The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 43: Yongxing Island

As soon as I was pulled up to the deck, the ghost ship made a distorted groaning sound as if something huge was crushing it. I looked around and saw that the front and back of the ship were on two different levels. Not good, I thought to myself as I quickly glanced at the ship's hold. Sure enough, the keel was broken.

If the keel broke, then that meant that the hull would inevitably crack. Moreover, this ship already had a very deadly crack, which seawater was rushing through in a mad torrent. I figured the ship would be completely flooded in less than five minutes.

Bald Zhang's face was pale from nervousness as he said, "Here comes our boat. Let's get out of here quickly. The rest can wait for later."

I looked back and saw that the fishing boat we had originally been on was very close and the captain was waving at us while shouting, "Are you guys ok?"

Bald Zhang put the woman on his back and waved to the fishing boat. The crew gave a loud cheer and then started the engine so that they could get closer to us. Several of the crew on deck shouted excitedly at us but I didn't bother trying to understand what they were saying. They had been so terrified earlier that they were closer to lumps of mud than humans, yet now they were shouting excitedly. These simple fishermen truly were different from us.

After taking on so much water, the ghost ship had slowed down enough for our boat to pull up next to it. Several crew members jumped over—still looking terrified—and scrambled to carry the woman back to our boat before quickly pulling the anchor back up. "Let's go, let's go!" The captain shouted. "Let's get away from this damned place!"

The captain asked us to set the woman down on the deck, motioned for me to hold her, and then pulled her hair aside.

I had already mentally prepared myself, but when I saw those things again, I couldn't help but gasp in shock. Those two withered hands were curled up in her hair, and now that I could see them clearly, I found that they weren't very long, the skin seemed to be hardened, and they were growing out of a lump that was similar to a sarcoma. But the most disgusting thing was that there was a small, indistinct human face growing on the sarcoma. I didn't know how it was possible, but that face was somehow tightly stuck to the back of the woman's head.

When the captain saw this, his expression became very solemn. He then kowtowed to the thing a few times, pulled something out of his pocket, and scattered it on the little face, which suddenly let out a piercing scream and started twisting. He immediately pulled out a knife, carefully but quickly inserted it between the sarcoma and the woman's scalp, lifted the sarcoma up, and then yanked it off.

The thing fell to the deck and started wriggling around, causing everyone who was watching to take several frightened steps back. After a few moments, it melted into a paste-like lump that flowed down through the cracks in the deck planks. I had never seen anything like this before and started to ask, "This is—"

"It's a face demon," the captain said softly as he rinsed the knife with seawater. "It's the ghost of someone who died unjustly while on that ghost ship. If you sprinkle cow hair on it, everything should be fine."

I could tell from the expression on the captain's face that he was already regretting taking on this job. He muttered something under his breath, checked to make sure there wasn't anything else in the woman's hair, and then issued orders to his men before walking to the stern. After a while, the boat started moving again.

By this time, the sea had finally calmed down. Although the dark clouds were still in the sky, they were starting to break into smaller patches. The sun was shining through these breaks in the clouds, creating a very magical sight. It looked like this goddamn storm had finally passed.

As we got the woman settled, the captain climbed up to the ship's upper deck and I knew that he was going to look at our surroundings. Sea monkeys were extremely vindictive after all, so there was no telling if it would follow us to get revenge. But Xisha's waters were very clear, and when the light was good, you could even see down to depths of more than forty meters. If something was following us, we would definitely be able to see it at a glance so I wasn't too worried that such a thing would happen.

Once everyone got back to work, they were so busy running around that they completely ignored me. I had used up a lot of strength earlier, and now that I had calmed down, I started to feel sleepy. I found a relatively soft place to lay down and slept for a while. When I woke up, I found that the sun was already hanging low in the west and our boat was sailing along the coast of an island. I saw a very beautiful beach with white sand but it seemed like the sand was relatively coarse and probably wouldn't be comfortable to step on. In front of us was a pier, which seemed to be our destination.

I had thought that we would go directly to the next search area so I was surprised to find that we were pulling to shore so soon. "Where are we right now?" I casually asked.

"This is Yongxing Island," a person nearby replied. "We're here to pick up some people."

I turned my head and saw that the woman was sitting next to me. Her face looked like it had more color now and it seemed that she had just woken up. I had no resistance when it came to women, so even though she still looked unwell, I couldn't help but think that she was still a little sexy. I smiled and asked her, "Who are we going to pick up?"

She pointed to the pier in the distance, where a group of people carrying travel bags could faintly be seen, "That's them. There are a couple of divers and a consultant, like you. I'm sure you know each other."

I stared hard at the figures, feeling like there was a familiar fat one among them, but I couldn't remember who it was. At this time, one of the crew members who was standing on the bow suddenly shouted, "Ahoy! Get ready! We're here!"

The fat figure turned around and cursed, "Ahoy, my ass! I've been sitting here in the northwest wind for half an hour! Do you guys not have any fucking sense of time?"