"Aah-!"
The instant the Ring of Light was pointed at her, intense fear rose in the woman's heart, as though she were facing death all over again. An exaggerated scream rang out as Mulan fired.
Bang!
Beneath the flaming ring of light, a red line almost invisible to the naked eye streaked from the muzzle along the bullet's path. In virtually the same instant, the bullet pierced the thick bridge window and struck the eerie woman in the forehead.
The scream cut off abruptly. Mulan trembled slightly, his face looking dreadful. That brief scream had felt like a sharp knife plunged into both ears. Even now, they still ached faintly, filled with a buzzing noise. His brain felt as though it had been stirred into mush, leaving him dazed and unable to concentrate.
For Mulan, opening the bridge door and shooting the eerie woman had involved a whole chain of reactions and thoughts. For the people outside the door, however, something terrifying had happened in the space of just a few breaths.
They could hardly feel shocked now, though. When that scream rang out, everyone outside the door had clapped their hands over their ears in agony. The boy and girl had even fainted outright.
Only after quite a while did some of the people outside recover.
A few of the quicker, braver ones finally took action. The elderly gentleman picked up the handgun from the floor and crouched as he entered the bridge with two other young men.
"Mr. Jonester, are you all right?"
"Are there any other attackers inside?" "What was that noise just now?"
"My ears nearly went deaf..."
Mulan tried to settle his nerves. If his initial reason for coming to the bridge had included curiosity about the mysterious, alongside concern for his own safety, he now felt that if anything similar happened again, he would stay as far away as possible unless he absolutely had to get involved.
Soon, they had tied up the attacker inside the bridge, but that man was clearly not their main concern.
After recovering somewhat, Mulan went with the others to the bridge's outer hatch. They opened it cautiously, and wind and rain poured in.
Rumble...
Lightning flashed in the darkness. Rain lashed the deck outside, a rushing sheet of water reflecting the lightning.
"Be careful. Keep to the railings outside, and whatever you do, don't let the wind sweep you into the sea! No one will be able to save you then!"
The elderly gentleman repeated his warnings while the young men, led by Mulan, gritted their teeth and stepped through the hatch.
Although Mulan intended to keep his distance in the future, today he had to see exactly what he had shot. More importantly, if it was only wounded rather than dead, he had to seize the chance to put another two bullets into it. He could not afford to waste a moment.
The storm looked terrifying, but the wind on the bridge deck did not seem as strong as they had imagined. They could still keep their footing. After making their way around from one side of the hatch, they soon reached the window pierced by the bullet.
The woman's corpse had not vanished. It lay motionless on the deck beneath the window. Yet the sight of her inspired no lustful thoughts in anyone. Mulan and the young men beside him all felt their skin crawl.
"Her... her body..."
"Mr. Jonester..."
"Urgh..."
Cold and frightened, the young men hugged their shoulders and huddled off to one side. Some were dry-heaving and bringing up acid, though it was hard to say whether the corpse or Mulan's actions disgusted them more. Mulan had already crouched down and was using his silver-handled cane to move the body around, examining its wounds.
Mulan had seen plenty of corpses on the battlefield and had developed a certain tolerance for them, but this was undoubtedly his first time seeing one so strange. As he examined it, he explained his findings to the others.
"Apart from the bullet hole in her forehead, which I made, these stab wounds through her body were already there. Blood is still seeping out of them, but the wounds look as though they've already started rotting..."
"Mr. Jonester, her teeth!"
At the warning, Mulan immediately used his cane to part the woman's lips. Her teeth were evenly aligned, but they had a sharpness to them that looked truly sinister and frightening.
Rumble...
Lightning lit everything up again, and Mulan suddenly noticed something else. After a moment's hesitation, he reached out and touched the area behind the dead woman's ear. It felt rough and ridged beneath his fingers...
"Mr. Jonester, is... is she a Sea Siren?"
Someone asked, his nervous gaze repeatedly darting toward the sea.
"A Sea Siren... I don't know either."
Mulan felt a faint chill of unease. The distinctive way of thinking brought by his soul-that of a young man from the twenty-first century-gave him a vague suspicion. He looked up at the surrounding sea and suppressed his faint fear.
In fact, the eerie singing had not entirely disappeared. Only the distant song remained, carrying a note of sorrow. After lingering far away for a while, it was gradually fading.
"Let's drag the body inside first, so it doesn't get washed into the sea."
A suspected murder had taken place aboard the Princess Niseriel, the crew on the bridge had vanished together, and the captured attacker refused to say a word...
Fortunately, not all the ship's crew had disappeared. Only those on duty that night were missing. Most of the crew, including the captain, were still aboard and quickly took charge of the incident.
News of the events soon spread throughout the ship, along with rumors of a Sea Siren. Those rumors quickly lost momentum, however, because the dead woman had been identified.
Back in the same restaurant, Mulan was eating his lunch-or perhaps breakfast. He had only just gotten up and had little appetite, but he had forced himself to come here to eat.
In fact, ever since the night before last, he had noticed something wrong with his condition. He suffered from insomnia, and even when he managed to sleep, he kept having all sorts of eerie, terrifying nightmares. They had left him mentally drained.
Fortunately, once he started tasting the delicious food, Mulan's mood eased considerably, and his initially poor appetite gradually returned.
"Mr. Jonester, your red wine."
A waitress brought Mulan a bottle of red wine. He paused in surprise and looked at her smiling face.
"I didn't order any red wine."
"It's a gift from the owner. It won't be added to your bill. Enjoy your meal!"
The waitress thoughtfully opened the bottle and poured Mulan a glass, then wished him well before leaving.
Neither the former Mulan nor Li Xiu had liked drinking, but now he had to at least take a token sip, if only out of politeness. Grumbling inwardly, Mulan raised his glass toward the bar in acknowledgment, then tipped his face back slightly, merely touching his lips to the wine before setting the glass down.
Those refined aristocrats take smaller and smaller sips anyway.
"Mr. Jonester, they've found out! They've identified the siren-no, the dead woman!"
A young man jogged into the restaurant and quickly spotted Mulan, calling out as he approached. Mulan put down his knife and fork and looked at him. He was one of the young men who had accompanied him outside to examine the corpse.
"Who was she?"
The young man stopped beside Mulan, slightly out of breath. Clearly, he had come looking for him the moment he heard the news.
"Phew... phew... She boarded at Dia Port. She was a tailor's daughter, apparently traveling alone. She was staying in Room 313 on the lower deck. Someone even saw her the evening before it happened."
"A tailor's daughter?" "So she really wasn't a Sea Siren?"
"Oh, she scared me half to death before!"
"Yes, yes, as long as she wasn't a siren."
"What about the missing crew?" "Maybe they were the ones who did it."
People around them began discussing it among themselves. Mulan frowned, but promptly thanked the young man.
"Thank you for coming to tell me."
The young man seemed excited to be speaking to Mulan. Although Mulan did not look any older than him, talking to him still felt like an honor.
"You're welcome. I'll ask around some more and come tell you if I hear anything!"
"Uh, all right."
The young man's enthusiasm exceeded Mulan's expectations. He immediately ran off again, leaving Mulan unsure whether to laugh or cry. His mood, however, had grown somewhat heavy.
The murdered girl really had not been a siren-or rather, she had not yet become a true siren.
Yes, Mulan believed this was by no means an ordinary case of murder and disappearance. Neither their brief confrontation nor certain changes in the girl's body could be explained by ordinary reasoning.
In Mulan's bolder conjecture, what had happened that night seemed more like the girl-or rather, her corpse-had been undergoing some sort of transformation. He did not know whether she was becoming a siren, but it was certainly something ominous.
And what had caused that poor girl to undergo such a transformation might not have been merely some mysterious power in the sea. Human involvement had very likely played a major part.
Mulan tightened his grip on his knife and fork as the half-rotted wounds left by a sharp weapon piercing the girl's corpse flashed through his mind.
"There's someone aboard this ship more evil than a Sea Siren!"
PS: Thank you to "Mr_Crow" for the Alliance Leader donation, and thanks to everyone for your donations and votes. The book's status has finally changed to contracted! After such a long break, I quietly started a new book, even going against the trend with such an obscure, niche subject. Every bit of support matters. Thank you, everyone!