Chapter 1

Author : 圆月饼 (Round Moon Cake)

Translated by Reimuhoma (+baidu, pleco, and google translate.)

Please tell me if there's any mistakes! I'd be grateful if there's anyone fluent in Chinese willing to help me translate this novel.

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[T/N : Enoch is a boatman.]

“Quick, quick, quick, deliver the goods to the ship!” The boatman at the pier yelled, his rustic French accent revealed his irritability. Today is the day when the ship is going to leave. This time the ship is delivering a batch of perfume and wine from France, each and every one of them worth a fortune.

The day before yesterday, someone told them that the place where the ship is going to pass is a dead zone. It's a little too scary for Enoch, who's going to travel by sea for the first time.

[T/N : water that has less oxygen dissolved in it is often referred to as a “dead zone” since most marine life either die, or, leave the area if they’re mobile enough.]

His wife, Martha, told him that those rumors were all over exaggerated. All he’s going to do is just to get on a ship to deliver goods and then get paid. After he comes back to sell a large number of those goods he imported, he will live a rich man's life, but why does it feel as if there's something off?

A wooden box was carefully carried up. The crew put away wooden boards that connected the ship to the coast, then set sail not long after. The boatman's wife, Martha, handed him a large bag of clothes and food in it, and then said goodbye.

Enoch slowly walked on board and waved goodbye to his wife. Suddenly, he saw a rather strange person. He had the appearance of a young noble son. He was explaining something to the boatman who was preventing him from getting on board, and from time to time, he would peek in Enoch's direction, looking as if he wanted to call someone out. But everytime he opened his mouth, he would seem blanked out. He then took something out of his pocket, read it slowly, and continued to try and explain something to the boatman.

Enoch looked at him. To be honest, he was curious about what the young master, who seemed as if he was born from an extraordinary background, was looking for. Then he saw a man....

The man wore a cloak. The rough fabric covered him almost entirely, and Enoch could only barely see the outline of his exposed facial features. It seemed very soft. It looked like he was of Asian descent. The skin color showed a luxurious hue as fine as silk under the shadow. He doesn't look like a commoner even at first glance, so why is someone of his status here?

Enoch's problem didn't last long. No, it’s more accurate to say that the stranger didn't stay in his mind for long. When Enoch turned around and greeted his companions, he had forgotten what he wanted to do, patted his head, and returned to his work place.

After waiting for about seven or eight minutes, the ship's whistle blew and it set sail. The ship kept voyaging until nightfall.

Enoch wandered around everywhere around the ship. The days at sea were always a little boring. His fellow crewmates began gambling to liven things up. Out of nowhere, he saw a man squatting in the corner. The man obviously knew that Enoch had already seen him. He helplessly hissed at Enoch, took out something, gave it to him, and whispered in a low voice, "Find me a safer place to stay."

"This money..." Enoch's heart pounded. This was the first time he accepted such a big bribe. From the weight in his hand, it was enough for himself and his wife to live a stable life for at least one whole year.

The faint light of the ship shone on the man's face, and Enoch recognized that he was the noble who got prohibited from going on board earlier today. His clothes were dusty, it seemed that he had been hiding here for a long time.

"Get up young master, follow me." Enoch finally decided to risk it. After all, the pay is considerably large. If he summed up the money earned from this plan with the income from this sea trip, he wouldn't need to live this kind of life for a long while.

The two didn't go far. It was late at night and there were not many crew members around. Enoch was confident in sneaking around past the few people that were still awake. The man was taken to a warehouse by Enoch, then he waited alone for about ten minutes. Enoch went back and forth and brought back some worn-out clothes. The clothes he brought were somewhat similar to that of a boatman's.

The man didn’t disdain the clothes. He changed his attire. The door of the warehouse made a strange squeaking noise and the wind that swept in made people shiver.

"Why do you want to get on this ship, young master? The money you gave me is enough for you to take a special travel yacht, and it's a hard life here at the sea..." Enoch really can't think of the reason why the young master wants to get on the boat, whether it's for adventure, fun, or something else.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but his expression gradually froze because he realized he forgot why he got on this ship in the first place. The scene Enoch saw during the day reappeared. The noble man scoured through his pocket and took out a piece of paper. He carefully read the content on the paper, then he raised his head and said to Enoch with a smile:

He's here to find the person he likes……

God knows, besides the boatman who hasn't bathed in 800 years, there are also people like this young master. Enoch thinks this person is probably crazy and nonsensical, or did he really believe that true love conquers everything?

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The ship was still moving forward. It was the fifth day since they left their hometown. The wind and waves on the sea became stronger and heavier. One morning, a sailor from the helm of the ship suddenly went insane and took a leap into the sea. When the sailor fell, Enoch heard the voice of the devil.

Someone deviated the ship from its supposed course last night, and another big thing happened, the crew of the ship found out that their captain had disappeared.

In the next few weeks, everyone thought they had seen hell. The ship had been sailing for a very long time and couldn’t get out of the area. More importantly, if the situation continues this way, they most likely will die. Many people jumped off the ship and into the sea, and everyone's mind became a little blurry.

The young master taught Enoch how to draw. He said he was painting his lover, but when he painted, his lover's face always turned out different each time. The noble smiled happily because of this, but Enoch looked at the person next to him with helpless pity in his eyes.

In this heavy rainstorm, there were not many people left in Chuanshan. The whole ship seemed to be possessed by ghosts and drifted silently. Enoch sneakily took a bit of red wine from the storage warehouse, walked through the medium-length corridor, and was about to reach his room to rest, but a strange sound was heard.

It was like the sound of something stabbing into flesh, "stab, stab". Enoch's face immediately turned pale. He slowly opened the door and saw a man in black. Under the dim light, he held a wooden stake in his hand and thrusted it into the heart of the poor victim beneath him. After that, he dug something out of the dead man's chest.

The blood gradually seeped into the stake. It was terribly frightening. Enoch got goosebumps and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he felt a gloomy feeling coming from behind. He turned around quickly, and there stood a man with a cloak!

The blood trickled on the floor, as if the murderer was preparing a sacrifice. Enoch couldn't take it anymore. He screamed and began to run away as fast as he could.

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Midsummer 2015.

In the midsummer of this year, Shen Li did something that shocked everyone around him. He opened a firm, a detective firm, just above a cafe. The Shen family and his friends thought he was probably crazy. He obviously just graduated university and his qualifications are amazing. If he looks for a professional job, Shen Li can definitely live better than everyone else. But what didn't make sense is, the eldest young master of the Shen family who was unemployed, opened a detective firm that lost money.

As a matter of fact, two months have passed and he hasn't received a single case. There are a lot of requests only about looking for cats and dogs. So when Shen Li received a call from his friend, he didn't know how excited he was.

"Okay, we'll meet at the cafe downstairs. You're dead if you're late." Shen Li hung up the phone and rushed down. The dessert and coffee here are unique, and the boss is also handsome. When he's making coffee and cakes, it was like a painting. To be honest, another reason why Shen Li chose to set up his own office here from the start is because there's such a distinctive cafe at this spot.

Actually, Shen Li hasn't seen the boss yet, but it's strange. In his mind, he already had an impression of what the boss is like. Shen Li thinks he might have subconsciously forgotten him.

The strong fragrance of the cake is very delicious. Shen Li has always followed the policy that desserts can activate brain cells, so he didn't hesitate to eat the cake. Soon, a man of the same age as Shen Li with a stubby beard and wrinkled shirt came in from the door. He sat opposite of Shen Li and threw a document at him.

"The information." Since the discovery of a ghost ship at sea a month ago, Shen Li has called his friend countless times in order to get this data that has just been sorted out.

Shen Li had no time to answer. He spread the things from the bag on the table and studied them carefully. What he held in his hand were several photos of a huge ship, which was very dilapidated and looked like it was made in the victorian era. Shen Li tried to know more about the ship through the photos.

"Are you sure this ship is from the 17th century? How is everything else brand new except the appearance and wood of the ship?" Shen Li asked that because although the ship looked old, the keel wasn't affected by time at all. It didn't look like a ship that had been drifting on the sea for hundreds of years.

[T/N : Keel: The “backbone” of the ship. It is the lowest principle timber of the vessel, extending the entire length of the vessel. The stempost, sternpost, and frames are usually attached to the keel.]

The man sitting on the opposite side of Shen Li shook his head. "You think we don't realize that?" he began to search from the pile of photos, and handed one of them to Shen Li. "Look, this is the red wine and perfume on the boat. Those should be goods from that time, the pattern on the bottom of the bottle, and the color of the red wine, including the identification of the bottle age, all of them met the requirement. The wine comes from France. It's amazing that over the past hundred years, the ship hasn't changed, as if time has stopped."

Shen Li knocked the table with his fingers, full of interest. "Now we'll begin to sort out the contents. Assuming that all the things you said are true, the ship sailed from France and transported a boatload of perfume and red wine. But one day, something happened...because of that, the ship became a ghost ship, and everyone disappeared, only these items were left there. Until a hundred years later, we discovered it..."

Shen Li took out a map from his bag, and his black marker drew several long lines on the map. "Now the most important thing is to understand what happened in the transportation process. I guess Bermuda, the devil's triangle and Cuba should be the places where they might have done their trading business."

"It's all a hundred years ago. It's useless to do anything, and your graduate studies can't even help you out..." The ragged man didn't agree with Shen Li's sudden fantasy. He shrugged indifferently and was ready to pick up his bag and leave, but suddenly, he was pushed back to sit again by Shen Li.

Shen Li's mouth was bent. Looking at the photos in his hand, he seemed to see something interesting. Then he put one of the photos in the center of the table,

"Do you know who this is?"