disease?” Drake’s throat felt dry as he swallowed a mouthful of air, his brow twitching. “All those who were induced by the mysterious voice to go out to sea showed symptoms of Mermaid Disease…”
Drake immediately ran into the bathroom, opened his mouth in front of the mirror, trying to open it as wide as possible—his teeth almost gnawing on the mirror—so he could see the situation inside his mouth clearly.
The initial symptoms of Mermaid Disease are changes in the mouth and vocal cords. He carefully checked his teeth and throat, then puzzledly stepped back from the mirror, rubbing his aching cheeks, and couldn’t help muttering to himself: “Strange, no changes at all. Could it be that my mutation hasn’t started yet, or do I not have Mermaid Disease at all?”
Drake hoped it was the latter, but if he hadn’t contracted the disease, then how to explain his “sleepwalking into the sea” behavior? Could the nightmare he had last night, which was as real as reality, all be illusions?
The dream was definitely not false—even if illusory, it was absolutely not normal—because the few scales he extracted from the wound on his wrist after waking proved it. He firmly believed he was trapped in some unknown anomalous peril.
“Perhaps I should find that mysterious youth who saved my life.” Drake recalled that during his first sleepwalking incident, he had been able to wake up immediately from the brink of death because of the rescue by a mysterious youth.
Regarding that mysterious youth, Drake hadn’t found the other’s whereabouts yet, but he could roughly tell that the other should live nearby Cape of the Horizon Beach, because the other’s attire at the time was quite light and casual, wearing flip-flops, and his clothes showed no sweat from long travel—very refreshed.
“That youth seemed to know me.” Drake thought, recalling a sentence the youth had said at the time that made him quite concerned.
My past is your future.
“What does this mean?” Drake thought it was a code, but he had no clue. Both the other’s words and the person himself were unknown mysteries, and in Drake’s memories throughout his life, he was certain there had never been a figure related to that youth.
Drake looked at the wound on his wrist, pondered for a moment, and thought: “Perhaps I can take a gamble, bet that he will come to save me again.” He silently clenched his fist.
That night, as expected, Drake dreamed again of that scene like doomsday. The appearance of the giant beast at sea became increasingly clear, but he was less and less able to see the full picture of the harmful beast. The only thing he could confirm was the appearance of those fishmen in groups—they were ugly and ferocious, dull and lifeless, more deathly silent and eerie in decay than dead, rotting fish.
With the experience from the last dream, Drake turned and ran without any hesitation once he entered the dream this time. He wasn’t grabbed by any fishman again either; he passed through the blockade of these mad fishmen without danger and ran out of the beach toward the endless darkness.
He ran on, and unknowingly the environment of the dream changed. Suddenly he felt wetness underfoot. Looking down, the black seawater rippling was constantly washing his feet.
But he had clearly run in the direction away from the beach—how did he step into the seawater again?
Before Drake could think, the tsunami surging from behind came crashing down…
Catching up on owed chapters. There will be two more updates tonight, or a combined big chapter.
