Zhang Haiyan looked at the newly thrown corpse; it still had warmth, as if it had just died not long ago. Very professional. However, one thing immediately struck Zhang Haiyan as odd: the crew uniform on this corpse did not fit.

Zhang Haiyan tugged at the sleeve of the corpse and realized that this uniform definitely did not belong to the body; it had been forcibly put on. Why? Were they treating the corpse like a doll?

Zhang Haiyan checked the other bodies and found the same situation. Suddenly, he realized something was wrong. He muttered to himself, “These people are not crew members.” He Chenxi was still vomiting and hadn’t heard him. Zhang Haiyan thought to himself that these corpses were passengers, not crew members, but he didn’t understand why the killers had dressed them in crew uniforms before dumping them here.

What was going on? Zhang Haiyan listened carefully to the sounds inside the ship; there was music and noise, seemingly completely normal, with lights shining everywhere. Yet, in front of him lay a pile of corpses. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly understood why they hadn’t thrown the bodies overboard: they were still in the current, which would wash everything back to the beach at the port. If they threw the bodies into the sea now and someone discovered they were from the South An, they would send a telegram to the ship, and the people on board would become alert.

This was a big operation; they had killed so many passengers. The audacity to leave the bodies on deck indicated that these people were very confident that no one would discover them in a short time. Were they robbing one by one in first class? Or was it something else?

While he was thinking, two more people came over dragging a corpse, and this time it wasn’t a little girl. Zhang Haiyan quickly pulled He Chenxi back into the pile of corpses to hide. The two men set the body down and immediately turned to leave. One of them stepped on He Chenxi’s vomit, but the deck was too dark for him to realize what he had stepped on.

Zhang Haiyan stood up again, and He Chenxi got up and vomited once more. This time, there was nothing but bile. Zhang Haiyan thought for a moment and decided that regardless of the reason, he would first disrupt their plans. He directly picked up a corpse and threw it into the sea.

He Chenxi looked at him in shock as he helped someone dispose of a body, wondering if this was the virtue of a fellow traveler. But he didn’t question it; he had grown numb to Zhang Haiyan’s strange behavior.

After throwing the body overboard, Zhang Haiyan picked up He Chenxi and followed the footprints of the vomit. He was hungry, cold, tired, and exhausted, but there was no other choice. After tonight, even if he let him investigate, he wouldn’t know who was transporting the bodies. Moreover, he was filled with curiosity about what was happening. Was the ship really this lively? He wanted to know.

The following story requires a good understanding of the ship’s structure. It’s hard to explain the ship’s layout clearly, but one can imagine it as a smaller Titanic. There was a building on the deck with a large smokestack, filled with high-end cabins, restaurants, and ballrooms. The best cabins were on both sides, with balconies that offered views of the sea. Below the deck of first class, there were swimming pools and restaurants, meaning the entire midsection of the ship was designated for first-class areas, which had dedicated cargo holds and passageways also located in the midsection, not at the bow of the ship.

What is the bow of the ship? The bow is the open activity area of the third class, so there is no direct passage between the bow deck and the first class area. Of course, you could climb over the walls from the bow to reach the first class area, but that’s not a structural issue.

Although the bow is an open platform for third class passengers, it is now piled high with cargo. This means that the SS Southampton has occupied the open activity platform of the third class to transport overloaded goods.

Zhang Haiyan and the others are located in the third class open area at the bow deck, which is filled with cargo. The people transporting the corpses use the spiral staircase, which is a vertical ladder that leads to the bottom of the ship; there is one on each side of the deck. Descending the spiral staircase leads to the space beneath the deck, which is where the true nature of this ship lies. The second class has rooms for four people, while the third class consists of various large dormitories. The boiler room and cargo holds are located beneath the deck.

You can understand how much dirt lies hidden beneath the luxurious facade above the deck. The first two levels of the spiral staircase are for the third class and the crew’s quarters, but the corridor doors of the third class are all locked. This means that the spiral staircase cannot be accessed by third class passengers, and they cannot use this staircase either. Below that are two levels of cargo holds, and the very bottom is the fire escape and pipe layer. Following the damp, foul-smelling footprints, Zhang Haiyan arrived at one of the cargo holds.

There were no lights in the cargo hold; it was pitch black. Before entering, Zhang Haiyan understood what was going on. The open deck at the bow was not accessible to third class passengers due to the piled-up cargo, so all the spiral staircase doors leading to the open deck were locked. This way, the entire cargo area was closed off to anyone except the staff, unless a first class passenger fell to their death on the bow deck.

This area is sealed off. As he crept into the pitch-black cargo hold, he heard someone inside saying: “The bodies have been laid out, with fake wounds, and the clothes have been changed. At dawn, the lookout will see the bodies and report them to the ship and that woman. That woman will definitely check the bodies; our people are pretending to be dead and have taken a drug to induce a fake death. They won’t wake up until they reach the morgue, but as soon as they are moved, the device in their stomachs will activate, releasing the antidote slowly. After an hour, they will all wake up, and when that woman enters the morgue, that will be her time of death.”

Zhang Haiyan thought about it and sensed something was wrong. After a moment, he suddenly wore a terrible expression. Those people were not corpses; they were fake-dead assassins, meant to kill that woman.

It’s—it’s over! They’ve all been thrown into the sea!