"This is where I work. Everything you see now is data on the black star."
Trollope lit several gas lamps in the room, making it possible to see everything clearly.
"Please watch your step and try not to touch anything in here, and especially don't move them, otherwise it will take me a lot of time to reorganize them," Trollope cautioned. He was already very familiar with the location of items in the room, able to move freely without even needing to look.
Lex carefully stood in the northeast corner of the room, where there were fewer things on the floor and more space to stand. He decided not to touch anything, and to stand as still as possible without moving.
Trollope walked to a table that was quite messy, covered with various notebooks and documents. The writer picked up a diary, reading as he spoke: "You've heard the legend of the black star, right? The most widespread one is probably 'The Bride on the Ship.'"
Lex hummed in acknowledgement: "I heard it was a wedding ship headed for the Loen Kingdom, and the bride on board was preparing to have a wedding in the Loen Kingdom."
Trollope looked up: "In fact, that's not true."
"The ship was not going to Loen, but to the Intis Republic. The person on board was not a bride, but the mistress of a certain powerful figure in the Intis Republic."
Ah, this.
Suddenly, Lex felt as if something beautiful had been shattered.
Trollope walked near a wall, pointing to a photo on it: "I found a nautical chart under the Captain's Cabin floor. It clearly marked the black star's destination."
He then pointed to some nearby photos: "Additionally, in the Captain's Cabin and in the ship's hold, I found some interesting things. These things couldn't be obtained by ordinary people; some even had a noble's family crest. This indicates one thing: the mistress herself was not an ordinary person."
"But unfortunately, neither in her diary nor in any of her essays did that woman reveal her lover's name. Only from the information she left behind could I roughly deduce that the other party was a very powerful person and already had a family."
"This is not surprising in Intis."
Trollope picked up a gas lamp, walked to a nearby spot on the floor, sat down directly, and picked up some documents from the floor: "Based on some items on the ship, I roughly deduced the age of this ship. It should be over a hundred years old. Although I couldn't find its detailed departure location, in the records of Bayam and some other ports, I found matching records. I can roughly infer that it should have passed through the Rorsted Archipelago at that time, but a disaster occurred on its way to Intis."
"That wasn't a simple pirate raid. I suspect a Beyonder battle took place on that ship."
Lex said in surprise: "You actually know the term 'Beyonder battle'?"
Trollope looked up: "Why do you think I can do research on the black star? It's because I come from Backlund. I have a Conservative uncle, who is also a respected Sir."
"So, I know there are Beyonder powers, mysterious powers in this world."
Lex nodded: "Please continue."
"On the ship, in some very hidden places, I also found some items, some medicines. These things indicate that the mistress of the ship was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a baby on board."
Trollope picked up a document nearby, looked up and said: "This woman named Mania Beth, not long after giving birth, was attacked. She was very likely a Beyonder, and there are traces of her involvement in the Beyonder battle that occurred on the ship."
"Interestingly, on the ship, in any records, I did not find any information about that baby. Only one thing is certain: the baby was taken away by someone Mania called a trustworthy person."
"Based on some information, I've identified a few people who are most likely to have taken Mania's child."
Trollope shrugged: "But this has nothing to do with what we need to deal with. The reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to understand. Unusual things have happened on the black star. I believe these supernatural events affected the ship itself, making it, how should I put it, strange, incredible."
"Although I never saw the so-called 'Ghost Bride' while working on the ship, I sometimes felt that someone was watching me."
The writer stood up, emphasizing with a wave of his arm: "Most importantly, I'm not lying. I'm referring to Harry's disappearance. You should already know that the child disappeared shortly after he was born."
"He was missing for two whole years, but just last year, the navy found him on the black star. He probably spent those two years on the ship. Although that sailboat isn't small, that's two whole years. During those two years, I often worked on the ship, almost covering every corner of it."
"If Harry had been on the ship, there's no way I wouldn't have noticed him."
Lex spread his hands: "So, what are you trying to say?"
Trollope took a breath, pointing emphatically at a photo on the wall. In the photo, it was a scene from the Captain's Cabin, and on the bed, a black female statue was embedded. It seemed to have become one with the bed itself, yet it didn't look like a simple decoration.
"I suspect Mania isn't dead, or she's become an undead. She took Harry. I think she treated Harry as her own child. If that's the case, whether she's alive or dead, she must be crazy."
"As I said before, this woman is very likely a Beyonder. So she should have been able to hide Harry, and after Harry was discovered and taken away by Dalena. Dalena told me that she felt people often came to look for Harry. Several times, she personally saw Harry communicating with someone, but there would always be something blocking her view."
"And every time she rushed forward, she couldn't see anything."
Lex immediately recalled how, at noon, Harry was looking at the ceiling in his room, as if he was watching someone he knew well.
But there was no one else in the room at the time.
That's truly chilling.
"Oh, right."
Trollope held up a finger: "Water stains, water stains!"
"Dalena said that sometimes, in places Harry had been, water stains would appear from nowhere. Even in dry places, water stains would inexplicably appear, just like the water droplets you always see on the rock walls in damp caves."
"This reminds me of the black star. I often saw large patches of water stains on the walls of that ship!"