In addition to the dozen or so bloody fingers, there were also a couple of eyeballs, a few ears, and some other human organs that fell out of the trash can.
Fei You didn’t react at first, but then he startled and immediately ran to the side and threw up. After all, it was one thing to guess, but another thing to see with his own eyes.
Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian’s reactions were much calmer than before. They had witnessed and experienced countless instances in the past hundred days, after all. The strange and terrible had all already been seen.
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “Sure enough, we are right.”
After the pirate ship was enveloped by the so-called curse, not only did the food on the ship ceaselessly vanish, they likely also never caught any fish in the sea anymore. In this situation, even if this guy was the ship’s cook, it was impossible to hide food. The food on the entire ship disappeared, where would this guy find any food? The result was self-evident, he put his thoughts on the most abundant thing on this ship: people.
Maybe he still had some moral bottom line in his heart at the beginning. Maybe he had struggled and hesitated early on. But in the end, his desire for food overcame everything, defeating the last trace of conscience in his heart, and he raised the chef’s knife in his hand on his former companions…
Tang Mianmian touched his chin with some doubts, “This guy openly murdered and committed cannibalism, didn’t anyone resist? Although his figure is sturdy, a chef should be considered a civilian job on a pirate ship, right? So how did he fight the other pirates who had rich experience in combat? Not to mention not just one… there must be at least seven people here, right?”
Xiao Tangqiu nodded. Even if the chef was skilled, it was impossible for one person to deal with so many pirates. The only possibility was…
“Maybe he didn’t deal with seven at the same time but used his identity as a chef to trick these people into the kitchen one by one. Maybe he lied to them that he secretly hid food,” Xiao Tangqiu frowned and analyzed, “He might have lied by asking them to do something for him in exchange for some food, and then lure the pirate into the kitchen to chop up and eat. At this point, the ship was already a mess because of the lack of food. Even the captain could not control the situation. This way, even if one or two people went missing, no one would find out, and they would not pursue even if they found out.”
“Makes sense!” Tang Mianmian nodded, “But how did this guy die later on and had his body stuffed into a wooden chest? Did he kick an iron plate and got killed when he was trying to kill? And why is his corpse full of gold coins? Did he secretly take the treasures that were missing on top of hiding “food”?”
Xiao Tangqiu smiled bitterly, “I don’t know. I’m not a super detective. I can’t analyze the whole truth based on a little clue.”
At this moment, Duan Hongzhen suddenly asked, “So where are the remaining people? Where did they go?”
Xiao Tangqiu quickly realized that no matter how powerful this chef was, it was impossible to kill all the people in the ship. So where did the rest go?
Fei You had finished vomiting by now and he weakly proposed, “Don’t we still have the wine cellar unexplored?”
“Let’s go and see.”
The wine cellar was not locked so there was no room for Duan Hongzhen to play. Xiao Tangqiu gently pushed the wine cellar door open.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The choking dust blew out again accompanied by a smell that was so burning that Xiao Tangqiu felt that he was about to suffocate.
Ktf alwf rjlilcu ja rfj kjr nfgs ibcu jcv ogfrtkjafg gfrbegmfr kfgf cba fjrs ab qgfrfgnf, rb rfjojgfgr kbeiv boafc mtbbrf ab gfqijmf kjafg klat jimbtbi atja kjr fjrlfg ab qgfrfgnf. Ktfgfobgf, atfgf kjr bcis jimbtbi bc ybjgv jcv cb kjafg. Ktf klcf mfiijg bc ybjgv kjr rfjifv jlgaluta ab yfaafg qgfrfgnf la. Ktf rfji kjr kfii vbcf rb cbatlcu tjv fnjqbgjafv bg bzlvlhfv jcv kjr nfgs lcabzlmjalcu.
Except for Xiao Tangqiu, everyone had complicated expressions. Even Duan Hongzhen frowned. Tang Mianmian’s expression changed drastically and he pinched his nose and took a dozen steps back, “Toxic!”
Xiao Tangqiu glanced at Shen Yuan subconsciously, but Shen Yuan was still expressionless… He lowered his gaze and sighed softly in his heart.
After regaining his memory, Shen Yuan seemed to have become even colder than before.
For some reason, he always felt that there was an invisible line of sight on him. But whenever he looked at Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan’s eyes were unfocused and didn’t seem to be looking at anything, as if nothing in this world could be seen in his eyes.
When the dust settled, the situation in the wine cellar finally cleared up. There were dozens of large wine barrels densely stacked together. Because it’s been too long, the wooden boards of some wine barrels were rotten and broken.
It was easily conceivable that these wine barrels would be empty. There was a famine on this ship, after all. Even if there was wine, it would have been drunk long ago… The sea of wealth had become perilous, and they were tormented by starvation. Those pirates with fading vitality could only paralyze themselves with alcohol and escape the hopeless reality through drunkenness and death.
Tang Mianmian went around in the wine cellar and didn’t find anything, “It seems that there are only these big wine barrels in the wine cellar!”
Xiao Tangqiu knocked on the empty barrels one by one. There was a hollow echo from the first barrel, and the same was true for the second barrel, but when he hit the third barrel, there was a dull echo. He perked up, “There is something in this barrel!”
Duan Hongzhen leaned in immediately and he also reached out and knocked on the wooden barrel. After confirming that there was something inside, he raised the knife in his hand and with one swipe, the wine barrel shattered.
The moment the wine barrel fell apart, a corpse fell out.
Like the previous chef, this corpse was also forcibly stuffed into this wooden wine barrel. Because the body has been trapped in this posture since death, the joints were all dislocated and the limbs were twisted and deformed. The moment it fell out, a few gold coins fell from the mouth of the corpse and rolled away.
Duan Hongzhen kicked the corpse and judged calmly, “This corpse seems to be full of gold coins.”
Xiao Tangqiu paused for a few seconds, then knocked on the next wine barrel and there was another dull echo. He and Tang Mianmian looked at each other and the two immediately pried open the top of the wine barrel together. Sure enough, there was also a corpse in it.
He saw the corpse “sit” in the barrel with his head up and butt down. Because the space in the barrel was too small, his limbs had to be twisted together and his head was almost sunken into his body. Xiao Tangqiu picked up a broken wooden board from the ground and pried open the corpse’s mouth. It was filled with gold coins.
Then they opened several more barrels, all of which contained dead bodies which were filled with gold coins.
Xiao Tangqiu murmured, “If there’s nothing else, everyone on the ship should be here…” The pirates on this ship were either killed by the chef or buried in the wine cellar.
Tang Mianmian touched his chin, “Who did this? That cook died like this too. Was it the captain?”
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “No matter how powerful this captain was, it is impossible to kill dozens of people alone, right?”
Tang Mianmian blinked, “Maybe he is not a human but a demon.”
“That’s right! Let’s look around and see if the captain’s body is here!”
They opened the remaining wine barrels one by one and ultimately found a lot of corpses full of gold coins. But these corpses were all dressed in the same clothes, they should be just ordinary pirates. In the end, they did not find the captain’s corpse.
“The captain’s body isn’t here! See, I guessed right!”
Tang Mianmian analyzed with interest, “These people were really killed by the captain! After they found the treasure, the captain didn’t want to distribute the treasure to his crew, wanting to keep it to himself. So he made up a terrible lie, saying that their ship was cursed while stealing food from the ship and the gold coins back from the crew. Finally, he killed the crew and stuffed them into these barrels! Perfect reasoning!”
Xiao Tangqiu felt there was something wrong, “If the captain didn’t want to share the treasure with the others, why didn’t he kill all the pirates when he found the treasure?”
Tang Mianmian thought for a while, “He still needed these pirates to set sail?”
Xiao Tangqiu, “He killed the pirates before the ship reached shore. So then he would still have to sail the ship alone?”
Tang Mianmian thought about it, too, “Oh, right! Could it be that he suddenly became possessed?”
At this moment, there was a scream from the deck outside.
“Ahhhhh!”
Duan Hongzhen was the first to react, turning around and sprinting towards the deck. The others quickly reacted and followed.
As soon as they got onto the deck, a newbie covered in blood stumbled towards them.
The newbie had a big bloody hole in his stomach and his intestines poured out. He didn’t seem to notice it, only running towards them with terror, screaming for help, “Help! Help! Help me!”
When were there people on board this ship other than them?
Xiao Tangqiu looked behind the man in surprise to see that the chef had “resurrected” somehow. The chef was holding a rusty kitchen knife and swaying after him.
Duan Hongzhen asked coldly, “What did you just do?”
The newbie screamed, “I didn’t do anything!”
Duan Hongzhen sneered, “You’re lying.”
Seeing that he didn’t want to make a move, the newbie finally broke down and cried, “I took his gold coin! But I only took one! Help me! I shouldn’t have taken it! I was wrong!”
Fei You immediately yelled, “Then return the gold coins to him!”
The newbie did not dare to stop at all and wanted to continue running towards them. The next second, he tripped onto the ground from panic.
Seeing the chef catch up, he tremblingly took out the gold coin, “I will… return it… to you!”
The chef blankly looked at him and the kitchen knife in his hand fell.
“Ahhhhh!”
A severed hand holding a gold coin rolled to the ground.
The chef stared at the severed hand blankly, then stiffly picked it up and delivered it to his mouth along with the gold coin.
A scalp-tingling chewing noise sounded.
T/N: Sorry I missed the post last week. I’ve been really busy with some family matters and wasn’t able to translate. I’ll post a make-up chapter later this week!
Ew
It’s all good, hopefully everything is okay with your family!
Thanks for the chapter! 💕
It is that they ate the gold coins! Cannibalism and eating the treasure, wild. Though that doesn’t answer who stuffed them away, or where the captain is. Or, of course, how the dead can reanimate now—it seems that the treasure itself is probably what was cursed
Thank you so much for translating! <3
My guess is that they’re stuffed into the barrels/boxes because they keep reanimating and it keeps them contained and perhaps they’re all filled with treasure since it is their “share” and by having it they’re more subdued or such? Like only when they have their share of the treasure could they have been forcibly contained and having them squeezed into tight areas that they can’t move in won’t let any treasure roll away and reanimate/enrage them or something. Discovering the location/current state of the captain will probably be a huge clue.
That make sense! It’s interesting that the cook is stuffed somewhere else, though, since we know there’s at least two empty barrels here. It could be that the chest is larger than the barrels and matched his frame better, but I’ve always thought of wine casks as quite large. It might also be that the cook needed to be lured away from the remains he was hoarding, or that he was the first to be contained, too
Довольно…продуктивно, но отвратительно
Thank you for the chapter!
And here I go doing theory 😂
I think hmm… The demon and shen yuan has something to do with the TQQ’s childhood sweetheart dying…