Chapter 7: The German Diary and the Bloodstained Sketch

The first night in the "Rat's Nest," Lin Jie did not sleep.Any unusual sound, whether it was the sickly cough from the neighboring bed or the drunken mumbling of someone turning over, would instantly tense his muscles, his hand instinctively pressing against the revolver hidden in his clothes.

Only when the sky outside the window shifted from deep black to the pale light of dawn did this den of iniquity welcome a new day amidst hangover headaches and hungry groans.

Lin Jie silently got out of bed.

The silent display of authority last night had served its purpose;no one dared to provoke this silent Easterner anymore.

He spent two pence to buy from "Old Mole" a piece of black bread that could double as a brick and a bowl of steaming but utterly tasteless oatmeal porridge.

This was the first meal since arriving in this era that could be considered "breakfast." The hot porridge warmed his stomach, dispelling the chill that had accumulated overnight and bringing some color back to his face, which had been pale from blood loss.

But the persistent, intense sense of crisis in his heart had not diminished in the slightest.

This place called the "Rat's Nest" was absolutely not a place to stay for long.

His only chance of survival was to escape the city prison of London, shrouded in fog and danger, before the enemy's net closed around him.

He did not linger in the apartment but immediately hid all his belongings close to his body, pulled down his hat brim, and stepped out onto the morning streets of the White Church District.

The streets were far more "lively" now than at night. Carts transporting goods clattered along the muddy roads, workers in a hurry formed a gray stream of humanity flowing toward the docks and factories, while idle street thugs and prostitutes with hollow eyes loitered on street corners, together creating a vibrant yet oppressive tableau of life.

Lin Jie's goal was very clear: the dock area.

He planned to use his Eastern face and shabby attire as cover to sneak onto any cheap cargo ship about to depart for the European continent.

However, as he followed the crowd and neared the dock area by the Thames with its salty, fishy smell,

He saw that temporary checkpoints had been conspicuously set up at several main intersections leading to the docks.

This was very unusual.

The dock area had always been the most chaotic and poorly guarded part of London;inspections on this scale were not routine.

He dared not approach further, pretending to browse goods at a nearby tobacco stall while calmly observing out of the corner of his eye.

He quickly noticed that standing near those checkpoints were always one or two "plainclothes gentlemen" wearing respectable wool overcoats and bowler hats, their demeanor completely out of place with the surroundings.

They never spoke, only scanning the passing crowd with their sharp eyes.

A chill ran down Lin Jie's spine.

Going to the docks now would undoubtedly be walking right into a trap.

Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately turned and merged into the crowd flowing in the opposite direction.

If the water route was blocked, then he would take the land route!

He decided to head to King's Cross Station in north London, the transportation hub leading to Scotland and the entire north of Britain.

As long as he could board a northbound train, he would still have a chance to escape this city.

Yet when he finally arrived at the magnificent station after nearly an hour, a scene similar to the dock area shattered the last shred of hope in his heart.

Every entrance to the station was also guarded by those ubiquitous "overcoat gentlemen."

The net had been cast.

Frustration and despair washed over Lin Jie.

But at this moment, his mind showed an unusual calm.

He needed information.

He needed to analyze the deadlock before him in a safe place and find possible weaknesses in the enemy's seemingly tight blockade.

So he temporarily abandoned all thoughts of escape.

And walked back to the White Church District, the place he knew best and detested most.

His destination this time was one of the few public places in the White Church District: a cheap reading room run by the church.

He had learned about it from a homeless man in the Rat's Nest.

Nominally, it was meant to spread the gospel to the poor, but in reality, it was more like a shelter for people to warm up and briefly escape reality.

Most importantly, it was free and provided that day's newspapers.

The reading room was filled with all sorts of people: unemployed workers, homeless vagrants, and a few outsiders like Lin Jie, trying to find a moment of peace here.

No one spoke;only the rustling sound of turning newspapers could be heard.

Lin Jie found an inconspicuous corner to sit, then carefully took out the German diary that would determine his future fate.

Now, he finally had a relatively safe environment to attempt to "decipher" it.

He took a deep breath and opened the diary. Under the hard cover were thick, slightly yellowed pages, emitting a pleasant smell of ink and old paper.

On the title page, written in an extremely elegant German cursive script, were the owner's name, a sentence, and the four letters "I.A.R.C."

Lin Jie couldn't understand the sentence, but he recognized the string of numbers—"1886."

This diary had been started two years ago.

He decided to give up on understanding the text and instead focus all his attention on the sketches and symbols in the diary.

The first sketch depicted the monster he had encountered on the ship.

The artist's skill was extraordinary;using only pen lines, he had vividly captured the creature's slick skin, tangled seaweed-like hair, and those eyes radiating an inhuman chill, making it leap off the page.

Beside the drawing were dense German annotations, along with some Arabic numerals and symbols he could understand.

For example, he saw a symbol resembling a barometer, followed by a series of changing numbers, and next to it, a diagram of the moon's phases from full to new.

This immediately made Lin Jie associate the appearance of those monsters on the ship with calm nights near the full moon.

The Investigator was recording the relationship between its activity patterns and the environment.

He then saw a simple drawing resembling a chemical beaker, with "AgNO3" written beside it—silver nitrate! And in another sketch showing a cross-section of a specialized bullet, he clearly saw the bullet tip labeled with the same chemical formula.

Lin Jie's heart pounded.

So that was it!

The reason the Investigator's bullets had such a special effect on the Weeping Woman was because they contained silver nitrate! Was this based on mysticism or some unknown scientific principle?

He didn't know, but this discovery was undoubtedly a priceless piece of key information.

It proved that these seemingly incomprehensible monsters also followed certain rules, could be studied, and could be hunted with targeted methods!

He turned page after page, like a thirsty student, greedily absorbing knowledge from another world.

This diary was practically a detailed "Handbook of Anomalous Creature Research." It recorded the various encounters of this German Investigator belonging to the I.A.R.C. organization over the past two years.

He saw a sketch of a giant black wild dog, its eyes burning with hellish flames, haunting desolate marshlands.

Beside it was a location name: "Dartmoor." Lin Jie knew that was Dartmoor in England, the setting for "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

In this diary, the legendary demon hound was a real creature.

He also saw a creature shaped like a giant bat but with a human face, lurking in abandoned mines, using infrasound to attack prey.

The Investigator had drawn a simple sketch beside it showing how to protect oneself by stuffing ears with wet cotton cloth.

Every sketch represented a deadly encounter;every record was likely experience paid for with life.

The more Lin Jie read, the more alarmed he became, and the more he realized the weight of the diary in his possession. This was not just one person's adventure record but a "survival guide" condensed from blood and fire.

His finger stopped on one page;the creature depicted there made him feel physically uncomfortable.

It was a sketch set in an urban environment.

The background was a typical narrow Victorian-era brick alley. A tall, slender figure wearing a long coat and a top hat stood with its back to the viewer.

Its body proportions were extremely disproportionate, with limbs as long as a spider's, and the most horrifying part was that where the back of its head should be, there hung a blurred, distorted, seemingly smiling face.

In its hand, it carried an old-fashioned doctor's bag.

Beside this drawing, the Investigator had heavily drawn a skull symbol in bright red ink and annotated it below with "Town-UMA."

There was also a small line of English annotation: (Unidentified Mysterious Animal).

Town-level Unidentified Mysterious Animal.

Lin Jie stared at the drawing repeatedly, a chill slowly creeping up his spine.

That bag, that habit of operating in city alleyways... He immediately connected it to the infamous "Jack the Ripper" who terrorized this period in history.

Just then, an old worker reading a newspaper next to him suddenly let out an exclamation mixed with fear and excitement.

"Good God! He's struck again!"

People in the reading room were immediately drawn to the commotion, craning their necks.

Lin Jie also looked up.

He saw the old worker trembling as he pointed at the front-page headline of The Daily Telegraph, which read in bold, horrifying font:

"White Church Horror Escalates! Another Woman Brutally Disemboweled Last Night!"

The newspaper detailed a new case that occurred last night near a cheap rental apartment on George Street.

The victim's manner of death was identical to previous cases, brutally executed. Witnesses at the scene claimed to have smelled a pungent odor similar to burning sulfur around the time of the incident.

Lin Jie's pupils constricted sharply.

George Street... wasn't that the street where the "Rat's Nest" he hid in last night was located? He clearly remembered hearing a woman's scream in his half-asleep state!

He had thought it was just part of the "daily routine" in the White Church District, never realizing he had brushed shoulders with this horrific murder without even knowing it!

He immediately lowered his head and looked back at the sketch of the slender figure in the diary.

He forced himself to calm down and tried to use his sensitivity to residual information on objects to "feel" this drawing.

This time, he did not actively touch it.

He simply stared at it, immersing his mind completely.

Because last night's experience had created a strong "resonance" with this drawing, a feedback different from before emerged.

He smelled it.

That faint, elusive scent of sulfur.

Followed by an inhuman emotion mixed with ecstasy and hatred.

It was an absolute arrogance that viewed humans as ants and killing as an art form.

Could it be?

An idea surfaced in his mind.

Could it be that the true identity of the century's most baffling case that shook all of London and baffled Scotland Yard—"Jack the Ripper"—was this Town-level UMA recorded in the diary?!

This startling conjecture brought him no excitement, only icy fear.

He was now at the center of this apex predator's hunting ground while simultaneously evading pursuit by another powerful organization.

What should he do?

Flee the White Church District? This thought lasted only a second before he dismissed it himself.

The mysterious I.A.R.C. organization pursuing him clearly had tracking capabilities far surpassing Scotland Yard's;the fact that they found him so quickly after he sold that silver coin was solid proof.

As a penniless Easterner, no matter which corner of London he fled to, he would only become a more conspicuous target.

Wait for death? That was an even surer path to doom.

If caught by that organization, the best outcome would probably be harsh interrogation followed by being "cleaned up" to keep their secrets.

Not to mention that a terrifying Town-level UMA was roaming this area, feeding wildly. He had narrowly escaped death last night;who could guarantee he wouldn't become the next unfortunate victim the following night?

Forward was an abyss, backward was hell, and staying put meant waiting to be devoured by both the abyss and hell.

Lin Jie's gaze fixed intently on the newspaper's description of the "sulfur smell" and the diary's sketch of the slender monster carrying a doctor's bag.

An extremely dangerous, yet seemingly the only feasible idea at the moment, emerged from the depths of his heart.

He was currently threatened by two forces simultaneously.

One was "human," the other was "monster."

And based on the diary's contents, these two forces were "hostile" toward each other. So, was it possible to use the "monster" to deal with the "humans"?

Or to demonstrate his value to the "humans" through the "monster"?

Cold sweat seeped from Lin Jie's palms.

This was no longer a plan;it was a mad gamble.