Chapter 83: The Sisters in White Dresses

Hua Sheng had never seen the sea so closely before. The ocean’s strange yet familiar sense of embrace left him deeply shaken. Some encounters, though never experienced before, feel like a reunion after a long separation. It was as if the sea had become part of the rhythm of life, impossible to ever forget.

As evening fell, the distant clouds blazed like fire, coating the entire cruise ship in a radiant, beautiful rose gold. The sea breeze gently brushed across Hua Sheng’s face as he gazed out at the seamless horizon, the scenery so tranquil it seemed as if the ocean had never known a storm since the dawn of time. Everything was peaceful, everything was calm.

There were a few tourists on the deck taking photos, probably families or couples. Hua Sheng, passing through the crowd alone, felt somewhat out of place. After being asked several times to help take group photos, he wandered back into the cabin, bored.

The last light of sunset gradually faded, and as the glow dimmed, the sky was transformed into shades of blue and violet. Sometime unnoticed, the moon had crept silently into the sky. If not for its silvery reflection on the sea, you wouldn’t have noticed the moment it magically rose from the horizon. The sea mirrored the bright moon; compared to the earlier dazzling sunset, the scene now exuded a unique, unfathomable allure.

Hua Sheng stopped in front of a third-class cabin, checking the room number Officer Zhang had given him: 3255.

It was correct. He pressed the doorbell, but there was no response from inside.

He knocked on the door: “Hello, is this Miss Xu? I’m a friend of Xu Xiaocheng. He asked me to bring you a message.”

Still, there was no sound from within.

Perhaps the two sisters had gone to the deck or the entertainment hall. It was dinner time; maybe they were at the restaurant. As Hua Sheng turned to leave, he suddenly noticed the door was unlocked. It was merely ajar. The gentle rocking of the ship from the waves nudged the door open with a creak.

A sudden, intense unease swept through Hua Sheng like an electric current. In the movies, if you ever find a door unlocked, it rarely bodes well.

But there were two people staying here—surely nothing could have happened to both? With people coming and going on the ship, it seemed unlikely that anything would go unnoticed.

Hua Sheng considered finding the ship’s security, but decided to take a look inside first. He poked his head in and knocked again on the already open door.

“Is anyone there?”

Still silence. Hua Sheng stepped inside. The third-class cabin was small. Though it had a window, night had already fallen and no light came through. By the glow from the corridor, he could just make out the vague outline of a double bed; there was a wardrobe on the right.

He felt along the wall and found the light switch. The fluorescent lamp flickered to life, illuminating the empty room. There was no sign of anyone else. The bathroom door was already open, and with such a small space, nowhere for someone to hide. The entire cabin was laid bare.

Two large suitcases, about twenty-four inches each, sat in the room, confirming that the occupants had checked in. Women’s clothing and daily items were scattered about; everything looked completely ordinary.

Perhaps they’d simply forgotten to lock up. If they returned suddenly and mistook him for a thief or a creep, it would be embarrassing. With that thought, Hua Sheng hurried to leave. But just as he switched off the light, two “ding” sounds rang out behind him.

One to the left, one to the right, coming from two different places. The sound was familiar—he’d heard it somewhere before.

Of course! It was the alarm tone for a phone!

Hua Sheng turned around. In the darkness, two faint lights glowed—one on the bed, another at the dressing table. He instantly realized these were two phone screens lighting up.

Something unusual had happened, no doubt!

It struck Hua Sheng that in this day and age, it was almost impossible for two women to leave their phones behind when going out. Phones were practically extensions of their bodies—especially for women who enjoyed taking photos. For both to leave without their phones could only mean one thing: they had to flee the room in a great hurry.

He hurried to the bed. The phone screen displayed a message, simple and brief, only two words:

“Set formation.”

He quickly checked the other phone on the dressing table. Though a different color and model, the message was identical.

What on earth did this mean? Hua Sheng couldn’t make sense of it. “Set formation” was a term he’d only ever seen in historical accounts of armies or in martial arts stories involving sword formations.

What did it mean? And where had the sisters gone?

At that moment, the huge cruise ship suddenly lurched so violently that Hua Sheng could no longer keep his footing. The ship’s furniture was bolted down, but cups and lamps crashed to the floor, the sound of shattering glass slicing through the silence.

Immediately, passengers’ screams rang out in the distance, growing closer along the corridor.

Hua Sheng dashed out of the room as fast as he could. As he did, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a paper package on the floor, with four bold characters written in brush and black ink:

“Institute of the Arcane Arts.”

The Bedelan cruise ship shuddered violently. Even through thick steel, the roar of the sea battering the hull was clear and deeply unsettling.

Hua Sheng rushed out of the Xu sisters’ cabin, but a powerful jolt threw him back into the room. He scrambled up and made another dash for the corridor, now packed with terrified passengers whose cries filled the air.

The ship’s PA system blared: “Attention, passengers! We regret to inform you that the cruise ship is encountering severe waves. All passengers are to return immediately to your cabins! For your safety, please do not go onto the deck or move about the ship to avoid accidents! Repeat: For your safety, please do not go onto the deck or move about the ship!”

Uniformed crew members began moving through the corridor, shouting for passengers to return to their rooms.

Hua Sheng quickened his pace, heading toward his own cabin. He hoped to find the sisters quickly; if not, it would be safer to stay in his own room for now.

Such violent shaking meant they must have run into a tropical storm of at least force twelve—no, perhaps a category sixteen typhoon.

But Hua Sheng’s instincts told him this wasn’t just ordinary turbulence. With today’s meteorological technology, while some margin of error was possible, a major cruise line should never be caught unaware by a storm like this. Why had they taken this route? Or had the cruise line not received any storm warnings at all?

Hua Sheng reached the end of the corridor, where an external deck walkway lay beyond the door. A male crew member stood there, shouting at him: “Go back, get inside! Use the interior corridors, it’s too dangerous outside!”

As Hua Sheng hesitated, a monstrous wave crashed into the ship. The entire vessel shot upward as if riding a high-speed elevator, soaring over a hundred meters, then plummeted down. Hua Sheng and the crewman were both smashed against the ceiling, then slammed onto the floor. The crewman struck his head on the threshold and immediately lost consciousness, blood streaming from his temple.

If the crewman was left lying on the deck, another roll of the ship could easily sweep him overboard. Hua Sheng rushed over, hauling the man with all his strength into the corridor.

Suddenly, an immense thunderclap erupted.

The world was lit up as if by a giant flashbulb. Then the prow was struck by a lightning bolt several meters wide. The thunder and shockwave hurled Hua Sheng, just as he’d lifted the crewman, several meters away. The deafening sound, accompanied by howling wind and rain, echoed through the darkness as the corridor lights went out. The shouting and screaming of passengers reverberated through the ship.

Within a minute of struggling back to his feet, Hua Sheng saw flames erupting at the bow. The fire spread rapidly. The noise, the flames, the screams—together with the pitch-black corridor—turned the once-joyful cruise into a living hell within mere minutes.

Hua Sheng’s heart pounded as if it would burst from his chest. But it wasn’t this hellish scene that filled him with dread. What truly unsettled him was what he’d seen in the flash of lightning.

For a brief instant, as the sky was illuminated, he had glimpsed enormous dark shapes swirling above the storm-battered ship. They were certainly not seagulls or birds—each shadow was dozens of meters long, like masses of black cloud circling the vessel.

Though it lasted only a tenth of a second, Hua Sheng was certain it was no trick of the thick clouds. He was sure these flying things were alive.

He dragged the crewman into the cabin, set him in a safe corner, and returned to the corridor.

Now, the main lights were out. Only the emergency red lamps gave off a faint, flickering glow, as if ready to go out and plunge the corridor into icy darkness at any moment.

Bracing himself against the wall, Hua Sheng made his way up to the deck through wind and rain. He hoped for another flash of lightning, to see clearly what those dark shapes circling the ship really were.

At some point, the deck had grown eerily silent. Rain and waves battered the hull, making the surface slick and wet; water had pooled past Hua Sheng’s ankles, and his clothes were soaked through.

He didn’t know how many had been injured in the earlier plunge, and now he could only pray for the storm to pass quickly.

While his mind was still reeling, Hua Sheng saw two women walking side by side about thirty meters to his right. Their backs to him, they clung to the wall, struggling forward.

He shouted, “Hey! Are you all right? Don’t walk on the deck! It’s too dangerous, go back inside!” But the wind and rain drowned out his voice.

Why was there no crew helping them? Hua Sheng stepped forward, grabbing the railing, the raging sea churning below. Steeling himself, he waded through the water toward the women.

Both were dressed in matching white dresses. In the dim deck lights, Hua Sheng saw they were already soaked to the skin, shivering as they walked.

It suddenly struck him—could these two, who looked like twins, be Xu’s sisters? Why had they run out of the cabin? Why, when the storm began, had they not returned inside? And why were they headed in the opposite direction from their room?