Chapter 107: Cruise Ship (5)

“Splash! Splash!”

A continuous series of splashing sounds came from the water beneath the cruise ship. One group after another jumped in—the second following the first—without hesitation or retreat. It was as if they weren’t worried at all about dying or getting injured.

The falling figures seemed endless, and the sound of bodies hitting the water never stopped. Standing by the window with her phone raised, Everly felt her sanity rapidly slipping in the face of such an incomprehensible scene.

She remembered that when the Golden Anchor went missing, there had been nearly 4,700 people on board, including crew and passengers. If these shadowy figures jumping into the sea were the same people who had been on the ship when it disappeared… were they all going to jump in, one by one?

The two cruise ships were too close together. From Everly’s position, she couldn’t tell whether those figures resurfaced after falling into the water, or if they simply sank straight down.

She didn’t dare leave her cabin to watch from the deck. Some monsters might appear harmless when they hadn’t found prey, but once they noticed an observer, they would latch onto them and not stop until the observer was completely killed. Now that Everly was alone at sea, with no one to rely on, it was better to stay cautious.

This silent “s

cide” aboard the Golden Anchor continued for a long time. Only when not a single figure could be seen on the deck did the prolonged mass plunge into the sea finally come to an end.

By then, it was already four in the morning. Through the outline of the massive ship, she could still see the distant storm raging on, though a faint pale light had begun to appear along the horizon.

It would be dawn soon…

Everly tapped her phone and stopped recording.

She had a feeling that before daybreak, nothing unusual would happen on the Golden Anchor anymore.

Sure enough, just as Everly had expected, the ship fell completely silent afterward. No lights came on again, and no strange sounds were heard. It was as if whatever had caused all the anomalies aboard had vanished along with those figures that fell into the sea.

At 5 a.m., Misha woke up and took over watching the massive ship from Everly. Everly took the opportunity to nap for a while, until 8 a.m., when most of the bored passengers had gotten up.

With so many pairs of eyes now watching, there was no longer any need for the two of them to keep a constant vigil on the Golden Anchor.

After getting dressed and washing up, the two went to the buffet for breakfast, and while they were at it, they discreetly took some high-calorie packaged food with them. When they finished eating and returned to their cabin, they were surprised to find a crew member standing outside their door, as if he had been waiting for quite some time.

“Hello, which one of you is Miss Everly?”

Seeing the two approaching side by side, the crew member stepped forward and asked politely.

Everly: “?”

…

Even as she was led by the crew member into the captain’s office, Everly was still a bit confused, unsure why the captain would want to see her.

However, when she saw George and his two companions sitting on the sofa inside the office, she quickly realized that the captain’s summons was most likely related to the things she had made up yesterday on the deck while trying to stop George.

Sure enough, after they shook hands and briefly introduced themselves, the captain got straight to the point and soon mentioned the reason for the meeting:

“Miss Everly, yesterday you stopped George from boarding the Golden Anchor, and you mentioned that you have witch blood and saw some strange visions. Is that true?”

—In reality, it was false. She had no witch blood and no psychic abilities. When she was younger, she had even whimsically tried to find a psychic master to take her as a student, but no one was willing to accept her.

But of course, Everly wasn’t going to tell the truth. If pretending to be mysterious could stop the captain from further exploring the Golden Anchor and make him leave as soon as possible, then she was more than willing to play the role of a witch for the rest of her life.

She nodded. “Yes, I wasn’t lying. I saw an ominous shadow over that massive ship, and now, that shadow is slowly approaching the Mary Jane. Captain, I know this may sound a bit presumptuous, but please believe me: staying near the Golden Anchor is definitely not a good sign. We need to get away from that cursed ship as soon as possible, the farther, the better.”

Hearing this, the captain turned his head and subtly exchanged a glance with the first officer beside him. The other man gave a small nod. The captain then became even more courteous, inviting Everly to sit down and personally pouring her a cup of coffee.

“Well, here’s the situation. Yesterday, after my crew boarded the Golden Anchor, they witnessed many strange phenomena that couldn’t be explained. The reason we invited you here is that we hope you could offer some insights from a mystical perspective. Of course, we understand the rules, you don’t need to worry about compensation.”

Everly felt a surge of delight.

It seemed that playing the role of a mystic had its advantages. Without even having to dig for information, the clues were being delivered right to her.

So she recalled how Rebecca usually acted when “on the job,” lowered her gaze slightly, put on an air of mystique, and asked in a hushed voice, “What exactly did you see?”

The captain turned to George. Receiving the cue, the young man swallowed nervously and handed the tablet in his hands to Everly, speaking with some difficulty:

“Just like what you warned us about… what we saw was a completely genuine ghost ship…”

Everly shifted her gaze to the tablet.

As the young man spoke, the experiences of the eight-person exploration team aboard the massive ship slowly unfolded on the screen—

At 14:03 yesterday afternoon, all members of the exploration team boarded the deck of the giant cruise ship, officially beginning their investigation of the Golden Anchor.

The camera first showed a close-up of the lower deck, gradually pulling back. Just like the ship’s clean and pristine exterior, everything here was also in excellent condition. The metal flooring showed no signs of rust, aging, or leakage whatsoever.

The only flaw was that large patches of the deck and the surrounding railings were covered in a semi-transparent, gelatinous slime. It felt wet and slippery to the touch, and when brought close to the nose, it carried a strong fishy stench—like the foul juices seeping out of a fish that had been dead for several days.

At the moment, the deck was completely empty. Scattered across the ground were things like streamers, banners, and tassel garlands. Their colors were extremely vivid, not at all like something that had endured thirteen years of wind and rain. They looked new, as if they had only recently fallen onto the deck.

“Hey! Anyone there? Anyone—?!”

One of the crew members cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted loudly across the massive cruise ship.

The only response was a long, hollow echo.

“Looks like there’s no one… haha… hahaha…”

The crew member let out a nervous laugh and shrank back toward the group.

After wandering around the deck for a bit, the group decided to head inside the ship.

The lower level of the cruise ship mainly housed a restaurant, a casino, and a ballroom. Among them, the ballroom was unusually large, taking up nearly half of the entire lower deck.

They first entered the restaurant on the left.

The restaurant doors were wide open, and inside was just as empty. Looking around, they saw rows upon rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs.

At some tables, chairs had been pulled out. On the tables were knives, forks, bowls, plates, and glasses. The glasses still held half-finished carbonated drinks—the fizz had mostly gone flat, with only a few bubbles clinging to the bottom. The plates contained leftover food scraps. Someone poked at them with a fork, and the sponge cake in the bowl was still soft.

Moving on to the buffet area, it was much the same as the dining tables—the counters were filled to the brim with food that looked unusually fresh: curry, roasted meat, salad, pizza…

“The cream on the cake gave off a sweet, rich aroma. The lettuce in the salad was still crisp and fresh—you could leave a fingernail mark just by lightly pinching it. When we opened the freezer, an even more unbelievable scene appeared—the freezer was still running, and the ice cream inside was frozen solid. It was so hard to believe that I scooped a little and tasted it. I can swear it was just ordinary vanilla ice cream, it hadn’t spoiled at all…” George spoke with a dazed expression, as if he were still in a dream.

Everything in the restaurant was too fresh—fresh and clean to an unsettling degree. It gave people the strange illusion that not long ago, the place had still been operating normally, and that something sudden had happened, causing everyone to drop what they were doing and leave in a hurry.

But how could that be possible? The Golden Anchor had been missing for a full thirteen years!

Everyone was shaken by the bizarre scene before them, and the group fell into silence.

If, when they first boarded the ship, the explorers had felt excitement and eagerness, then after experiencing the restaurant, their firmly held materialistic worldview had taken a heavy blow. For a moment, they all felt a bit like their understanding of reality was crumbling.

“Is it possible… that people are actually still living here? Maybe they saw us and, afraid of being discovered, hid themselves. Didn’t some people speculate that the Golden Anchor was hijacked by pirates? Maybe this ship has become a pirate stronghold…”

After leaving the restaurant, one of the crew members voiced this quiet speculation.

Unfortunately, instead of reassuring anyone, his guess only made everyone more uneasy. After all, they were talking about pirates—who knew what kind of weapons they might have, or how many of them there were? If they had really stumbled into a pirate den, wouldn’t that be like walking straight into the jaws of danger?

Seeing the group’s mood grow heavier and heavier—and even noticing that some of the more timid members were starting to consider backing out—the only woman in the team, Penny, who was responsible for editing George’s videos, finally spoke up:

“Hey, come on, can you all stop overthinking this? How could there possibly be pirates here? Did you see the scale of the food supply in that restaurant? There’s so much food—if it’s not eaten in time, it would spoil. If there were only a few pirates, there’d be no need to prepare that much. And if there were a lot of pirates, then there are only eight of us, and we don’t even have any decent weapons. Why would they be afraid of us?”

Penny’s reasoning was sound, and the group’s rising panic was finally calmed.

Even so, as they passed through the corridor and entered the casino on the opposite side, everyone remained on high alert, afraid that the moment they opened the door, dozens of burly men might rush out.

But the result was obvious.

The casino was just as empty. Large amounts of chips were scattered across the gaming tables, along with various pieces of expensive jewelry, as if some players had gotten carried away and started using their personal valuables as stakes. Near the entrance, at the chip exchange counter, stacks upon stacks of cash were piled behind the counter—unattended and untouched.

George casually picked up a bundle of crisp banknotes from a table and examined them. They were all U.S. dollars newly issued thirteen years ago.

By this point, the possibility that the ship had been taken over by pirates could basically be ruled out. With so many valuables left behind, even the eight explorers couldn’t help but feel tempted—let alone pirates, who lived by plunder.

The fact that all this wealth remained here could only mean one thing: pirates had never set foot on this ship.

But if that were the case… how had all the people on board disappeared?

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Author’s Note:

The captain organizing the crew to board the ship earlier really can’t be called reckless. In many countries, maritime law stipulates that when a captain encounters people in distress at sea—or in navigable waters connected to the sea—they are obligated to provide assistance, as long as doing so does not pose a serious danger to their own ship or crew. That’s how it works in my country; I’m not sure about the United States, but it’s probably similar.

Of course, even without legal requirements, from a humanitarian perspective, it’s perfectly reasonable to board the ship and check if anyone needs help. On top of that, there are the “small motives” mentioned earlier—things like career advancement, salary increases, and simple human curiosity… In short, it’s a combination of many factors.

It can only be said that he knows far too little about the supernatural side of things.