The Swordfish had more than a hundred officers and men. Apart from William Halsey, the rest of them were lying in their beds in the barracks, as if they had agreed to die together at the same time, in the same clothes, and in the same position.
This scene looks incredibly eerie.
Fortunately, not all of the more than one hundred people died in one room. The ship's rest cabins were divided into many dormitories, with only a few people in each dormitory, at most seven or eight, probably divided according to their branch of service and function.
At first, Mrs. Larry carefully examined each corpse by the firelight, but later, whether due to the oppressive atmosphere or her own loss of patience, she simply stopped looking and only glanced at them from the cabin doorway with her torch before retreating.
At the other end of the corridor were the officers' quarters, which were smaller but more refined. Most junior officers shared rooms with two others, while the few single rooms were occupied by field-grade officers.
Boris, still unwilling to give up, searched through cabinets and other places in the room and found a number of light weapons, but none of them were usable. However, there were several military knives that looked brand new when they were drawn from their sheaths.
Boris was overjoyed and couldn't resist showing it off to Petru. Petru then went to look for it as well, and ended up finding not only military knives but also many usable tools, such as ceramic cups, glass bottles, and multi-functional knives. But what excited them most was finding several well-packaged bottles of liquor, including whiskey, brandy, and rum, probably some officers' private stash.
To make sure the wine was still drinkable, Boris opened one of the bottles and spilled a little on the floor, filling the entire cabin with its rich aroma.
"Caw, oh, smells delicious!" The Crow shook its head repeatedly, as if it had a dog's nose blowing, and then sneezed.
"Great!" Boris took a sip from the bottle and laughed heartily, completely forgetting the centuries-old corpse lying on the bed beside him.
Petru warned, " Boris, you bastard, watch out! The air here is stagnant and extremely dry. If we light torches, your alcohol might set this place on fire."
Boris was very annoyed, but he could only obediently put the bottle back on, still saying defiantly, "Hey, Redbeard, how about we have a drinking contest later?"
Petru said, "Fine, let's fight! You think I'm afraid of you?"
"How about I join you?" the Crow said excitedly when it heard they were going to have a drinking contest.
"You drink alcohol too?" Boris asked in surprise.
"Of course, I can not only drink, I can appreciate it. Do you know how to appreciate it? Good wine is meant to be savored, not shoved down your throat! When it comes to drinking, none of you can compare to Ruhua. She's the best bartender in Liuying Lane, and she can drink a lot too. If she were here, I dare say none of you could outdrink her."
The Crow started cawing incessantly again.
"Oh really? What a braggart!" Boris teased.
"Who said I was bragging?"
Because Boris and Petru had fallen behind while searching for weapons, the Crow had to turn around, intending to have a proper debate with them, when suddenly it cawed loudly, almost jumping off the Qingmu, its wings spread wide:
"Croak--What's that?"
People turned around at its cry. The torches flickered, their faint light illuminating only a short distance ahead. Before them lay a dark corridor, flanked by barracks filled with mummified corpses. The corridor stretched into darkness beyond the reach of the torchlight, with no end in sight. All they knew was that there was a hatch there, the door through which they had come in.
As Qingmu turned around, the Crow above his head was turned to face the other side and then cawed again.
"Quack--Who?"
The Boss Coal's caw echoed through the dark, narrow passageways and cabin walls, sending chills down one's spine. Only then did the people and the books realize that they had been deceived by its excessive intelligence and occasional foolishness, forgetting that it was actually a Crow —in many local folk tales, it is a symbol of misfortune, and its caw often foretells death and disaster.
The atmosphere in the cabin had just improved a little after the discovery of alcohol, but now the cawing of Crow had made it tense again.
"What are you yelling about?" Su Huilan said.
"Uh, I'm not just making things up, I think I saw something..."
"What did you see?" Qingmu, equally curious.
"It looks like... a shadow?" said the Crow.
"Shadow? Where is it?"
"First, there—" The Crow hopped around, aligning itself with Qingmu, and pointed with the tip of its wing at the passageway they had come from, "There, he was standing behind you, watching you!"
People looked in the direction the Crow pointed, but there was nothing there except pitch blackness. Except for a few savages who were helping to tend the fire and couldn't understand what the Crow was saying, everyone else felt a chill run down their spines and got goosebumps all over their bodies.
"Damn, are there still some alive?" Boris snatched a torch from the savage and went over first.
Ivan also went over with a torch.
They walked forward for a while, then went into the dormitories on either side, then came out, then went in again, and so on until they reached the end of the corridor, exited the cabin, and walked back.
Ivan shook his head, indicating that he had found nothing.
Boris said to the Crow, "Are you mistaken, raven? The people here are all dead beyond dead; even Egypt the Mummy are no better."
The Crow rested its chin on its wing, feigning deep thought, "Hmm, I've heard that the Mummy can come back to life."
"Get lost! That's all nonsense! It's just a bunch of low-quality, cheap novels and clichéd stories used to pick up girls in bars!"
"Wow, no wonder you often see guys telling girls these kinds of stories in bars."
"Then what the hell are you yelling about? Look, you've scared the ladies!"
"Quack, um, maybe it's the wine you spilled that made me a little drunk. You know, quack, when I drink, my eyesight gets really bad. I keep seeing all sorts of braised pork hocks walking towards me..."
"..." People were speechless, but they finally breathed a sigh of relief.
When everyone thought the Crow had misjudged the situation, Qingmu frowned. He knew the Boss Coal too well. Although the bird was talkative, greedy, and liked to play pranks, sometimes incredibly clever and sometimes incredibly stupid, it was never timid. And the fear conveyed by the hard grip of the claws on his head just now was genuine.
What did you see?
As they continued walking, Qingmu asked the Crow softly.
"Quack, I told you it's a shadow."
"Not braised pork knuckle?"
"No, it's a person's shadow."
Although their voices were soft, they could not be hidden from anyone in this small, quiet space.
Situ suddenly asked Qingmu, "Don't you feel something's wrong?"
Qingmu said, "You mean Mental Power, right? Indeed, I noticed it as soon as I came in; the Mental Power Field here is isolated from the outside."
"I've noticed this problem too," Su Huilan said. "Everything was normal on the deck and bridge. But once we got off the bridge and into the lower compartments, the island's natural Mental Power Field started to weaken, as if it was being blocked by something."
Situ nodded. "I suspect the ship hasn't completely escaped Stasis Space. We might still be in a state of overlapping two spaces. So what the Boss Coal saw might not have been an illusion."
"What is that? Could it be... Ghost that escaped from the Stasis Space space with the Swordfish?"