Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree

“Just… Let me rest for a bit…” Gu Jun stopped moving as he focused on the sound of rushing waves. He allowed himself to be led by the illusion down the memory lane. He felt himself drifting away from the morgue as the light from the shades faded away. A different light appeared before him, it looked like the glistening of scales, no, it was more like the reflection of light as it refracted on the sea surface. Yes, they were light fractals dancing on the sea.

The sound of the motor rumbled. Gu Jun realized that he was on a ship, more specifically the deck of the Seagull. According to its registration file, the scientific observation ship owned by his parents was 103.8 metres tall and could store 5536 ton of water. The cabin itself was 4 storey tall. There were 28 ship crew, and 82 researchers on board. Gu Jun could sense people walking around him on the deck….

When he was small, he liked to run all over the ship. He knew every ship crew but he was too young to notice any anomalies about them. Thinking back, whenever these people spoke of the sea, Gu Jun remembered there being an inscrutable passion in their eyes.

“Kid, let me tell me, this world is very strange.” The voice suddenly rang out. “There are certain places that you know exist, you’ve heard many things about it, interacted with people from the place but you can never find the place itself.”

Gu Jun’s mind pulsed with pain but he tried his best to focus. The face flickered…. But the voice caused the flickering faces to slowly overlap over each other. Suddenly the name dawned on Gu Jun. Uncle Lee! Uncle Lee Zhenghong. He was the first mate of the Seagull.

The headache intensified and his heart wrenched… Even though he did not visit the Seagull that often, Gu Jun had fond memories of Uncle Lee Zhenghong because Uncle Lee was tall and handsome, funny and treated him well. He often read him stories and sneaked him snacks. Uncle Lee… had been transmuted into this kind of half-human half-fish creature?

“What kind of place is that?” He could hear his young voice asking. The adult Gu Jun thought, ‘Was he talking about R’yleh then?’

“Well, there are many examples.” Uncle Lee said with a chuckle. The blurred face looked down at the sea. “For example a small town called Innsmouth. It should be there but we can never find it. Your parents are so going to scold me for telling you these things again, ha ha.”

‘Innsmouth?’ Gu Jun’s brain carried both his current confusion and his young curiosity, ‘What kind of place is that?’

“There are too many secrets about this world.” Uncle Lee parted with this word of wisdom.

“Wait…” Gu Jun wanted to call after him but the memory or the illusion was swaying. A storm ravaged his surroundings. The ship rocked among the waves, and hiding between the giant waves, appeared to be an inscrutable shadow. He could hear a shocked and fanatic chanting. It was the ship crew shouting, Dagon, Dagon, Dagon…

Suddenly, the illusion shattered and Gu Jun snapped into being. He almost collapsed by the autopsy table.

“Ah Jun?” Thankfully Uncle Dan rushed over to help him. Wu Siyu and Deng Ximei walked over. The former asked, “Do you need some recharge?”

“I’m fine…” Gu Jun’s voice was hoarse. He turned to stare at the inhuman face, the bulging grey eyes, the scales, the white stomach, the gills around the neck, the webbed feet and long claws… How could this monster be Uncle Lee… But it was indeed Uncle Lee. If this was what happened to the ship’s first mate, did the same destiny descend on the rest of the crew? Was the ship crew part of the 165 Deep One carcasses lying at the morgue? Why would they transmute into Deep Ones, was it to travel to R’yleh?

Based on Angell’s Order’s research, R’yleh was an ancient city submerged in the depths of the sea. Human beings would have trouble reaching there with their current biological structure. But if they mutated into the Deep Ones, they could easily dive for more than several ten thousand metres underwater…

“I’m suddenly reminded of something, I need to go make a call to the headquarters.” Gu Jun announced. He put down the scalpel and ran to the communication room next door. He relayed to the headquarter this highly confidential information. The Deep One currently lying on his autopsy table was the former first mate of the Seagull. When he was alive, he was searching for a mysterious small town called Innsmouth. The language that it was in was unknown. He also heard the name of a giant sea monster called Dagon.

“Copy that, we will start researching them immediately.” The command central responded. However, one of the questions was answered instantly. It was Elder Tong who said, “Dagon is the revered Fish God of the Philistines. It has the appearance of half human, half fish.”

Gu Jun took in the new info silently. The Philistines were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC. Their civilization was masterful at sailing and they worshiped the oceanic divinity. Dagon was their Fish God and the name was repeated many times in the Old Testament. Actually, Gu Jun did encounter the name of this divine in his previous studies. But at the time, he had no idea it played such a huge role in the disappearance of the Seagull.

If Gu Jun’s memory was not wrong, Dagon had some kind of relation with the Deep Ones and R’yleh as well.

As Gu Jun processed this information, the command central returned with updates from their research. Elder Tong said excitedly, “We found an old newspaper article from the year 1920. There is a recorded mystery about a US marine who claimed he had encountered Dagon around a reef at the Pacific!”

The Phecda Archive had been collecting ancient information. After being made privy to Afterlife Cult and R’yleh Cult’s long history, Phecda began collecting these old newspapers. With a search on the computer, this old article was pinged. These two cults had been in existence before the formation of the Chinese republic.

The article Elder Tong found was published in World News’ wonders of the world segment on the 20th June in 1920. This kind of segment was often overlooked, for they rarely based themselves in reality. Who would have thought it would provide such valuable information now.

Soon Gu Jun was faxed the copy of this news article. The Wonders of the World segment occupied just a small corner of the page, probably it was just for people to glance over.

“Us Marine thought missing was found miraculously alive. The man claimed to have sighted the legendary sea monster at the Pacific.”

…

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