Plague Doctor - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Last Recorded Footage
Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio

There was a mobile phone in the paper parcel.
The screen of this phone was cracked, but Gu Jun could recognize that this was Li Yuerui’s phone.
Suppressing the brimming doubts in his heart, he held onto the power button. However, the phone refused to respond. The phone did not seem to have been repaired at all.
Who sent this to me? And why?
“If this was sent by Li Yuerui and the others, then some urgent situation must have happened,” Gu Jun reasoned carefully. “They should be facing a situation where the loss of this phone was imminent, and the people seeking to seize the phone were beyond their ability to handle. However, they did not want the mobile phone to be obtained by the other party, and they could not send it to any of their acquaintances as well. Hmm, was it because their acquaintances were unable to hold on to the mobile phone? Perhaps, the acquaintance would either willingly hand it over or may face the possibility of robbery? In short, since I was someone they barely know and a stranger, they sent me the mobile phone in a hurry. Is that really the case?” 4
Gu Jun studied the mobile phone in his hand and was silent for a while. What should he do?
If they could not hold on to it with Li Yuerui’s background, he naturally lacked the ability to do it as well. If the person who wanted to seize the phone found out that the phone was with him, it will definitely incur trouble for him. He abruptly recalled the cold and mysterious man. Could it have something to do with him? 1
Regardless of whether the man was following him or not, he could not afford to handle this matter carelessly. 2
Gu Jun could not inquire about Li Yuerui’s situation too overtly. This cell phone… He also couldn’t go to just anyone to fix it.
Gu Jun sorted out the thoughts in his head. The most optimal solution right now was to try to fix it himself despite his lack of knowledge at this kind of thing.
“The soup is ready,” at this time, Cai Zixuan called out over the balcony. “Was the parcel delivered to the wrong address?”
“No, it’s mine.” Gu Jun put the mobile phone in his pocket. He tossed aside the thoughts about the mobile phone and walked over to drink some soup.
Cai Zixuan scooped a bowl, which was brimming with soup and even included several pig kidneys and livers inside. He showed an affectionate mother-like smile. “Here’s a big bowl of soup for you. It’s very nourishing.” Recently, Tycoon Jun’s diligence in studying was witnessed by Cai Zixuan. Even though he told the class monitor, she was still sceptical. However, he felt that this old friend of his seemed to have turned over a new leaf. At least, his performance over the last half a month was worthy of this bowl of soup. 10
“It smells so fragrant.” Gu Jun accepted the still-steaming bowl and repeatedly blew on it to cool it down.
Cai Zixuan served himself a small bowl and started blowing on it too.
After the soup has cooled down sufficiently, the two followed the tradition in the dormitory. They toasted their soup bowls in the direction of the human skeleton model, “Old Wang”, at the corner to pay tribute, before finally starting to drink the soup. 1
Gu Jun took a sip, and his mouth was instantly overwhelmed with a sweet and fragrant taste. It gently rolled down his throat and into his stomach, with a savoury aftertaste still lingering between his teeth and cheeks. Sure enough, it is great to be alive! 2
After quickly finishing half a bowl of soup, he took a piece of pork liver and chewed on it a few times. However, he felt like he was gnawing on a stone. He couldn’t help saying, “Isn’t this too hard? I reckon this pig should have liver cirrhosis.”
“Really?” Cai Zixuan heard his words and tried a piece as well, then spat it out. He emotionally said, “It’s true. No wonder it’s so short-lived.” 3
After the two beautifully finished their respective bowls of soup, Cai Zixuan packed the remaining soup in a thermos bottle. He intended to bring it to the laboratory building for Wang Ruoxiang and the rest to enjoy.
After Cai Zixuan left, Gu Jun closed the bedroom door immediately and went to lock the balcony door as well. He even closed the curtain to ensure the privacy of his surroundings. He then returned to his desk and turned on his laptop. He intended to research as to how to repair a mobile phone. 2
Gu Jun was not a science geek, but his level was similar to any ordinary guy. After looking through many research materials, he finally figured out what to do. In this case, it was likely that either the battery or the power cord was damaged and had a weak contact point. Only these kinds of minor problems were within his ability to handle.
He immediately went to flip through his dormitory to find some screwdrivers and some other tools. He began to repair the mobile phone while watching online tutorials. 4
First was to remove the phone case and remove the battery and other components. Gu Jun then found out that the SIM card had already been removed. He ignored this as repairing the phone takes precedence. Gu Jun pressed down on the power button. 5
Buzz! The phone trembled, and the cracked screen lit up. It entered the starting interface and booted up successfully.
Gu Jun inwardly praised himself as a genius. This is about the saying picking up a scalpel can save people, while picking up a screwdriver can save a phone!
“Lock screen password?” He looked at the nine-digit dotted pattern on the screen and thought of the code “233333” written on the parcel. This number indeed seemed like a password set by Li Yuerui. He entered 233333, and the phone immediately unlocked with a clicking sound. The password was correct. 2
The mobile phone screen had countless cracks running through it, but it did not impede his browsing. He saw a lot of applications on the homepage: WeChat, QQ, various live-streaming video platforms.
Gu Jun glanced through the apps before clicking on the gallery. The topmost folder was labelled “Longkan”. 2
He tapped on the folder. There were many photos of Li Yuerui and the other two playing on the cruise ship, as well as countless videos. On the surface, some seemed to be taken on the cruise ship itself, while others were taken inside the submarine. He directly opened the last video taken on the phone.
The time that this video was shot was the very day of the deep-diving expedition.
“Beloved viewers!” The video on the cracked phone screen began to play. Li Yuerui patted himself and took a panoramic shot of the surroundings, then outside the window of the submarine. “Look at how dark it is outside. We have dived over 1,500 meters, and we’re near the ocean floor!”
Gu Jun looked intently, not fast-forwarding even a single second. He saw himself sitting there, as well as Wu Dong and Lin Xiaotang, who both seemed to be somewhat impatient. 1
To get a clearer shot, Li Yuerui unfastened his seat belt and got up to get closer to the window. Following that, the old captain tried to persuade him to sit back down, but Li Yuerui paid no heed to him and continued his current behaviour. The closer he got, the clearer the quality of his footage became. The light from the searchlight illuminated the rough seafloor.
“If it wasn’t for a submarine, humans would be squashed by deep-sea pressure.” Li Yuerui said before the video screen started to shake slightly. 1
Gu Jun’s heart sank. Was this when the disaster in the submarine began?
“Look over there! There are so many corals!” Li Yuerui excitedly shouted while the video on the screen started to shake more and more. The submarine was trembling to this extent, yet Li Yuerui still took it in stride and continued to film. “Hmm, that’s strange, I haven’t seen a single fish at all. Fishies, where are you? ” 1
Indeed, there were no fishes despite being at the bottom of the sea. All that remained was an ominous silence.
Gu Jun recalled the scene of the ocean fishes fleeing wildly later that day. Where are all of them at?
After a short while, the video suddenly shook violently.
It was also at this time when the old captain’s panicked scream echoed in the video. “WHIRLPOOLS DETECTED, ABNORMAL WHIRLPOOLS DETECTED! SURFACE IMMEDIATELY! TURN THE SUBMARINE AROUND, NOW!”
The video continued to shoot the scene outside the submarine window, and the seawater quickly churned and formed a violent vortex. Gu Jun’s eyes suddenly widened, but he abruptly saw that the vortex was broken open by a shadowy silhouette. The shadow rushed towards the side of the submarine. It turned out to be a large ship!
A large, decaying ship! 4
Its mast was broken, and there were multiple cracks in the bow. The hull was patchy, and the paint on the ship’s name had almost wholly chipped off. There was no light nor any figures of humans. Looking through one of the dilapidated windows of the ship, it was impossible to make out anything inside. There was only formless, indescribable darkness.
“This is…” Gu Jun’s heart shuddered. The feeling of suffocating and anxiety swept over him, and his head felt like it had been struck heavily.
Although the image was vague and the bottom of the sea was dark and ominous, he could still tell. That ship was Seabird. 9
When he was young, he used to board the Seabird and had so much fun that he refused to leave.
All these years, who knew how many times he reminisced about the Seabird. The Seabird where all the crew members, including his parents, had gone missing.
In the video, it was clearly seen at the bottom of the sea, travelling in an absurdly improbable way.
The mobile phone suddenly resonated with Li Yuerui’s tragic scream. The submarine was shaking violently, and the video was quavering intensely as well, the camera lens pulling away from the window.
There was mass panic and confusion in the cabin of the submarine. Almost everyone was shouting, but there was a voice in the video that Gu Jun could faintly hear, speaking a secret foreign language. He frowned and perked up his ears, listening carefully. The voice seemed to be muttering something over and over again, speaking very softly, yet he could still hear it.
It was the same sentence, the only sentence he could understand.
[The fruits of darkness sprouts, shrouded by the darkness of the trenches. The parasites of death will live with the Heavens and Earth forever] 3
It was the line of blood on the wall of the broken laboratory in the hallucination he previously saw back in the laboratory.
This voice seemed to reverberate within the submarine cabin. Although it bore no similarities with any language on Earth, it was clearly the voice of a human being.
As Gu Jun listened, the voice grew more and more distinct. A sudden chill came over him, “It’s my voice.” 2
In the footage, he was muttering this sentence himself. 7
“The fruits of darkness sprouts, shrouded by the darkness of the trenches. The parasites of death will live with the Heavens and Earth forever.”