"Uncle Chang, Team Cao, people say that people can often burst out with extraordinary potential in desperate situations, but unfortunately I'm not, I will only make mistakes in my busyness. Ignoring the footsteps that were getting closer and closer behind him, he didn't pay attention to the soles of his feet and tripped over a large coral stone. At that time, I had the heart to die, and I wanted to stand up on the ground, but I couldn't use the strength in my hands, and just when I was paralyzed on the ground and waiting for death, a hand suddenly stretched out in the thick fog and grabbed my wrist tightly.

The strength of that hand was so strong that I didn't have time to scream, I was already being pulled up. Only then did I vaguely understand that it was the captain of the boat, and he didn't care about what to say, so he pulled me forward. I felt like we had walked for a long time in the fog before we found the soft ladder on the side of the boat and climbed back to the fishing boat. ”

"You should all know what happened next, we tied the cable to the Dongxing, but the fog on the ship has already dispersed, although the fishing boat and the Dongxing are less than twenty meters away, but it is not real at all. When the fog cleared early the next morning, the East Star was gone, and although there were two fishermen who were keeping vigil, no one knew when or how the East Star disappeared, and only half of the cable was left in full swing. ”

"Xiao Ding, do you think about anything else unusual on the East Star?" I pulled Xiao Ding to sit down on the chair by the bridge, his description was so shocking that it took some time to digest.

"That's what I saw, but Master Chang, it turns out that I don't believe in ghosts and gods, and I don't even take the fishermen's claims about ghost boats to heart. But I did get on the Eastern Star that time, and although I didn't see any ghosts, I began to think they existed. Especially in the fog, I felt that they were already very close, and I could even see huge black shadows, which was very real, and it was definitely not my imagination. ”

"At the bridge, my camera was too dim to have a flash to take pictures, so I drew a few sketches from my memory for you to see. As he spoke, Ding Jian wiped the beads of sweat that kept pouring out on the top of his head and handed me his painting folder.

Ding Jian's drawings are sketches made in pencil without coloring, but I must admit that the black and white tone does better set off the atmosphere of the work. And it can be seen that his painting skills are still very good, with a few strokes, he can outline the accurate form of the object with lines.

Several successive photographs are clearly from the East Star Bridge, with close-ups of the hatch, depictions of the bridge, bookshelves full of various books and materials, and a large desk with some plates and chopsticks scattered on it. But soon I saw a strange problem in these sketches, that there were always some strange shadows in the picture, which did not belong to the projection of any object in the picture, some like human figures, some like the shadows of some kind of animal, unnaturally distorted.

I pointed to these shadows and asked Ding Jian, "Xiao Ding, did these shadows exist at that time?"

Ding Jian shook his head, "Uncle Chang, there are many problems with my memory of the situation at that time, some may have been seen with my own eyes, and some may have been my imagination, the second day on the boat, I felt like I had lost my memory, and my brain was blank. I drew all of these things that I slowly remembered later. ”

"Some artistic processing and processing are normal, you are a painter, how Xiaoding, are you going to use these sketches to create oil paintings? That's a very unique style. I smiled and asked Xiao Ding, if it weren't for the understanding of the whole thing, anyone would be shocked by the gloom and loneliness of the work, but I think more people would think that this is a madman's work.

"Do you really think so? We really want to go together, and I plan to go back this time, and I will use these materials to create a group of oil paintings, about a dozen of them, and I have thought of the title, called Lost Shadows. ”

I didn't pay any attention to Ding Jian's imagination and flipped a few more pages back. The last few pictures are obviously Xiao Ding's recent creations, still black and white pencil sketches, but some parts are colored, one is a painting of the East Star drifting on the sea, the East Star is covered with thick clouds behind it, and the clouds are like a whirlpool, forming a strange giant eye in the sky, staring at the East Star. In the foreground is a dinghy, with several fishermen paddling shirtless, just as the Eastern Star is sailing. The whole style of painting is very realistic, very much in the style of the Repin school.

The other seems to be a distant painting of a thick fog, and the scenery in the dense fog is distorted and distorted, and it is impossible to see what it is. A large hand stretched out from the thick fog, this hand was full of wrinkles and calluses, and there was a long, tearing wound on the palm of the hand, and the blood was oozing from the wound, and the blood stains formed the shape of a palm. To my surprise, this hand did not seem to be a human palm, and the fingers were almost twice as long as normal humans, and there were webs between the fingers......

Seeing Ding Jian walking towards the top deck with the painting jacket on his back, Team Cao asked worriedly, "Lao Chang, do you think Xiao Ding's words are somewhat true, how do I think he let him go to the ditch?

"Team Cao, artists think differently than we do, and many artists blur the line between reality and imagination. At most, Ding Jian turned some of his feelings into visual language to express them, but I believe that he is just exaggerating, but there is no need to make up a plot to deceive us. ”

"What Ding Jian told us is at least three important information, one is the logbook on the Dongxing. Although we don't know who wrote down those contents, there are too many anomalies in it, the phenomenon of the polar night, the attack of seabirds, the dense fog that appears from the cabin, which is difficult to explain, but even harder to make up. Moreover, he was not the only witness. ”

"The second is that the disappearance of the crew may not be due to some external force or accident, it sounds like they jumped into the sea because they were overwhelmed by the pressure and had a nervous breakdown. This explanation also seems more plausible. ”

"As for the third one, before the accident of the Eastern Star, everything should be normal on board. Strange things happened, the crew did not realize the danger coming, and did not intend to abandon the ship and escape, but kept trying to repair the malfunctioning electronic equipment, perhaps because of this to take their lives. ”

"Team Cao, all of this seems to be a mystery now, how did the Dongxing disappear, how did it appear, and what happened to the crew? Maybe only Professor Lu has an answer. ”

"Lao Chang, why do you firmly believe that Professor Lu has the answer there? Just because he is a mirage? If Professor Lu really has the answer, why don't you publish it? Whether it's right or wrong, we always have a direction next, don't we?" Team Cao held the railing with both hands, but his eyes did not look at me, but looked at the empty sea, in a daze.

Huansheng told me that Professor Lu's theory was not accepted by the academic community, and that since he proposed his theory, he has received numerous personal attacks from his peers. I always felt that Professor Lu had always come to a conclusion, otherwise how could he have calculated the exact coordinates of the appearance of the Eastern Star? In doing so, he must have been testing his theory and looking for reliable evidence. Once bitten by a snake for ten years and afraid of the well rope, Professor Lu's experience determines his current caution. ”

Team Cao nodded at me, "Lao Chang, maybe you're right, but I still have a way to pry something out of Professor Lu's mouth, we are also veteran criminal investigators for more than 20 years, and when it comes to getting caught, you can take a look at it tomorrow." ”

The next day, Lu Zhilin still locked himself in the cabin, and his group of mirages rarely went on deck. They were often opened, and I went to listen twice curiously, but as soon as I sat there, everyone looked at me with strange eyes, looked left and right, and began to chat. The idleness of these scientists is no more interesting than the homely habits of the neighborhood, full of texts quoted from the classics, inexplicable names and head-scratching terms. I knew they were wary of me, so I went back to the deck.

Ding Jian seems to have lost his desire to create, and opened a studio on the top deck to begin his Lost Shadow series. After a period of creation, he drew some sketch portraits of the staff on the research ship, and soon had a large number of fans.

Huansheng finally woke up from his slumber, but the seasickness still made his physique drop significantly, and he spent most of his time basking in the sun on the armchair on the deck.

The captain of the scientific research ship is surnamed Jiang, a retired naval colonel, very open-minded, loves to chat, it is estimated that he is at sea all the year round, the reason for the boring life, this is very angry with the Cao team, plus the first mate and a dry sailor, chatting in the cockpit is in full swing, and occasionally takes out chess to kill two games.

There is also a director of the Science and Technology Department of the Maritime Safety Administration, surnamed Wei, who wears a navy blue tushan suit every day, a pair of deep myopia glasses, a grim expression, and meticulous combing of his hair. He brought a dozen experts with him, apparently belonging to a different system. They have their own work plan, measuring weather conditions, collecting water samples, collecting marine life specimens, all the work is rigorous and orderly, the key is that the helicopter and submarine on board, all of which are dispatched by him, should be the extremely important person in charge of this mission.

It's just that Director Wei is more impersonal than Professor Lu, so I went to set up a friendship, and said no more than three sentences and twenty-five words to me in total, which can no longer be described as precautionary.

I was both helpless and curious about the situation on the ship, why did we put together these unrelated groups of people? If we count the two sailors from the Bund, plus Wang Huzi, who got on the ship with Ding Jian but didn't show up much, and there were no less than six or seven waves of teams that had never known each other but had their own thoughts, how could the work behind this be unified and centrally arranged? Not to mention the extravagant division of labor and cooperation.

I complained to Team Cao, but Team Cao looked confident, and told me with a smile, "It doesn't matter, it's not just out to sea, the show hasn't started yet, wait for two days to arrive at the first reservation location, it will be lively, everyone will get more angry, the more noisy the better, and then return to the hearts of the people, it will come naturally, I am good at this, you always put a heart in your stomach, and watch the play at the same time." ”

(Those who are good at the piano of people, if they have compassion, their voices are sad, if they are thoughtful, their voices are delayed, if they are resentful, their voices will echo, and if they have admiration, they will sound Pei Peiran.) Therefore, those who are sad and resentful are not hands, bamboo, silk, and tong. The heart of gain, the hand of the charm, the hand of the charm, the thing of the charm. Those who have the way are not in the middle of the way. --"Guan Yinzi")