Add some practice: start with a lucid dream

Chapter 588 Devil
For a time, the old bed boards were filled with people lying on top of each other. The workers were leaning against the wall, clinking glasses, and the long-lost smiles finally appeared on their dark and rough faces.

It seems that this is not a dirty and cramped cabin, but a spacious and comfortable tea break where the afternoon sunshine can be seen through the window glass.

Everyone drank very slowly, taking small sips and sips, not even letting go of the wine drops that flowed into the grooves on the edge of the can, licking them clean.

But there is always a time when the bottom is reached.

The clinking of glasses in the dormitory gradually disappeared, but the workers’ Adam’s apples still kept rolling.

Maybe it’s time to wake up from the sweet dream?
The men looked at each other in confusion. Everyone wanted to say something, but they were blocked by inexplicable fear in their chests.

"Paul." John swallowed nervously.

"What should I do now?"

Workers have never been allowed to enter the kitchen. Even if they approach on the way, they will be disgusted and driven away, let alone this shocking act of breaking into it and stealing a large amount of food?
Facing the bright eyes of his companions, Paul said nothing, but just took another can of beer from the basket.

嘁—

Pulling off the tab, Paul raised his beer and poured it into his mouth. The foamy wine flowed from the corner of his mouth, spilled onto his chest, and almost wet his whole body.

The aluminum cans were quickly emptied.

"Paul?"

Paul remained silent, opened another can of beer and poured it into his mouth.

Can after can.

"Paul? Paul?"

"Paul, are you crazy!"

"What the hell are you doing!"

John rushed up and grabbed the remaining beer from Paul's hand.

"Give it to me." Paul lowered his head.

"You're crazy!" John put the beer can away.

"Give me."

"Please wake up."

"Give me!"

"Wake up!"

"I said." Paul stood up suddenly and shouted hysterically at John,

"Give me!!!"

There was silence in the dormitory, except for the poured beer that dropped from the edge of the bed and fell to the ground.

John stared at Paul with wide eyes.

"Do you know how much this is worth?" Paul suddenly asked.

"what?"

"Beer." Paul said, pointing to the remaining beer in the basket.
"How much is it worth?"

"How do I know?" John was a little confused,
"In Manila, it only costs twenty, no, you can get a can in the back streets for only ten pesos."

"Then do you know how much a squid is worth?" Paul asked again.

But this time, before John could answer, Paul stepped away and replied,

"Fifty pesos."

"At least that's how it is back home."

Paul held out five fingers to his companions,

"Fifty pesos."

"It's more expensive in other countries."

Paul paced up and down the narrow passage,
“How many tons of squid do we catch for them every day?”

"Let me calculate how much a squid weighs. So tens of thousands of pesos, no, hundreds of thousands, millions?"

Paul shook his head and almost stumbled. Fortunately, there was no place for him to fall, so he simply sat back on the bed.

"No, no, no, no, I can't figure it out."

“But it’s definitely more expensive than this can of beer!”

"It's much more expensive!"

Paul grabbed the empty wine can and showed it to his companions,

“But they wouldn’t even give us a can of beer!”

The sound of breathing came and went.

"This is what it is"

Click.

Paul squeezed the can hard,

".We deserve it!"

The workers drank all the beer.

Drunk, even the most timid workers were speaking freely and discussing how to deal with the subsequent accountability.

Most people are thinking about how to escape.

"Maybe we can wait for other ships." Someone suggested,

"I heard the technician say that there are not only our boats on this route, but also other big boats owned by this company, and they are also fishing for squid."

"Maybe it happens to be in the same sea area as us?"

"There are many Filipinos up there, we can go join them!"

"How do you contact them?" Paul immediately poured cold water on him after hearing this.
"Looking for a technician? He said he won't help us anymore."

"And those Filipinos were tricked into boarding the ship just like us. How can they take us in?"

"They will only tip off the company and then have us arrested!"

The other proposals are all similar. Either they are incapable of being implemented, or the conditions simply cannot be realized.

To put it bluntly, in this vast sea far away from human society, there is no way out for a group of workers with low status and no navigation skills.

This is why the first mate can handle them so well.

"What should we do?" Everyone's mood became increasingly depressed.

"We must control this ship." Paul said decisively.

"Except for us, no one else can move or come out to stop us from escaping."

"Then what should we do?" The questioner stuttered a little.
"Is it difficult to kill them? Is it difficult to kill them?"

As soon as this statement came out, the workers were all silent.

Not to mention incompetent, they were used to being bullied and had never even thought about it. The act of killing was simply something from another world to them.

"I didn't say that." Paul shook his head.
"I just wanted them to, maybe, get some sleep?"

"But we don't have sleeping pills!" Others immediately retorted.

"It doesn't have to be sleep." Paul stared thoughtfully at the empty can that was being tossed around in his palm.
"Can we also make them all sick?"

"Sick?" Others were even more confused,

"How to make them sick together?"

"Use that one." Paul looked vaguely at the door of the dormitory, in the direction of the aisle leading to the cold storage.

Other workers reacted one after another, either exclaiming or fearing,
"What about that thing?"

"Oh my God! That's the devil from hell!"

"We'll be damned by God!"

"Really. Do you really want to do this?".
Although they said no, the workers still gathered together in the cold storage.

In the end, in the timid atmosphere of you looking at me and me looking at you, Paul took the lead and stepped forward and pulled the door of the chest freezer hard.

Squeak——Amidst the white mist, a naked body over three meters long was lying in the freezer.

The facial features of this unknown creature are obviously the same as those of humans, but from the edge of its cheeks, it is covered with fat sucking arms and legs. They are densely arranged one by one, as crowded as hair, and this "hair" continues to the torso. His hands cover almost half of his body.

The reason why it is a half-body is because its lower body is not legs, but is completely replaced by dozens of python-like deep purple arms and legs.

A fusion creature of human and octopus is simply irrefutable proof of the existence of the devil to this group of not-so-devout Catholics.

More than half a month ago, a member of the laborers accidentally captured this creature and was immediately frightened and fled.

By the time Paul led the others to the deck, the creature had already been mixed in the pile of squid, and was pressed into a storage container by an unsuspecting technician on duty using a machine.

When everyone dug it out, there was no sign of life.

The workers wanted to report the above to the captain, but were suppressed by the technicians.

Unlike the rude First Officer Ishiguro, the technician made inquiries before going out to sea, and unexpectedly learned from other crew members what characteristics the company's target creatures had.

And this monster is obviously one of the targets that the company is spending huge sums of money to pursue.

But he was killed by a careless button.

The technician is afraid that once the company finds out, another debt will be added to his already unpaid debt.

So he gave countless instructions to the workers to keep quiet and quickly throw the terrifying mutated monster back into the sea, pretending it never happened.

But what the technician didn't expect was that Paul was careful not to throw the monster's body back into the sea, but hid it in the cold storage freezer, in order to coerce the technician to help the workers plead with the captain.

That's why this series of events happened.

But now that the technician has made up his mind to ignore them, does the monster's body seem to have no value?
Paul leaned down and picked up the dead fish scattered beside the freezer and looked at them carefully.

They originally dumped large amounts of squid into the freezer, hoping to bury the monster's body.

However, any squid that comes into contact with the corpse will quickly change color or even become rotten, and the stench wafting out cannot be concealed at all.

Even live squid would die suddenly after getting close to the corpse, which led the workers to conclude that the corpse was poisonous, and they kept the freezer secret from then on.

"Just use this." Paul threw away the dead fish and pointed at the corpse in the freezer.
"We cut off its flesh and mix it into the food in the kitchen."

"Just let the people on the boat eat all the food."

"They will be poisoned to death!" some workers shouted in horror,
"We will be arrested and imprisoned. No, we will be sentenced to death. We will be shot!"

"Who is going to sentence us to death!" Paul shouted without looking back.

"If only someone would make the decision for us! There is no one here, just us and the people riding on our heads!"

There was silence behind him.

Paul's tone gradually softened,

"Don't worry, it only poisons squids, not necessarily people."

"Have you ever eaten chocolate? Did you know that chocolate can poison dogs to death, but there will be no problem if people eat it?"

"And we brought it here with our own hands. Do you think we feel any discomfort?"

"But...if it's of no use to people at all, then what will we do after we are discovered?"

"." Paul clenched his fists hard and stared down at the devil's corpse in the freezer.

"Maybe you have to eat its flesh to work."

"And do you have any other ideas?"

"That's all we can do."

Everyone was silent.

On the contrary, Paul's eyes were getting weirder and weirder.

Why do you feel that the expression of this monster is different from the last time you saw it?
Is it not dead yet?

No, no, no, it must be an illusion. Paul shook his head hard to get rid of some ridiculous conjectures, and then began to instruct his companions on what to do.

The operation went more smoothly than the workers imagined.

Although it took until almost four o'clock in the morning to make up the decision, in fact, by the time everyone took advantage of their drunkenness to cut up the pieces of meat and even started cooking in the kitchen, there was still not even half of the other crew members visible on the deck.

After all, except for this group of foreign workers, serious crew members do not have the habit of getting up early.

Even the chefs benefited from it, so they didn't have to get up before dawn to prepare meals.

"Do you think this is okay?" John was sweating profusely while playing with the sushi on the chopping board.

"What's going on? Why can't it stick?"

He never figured out how to roll the sushi the Japanese ate into a trumpet shape.

"That's almost it." Paul glanced at it and then looked away.

"They won't care about the details."

Cracking.
A moment of distraction caused the hot oil in the frying pan to splash onto the back of his hand, but it did not stop Paul's movements for a moment.

As a child who grew up in a slum, he not only has skilled frying skills, but also has an extraordinary tolerance for pain.

It was just a matter of replacing the chicken skeletons in the trash can with devil's meat cubes. Paul quickly finished processing these so-called "tempuras".

Of course, in the eyes of Filipinos, this is no different from the pagpag they eat.

The meat in the fresh food cabinet was quickly replaced.

After adjusting the order, Paul was confident that the chefs would choose the tempura and sushi that were closest to hand and the most convenient as breakfast dishes.

Finally, everything was ready, and Paul quietly led everyone out of the kitchen.

The rising sun was rising high in the sky, and the dazzling sunlight made everyone squint their eyes.

The only exception is Paul.

He faced the direction of the sunrise and blew the sea breeze. For the first time, he felt that the sun was so warm and seemed to bring infinite hope.

Paul was right. The informal sailors didn't notice anything unusual about the food at all. They even praised today's meal supply. They said that the meat was delicious and left unsatisfied, which made the lazy chefs feel a little embarrassed.

Even the usually arrogant captain asked for a second plate for the first time, and first mate Ishiguro, who was already a huge eater, even chased him to the kitchen to feast.

If anyone was not lucky enough to enjoy this rare meal, it was probably the technician who hid in his room claiming to be sick early in the morning.

He was so frightened when Paul caught him in the toilet last night that he immediately decided to take another month of sick leave and not leave the room until the group of workers had calmed down.

Therefore, his breakfast was naturally delivered to his door by his colleagues.

"Hey, brat, wake up." The colleague who delivered the food was careless. Seeing that the technician was still huddled in the bed, he couldn't help but steal a piece of sashimi sushi.

The meat slices melted in your mouth and left a fragrant aroma on your lips and teeth. If the technician hadn't already turned over and sat up, he would have really wanted to stuff another piece into his mouth.

"Put it here." The colleague shook the dinner plate unnaturally, and only put it on the table after the empty space filled by his own food was filled.
"Also, it's time to turn off your alarm clock."

After saying that, my colleague quickly left, wondering if he could go to the kitchen and order another breakfast.

boom.

The door was forcefully closed.

The technician was left alone and confused on the bed.

Alarm clock?

What alarm clock? Where did the alarm clock come from?
The technician couldn't remember setting any alarm clock.

"Ha-" He yawned lazily.

But halfway through stretching, the technician suddenly froze. Then his expression changed, and he quickly got up and started searching.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep
He quickly found the source of the noise - a Geiger counter (an instrument for detecting harmful nuclear radiation) that had been thrown into the trash.

beep, beep, beep
The technician raised the instrument and slowly approached the plate of food.

Beep! Beep! Beep! beep
The sirens at full volume kept ringing like crazy.

The technician who was still awake blinked hard, looked at the food on the table, and then looked back at the detector in his hand.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

pat.

The counter slipped.

(End of this chapter)