Deep Water
Translator: Cinder Translations
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In the instant before the door closed, the Fatty instinctively wanted to call the doctor back, but a sudden chill interrupted everything.
The hand that he had just lifted froze in mid-air.
Unintentionally, fragments of memories from the mission resurfaced.
He still remembered when he and the doctor were walking by the sea, the doctor bent down to stare at the circles of white waves, and after a moment, said, "This sea... seems to be empty."
It was precisely because the shock from this sentence was so great that he had overlooked the doctor's next words.
Staring at the waves that surged forward and retreated, the doctor slowly continued, "The tides here are weird."
It turned out that the problem wasn't the tides, but the island itself.
That heartbeat-like sound that had come from deep underwater, which felt like an explosion, finally had a source.
Fear, madness, confusion, and hesitation—within a few seconds, many emotions flashed through the Fatty's eyes.
Compared to the doctor, he was the more emotionally expressive one, but when it came to emotional control and suppression, he was far worse than the doctor.
He began to feel a tightness in his chest, as though someone had pressed him to the ground and placed heavy stone slabs on his chest, one after another.
His chest and lungs were being squeezed, and he crouched on the ground, clutching his head and breathing heavily.
Was this still the world he knew?
Had something strange infiltrated this world, or, perhaps... had he inadvertently glimpsed the reality behind this world through a crack in the curtain before it was closed shut?
Maybe the world beyond the door was the real one.
And it wasn't exactly as the doctor had predicted—everything in the world behind the door was just history repeating itself.
No matter what they did, they couldn't change the course of history. But he was sure that the door had instead started changing them, at least, it had changed him by a great deal!
The Fatty held his head with one hand, controlling the other trembling hand, raising it in front of him.
He stared intently at the hand, a strange feeling, one he had never experienced before, slowly rising in his chest.
In the next second, it spread throughout his body.
Lying flat on the mattress, with the blanket neatly covering his chin, Jiang Cheng's breathing was steady, seemingly as if nothing had happened.
His hands were resting on his chest, and the blanket gently shifted. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, as though looking at someone hanging upside down above it.
If there was someone, it would certainly be someone with the exact same face as Chen Ran.
"Brother Hao, don't overthink it. I just have a bad feeling, and my feelings often tend to be inaccurate."
"Just like this building. It feels alive to me, and being inside feels like being in a monster's stomach, it's suffocating."
"You have the knife in your hand, and you have a feast like me to enjoy, don't you want to try?"
"Opportunities like this don't come often. Believe me, while it's still in your hands."
Every word the man had said rang in Jiang Cheng's ears.
And his subtle expressions when saying these things.
The grin, the sharp white teeth exposed.
He was arrogant, self-absorbed, and extremely confident.
Especially the way he looked at him.
Jiang Cheng always felt like he had seen that gaze somewhere.
Maybe it wasn't him, but someone who resembled him.
But who was it exactly?
And why did they look at him with that gaze?
Pain continued to shoot up from the depths of his mind, and the darkness gradually obscured his vision.
He slowly closed his eyes.
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Jiang Zhou.
Late at night.
In a secluded private residence by the southern riverbank of the city.
The middle-aged man sitting in the duty room near the tall closed iron gates was idly scrolling through his phone.
An old dog lay beside him.
The old dog, quite intelligent, knew that the master of the residence preferred peace and quiet, so it remained silent through the night.
Unless something unusual happened.
Just like now.
The dog, which had been napping, immediately stood up, its ears erect, and its fur trembling all over.
But the next second, the middle-aged man, without even looking at the dog, smacked its head with a rolled-up magazine.
"That's enough," he muttered, continuing to scroll through his phone while scolding the dog. "Last time I fell for your tricks, ended up running to the place and got yelled at by the butler. You want to trick me again?"
"Watch out, or I'll mince you into my rice!" the middle-aged man grumbled.
He was quite satisfied with this job. The master of the house had few problems, and paid generously. Who wouldn't like working for someone like that?
If this dog messed up his shift, it would really ruin everything.
"Woof! Woof!" The old dog rushed forward, its front legs lifted onto the door, tugging at it relentlessly.
This startled the middle-aged man, who quickly ran over to try to control it, at least to make it stop barking.
But the dog seemed to have gone mad, baring its teeth and drooling.
It had been like this last time too.
But back then, he hadn't known better, thinking it was a thief, so he let the dog out and grabbed his nightstick, chasing after it.
But when they arrived at the spot, the dog was just lying on the steps in front of the master's door, barking furiously inside.
This eventually summoned the butler, who scolded both the dog and him.
The middle-aged man felt something strange in the air, though he couldn't quite put a finger on it.
No, it wasn't a smell.
It was... an unconscious judgment.
He felt that the building in front of him was somehow different from before.
But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't figure out what it was.
The butler had left a remark: if this happened again, they would be fired.
Finally, the master arrived, dressed in light sportswear.
She was a very delicate-looking woman, not tall and quite young, almost like a girl.
It was said that her parents had passed away early, but fortunately, they had left her with a substantial fortune.
One of the more senior colleagues had mentioned that the woman had a brother, but he had some mental issues, so he was rarely seen in public.
This brother and sister duo led a very secluded life, which over time, had given rise to some unsettling rumors.
The woman's expression was as indifferent as usual, and she didn't say much, just instructing the butler to deal with the matter quickly and not disturb her brother's rest.
But when the man left and returned to the duty room, he suddenly realized it was already 1 AM.
But the woman was still in her sportswear.
Was she doing some kind of exercise?
Alone?
How strange.
Maybe that's how the rich live, he thought, turning to close the door. He was about to scold the troublemaking old dog when he suddenly noticed that the dog had already slunk away, no longer barking, and had crawled back under the bed.
A peculiar, foul smell wafted from under the bed.
(End of the Chapter.)
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