289. It Has Arrived
"According to the investigation report on the Stars, the Stars departed from Yangshan Port on October 15, 2020, with an estimated journey of 21 days, nearly a month. During the journey, it will Pathway ports such as island nations, the Solomon Islands, and Australia, and finally arrive in New Zealand. This voyage is quite rare, with ocean scenery as its main selling point."
"However, ten days after its departure, the Stars encountered a rare sea storm in the Western Pacific and was forced to dock at Solomon Islands, north of the Pohnpei Island, to wait for the storm to subside."
"During the long and unusual storm, the Star suffered multiple accidents, including a serious fire on November 21, which caused the ship to list and take on water. It sank to the sea a week later after all efforts to save it failed."
"The passengers on board returned home by flight in January after the off-season storm in the Pacific Ocean had completely subsided. A considerable number of the passengers developed varying degrees of mental health issues, and the cleanup work on the Star is still ongoing."
Lu Ban saw the publicly available investigation report on the Qunxing incident.
He recalled that during the storm, the passengers of the Starship seemed to have filmed some videos of islands and city ruins in the storm.
Lu Ban searched online and found that most of the videos had become invalid over time. However, on Old Days Video Network, someone had left behind an archive of the screen recording.
He watched the videos again carefully.
Amidst the Gale, one could indeed see the shadows of some buildings. These buildings were mostly towering spires with a bizarre style that did not belong to this era. In fact, Lu Ban did not see any architectural style from any era in these buildings. They existed there as if they were art and aesthetics born from this world, like a black dot on a white sheet of paper, distorted and unnatural.
At Oldest One glance, Lu Ban didn't have such a strong feeling, but now he is almost certain that these buildings are not human creations, but rather the halls of some strange, mysterious, and indescribable existence.
As for the Starship accident, Lu Ban believes it may have been caused by something strange.
He reviewed some interview materials, mostly from the captain, crew, and passengers. Because the accident was already quite serious, there were many speculations and conflicting opinions. Some people thought there was a mutiny among the crew, while others thought the captain had ordered the crew to plunder the passengers. Still others had wild ideas, saying it was haunted.
In fact, the testimonies of these people are contradictory.
For example, Lu Ban saw a clip of First Mate Zhao Liren being interviewed.
"At the time, I told the captain that there was a problem with the equipment in the engine room and that we needed to do some maintenance, but the captain didn't seem to care much and didn't agree to my request. As a result, the equipment in the engine room malfunctioned two days later, leading to a fire. No, I'm not saying the captain did anything wrong, but his behavior at the time seemed really uncalm to me. Even as the fire spread, he didn't take any effective measures to deal with it. I've known the captain for several years, and he's not that kind of person. Something must have affected him. Maybe there were too many unexpected events on this voyage, and the pressure overwhelmed him."
In this scene, the first mate believes that the captain's inadequate response was the main cause of the accident, which seems quite reasonable.
But according to one tourist, things are different.
"Those crew members were particularly fierce. At first, they wouldn't let us walk around the ship freely and locked us in our rooms like prisoners. We could only come out for some fresh air when we were eating. Especially during the days when the storms got worse, I felt like the whole ship was about to sink. I never met the captain, but the first mate spoke to us. He was very stern and seemed to have encountered something. He had very dark circles under his eyes. Things only got a little better after we docked and disembarked. We didn't even notice the fire because the storm was so strong."
According to him, the first mate restricted their movements, guarded them like a jailer, and acted somewhat neurotically, quite unlike the calm demeanor he described.
"These crew members are all taciturn and don't like to talk. They weren't like this at first. Since the storm started, they have become much more serious. I can understand that storms like this are very dangerous at sea and shouldn't be joked about. However, they seem to have become different people after experiencing the storm. They have become much more repressed. For our safety, the crew members told us not to move around. I can understand. I talked to one of the crew members, and he said that the situation was hopeless and that the ship might be lost. At the time, I thought he was just trying to scare us. But who knew that after we went ashore, the ship caught fire some time later. Fortunately, we were all in a hotel in the port at the time. It seems that some crew members were burned to death on the ship? I'm not sure."
Some tourists presented a different picture. The crew members seemed to have changed their ways because of the severity of the storm, and the restrictions on personal freedom were for safety reasons.
Lu Ban then saw the interview with Captain Johnson Gustave.
This is a Germany man with a full beard, who looked very haggard during the interview.
"I have answered these questions many times. The storm we encountered was unprecedented. Therefore, I had to ensure the safety of all crew and passengers, which is why I kept them in their rooms. Yes, that's right. Some crew members developed mental health issues due to stress. I had the ship's doctor give them medication. At least when we docked at Pohnpei Island, everything was not serious."
"What's really serious is that after we got to the island, the people there were very strange. I can't explain it, but sometimes they would stand in the harbor, in the storm, and make some strange worship gestures towards the eye of the storm. Some islanders even sneaked onto the boat. I don't know what they were up to."
"I walked around the island and saw many strange statues. On the mountain in the center of the island, there seemed to be an ancient temple, all related to primitive beliefs."
"Those statues look like octopuses, or some kind of mollusc and human hybrid. I know that the natives of the sea always have a strange worship of sea creatures, but those statues give people a very uncomfortable feeling. Although that temple is damaged, for some reason, every night when you look up at the mountain, you can always find it at first glance, just like it emits a ghostly green glow."
"Later, when the fire broke out, the people on the island did not participate in the rescue. They just stood in the rain, on the dock, making a worship gesture towards the burning cruise ship. I swear, I have never seen such a bizarre worship gesture. I even suspected that these people were possessed by some kind of monster."
"But in the firelight, I seemed to see something rise from the ship and flow into the storm. It's hard to describe the feeling. I think maybe my mind is not quite right. No, it should exist. It was there. I knew it was coming. I'm sorry, I don't know how to say it. When the Stars sank, I felt that it truly came to life. We were all witnesses to its birth."
"What is it?"
The reporter asked curiously.
"It is... it is the stars, it is the stars, it is coming, it will be coming soon!"
Captain Gustav became hysterical, and the interview was forced to stop.
Lu Ban witnessed the captain's ultimate fate. After giving an interview, he recuperated at home and drowned himself in his own washbasin a month later. It is said that when he died, both of his hands were twisted behind his back, pressing down on his head as if those hands were forcibly holding him underwater to prevent him from lifting his head.
He drowned himself!