Volume 2Chapter 10: Dry Hands

The two dry hands were obviously human hands, shriveled up like dry sticks, clinging to the woman’s body. I didn’t know how the woman was feeling, but I could feel cold sweat breaking out on my back.

The two hands did not move any further, just hanging there weakly, as if they were decorations on her clothes. I wanted to see where the hands came from, so I looked up along the arm, but her hair was too messy and fluffy to see clearly.

The woman was obviously very scared and shaking all over. If she were an ordinary woman, I’m afraid she would have fainted long ago. I saw her body go limp, and I guess she had reached her limit.

The boatman was kneeling with his back to us, bowing and chanting something. I couldn’t understand their local dialect, but I could guess that he was probably performing some kind of ritual, probably asking Mazu for protection. After chanting a few times, he took out two strange half-round wooden pieces and threw them onto the deck, as if he were asking for a fortune. He threw them once, looked at the result, bowed a few more times, picked them up and threw them again. I saw him start to tremble, probably because the result was not ideal.

I have never believed in this kind of thing, but seeing the boatman so pious, I was a little worried. These people are very particular about this kind of thing. If the result of the fortune-telling said that I was an evil spirit, I guess they would not hesitate to throw me into the sea.

At this moment, the woman suddenly let out a cry, and the whole person suddenly retreated. I didn’t know if she had lost her grip or if she had been dragged by the ghost’s hand, but she suddenly fell into the ghost ship. I saw that it was not good, and I didn’t care about turning back or not. I turned around and wanted to jump over to save her. The boatman rushed over from behind and hugged me, saying, “There’s no way! Once you fall into the ghost ship, you can’t be saved. Don’t go to your death!”

The boat captain was very strong, and I couldn’t shake him off. The other people didn’t know what possessed them, and they still didn’t dare to turn their heads. At this time, that bald guy came out of nowhere, grabbed the anchor on the boat, and threw it hard, throwing the anchor onto the ghost ship and catching the ship’s rail. The ghost ship swam very fast, and suddenly the anchor cable was pulled into a straight line. Our boat shook, and it was forcibly pulled over.

The captain of the ship was so scared that he drew a knife and went to cut the cable. He was knocked to the ground by Zhang’s punch. The other crew members were scared and one by one they pounced on him. Zhang even pulled out a pistol and held the captain of the ship at gunpoint, yelling, “Don’t move, or I’ll kill him!”

The crew members had never seen such a scene before, and no one dared to come up. Zhang then said to me, “Xiao Wu, I’ve already controlled them. You go save the people!”

I opened my mouth wide, wondering if I had heard it wrong. In such rough seas, was I supposed to swim over? He then glared at me and pointed at the rope, yelling, “Hurry! Young people need to be brave!”

I shook my head. This was ridiculous. I was weak in sports, and swimming over was basically a death sentence. If I climbed the rope, I would probably be able to do so with one last breath, but how could I save anyone?

At this time, I heard the woman screaming on the ghost ship. She desperately tried to climb to the rope, but it seemed that she was being held back by something. She couldn’t move forward, so she grabbed the railing with both hands and yelled at me, “Mr. Wu! Help me!”

I heard this and my heart sank. I slapped myself hard and yelled, “Wu Xie, are you a man or not?”

I don’t know if I slapped myself awake or stunned myself. Suddenly, I felt my blood rush to my head, and I gritted my teeth and yelled, “I’m going to die!”

I took a deep breath, first picked up the swimming goggles on one side and put them on, then took off my shoes and walked to the edge of the boat. I clumsily grabbed the tightly stretched rope, and saw that there were raging waves in front of me, and the rope was occasionally submerged in the water.

The rope was about 12 meters long and was definitely strong enough. If you were quick, it wasn’t very dangerous. The main problem was being knocked down by the waves on the rope. When I thought about this, my heart moved a little.

I had never encountered anything so decisive in my life. I hunched over the side of the boat for a long time before slowly taking my first step. I hung upside down on the rope, using all four limbs, praying as I climbed. But before I could open my mouth, a wave suddenly came and drowned me in the water. When I poked my head out, my face was green. But in this way, I also had an understanding of the power of the waves, and my heart suddenly became clear. I estimated that it should be no problem to climb over there.

So I didn’t move when the waves came, and when I got out of the water, I climbed a few steps. I don’t know how long it took, but I was already very close to the ghost ship. At this time, a huge wave came and I sank underwater. In an instant, I was almost pressed more than a meter deep. I was stunned, and when I opened my eyes and held my breath, I suddenly saw a strange sight. I saw that the bottom of the ghost ship had a rusty chain that was very long. Strangely, at the end of the chain, there was a strange object that I couldn’t see clearly in the deep water.

I was about to take a closer look when suddenly the rope was lifted and I was out of the water. I was on the crest of a wave and looked down to see the woman face up, crawling into the cabin of the ghost ship in a strange position. I was stunned when I saw that it wasn’t her own hands that were dragging her forward, but the two withered ghost hands.

I saw that she was motionless, as if she had lost consciousness. I had no choice but to use all my strength to climb over her and then fell into the ghost ship and onto the deck.