Zong Hang only learned what Jin Xiu meant by “putting on makeup” right before starting work.
It consisted of just two techniques.
The first was eyeliner.
As a grown man, why would he wear eyeliner?! Zong Hang was completely resistant, but Jin Xiu promised him they’d only do one eye first, and if the effect wasn’t good, they could wipe it off.
After completing one eye, Jin Xiu showed him the effect in a makeup mirror: “What are you being particular about? Is this the time to pursue ‘handsome’? As long as others can’t recognize you, the uglier, more demonic, or more feminine, the better.”
With makeup on half his face, comparing left and right, he had to admit she was right: the eye with the liner had a flirtatious, seductive quality that changed both his gaze and his entire demeanor.
The second technique was creating a scar.
It was drawn on one side of his face, using simple tools: latex, foundation, various eyeshadows, eyebrow pencil, cosmetic brush, and lipstick.
When finished, there was a fierce, horrifying scar with bruising around it, making him look like Yang Zhi the Blue-faced Beast at first glance.
This was really… even his parents wouldn’t recognize him standing right in front of him.
Zong Hang drew in a sharp breath: “You know professional makeup techniques?”
Jin Xiu laughed: “I’m far from professional. These techniques have online tutorials, we use them to fool customers…”
She revealed an “industry secret” to Zong Hang: “Sometimes when we’re too lazy to take jobs but can’t refuse them, we draw a large bruise on our arm. Customers don’t quite understand but think you’re working while injured. They won’t complain about you lacking strength, and might even give extra tips.”
She continued instructing him: “When unfamiliar people try to recognize you, they first look for typical features. To avoid being recognized, you don’t necessarily need to change your entire appearance. The key is to scatter your facial features or override them with fake ones, in layers—even if someone has doubts about your eyes and brows, once you take off your mask, their only thought will be: ‘That demonic-looking man with the scar…'”
Zong Hang rolled his eyes.
Jin Xiu was confident: “…Unless someone stares intently and compares carefully, who would connect you with the former Zong Hang?”
While the disguise achieved its purpose, it brought another kind of awkwardness: when the kitchen staff came to take him to work, they frowned noticeably at his upturned eye corners.
Zong Hang immediately felt three inches shorter: the men working on the ship were mostly rugged, and his appearance seemed affected.
Sure enough, in the kitchen, everyone stared, and some turned their backs to whisper and snicker. Zong Hang felt like he had needles in his back, only able to comfort himself: when undercover, enduring such disapproval doesn’t matter.
The cruise ship kitchen operated in shifts. For the morning-noon shift, meal preparation started at five in the morning. As a substitute worker, Zong Hang received preferential treatment for his first shift and was assigned to the noon-evening shift, preparing lunch and dinner.
After some questioning, they discovered his knife skills weren’t good enough for chopping board work, so he was relegated to peeling vegetables in a corner.
With a stool and a peeler, he was rooted to his spot: washed fruits and vegetables came in basket after basket. Preparing meals for hundreds of people was no small task. While peeling, Zong Hang looked around: Had Yi Xiao boarded the ship too? Where was he hiding? Would he make contact?
He lost count of how many baskets passed through his hands. The next moment, the entire kitchen was suddenly filled with steam and aromatic smells as they began preparing the lunch buffet.
While that side was cooking at full heat, his work temporarily came to an end.
Finally able to catch his breath, Zong Hang wanted to ask about how to get staff meals, thinking of getting one for Jin Xiu too. As he looked around uncertainly, the supervisor pointed at him: “You, yes you, got nothing to do? To help set up in the dining hall.”
Zong Hang wanted to explain he’d just finished his work, but looking around, he saw everyone was busy like they were in a battle, rushing back and forth—he felt too embarrassed to speak up and could only follow along carrying stacked plates.
The dining room was also on the first floor, already bustling with noise. Cruise passengers came in groups of three to five, people of all ages and types. Some were shouting about not having enough chopsticks, and others complained about missing soup spoons. Seeing the servers overwhelmed, Zong Hang suddenly felt kitchen work wasn’t so tiring after all.
He put down the plates and wanted to leave.
Inadvertently glancing up, he saw Yi Sa again.
She was holding a plate, frowning at the long queue of people. Probably too lazy to squeeze through, she looked around and walked toward the most remote fruit station.
There weren’t many people at the dessert end.
Something flickered in Zong Hang’s mind, and without knowing why, he unconsciously went over too. He walked behind the buffet table where there weren’t as many diners blocking the way, and arrived before her.
Looking up, he saw the patrolling supervisor also glancing this way. Zong Hang hurriedly arranged the fruit plates, moving things here and there, gathering forks, and checking the toothpick holder—all to convey one message:
I’m so busy, I’m not slacking off, really busy, lots to do.
Yi Sa came over.
There were many types of fruit, and she held the buffet tongs with an uncertain gaze, seeming undecided. Zong Hang couldn’t help pointing at the pineapple slices: “This one, this one is sweet!”
Kitchen work did provide access to quite a bit of inside information, like “today’s melon is overripe” or “this meat’s not that fresh, let’s make a Sichuan-style boiled dish to cover the taste.”
While peeling, he’d heard the workers praising the pineapple for being sweet and crisp. They’d even shared one among themselves, though they hadn’t given him any.
Servers usually wore stern faces when busy, rarely being this enthusiastic. Yi Sa looked up at him.
This man not only wore eyeliner but had used poor-quality eyeliner pencils—the right eyelid area was already smudged.
Really…
She skipped the pineapple and went for watermelon instead.
Zong Hang was at a loss, not understanding why his comment received no response. As he hesitated whether to tell her the watermelon was overripe, someone suddenly approached and called out: “Yi Sa.”
Yi Sa’s hand paused, the piece of melon untouched.
Zong Hang’s face suddenly burned hot, his breathing quickened, and his heart pounded like a drum—thank goodness for the surgical mask, that thin layer concealing all his facial changes.
Ding Xi.
This man who had killed before, whose hands were stained with blood, smiled with complete ease, approaching with perfect composure.
Yi Sa barely lifted her eyelids, responding neither warmly nor coldly: “Oh, it’s you.”
She stopped selecting and just started putting fruit from each plate onto her dish.
Ding Xi smiled: “Hadn’t seen you for the past couple of days, thought you weren’t coming.”
Yi Sa replied impatiently: “Who wants to come? Uncle Jiang calls every day pushing me, it’s annoying.”
Ding Xi said: “Just think of it this way—those who show up get a share. The Jiang family is rushing to give you money, it won’t seem so annoying then.”
Then he looked at Zong Hang: “Could I get a plate, please?”
Zong Hang hurriedly tried to take one from the stack beside him, his hands slightly shaking. The first attempt slipped, making a loud clang that felt like it hit his head.
Then he handed it over.
Ding Xi took it and continued casual conversation with Yi Sa: “By the way, how is Sister Xiang… doing? Last time at your place, we troubled her quite a bit.”
Yi Sa didn’t look up: “Someone else’s helper, how would I know?”
“You haven’t been back since?”
“Too busy, no time.”
Ding Xi hesitated for a moment, afraid too many questions might raise suspicion, so he changed the subject: “You should eat more, there won’t be proper meals coming up.”
Why wouldn’t there be proper meals?
Zong Hang couldn’t understand. The kitchen warehouse was so well-stocked that it could handle three or four more meals easily. If worst came to worst, there were plenty of cities along Poyang Lake where they could dock for supplies.
In the afternoon, the work content remained unchanged—continued squatting and peeling. Even at his young age, his back couldn’t handle squatting motionless for so long. As Zong Hang was pounding his waist like an old lady, sudden sounds of people and water came from outside.
Someone went out to see what was happening and came back reporting that they had lowered seven or eight rubber dinghies and brought all their equipment—looked like they were going fishing.
Zong Hang pricked up his ears to listen to their gossip—
“These people must all know each other. Did you see the passenger list? So many surnames like Ding, Jiang, and Yi. They say it’s a family trip. That’s rare nowadays, with everyone living their own lives, it’s unusual for relatives to gather like this.”
“It’s basically like they chartered the ship. I heard they used to make their living on the water. This time seems to be some kind of ancestor worship or commemoration. The company told us before departure that we just need to provide the vessel and food, nothing else.”
“I saw them bringing many boxes aboard. Heard tonight’s a big night, but what a shame, we’re not allowed to watch. The bridge crew said we’ll anchor in the lake tonight, and they’ll even lock the doors to our quarters…”
“Well, it’s ancestor worship, probably involves a lot of feudal superstitions. They’re worried about bad publicity if word gets out. But they’re so generous—by headcount, each person gets over a thousand in extra pay for this trip, so let’s just cooperate…”
Near evening, there was another commotion outside—the fishing group had returned. Soon after, eight or nine people carrying buckets and basins came to the back kitchen.
The kitchen was thrown into chaos, and they frantically cleared a large work table for them.
Zong Hang watched secretly.
Eight large white porcelain plates were arranged in a line along the edge of the work table.
One person was designated as the main cutter, while others were responsible for washing and passing items.
Their fishing trip had yielded quite a catch, especially fish—carp, shad, horse gudgeon, upper jaw fish—Zong Hang couldn’t identify them all, just knew there were fish of various sizes and types, along with freshwater shrimp, hairy crabs, shellfish, and some green plants he’d never seen before.
The main cutter worked skillfully, slicing, chopping, prying, and cutting, roughly processing everything before tossing it onto the plates: each plate was piling higher and higher, those raw fish, raw shrimp, and meat chunks stacked up, some nerves not yet dead, still squirming, with pools of blood water at the bottom of the plates. Different fishy smells are layered together, creating quite an intense aroma from this mixture.
Then, without steaming, boiling, or grilling, they just carried it all away.
Another round of discussion broke out in the kitchen—
“This can’t be for eating, right?”
“Can’t be this hardcore, think of all the parasites and bacteria in there.”
“Shows how little you know, I’ve had Japanese cuisine, they eat it just like this, raw.”
Zong Hang thought: Nonsense.
He’d had Japanese food too, but Japanese cuisine at least takes some precautions, like washing with hot water, low-temperature sterilization, wasabi seasoning, side dishes, and so on. How could it be this bloody, not even adding some shredded ginger before serving?
Not for human consumption. Wasn’t this for opening the Golden Soup? Probably for the ceremony, like river worship.
Yi Sa was lounging on her bed playing a mobile game when she suddenly heard door-knocking sounds in the corridor.
She frowned.
After lunch, this top floor area, especially these innermost rooms, was strictly off-limits—they needed to maintain quiet for the water ghosts to receive their water meals, bathe, meditate, and prepare for opening the Golden Soup at midnight.
Who could this be? Completely disregarding the rules.
She tossed aside her phone and opened the door to look.
Two rooms down, the person knocking was…
Jiang Xiaoguang?
Yi Sa asked curiously: “Uncle Jiang, why are you out?”
As one of the older generations, he should be following the rules more strictly than her.
Jiang Xiaoguang frowned deeply, gesturing at the plate at his feet: “Look at this!”
Yi Sa looked down.
On the plate was a large portion of water meal, exactly as it had been delivered, while outside the other rooms, including her own, there were only empty plates.
That room seemed to be… Jiang Jun’s.
Yi Sa stepped out: “Brother Jiang… hasn’t taken his water meal?”
Taking the water meal was a necessary procedure before opening the Golden Soup. Water ghosts had to eat as much raw seafood as possible from the water area where they would open the Golden Soup: because once in the water they became “ghosts,” they needed to use the living local creatures’ water smell to cover their “human scent.” This made it safer, as things underwater would see them as their kind and not interfere.
The person delivering water meals would usually place the plate outside the water ghost’s door, knock three times—not too loud or soft—and quickly leave. The water ghost would open the door to take it, and after finishing, put the plate outside. That would complete this part of the ritual.
Yi Sa had received hers too, but she’d always been somewhat unorthodox since childhood, and after living in Southeast Asia as an adult, she remained skeptical of these ancestral traditions, considering most of them feudal superstitions. Besides, the so-called water meals were rank and smelly, probably full of pathogens—she couldn’t stomach it.
So after receiving the water meal, she’d dumped it all into the toilet, flushed it away, and put the empty plate outside at the right time.
Jiang Xiaoguang couldn’t contain his anxiety: “I live opposite Jiang Jun. When I put my empty plate out, he still hadn’t taken his. I worried that since he was leading tonight, maybe the pressure made him forget. I checked again after a while, but still nothing. Wanted to remind him, but he wouldn’t answer the door no matter how I called…”
Yi Sa said: “Let me try.”
She walked to the door and knocked firmly: “Brother Jiang? Brother Jiang?”
No response.
She put her ear to the door to listen, then efficiently got down on her hands and knees, squinting to look under the door gap.
Jiang Xiaoguang felt extremely uneasy: “Is no one there? If he were inside, he’d answer. Maybe we should get a staff member to open it with a key.”
If he wasn’t in the room, that would be outrageous—such reckless behavior, how could he qualify to lead?
Yi Sa stood up, dusted off her hands, and stepped back: “Why bother with staff? I’ll handle it.”
As she spoke, another door opened—it was the Ding family’s water ghost, Ding Haijin, an old man in his seventies with poor health who’d had cardiac bypass surgery and walked with a tremor—just last night, Jiang Jun had reminded Yi Sa, as the youngest, to look after the elderly ones underwater, especially this old man who’d had surgery.
Yi Sa smiled at Ding Haijin, then kicked the door open with one foot.
She went in first.
The cabin wasn’t large, taking just a glance to see everything, with nowhere to hide. The window was open though, and Yi Sa leaned out to look down: there were always people on deck, so it seemed unlikely Jiang Jun had climbed out the window.
She turned back to Jiang Xiaoguang: “Brother Jiang… did he go out on business?”
Another commotion arose outside.
Unlike the earlier fishing expedition, this time the noise carried panic, and it was growing louder. Zong Hang, hands full of fruit peels, was wondering who to ask when the supervisor rushed in: “Everyone back to your rooms, search for anyone who might be hiding—a passenger has gone missing, the whole ship’s in an uproar.”
Missing?
This was in the middle of a great lake. While Poyang Lake couldn’t match the scale of Tonle Sap, it was still China’s largest freshwater lake, with an area close to Qinghai Lake. If they weren’t on the ship, could they have… fallen into the water?
Zong Hang felt uneasy as he followed the muttering workers out.
It was dark now, lights were on both aboard the ship and along the distant shore. The deck atmosphere was clearly tense, with the sounds of doors being kicked open and angry shouts everywhere. Zong Hang was worried about Jin Xiu and was about to rush to the cabin when he suddenly heard continuous splashing sounds.
He instinctively looked back—
He’d never seen such a scene: over a hundred people, some flipping backward over the ship’s rail, others jumping directly from the second floor and top deck into the water. Each person wore a float that surfaced after they entered the water.
You might think they all jumped in one spot like dumplings being dropped, but when the floats surfaced, they were spread out in different positions, the farthest almost a li away. The floats were round and gave off a ghostly glow—in an instant, like lotus leaves of ghost shadows blooming across the lake, surrounding an unsteady passenger ship.
Yi Sa stood with Jiang Xiaoguang on the top deck platform, watching the near and distant floats, then looked down to tie up the hem of her T-shirt, accepting and fastening the float belt passed to her from beside her, preparing to enter the water.
Just then, a red underwater firework exploded on the southeastern water surface.
Yi Sa was overjoyed: “They found him!”
Jiang Xiaoguang hurriedly raised his binoculars to look in that direction. As he watched, his hands suddenly began trembling, and the binoculars crashed to the ground.
Yi Sa felt a sense of foreboding rise in her heart. She bent down to pick up the binoculars and looked toward where the firework had exploded.
There, the person who had gone underwater had surfaced and was repeatedly making the same water ghost signal toward the ship’s direction.
A clenched fist then released and dropped.
This meant…
The person was dead.