1888: Memoirs of an Unconfirmed Creature Hunter

Chapter 352: Everything is empty

Su Sanniang, who had been standing guard the whole time with silver needles ready in hand to deal with any emergencies, finally let out a long sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve.

Lin Jie quickly stepped forward.

He picked up a clean towel, carefully wiped away the traces of filthy blood from the corner of William's mouth, then placed his fingers on his old friend's still somewhat cool carotid artery.

The pulse felt strong and powerful under his fingertips, each beat like the striking of a war drum, proof that vitality was surging back to life within.

What surprised Lin Jie even more were the remarkable physical changes visible on William's body.

This British veteran, once weathered and nearing fifty, had always maintained peak physical condition, yet the passage of time and relentless warfare had left indelible marks on him—loose skin, old scars from years past, and wrinkles born from excessive strain had been his most prominent features.

But now.

Infused and reshaped by the vast and pure life energy of the Ghost Mother Flower Nectar, William had undergone a true metamorphosis, a rebirth.

The skin on his body had become taut and elastic once more. The calluses from years of gripping a gun were still there, but the surrounding cracks had completely healed.

This wasn't just healing.This was a regression and reinforcement on the level of life itself.

"Uh..."

William's eyelids fluttered slightly, then slowly opened.

He looked blankly at the dark roof beams above, for a moment not yet able to pull himself back from the nightmare of endless darkness and cold that had been his near-death experience.

"Welcome back, old soldier."

Lin Jie's voice sounded beside his ear.

William turned his head and saw that familiar face.

"Lin..." His voice was hoarse, yet full of vigor. "I thought... I was really going to meet God this time."

He tried moving his body.

The massive stone that had seemed to press perpetually on his chest was gone, replaced by a feeling of unprecedented lightness and strength. He felt every cell in his body cheering, even his vision and hearing had become sharper than before his injury.

Instinctively, he reached for the grotesque telescope placed by the bedside—Zulu's Gaze.

The moment his fingers touched the bone-like casing, a strange resonance shot up his nerves straight to his brain.

Merely holding it, a faint, panoramic outline composed of spiritual light points automatically appeared in his vision.

He could even vaguely "see" through the thick walls, the weak currents of energy flowing through the paper effigies in the courtyard, and the slow green light stream within the old banyan tree outside the door.

"My eyes..." William looked at the telescope with disbelief.

"A blessing in disguise."

Su Sanniang sat on a nearby master's chair, having relit her long-stemmed tobacco pipe.

"That nectar not only replenished your deficits, it also re-solidified your foundation that had long been on the decline. Your physique now is sturdier than that of most young men."

She blew out a puff of blue smoke, her gaze complex as she looked at the now-emptied alchemical vial.

"Moreover, you walked right up to the gates of hell. That extreme experience between life and death made your soul more resilient. This change directly affected that gadget of yours, allowing it to break through its original bottleneck."

William sat up on the bed. He clenched his fist, feeling the abundant power flowing between his muscles.

"Thank you."

He looked at Su Sanniang, then at Lin Jie and the Julian and Evelyn behind him, expressing this weighty gratitude with the simplest words.

Immediately after, this old soldier who had just escaped Death's grasp suddenly remembered something.

Even in this moment when his body hadn't fully regained its senses, that sense of responsibility as a father and comrade still dominated his mind.

"Lin Jie." He called out to Lin Jie, who was about to turn away, a trace of poorly concealed anxiety in his voice.

"Anna... how is she? I've been unconscious for so long, has anyone sent her a letter?"

For this man, she was his only soft spot in this world.

"Don't worry." Lin Jie stopped and turned, offering a reassuring smile.

"Back in Cairo, Ethan arranged for a large sum of living expenses and a letter of reassurance to be sent to England in your name. In the letter, you're working as a private security consultant for a wealthy man who is also part of the 'Redgrave family,' with a generous salary and absolute safety."

"She's living well now, probably waiting for you to come back for Christmas."

Hearing this, William's perpetually tense shoulders finally relaxed completely. He let out a long, heavy sigh.

"That's good... that's good."

He muttered to himself, then his gaze swept the room again, his brow furrowing slightly once more.

"What about Ethan? Why aren't they here? That noble young master who loves to join the fun actually didn't come?"

"He's in New York." This time, it was Julian who answered.

"Fighting another war over there. A war about money, stocks, and territory." Julian pushed up his glasses. "Don't worry, that young master is probably sipping red wine in a penthouse suite at the Waldorf right now, missing us."

William was stunned for a moment, then grinned, revealing a long-absent smile.

"Alright, save the sentimental talk for later."

Lin Jie patted William's shoulder, signaling him to rest and adjust to this newly reborn body.

He turned and walked toward the Eight Immortals table being used as a temporary workbench.

There, an inventory and division of the spoils from this Borneo expedition was underway.

The large alchemical container that had been filled with Ghost Mother Flower Nectar was now mostly empty, but about one-fifth of the golden liquid still remained at the bottom.

Even just this remaining one-fifth would be a priceless treasure on the black market of the inner world, enough to spark a bloody storm.

Su Sanniang did not stand on ceremony.

She took out a set of small porcelain bottles she had prepared long ago and deftly divided and diluted the remaining nectar.

After processing by her skillful hands, the highly unstable raw liquid was transformed into five vials of medicine emitting a faint golden light.

"You can't drink this stuff directly, unless you also want to experience that particular pleasure of alternating ice and fire." Su Sanniang explained as she sealed the bottles. "I added a few supplementary ingredients to neutralize its properties. Now they've become the highest-grade emergency medicine."

"As long as there's still a breath left, drinking it can save your life."

She pushed three of the vials toward Lin Jie, while unapologetically tucking the other two into her sleeve.

"These two count as my consultation fee, plus the labor cost for making your clothes." Su Sanniang stated matter-of-factly. "Don't think I'm greedy. This stuff can save more lives in my hands."

"Fair." Lin Jie had no objections. He distributed the three vials to Julian, Evelyn, and himself. "This is what we deserve."

Besides the nectar, on the table also lay the tattered, corrosion-marked Black Mercury trench coat.

This piece of armor, which had rendered meritorious service in the Garden of Eden battle, was almost at the edge of being scrapped.

But Su Sanniang merely glanced at it before pulling out the black iron scissors and several new talisman papers from her sewing basket.

"It's a bit torn, but the foundation is still there."

Her fingers nimbly danced over the surface of the coat, using that special paper crafting technique to repair the damaged spiritual circuits.

"The Oil Ghost Skin itself has strong self-repair properties. As long as you supply it with enough spiritual material, it can heal itself. And..."

Su Sanniang's finger stopped on a charred mark at the collar of the coat, a scar left by the acid corrosion from the Ghost Mother.

"This coat absorbed that monster's toxins and spiritual nature. After repair, its corrosion resistance will become even stronger."

After just an hour, the coat looked brand new. Its dull surface once again shimmered with a dark blue mercury-like glow, even deeper and more restrained than before.

Lin Jie put the coat back on, feeling the familiar cool touch and sense of security, and nodded in satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Evelyn was completely immersed in another world.

She was staring blankly at a large pile of oil-stained, blood-smeared manuscripts brought back from the Garden of Eden laboratory.

These materials contained not only Yan Xilou's detailed records on Zao Chu, but also some unique ideas about combining alchemy with pill refinement.

For this technical expert, the value of these things even exceeded that of the nectar.

"This is a design of genius..." Evelyn muttered as she flipped through the pages. "He was a madman in biology."

Her eyes shone with a fanatical light, her pen rapidly jotting down inspirations in her notebook.

Lin Jie did not disturb her. His gaze moved past the chaotic spoils and landed on Julian, sitting in the corner.

The scholar was sitting under a solitary gas lamp, several letters retrieved from the bodies of the Black Lotus Sect Death Soldiers and a few manuscripts hastily grabbed from the experimental core area before their escape spread out before him.

His face appeared exceptionally pale and grave under the lamplight, his brow tightly locked.

"What's wrong?"

Lin Jie walked over, pulled out a chair, and sat opposite him.

"There are some things... I can't figure out."

Julian took off his spare glasses and rubbed his aching temples.

"These manuscripts are written in classical Chinese, and they're mixed with a lot of Taoist esoteric terms and astrological terminology. I can barely understand part of it, but the more I read... the more something feels off."

He pushed a thread-bound book toward Lin Jie.

"This appears to be Yan Xilou's observation log. While in Borneo, besides conducting biological experiments, he spent a huge amount of time observing the stars and surveying the terrain."

"Look at this page."

Julian pointed to a hand-drawn, complex star chart.

"He conducted continuous tracking records of several major constellations in the southern celestial sphere for three years. His data is extremely detailed, one could even say precise to the extreme."

"But in the marginal notes beside it, he wrote: 'The star positions are incorrect, the celestial orbits are flawed.'"

"He believed the stars he saw did not match the positions recorded in ancient texts he'd read, or the positions where the stars should logically exist."

Lin Jie's heart skipped a beat.

He picked up the notebook.

As a time traveler from the modern era who had specifically studied history, his understanding of Chinese characters and classical Chinese far surpassed Julian's.

He turned his gaze to the draft map tucked between the pages.

It was an unfinished map.

But in the few completed regions, Lin Jie saw details that sent chills down his spine.

His finger slowly traced the coastline of South America.

Its outline had an extremely subtle deviation from the modern map etched in his memory.

Chile's long, narrow coastline had an imperceptible inward curve at a certain latitude that shouldn't exist.

This wasn't a hand-drawing error.

Because Yan Xilou had annotated extremely precise latitude and longitude data next to it, data measured with the most advanced Western surveying instruments.

This meant that in this world, the shape of South America was exactly like this.

Lin Jie looked again at the star chart.

The middle star of Orion's belt was positioned slightly lower than he remembered.

A chill originating from the depths of his soul spread from his fingertips throughout his entire body.

This wasn't something that could be explained by "butterfly effect" or "historical changes."

No matter how human history changed, regardless of whether Napoleon won or lost, it couldn't alter the shape of continental plates, let alone the positions of stars hundreds of light-years away.

Unless...

The physical laws had changed.

He continued flipping through the notebook.

On the last page, Yan Xilou had left a passage of hastily scrawled text, clearly written in a state of extreme shock or despair.

Julian only understood the literal meaning, unable to grasp the terrifying truth it contained.

But Lin Jie understood.

That passage was like a bolt of lightning, cleaving through all the fog in his mind, yet pushing him into an even deeper abyss.

"Heaven and earth are like a mirror, all things are illusory."

"I observed the stars shifting positions, mountains and rivers changing their strategic potential, and only then knew that this world is but a distorted projection seen through a leaf."

"The true source is severed, not in its proper place."

"What is called Eden is merely a cage."

Lin Jie's fingers lingered on the words "projection" and "cage" for a long time.

Yan Xilou had discovered it.

This mad genius, in his attempt to create a god, had inadvertently glimpsed a certain essence of this world.

"What does it say?"

Julian, watching Lin Jie's shifting, uncertain expression, couldn't help but ask.

"He mentions something about 'projection,' and 'source.' What does that mean? Is it referring to the origins of the Black Lotus Sect?"

Lin Jie took a deep breath and closed the notebook.

He raised his head and looked out the window at the sky gradually brightening.

Was that a false sky?

Was that a projected sun?

"No."

Lin Jie shook his head and solemnly tucked the notebook into his own chest pocket.

"It's just the ravings of a madman."

"He was making excuses for his failure, trying to use metaphysics to explain scientific errors."

He told a lie.

"Forget about these."

Lin Jie stood up, patted Julian's shoulder, trying to lighten the mood.

"William is awake. Our mission is complete."

"Next, what we should consider is how to get out of this damned place, and..."

He touched the Round Table insignia in his pocket, the one retrieved from the Giant Nabau Serpent's belly.

"...how to face those who truly want to lock us in cages."

Julian looked at Lin Jie. He keenly sensed that he was hiding something.

But as an intelligent man, he knew some knowledge was toxic.

Since Lin Jie wasn't saying, it meant he shouldn't know right now.

"Understood."

Julian pushed his glasses up and redirected his attention back to the records.

Calm returned to the funeral parlor.

William slept, recovering his strength. Evelyn planned the blueprints for new equipment. Su Sanniang took stock of her inventory in the back hall.

Only Lin Jie walked out into the courtyard alone.

He stood under the huge old banyan tree and lit a cigarette.

Amidst the swirling smoke.

He looked up at the gradually brightening blue sky.

That sense of loneliness as an "outsider" had never felt this strong before.