In April, on a sunny day, with a full load displacement of 000 tons, the large passenger ship "Cardinal Richelieu", flying the French tricolor, crossed the Pacific Ocean and came to the Panama Canal, where the huge Star-Spangled Banner fluttered on the bank, which is the backyard of the United States.

Pierre Gauguin loved to visit the Louvre since he was a child, and often spent a whole day at the Oriental Art Museum and the Ancient Egyptian Museum. When he grew up, he inherited his inheritance and traveled across the ocean to Shanghai to become an antique dealer. He made friends with many antiquities dealers, buying ancient swords from the Warring States period or Buddha statues from the Northern and Southern Dynasties for a few dozen silver dollars, and then selling them to Paris, London, or Berlin for ten times the price.

His closest compatriot in China is the great sinologist Bo Xihe. He financed Bo Xihe's archaeological work on the condition that he obtain the murals unearthed from the Dunhuang caves.

A month earlier, Pierre Gauguin had rushed from Shanghai to Beijing to meet his old friend Birch. At the French Legation in Dongjiaomin Lane, he saw a newly restored tomb beast - the four-winged angel.

After Qin Beiyang crossed east to Japan, Bo Xihe excavated the tomb of the Tang Dynasty in Fangshan again, and secretly transported the four-winged angel tomb beast to the French legation. Relying on photographs and archaeological records taken by Birch, French mechanics restored the four-winged angel. But this is an act of theft of cultural relics, and France cannot transport them in an official name, and must use the name of Pierre Gauguin to cover up the customs declaration of ordinary goods in Tianjin. Instead of taking the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, the sailing route chose to cross the Pacific Ocean and the Panama Canal, crossing most of the world and returning to France.

Pierre Gauguin hired armed guards from three French colonies to guard the four-winged angels in the hold day and night.

Passing through the port of Kobe, he found that the Algerian guards had been attacked, but fortunately the tomb beast was intact, and he wondered if the box had been opened.

This is terrible news - there are thieves on this ship who covet the four-winged angel. Gauguin ordered three guards to guard the treasure every inch of the way, and to go down and inspect it every few hours.

On this night, Cardinal Richelieu sailed through the Caribbean, and the ballroom was lit up to celebrate the victory in the Great War.

Pierre Gou changed into his dress, raised champagne and chatted with the ladies and women, who knew him as the nephew of Paul Gauguin and mistook him for a bohemian artist. It has been a long time since there has been such a happy time, and for the past four years all French people have endured war, and not a single family has not given their blood and lives. It's not so much about people partying at the ball, it's about making up for four hellish years.

Most of the balls were European and American, and the few Asian faces were almost all Japanese. Qin Beiyang hid in the corner of the banquet hall, and instead of the waiter pouring the wine, someone treated him as a crew member. Wearing a white shirt and suspenders, he deliberately combed his hair in style, caught fleas on his body, and left the nine colors outside. Seeing the French girl exposing her bandeau at the ball, after all, her blood is strong, and her heart is inevitably red.

An emaciated young man began to cough, his face was pale, and his face was covered with blue spots, and he suddenly fell to the ground. There were screams all around, and the doctor came to check, but there were no vital signs and he was declared dead. The captain ordered the dead bodies to be carried away, singing and dancing, and the ship must not be allowed to sail through the Caribbean Sea in the cold.

This is the thirteenth person to die recently!

A number of people have died in succession in the lower cabins, and many more have suffered from severe colds. Most of the dead were young and vigorous, and doctors were helpless to distribute cheap medicines that were in short supply. As for more expensive drugs, such as aspirin, they are reserved for the wealthy in the upper cabins, and the poor are not eligible to buy them at all.

Two more women fainted at the ball. People kept coughing, hiding their faces and leaving with snots. The captain's face was grim, and he saw a grand carnival turn into a funeral-like loneliness.

"The Spanish flu!"

Qian Ke slowly explained to Qin Beiyang that this disease has nothing to do with Spain, but it infected eight million people in Spain, and even the king was passed on, so it was referred to as Spanish influenza. There is a theory that it was the Chinese laborers on the battlefield in France who brought the virus. But there is no evidence that Europeans have a prejudice against Chinese who are unhygienic. The only definite source of the virus is the United States. Last spring, Kansas was the first state to have a flu outbreak. At first, you have a headache, brain fever, muscle aches, and a lack of appetite, and then it kills you. In just one year, the average life expectancy of Americans has shrunk by twelve years.

"The sudden end of the world war is probably related to the Spanish flu, and the young people are dying of illness, and no one can go to war anymore."

Suddenly, Qin Beiyang coughed violently......

Qian Ke subconsciously took two steps back, as if there was a murderous knife hidden in the air. On this ship, the only two people who are immune to the virus are the Tomb Beast Nine Colors and the Four-Winged Angel.

At this moment, Pierre Gauguin also wanted to slip back to the cabin, but the captain stopped him from behind: "Monsieur Gauguin! Can I tell you a few words? You have checked in a large wooden box in the cargo hold, and you have three armed guards who are guarding it around the clock, what is it? ”

"Hmm...... Mr. Captain, do I have the right to be silent? ”

"I'm sorry, you don't have the right to be silent. On this ship, my words are equivalent to the law. Some people say that the current epidemic on board is related to the cargo you are consigning. ”

Gauguin knew that he couldn't hide this time, and the captain had the right to open the box and inspect it.

"Well, you know, I'm an antique dealer in the French Concession in Shanghai. The goods I am carrying are naturally an antique from China. ”

"What antique?"

"Does it matter? Mr. Captain, I'm just a carrier for the government. The real owner of this antique, in fact, the French government, needs me to show you the letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War? ”

"Some people say that antiques will carry some kind of ancient virus or bacteria, like pulling out the cork of Satan's bottle and spreading the Great Plague of the Black Death." The captain opened the window to blow the sea breeze to circulate the air in the banquet hall, "It is well known that the Black Death in medieval Europe was a rat from a galleon on a Black Sea sailing ship. ”

"Do you suspect that the Chinese antiques in the hold have brought disease and disaster to the entire ship?" As the ship sailed through Cuban waters, Gauguin lit a Havana cigar and said, "That's ridiculous!" Who told you? ”

"A young Chinese gentleman, he said that there are many secrets buried in ancient Chinese tombs. There is a certain kind of ancient and mysterious cultural relics, which must not be unearthed at will, let alone transported by ship. This artifact was used to protect the owner of the tomb and had a powerful lethal effect on the living. ”

"Captain, are you telling me about the curse of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs?"

Pierre Gauguin had heard about the cursed legend of the mummy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt, but he scoffed at it as pure nonsense.

"Tomorrow morning, we will be in the North Atlantic. Seven years ago, the unsinkable Titanic cruise ship sank in the icy sea of the North Atlantic Ocean in the spring light of April. The captain's lips turned purple, "My wife died in that shipwreck." ”

"I'm sorry, Mr. Captain, have you become so superstitious ever since?"

"It is said that on the Titanic, in addition to thousands of passengers, there is also a mummy of ancient Egypt."

"Do you think that the Titanic sank because of a mummy, and our 'Cardinal Richelieu' will sink because of the Chinese tomb beast?"

"Tomb Beast?"

Pierre Gauguin, realizing that he had slipped his mouth, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh...... It's a very complicated antique...... I can't explain it clearly in a few words. ”

"I originally thought that this influenza would only spread in the lower cabins, and as long as they were quarantined, they would not affect the passengers in the first and first class cabins. But this victory ball made me realize that no part of this ship was spared, and our honored guests were also sick and dead, so where did the virus start to spread? This morning, the doctor reported to me that there was another case in the cargo hold, and that was the Vietnamese man who was in charge of guarding your antiques. ”

"Oh, Asians are weak, and it's normal to get sick while traveling at sea. But their resistance and stamina are very strong, so rest assured that he will be fine! ”

The captain took off Pierre Gauguin's cigar and said: "Monsieur Gauguin, I warn you: if this influenza continues to spread, in order to save the lives of all passengers and crew, I will throw your cargo, yes, the grave beast, into the Atlantic!" ”