"Captain, we... our fishing nets... caught... a person," a sailor said.

"A person?"

The captain was puzzled. This was the deep ocean, far from any ships. How could there be a person?

The captain followed the sailor to the deck and indeed saw a person buried among the fish spilled from the net. The person was completely naked, and from the exposed gaps, it was clear he was male.

Normally, a person who fell into the open sea with no immediate rescue had almost no chance of survival. Moreover, this person had been pulled up by the fishing net, indicating he had been floating in the ocean for a long time and was surely dead.

The captain ordered the sailors to drag the body out of the pile of fish. Once the corpse was dragged out, the captain carefully examined it.

Male, probably in his teens, a little over 1.7 meters tall, completely naked, with no wounds on his body. The captain's years of sailing experience told him that the man had most likely drowned.

The corpse was neither rotten nor bloated, and it had no external injuries. It looked like a fresh corpse that had just drowned. There wasn't a ship in sight. Where had this person come from, and how had he drowned?

Just as everyone was wondering what to do with the body, it suddenly spat out a mouthful of water and began to cough violently.

This startled everyone. Anything could happen at sea, but pulling up a living person was a first. The captain couldn't help but curse:

"What the hell!"

"Is he dead or alive?"

The captain shouted hysterically.

A few of the bolder sailors poked the "person" on the ground with a dip net. The "person" didn't open his eyes, but instinctively swatted at the net with his hand.

"He's alive!" a sailor shouted.

How unlucky, but they couldn't just leave him to die.

The captain ordered the sailors to carry the man to the engine room, lay him down on a random bed, and cover him with a dirty, torn blanket.

"What do we do with him?" a sailor asked.

The captain frowned and said, "We saved him, did what we had to do. Whether he lives or dies is beyond our control. Just leave him there for now."

Then, the captain pulled aside a trusted crew member and whispered, "If he dies, wrap him in that old blanket and throw him overboard secretly. Make sure no one sees you."

...

The weather at sea was unpredictable. Sometimes the sky was clear for miles, and the next moment a gale could blow in with a sudden downpour.

Just thirty minutes after rescuing the drowning man, the weather changed drastically, with violent gusts and waves pounding the hull.

Soon, a torrential rain followed.

...

"Captain! Captain! Our communication with the mainland is down!"

"God damn it! What about the radio? Can it still be used? Hurry and send out our coordinates, call for help from nearby ships!"

"What the hell is going on? What sea are we in now?"

...

"My God, Captain, all of our instruments are failing!"

"Is the first mate here? Get him to the bridge!"

"Calling the first mate, calling the first mate, please come to the bridge immediately!"

...

"Engineer, check if the engine room can run at full capacity. We need to get out of this area at full speed."

"Captain! The ship is listing, and our nets are still in the water!"

"The damn nets are still down? Are you crazy? Get them up! Cut them loose if you have to!"

...

The sea was turbulent, with waves crashing relentlessly over the deck. The gale and torrential rain caused the long-distance fishing boat to rock violently, threatening to capsize at any moment.

"Captain, the wind and waves are too strong, the sailors can't work outside, the nets can't be retrieved."

"Damn it, forget it. First mate, turn the bow, full speed ahead!"

...

"Captain, the man is gone!"

"Who?"

"The man we rescued!"

"Have you searched the cabins and the engine room?"

"Everywhere. He's not there."

"Never mind. We can barely save ourselves. Forget about him."

...

Months later, a long-distance fishing boat drifted near the port of Charleston, USA.

The fishing boat was discovered by a patrol officer from the Port of Charleston. While patrolling near the port one night, he spotted a ship, faint but visible, floating on the sea not far from the port. The ship had not dropped anchor and was simply drifting.

The ship had no lights on and its positioning system was not activated. The port staff worried that the ship might collide with other vessels at night, so they tried to call the ship by radio, but received no response.

The port staff realized that something was wrong and immediately contacted the maritime administration.

The maritime administration patrol boat moored alongside the fishing boat and hailed the crew, but still received no response.

The maritime administration personnel were forced to board the ship. As soon as they boarded, they smelled a pungent, rotten odor, like that of a long-dead rat.

Sensing that something was wrong, they notified the police before proceeding with further inspection.

After the police intervened, the hull was towed to the port, where investigators accompanied maritime administration personnel on board.

The ship's electrical system was completely out of order, and the engines in the engine room were also damaged.

Strangely, no crew members were found in the bridge, engine room, or crew quarters, not even a single corpse, but the foul odor continued to emanate from inside the hull.

Finally, the police found a total of thirty-one corpses, including the captain, first mate, and sailors, in the ship's fish hold. The corpses were strangely contorted and grotesquely intertwined, their faces extremely distorted, as if they had seen something terrifying before they died.

Due to the enclosed environment of the fish hold, the corpses were in varying degrees of decomposition, but there were no external injuries on the bodies. Strangely, the fish hold had not flooded, but after a forensic examination, the cause of death for all thirty-one corpses was determined to be drowning, and they had all died at the same time.

Was this murder? And what method could have been used to kill everyone at the same time?

The police initially had a hypothesis that someone had thrown the thirty-one people into the fishing net, drowned them in the sea, and then pulled them back up.

However, this hypothesis was quickly rejected by the coroner, because there were no external injuries on the bodies. If this method was used to drown thirty-one people, some of them would certainly have had their skin cut by the fishing net as they struggled or for other reasons.

The police investigation stalled.

Just as the police were at a loss, someone found a person wrapped in a blanket in a corner of the fishing boat's warehouse.

Since the police's initial search target was the people on board, the items in the cabins had not been carefully inspected. After the examination was completed, people were sent to move things out, and that's when they discovered that there was a person hidden inside the rolled-up blanket.

Although this person was emaciated, skin and bones, looking even thinner than a refugee from Africa, he was still alive, albeit in a deep coma!

No one knew how long this person had been in the blanket, or how long he had gone without water or food.

After the police transferred the blanket man from the cabin, he was immediately sent to the hospital for treatment. The police believed that this person might know the secret of the crew's deaths, or that he might even be the murderer.

Further investigation by the police revealed that the fishing boat was a Brazilian fishing boat, and its port of origin was Recife, Brazil. Its previous fishing operations had been conducted in the Pacific waters near Brazil.

For some unknown reason, this fishing boat, which should have been operating in the waters near Brazil, had drifted to Charleston, USA.

The ship had a total of thirty-one crew members when it departed, corresponding to the thirty-one victims, and the unidentified survivor on the fishing boat was the extra thirty-second person.

Who exactly was this unidentified person wrapped in the blanket?

Perhaps the answer would only be known when he woke up.