Chapter 38: Legends of Inweness

After nearly an entire day of "slow-speed travel," the steam train finally arrived at Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands, accompanied by a long pressure release sound as dusk fell.This ancient town was situated at the estuary where the River Ness flows into the Moray Firth. Compared to London's suffocating industrial noise, this place felt tranquil and rugged.

Lin Jie and William didn't rush to their final destination of Loch Ness. Instead, they chose to settle first at a rest facility in town operated by I.A.R.C. under the signboard "Highland Exploration and Surveying Company."

This provided perfect cover identities for their investigation operation.

William was already accustomed to this process. As soon as he reached the room, he began inspecting his weapons and equipment, preparing for potential combat at any moment.

Meanwhile, Lin Jie took out his newly purchased Scottish map and clearly marked his pre-planned first-phase action targets under the kerosene lamp.

"Sergeant William, tomorrow morning our operation will proceed in two steps. I need you to visit the local fishermen's association and several of the busiest taverns. I want all rumors about the water monster. Don't judge their authenticity—no matter how outrageous the claims, record them all for me."

"As for me," Lin Jie pointed at the city center location on the map, "I'll go to these places—the Inverness-shire Library and Archives, and the old newspaper repository of the Inverness Courier. What I need is the oldest and most detailed history about this legend."

The next morning, the two men set out separately according to plan.

Sergeant William, with his weathered, approachable veteran face and several glasses of rich Scottish whisky, quickly blended in with the local straightforward and talkative fishermen.

Meanwhile, Lin Jie, carrying an association-issued recommendation letter from Oxford University identifying him as a "folkloric researcher," smoothly entered the historically rich county library.

The library administrator was an elderly gentleman wearing reading glasses, filled with pride about local history. When he learned that this young scholar from the East had such strong interest in the ancient legends of the Scottish Highlands, he showed great enthusiasm and personally led Lin Jie into the special collection room that was normally closed to outsiders.

Lin Jie understood that what he sought weren't the tourist legends found in ordinary guidebooks. He needed the most primitive, roughest, and closest-to-truth firsthand materials.

He requested the administrator provide access to all ancient county records, church documents, and mythological epics recorded by scholars from Celtic bard oral traditions regarding the "Loch Ness area."

This proved extremely tedious and voluminous work. Most ancient documents were written in long-outdated Gaelic or Old English, with blurred handwriting, grammatical errors, and subjective assumptions everywhere.

But Lin Jie resembled the most patient gold panner, using his powerful logical analysis and information integration abilities to sift through piles of seemingly worthless sand for "gold dust" potentially related to UMA.

He thoroughly organized all descriptions of the "Loch Ness Monster" from the documents in chronological order.

He discovered that the earliest clear records about the Loch Ness Monster could be traced back to the 6th century AD. An Irish missionary named Saint Columba mentioned in his biography that he used the power of the cross to drive away a "water beast" attempting to attack local residents by the River Ness.

In church descriptions, this "water beast" was a demon from hell.

However, in those older Celtic primitive myths, this creature's image was completely different. The bards described it with reverent strokes as "Loch Nis nan Deur an t-Solais," translated as "Guardian Deity of the Lake of Tears and Light."

In these legends, it wasn't an evil demon but a "nature spirit" responsible for protecting this sacred lake's peace. When good people prayed by the lake, it brought good fortune, and only when greedy invaders tried to defile the lake would it stir waves to devour them.

Two completely opposite records pointed to the same existence.

A clear "historical evolution model" immediately formed in Lin Jie's mind: an ancient UMA originally revered by local indigenous people as a "guardian deity" without malice, which after Christianity's introduction, was deliberately vilified and demonized by the church to promote the new faith's power, transformed into a devil needing expulsion by saints.

This discovery gave him deeper understanding of their mission target. What they were searching for might not be some fierce "water monster" at all, but rather a "lake hermit" whose tranquility had been disturbed.

Next, Lin Jie went to the Inverness Courier newspaper office. He spent the entire afternoon browsing through all old newspapers stored in the office basement, dating from the early 19th century to present.

In this ocean of yellowed paper and lead-type ink, he again discovered astonishing patterns.

Before the 19th century, reports of "water monster" sightings were extremely rare, with vague records appearing only once every few decades on average.

But entering the 19th century, especially after the 1850s, as the Industrial Revolution extended to the Scottish Highlands, as steam cruisers began sailing on Loch Ness, and as lakeside forests were extensively cleared for railway construction, "water monster" sighting reports began showing... explosive growth!

Each large-scale sighting incident's timing remarkably coincided with the launch of some "modernization" project in the lake area!

Particularly the most recent incident mentioned in the mission document that caught the association's attention—it occurred exactly one month after a mining company from Manchester began experimental "underwater mineral exploration" near Urquhart Bay!

The truth was now crystal clear.

That ancient creature sleeping for many years was being forced to surface repeatedly from its lake bottom dwelling due to humanity's industrial civilization's unrestrained encroachment.

When Lin Jie returned to the hotel with his notebook filled with dense notes, dragging his exhausted body, William had also completed his day's "tavern investigations."

William had collected countless bizarre rumors from fishermen and drunkards: some said the water monster's neck resembled a giant serpent, others claimed its back looked like an overturned boat, and some swore they saw its eyes like two enormous headlights during full moons.

Though these descriptions contradicted each other, they all pointed to one commonality—the thing was extremely massive in size.

When Lin Jie fully presented his day's "document research" findings to William, the veteran simply slowly poured Lin Jie a glass of rich whisky.

"No wonder Barton said your value sometimes exceeds an entire field team. You... have already thoroughly investigated its fifteen-hundred-year 'personal file.'"

Lin Jie raised his glass and gently clinked with William, the rich liquor sliding down his throat, bringing a wave of warm fire.