Translator: CinderTL
Fatty couldn't help but start trembling, goosebumps rising all over his body.
The video abruptly cut off here.
The sound vanished as well.
"What the hell was that?" Fatty wrapped his clothes tighter around himself, his face pale and unnatural.
After seeing the grotesque laughter in the video, he felt completely unsettled.
Without a doubt, the team in the video must have been the missing group. This video was their final recording before their disappearance.
They were clearly dead.
"The Ghost Ship only appears at night, and before it emerges, a thick fog blankets the lake. The Ghost Ship sails out of this white mist."
Huai Yi had gone to great lengths to gather this information.
After a moment of thought, Jiang Cheng asked, "Do you have any information about the tourist boat accident?"
"Yes," Huai Yi replied. "Here's a video taken at the scene."
The video showed a tourist boat approaching from a distance. At first, everything seemed normal, but as it reached the center of the lake, it suddenly stopped. Then, the calm surface of the lake was violently churned by wind and waves.
The boat began to rock violently, then capsized in an instant, sinking before anyone on board could even cry for help.
"This video has been edited," Huai Yi said. "But I can't find the original. Look here, and pay close attention to the ship's waterline. Compare it to how the ship was sailing normally at the beginning."
After comparing the footage, they realized the ship hadn't stopped due to engine failure. It seemed as if some force in the water had forcibly stopped it, preventing it from moving forward.
Then, the ship's waterline gradually lowered as an unseen force lifted the entire vessel from below, before violently capsizing it.
This was the true cause of the accident.
As if struck by a sudden realization, Fatty's expression abruptly changed. He instinctively glanced at Jiang Cheng, his mouth opening as if to speak, but after a moment's thought, he swallowed the words back down.
What Fatty had realized, Jiang Cheng had already considered. The incident instinctively reminded him of the mysterious island.
It seemed Lake Kosner harbored a mysterious force, possibly a colossal, enigmatic creature akin to the whale, lurking deep beneath the surface.
The tourist boat seemed to have been dragged into another bizarre space, with a portal to the real world opening only under specific conditions.
This reminded Jiang Cheng of a legend he had once heard—the Sunset Land.
According to the tale, the world was divided into two domains: the Domain of Life, where the living resided, and the Domain of Death, also known as the Domain of the Dead, where the deceased dwelled.
These two realms were said to remain separate and independent. However, the Sunset Land was rumored to be a passage connecting them, a place explorers called the "edge of the world."
Some claimed to have reached the Sunset Land, only to find that the edge of the world was still the sea.
One survivor had seen it while drowning after a shipwreck. Instead of the rumored fields of gold, they found countless sunken ships and the lingering spirits of the dead haunting their decks.
The surface of the sea here served as the Gate to the Sunset Land, like a mirror.
One could never find the Sunset Land by following the mirror's surface, for it lay in the world behind the glass.
The Ghost Ship incident at Lake Kosner bore a striking resemblance to this. The lake's surface acted as a mirror, and the Ghost Ship had been dragged into a mirror world akin to the Sunset Land.
This also explains why no wreckage of the sunken ship could be found in the lake.
This incident opened up a new line of thought for Jiang Cheng. He followed the thread: If Lake Kosner was a miniature version of the Sunset Land, what about the Nightmare?
Could the Nightmare be a connected mirror world?
Behind every supernatural event lay a miniature Sunset Land, like holes eroded between two worlds. At specific times and locations, things from the Nightmare would crawl through these holes, corrupting the real world.
As these holes multiplied and connected, they would resemble termites hollowing out a dam. When the barrier between reality and the Nightmare World collapsed, the Nightmare World would merge with the real world in an unprecedented way.
This hypothesis was terrifying, but Jiang Cheng believed it was highly probable.
The Night Watcher's purpose was to eliminate supernatural events, seal the holes through which the Nightmare was eroding reality, and prevent the true horror from descending upon humanity after the barrier collapsed.
Now everything made sense.
Crimson's goal was likely to open Sunset Lands, break down the barrier between the Nightmare World and the real world, and merge the two.
With the old question answered, a new one emerged: What was Crimson's purpose in doing this?
Jiang Cheng couldn't yet see any benefit to them from the Nightmare World's arrival in the human realm.
Through his interactions with Crimson, Jiang Cheng was certain these people weren't mindless lunatics. They acted with precision, their goals were clear, and they were a group of desperate outlaws who disregarded life and death, gain or loss.
Risk always corresponded to reward. Their willingness to defy the world, to make enemies of the Night Watchers and even the entire world, must be driven by an extraordinary payoff.
This payoff was undoubtedly tied to the Nightmare and the secrets of the Gate.
But with limited information, Jiang Cheng couldn't think of anything new, no matter how hard he tried. He could only wait for new clues before piecing everything together again.
As Jiang Cheng pondered, Lin Wan'er's phone lit up with a message. Her eyebrows arched slightly as she read it.
Huai Yi noticed the grim expressions on Jiang Cheng's group's faces and took the initiative to end the video call. Watching such information still left him mentally shaken.
Every supernatural event was a life-or-death gamble. Choosing to participate meant betting their lives on the table. The tragedy was that for gamblers like him, whether they won or lost, they could never walk away alive.
As Disciples of the Gate, they were slaves to the Gate, feeding it with their lives. The day they could no longer meet the Gate's demands would be the day of their death.
To wield the power of the Curse, only to die by the Curse—a complete cycle.
Lin Wan'er slowly stood up. "Let's call it a day for now. We have other matters to attend to." She turned to Jiang Cheng. "Xue Jinhua has asked to meet me at her studio for negotiations."
Jiang Cheng's gaze shifted slightly. "This is my business. Don't interfere."
"I didn't intend to. She called me first." Lin Wan'er buttoned her trench coat, her curvy figure fully revealed.
Huai Yi swallowed hard, captivated by Lin Wan'er's aura of mystery, which made him yearn to kiss her. She was nothing like the girls he'd met at the sea-view villa.
"What did you say to her?" Jiang Cheng asked.
"I told her to have some dignity and immediately pay Pi Ruan what she owes. At her age, she's lived her life in vain. She should avoid making things difficult for herself. If I have to come knocking on her door to teach her a lesson, it won't look good for anyone."
(End of the Chapter)
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