S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 50

Ghost Ship Murderer 16 – Last Minute

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There are things in this world that can only be accepted if they are placed in the right place, if they are placed in the wrong place, then they will look very abrupt.

There are many ships, large and small, moored in the harbour, which could not be more harmonious, but as soon as the huge Emilia entered the water, it gave a feeling of being out of place.

This area of the dock is connected to a distant wharf, forming a large port where large cargo ships, not to mention cruise ships, are seen entering and leaving the area on a daily basis. After the Emilia sailed into the sea and blended in with the frequent cargo ships, it didn't look big... However, it just had a feeling of being out of place.

"Isn't it so evil?" Bai Yutang frowned, "In broad daylight, the ship looks like a ghost ship."

"I think so too." Zhan Zhao nodded, "Is it the structure and colour of the design or something else? It really looks so much like a ghost ship that has been floating on the sea for years."

"Maybe it's the effect of the old fashioned design?" Gongsun lifted his glasses, "Or is it a matter of aura? "

At that moment, not only Bai Yutang and the others, but also some people nearby came out to look. On the decks of some large commercial ships that passed by, several crew members were standing and pointing, very curious about the Emilia.

"It seems everyone's intuition is pretty much the same." Bai Yutang called Jiang Ping and asked him to find out who the designer of the Emilia was.

Gongsun and Ma Xin made a preliminary examination of Jin Liang's body.

"The time of death was between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m." Gongsun took off his gloves and told Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "The preliminary analysis of the situation is that it was a suicide, as for other clues, we will have to bring him back for further autopsy to find out."

Bai Yutang nodded.

Zhan Zhao looked around the yacht, "This boat is quite grand, where did it come from? Can Jin Liang afford it?"

Zhao Hu went outside and asked a few of the marina staff, some of whom knew Jin Liang, and they all said that the boat belonged to Jin Liang, and that it seemed to have just come into his possession not long ago.

"Fortune-tellers are so profitable nowadays, huh?" Zhan Zhao was surprised.

"It's normal." Gongsun took out a thick packet of business cards from Jin Liang's trouser pocket, opened it and flipped through several pages, handing it to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang roughly flipped through it, "They're all dignitaries."

"There's also a workbook." Ma Xin flipped through a thick workbook that Jin Liang carried with him and tsked twice, "His work schedule is so full, so many people are looking for him for fortune telling and feng shui reading!"

"Tsk." Zhan Zhao flipped through it in detail and frowned, "If I had known, I would have gone to read people's fortunes too, it's more profitable than being a psychologist!"

"Head."

At this moment, Ma Han, who had run around the cabin, suddenly came up and waved at Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao.

The two men looked at each other – They might have found some interesting clues.

Following Ma Han down to the cabin, they saw that the cabin was dimly lit, and that the lower part of the yacht was partitioned into three rooms, the first of which was a magnificently furnished living room with a bar and sofas, nothing special.

Zhan Zhao noticed the wine cabinet behind the bar, which was filled with all kinds of expensive red wines, and was a bit curious, so he asked Bai Yutang, "On such a hot day, the wine is all kept on board?"

Bai Yutang opened the wine cabinet and looked at it. He found that there was a thermostat system, and thought about it, "Maybe they were just placed there temporarily."

"So many wine glasses and the fridge is full too." Zhan Zhao was puzzled, "Does Jin Liang live on the ship, or is he preparing to have a party to entertain guests?"

"He shouldn't be living here." Ma Han opened the door to a room and told Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "I checked both the front and back, there is no bedroom."

Zhan Zhao walked over to look at the room behind the first door Ma Han opened.

They saw that it was a room with a strong Chinese style. The decorations should have cost a lot of money, they were small but very exquisite. The mahogany furniture had an ancient gritty texture, but there were a lot of black pieces of cloth hung on them, with all kinds of charms painted on them with white heavy paint. There was also an ancient sword on the table. If you looked carefully, you would find a lot of ancient coins around, tied together with knots by strands black cloth, hanging in the corners of the walls, and all over the walls, there were yellow bronze mirrors which were not very clear. Because of the angle, the figures in the mirrors were blurred, and it felt like they all had three heads and six arms.

"Huh?"

The "huh" of Gongsun, who followed them in, contained many, many elements, and Zhan Zhao could hear a lot of interesting elements in it – Indeed, the layout of the cabin, if coupled with a few ancient Chinese zombies sitting on mahogany chairs holding jade cups filled with poison, would be completely in line with Gongsun's aesthetic.

"What kind of array is this?" Bai Yutang crossed his arms and tilted his face up to look at the wooden carvings on the roof and the hideous faces of the four-sided Luohan, inexplicably thinking of dressing Gongsun in an ancient costume so he could just make an old-fashioned film or something.

Ma Xin took pictures of the room and prepared to send them to Jiang Ping for research.

At that moment, Jiang Ping's phone call came at just the right time, "Head, I've found so many clues, let's have a video call."

Bai Yutang tossed his smartphone to Zhan Zhao. Jiang Ping had applied to the "organisation" for this phone, and Bai Yutang basically refused to use it. The recent phones were as big as bricks and could easily kill people, and had so many functions that it was an insult to the term 'mobile phone'.

Zhan Zhao was very comfortable with using it, he clicked on the video call and placed the phone on a shrine-like shelf not far away. There were two candle holders on either side and an incense burner right in front of it, which together with the big face of Jiang Ping that appeared on the video... made people inexplicably want to go up and pay their respects.

Jiang Ping was on his computer for the video call, and was startled when he glanced at the scene on the opposite side, "Wow... from a ghost ship to a ghost story? This plot is too convoluted."

"What did you find out?" Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping.

"First, I'll show you guys a few pictures." Jiang Ping switched the screen, and several photos appeared.

When Zhan Zhao enlarged the photos one by one, he saw that they were all photos of ancient ships.

"What kind of photos are these?" Gongsun looked at the photos one by one and found that the ships were of different styles, both Chinese and Western, and the common point was that they were all dilapidated and had an indescribably eerie feel to them.

"This one." Jiang Ping pulled up yet another photo, it was a black and white portrait of a bearded man. It wasn't quite clear how old he was visually, he was probably middle-aged, with some Arabian ancestry.

"Who is it?" Bai Yutang wondered.

"The man's name is Mario, he's a famous maritime photographer with a nickname, the Ghost Ship Hunter." Jiang Ping said, "This guy travelled at sea all year round, photographing all kinds of shipwrecks and ghost ships floating at sea. From the time he was twenty to the time he disappeared at the age of forty, a total of twenty years, twelve historically recorded ghost ships were photographed, along with hundreds of shipwrecks. But at the age of forty, he disappeared after a trip to sea and never returned, apparently having met with a shipwreck. "

Bai Yutang rubbed the space between his eyebrows. This didn't seem very relevant to the case, the clues were confusing enough as it was, so why did another Mario appear?

Zhan Zhao obviously had similar thoughts to Bai Yutang and asked Jiang Ping in confusion, "This Mario has something to do with our case?"

"Take a look at this picture." Jiang Ping suddenly pulled up another photo and showed it to the crowd.

The moment they saw the photo, the crowd was silent for a moment, and then performed another unified action: they all looked up and out of the window together, at the Emilia in the distance...

The Emilia at sea in the distance was almost identical to the old white ship in the old photo shown on the phone screen!

"It's the same..." Gongsun was amazed, "The Emilia was designed based on this photo?"

"Very similar, isn't it? It's just that the original ship didn't have the string of English characters that the Emilia has." Jiang Ping said, "This photo was taken in the Western Pacific in around 2003, before Mario disappeared. There is a description of the ship in Mario's handwritten notes. It says it was hot that day, the temperature on the deck of the ship was close to fifty degrees, the sun was blazing, and the turquoise waters were very calm. The ghost ships he had discovered were basically only seen in cloudy and rainy weather, so that day he just took binoculars and a camera to follow and photograph a few dolphins. But just as he was trying to find out if there were any islands nearby with his binoculars... he spotted this white cruise ship."

"Hmm..." Zhan Zhao stared at the photo, "This ship is a modern ship no matter how you look at it, but there's not much of a reference to see how big it is."

Gongsun nodded, "If the Emilia was a real ship, it would be one of those sailing ships with a wooden structure, right?"

The crowd nodded, the limitations of the era?

"What's next?" Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping

Jiang Ping continued to read Mario's handwritten notes, "The ship appeared in a bizarre manner. There were no shipping lanes ahead or behind, and the area it was in had quite a few reefs. The strangest thing was that the ship looked lifeless. There was not a soul on board, the hull was mottled, and it was obviously drifting aimlessly with the currents. At that moment, Mario knew that he must have encountered a ghost ship, or a special ghost ship."

Everyone nodded – It was special enough.

"But because the angle wasn't very good, he couldn't get a better picture after he took one, so he turned around and went after the ghost ship." Jiang Ping's voice lowered a few notches as he spoke, as if trying to shift the mood, "After he had crossed the cluster of reefs and gone to great lengths to get closer to that ship, something strange happened."

"Hurry up and say it, don't tantalise us!" Bai Yutang urged.

Jiang Ping clicked on another photo, which was a page of a diary written in Arabic, and they saw that there were a few lines highlighted on it, presumably highlighted by Jiang Ping on his computer for Bai Yutang and the others to see.

Zhan Zhao padded over and took a look, frowning, "Mario said he saw a woman on the bow of the boat."

Everyone froze, "There was someone on the boat?"

"Hey, isn't that the same as the plot of that ghost ship movie?" Gongsun became excited, "A little girl came out to stop him from getting on the boat or something?"

"Gongsun, you've seen too many movies." Jiang Ping splashed cold water on him, "But reality is much more dramatic than the movies."

Gongsun didn't understand. At that moment, everyone looked at Zhan Zhao and saw that he also had a complicated look on his face, and then translated, "Mario said that he saw the woman walking to the bow of the boat, and then, one after another, others came over, men, women, old and young, all lining up behind the railing at the bow of the boat, and many of them had tears streaming down their faces."

Everyone was puzzled, "Tears streaming down their faces?"

"I know." Ma Xin asked, "Is it possible that their boat was in distress and thought they were saved after running into Mario's boat?"

Everyone nodded again – It was a possibility.

"No." Zhan Zhao said. "Mario was examining whether it was a man or a ghost in front of him when suddenly a shot rang out and one of the people's heads exploded."

When Zhan Zhao finished speaking, everyone froze.

Gongsun plucked out his ears, "Such a thrilling situation."

Zhan Zhao shrugged and continued, "He then heard a succession of gunshots, and those standing on the edge of the boat were executed by bullets fired from behind them... right in front of his eyes."

Bai Yutang froze for a moment and spoke, "Could it be pirates?"

Zhan Zhao nodded, "Mario said that after he saw those on the boat being executed, some masked men with guns boarded the boat to kick the bodies into the sea. When they caught a glimpse of him, they shot at his boat. Luckily he wasn't too close, so he turned around and fled… avoiding disaster. When he was far enough away, he found that there were several pirate ships anchored behind that ship, and he wasn't very sure about what happened after that."

Everyone listened in awe – Such a coincidental encounter was really shocking.

Zhan Zhao looked back at the photo, "In a sense, this would be the last moment before the ship turned into a ghost ship, right?"

Jiang Ping nodded, "That's right, that's why this photo was titled 'The Last Moment' when it was exhibited at Mario's solo photo exhibition"

Everyone fell silent – The last moment? Why would the Emilia look exactly like it? But no matter what that name was, it wasn't very auspicious!

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: May 3, 2023 by Angel

Edited: May 20, 2023 by Angel