Chapter 95: 93. The Big Fish (Two-in-One)

93. The Big Fish (Two-in-One)

Sending things to a dead person?

Drake's brows jumped in surprise, his nostrils flared slightly, and with a constricted throat, he said, "Your brother... is dead?"

"Yeah, he died in a car accident last year..."

"Can you send things to the deceased here?"

The boy nodded and said earnestly, "The things I leave here always get sent away in the end."

Drake was stunned upon hearing this, then let out a dumbfounded laugh. "I see. In that case, it seems I can try sending some things myself in the future."

As he spoke, Drake glanced at the items the boy was about to "send away." "The things you want to send to your brother seem quite precious. Are you really willing to part with them?"

The boy looked a bit hesitant, but gritted his teeth and nodded. "These are his favorites, and I've already looked at and played with them. Although I'm a bit reluctant, if it's for my brother... I'm willing."

Drake smiled slightly. In his view, this was a somewhat naive but very kind boy, so to protect the boy's pure thoughts, he decided not to expose the cruel reality.

After bidding the boy farewell, Drake walked down the road, looking for a breakfast shop that interested him while rethinking things.

"It seems that tunnel shouldn't have anything special about it. I'll reorganize my thoughts after I get back. Hmm, I need to set up a camera to record tonight, and while I'm at it, tie myself up and set up some kind of mechanism..." Drake thought to himself. To prevent himself from entering a "sleepwalking" state and walking into the sea again, he had to prepare something.

After watching Drake walk away, the boy turned back. He looked at the box of treasures at the tunnel entrance, closed his eyes, and prayed earnestly in a murmur: "Brother, I've already sent you your favorite big treasure from when you were alive. I hope you like it."

After praying silently in place for ten seconds, the boy opened his eyes and suddenly smiled knowingly.

The box of treasures had indeed been sent away again.

After breakfast, before returning to the hotel, Drake went to a nearby electronics store and supermarket to stock up. Upon returning to the hotel, he began setting up the recording equipment and installing a trigger mechanism for "waking up"; if he sleepwalked again tonight, the mechanism would be able to wake him up in time.

After finishing all this, Drake used his status as an Investigator to request the hotel surveillance footage from after he had fallen asleep the previous night; he wanted to see exactly what his state was like when he was "sleepwalking."

The hotel staff was very cooperative. After verifying Drake's identity, they immediately opened access for him to go to the security room to review the footage.

Upon checking, Drake was surprised to find that he had indeed walked out of his hotel room at 3:00 AM that morning like a sleepwalker, and had left the hotel premises within the next ten minutes.

Drake believed his sleepwalking was caused by Abnormal factors. He had never had symptoms of sleepwalking since he was a child, and before coming to the Shenzhou Region, his sleep had always been very stable; the sleepwalking only started after he arrived in the Shenzhou Region, and on the very second day at that.

"What exactly is the factor causing this?" Drake went back to sorting through his case analysis, feeling a headache coming on. At the same time, because he was now trapped in the situation himself, he also felt a sense of urgency and unease.

Detectives in reality don't have superpowers or luck bonuses; they are also being targeted as prey by the "killer," and what's more, the "killer" was still of unknown True Form, leaving him without a single clue.

Drake took a few puffs of his cigarette to soothe his agitated emotions. In his other hand, he gripped his phone, the screen frozen on a dialing interface. That number had been left for him by his contact for this mission, and it was highly likely the private contact number for someone in the Xuanmi Group.

He actually knew, of course, that the best way to solve his own problem now was to ask the professional organization in the Shenzhou Region, the Xuanmi Group, for help, but he didn't want to do that.

He had to admit he was a bit of a conceited guy who firmly believed he could handle everything. He had reasons for being so confident; at the very least, he had basically solved problems independently his whole life.

Additionally, he loved freedom, specifically the kind of freedom that walked the gray line, so the moment he thought about the possibility of being subjected to personal restrictions, he didn't want to inform the Xuanmi Group of his situation.

Drake didn't make the decision to dial the number until he had finished the entire cigarette. He then locked his screen and prepared to go to bed. Before sleeping, he wrapped his bed and himself in layer after layer of black rubber tape, and incidentally put Shackles on one of his hands, locking the other end of the Shackles to a pillar at the head of the bed.

After making all the preparations, Drake slowly drifted off to sleep.

Wandering beyond the heavens, Drake's self-awareness and cognition gradually thinned; he forgot he was sleeping and slowly entered a dream.

In the dream, Drake heard the call from earlier that day. The voice was still as low, filled with pleading emotions, he thought with sluggish cognition.

Who is calling me?

Why is she crying so sadly, so pitifully?

Is she begging for my help? Or is she begging for my pity... or forgiveness?

Drake considered himself a veteran of the dating scene. As a detective, a profession that constantly walks the gray line, and given that he wasn't a person who followed the rules—but rather someone who loved challenges—spending a wonderful night with various types of women in red-light district bars was also a challenge to him, so he usually played quite loosely.

However, he walked through the flowers without a single petal sticking to him; he didn't remember ever giving his heart to any woman, nor did he remember any woman being so dependent on him...

To find the owner of the voice, Drake followed the sound in his dream. He walked across an endless desert under a sky thick with dark clouds, yellow sand dancing in the air. He didn't know how long he had walked before he suddenly smelled the fishy scent of sea air.

Drake stopped on a sand dune, a sense of agitation surging in his heart. His rapid breathing carried a hint of panic; he saw a sea in the distance, and a terrifying sea storm was brewing, constantly encroaching toward him.

Wild thunder and lightning, storm surges and tsunamis... no matter which one it was, for a tiny human like Drake, he was powerless to resist.

Drake turned to run, but upon looking back, he saw a pair of swollen eyes as bright as lightbulbs, almost bursting from their sockets. A humanoid creature with deep green skin, covered in Scale and fin-like organs, stood before him. He was face-to-face, eye-to-eye with it, staring at each other.

Staring into such a pair of lifeless, dull eyes, Drake felt only a wave of terror surge into his mind. The bizarre image was frantically crushing his sanity, and his soul felt as if it were about to be assimilated by that pale, powerless gaze.

He took a step back, distancing himself from this monster that resembled a legendary merman. However, his fear did not diminish in the slightest. After his field of vision widened, an even greater terror appeared before him. Behind him, groups of mermen stood on the sand dunes with ferocious expressions. Their thick bodies stretched the fabric of their clothes, and sharp fin-like organs cut through the garments. They seemed to have no independent consciousness, just walking past him step by step, ignoring him, heading toward the stormy beach behind him.

Every merman was opening its mouth, emitting obscure, incomprehensible whispers and roars, their hands working with their upper bodies to perform some kind of ritualistic prayer posture, praying as they walked.

Drake suddenly realized they might truly be worshipping something. He couldn't help but look back toward the sea again, but this time, upon seeing the scene on the sea, he felt deep regret for his rash action; in an instant, it felt as if his soul were about to scatter.

On the vast, oppressive sea, water and sky met, dark clouds in intimate contact with the tsunami. And in the dimness, a giant crouching beast that pierced the sky was wrapped in thunder, dark clouds, and earthquakes and tsunamis, walking toward this place step by step. The face of that giant beast was surprisingly similar to the mermen passing by, as if to declare that these mermen were the descendants or subjects of this beast.

This time, Drake turned to flee without hesitation, but the moment he took a step, he felt resistance on his left hand. He couldn't help but be stunned. Looking back, he discovered two mermen with humanoid female characteristics were grabbing his left wrist with their webbed hands, while the other mermen looked at him blankly, as if confused, not knowing why he wanted to flee this place.

Drake tried to break free like a madman, wanting to escape this group of mentally Abnormal merman lunatics.

That giant beast was coming, the storm and tsunami were closing in; they would devour everything, especially a human like him with tender skin and a fragile spirit.

Drake gritted his teeth and pulled his arm hard, but these female mermen were immensely strong. Their hands, with sharp claws and hard Scale, rubbed against his wrist, causing a burning pain. The harder he pulled, the stronger the pain became.

His breathing was rapid, the tremors getting closer, and the sound of the giant beast's breathing and the storm and tsunami were also drawing nearer, until a huge, dark shadow obscured the heavens and the earth, completely covering his tiny shadow.

Drake looked back in terror, only to see that sky-covering beast pushing huge waves forward. Its gaze turned downward, staring at him, this alien being.

Boom!

The seawater crashed down like a mountain, shattering his soul and spirit into pieces, crushing his last remaining bit of sanity into nothingness.

Just when he thought he would sink beneath the damp, cold ocean, he saw a scaly merman arm reaching out to him in the black waters. Nearly suffocating, he relied only on the instinct to survive and grabbed that hand, and the owner of that hand responded, gripping his hand and pulling him away.

Drake felt some regret; he felt he shouldn't have reached out that arm. Those mermen who worshipped and revered that giant beast shouldn't have offered him a helping hand.

At this moment, the merman holding his arm wouldn't lead him to swim to the surface, but would lead him into the extremely deep trench beneath the seabed, taking him into that world where only these mermen could survive...

However, after a short while, Drake felt a few beams of light coming from above. His consciousness gradually blurring, he looked up and realized that the merman who had taken him away wasn't leading him into the abyss as he had thought, but was swimming with him toward the surface.

"Ah!" Drake woke up from the dream with a start, but the moment he tried to spring up from the bed, he was immediately bounced back by a powerful restraining force, his raised head slamming heavily back onto the pillow.

Looking at the familiar environment around him, the fear gradually faded along with the memories of the dream, his mind and sanity becoming increasingly clear. He suddenly let out a long breath, lying quietly on the bed, greedily breathing the room's air, feeling the intimate contact between his skin and the bedding fabric.

"It was a dream." Drake pulled his hand out from under the quilt and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead that kept streaming to the back of his head, feeling as if he had just come back from being caught in the rain.

"Hiss." A moment later, Drake felt a sharp pain in his left hand. Looking up, he discovered that his left hand, locked in the Shackles, was already dripping with blood, having scraped a bloody, mangled wound against the contours of the Shackles.

Helplessly needing to get up immediately to treat his wounds, Drake opened the Shackles, removed the restraints on the bed, then got out of bed, bypassed the mechanism, sat on the desk, and took out a medicine kit and bottled water from the cabinet to properly bandage his wrists.

He used the bottled water to wash his wrists, which were partially scabbed over and partially still bleeding, the pain causing him to wince and grit his teeth.

When the wound was washed clean, Drake finally saw the appearance of his wound clearly, and his whole body immediately stiffened again.

Drake swallowed his saliva, trembling as he took tweezers from the medicine kit and slowly reached them into the wound; after a bout of facial contortions, he used the tweezers to successively extract three small, regular, translucent, blue-black, flake-like objects from the wound.

They were fish Scales...

"Jiaoren Disease?" After a long search through the data, Yu Lianyun finally discovered written records in the branch organization's database related to the Abnormal phenomena of the female students.

About 500-plus years ago, roughly during the Zhu Ming period, there was once an isolated island on the edge of the sea area then under the jurisdiction of Liuhua Port, and on that isolated island was a small town where a terrible epidemic of unknown origin suddenly broke out one day.

Anyone who contracted the epidemic would gradually lose their proper human form and turn into a Jiaoren, possessing fish-like characteristics all over their body and a very cruel temperament, but humans who could turn into Jiaoren were in the minority; most people would actually die before completing the transformation because their bodies could not withstand the changes.

The initial symptoms of Jiaoren Disease when it breaks out are coughing up blood and the inexplicable beginning of ulceration in the oral cavity, which indicates that the patient's vocal cords are completing their transformation into those of a Jiaoren; by the middle stage of Jiaoren Disease, the patient would almost lose their original normal vocal tone and would also be able to emit strange fish-like cries.

Further along, the patient's lower body would slowly fuse together, the hair on their legs would fall out, and in its place would be fine, dense Scales and various fin-like organs.

Ultimately, the terminal state of Jiaoren Disease is either death or becoming a humanoid beast that has lost its humanity.

"Could it be that she is suffering from Jiaoren Disease?" Yu Lianyun could not help but speculate, "Then are the other victims of the mysterious disappearances also patients with Jiaoren Disease?"