Salted Fish Chapter 52.1: Regaining Light (Part 1)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

The eyes lay quietly in the velvet padding, the scarlet irises crystal clear. If one looked closely through the pupils, they could see the secret runes densely packed inside the eyes. These were the prosthetic eyes made for Z by Miss Margaret.

Three days after selling the Phantom Phosphorus butterfly wing powder to the siblings, the eyes were finally made, so Duan FeiZhou and his team came to the Möllen siblings’ workshop as promised. They were greeted by Fabian. He took out the box containing the prosthetic eyes and showed his sister’s work to the customers.

“I wonder if the three of you are satisfied?” Fabian asked carefully.

Z, of course, couldn’t judge whether the prosthetic eyes were good or bad. Therefore the appraisal job had to be left to the other two.

Duan FeiZhou, of course, was very satisfied. This pair of prosthetic eyes and Z’s original eyes were almost the same, but also more transparent and bright. Perhaps because of the light, the red color of these eyes was more like Padma corundum [efn/note] This is actually properly called padparadscha sapphire. The color (according to the articles I read) is a bit disputed but it’s known for hints of pink and yellow in the red. Like this. [/efn_note] than ruby, and when exposed to the light, he could even see the fire color in them.

Xenophon looked curious and tried to grab one of the prosthetic eyes for a closer look, but Duan FeiZhou slapped his paws away. He covered his hand and puffed out his cheeks like a sullen puffer fish.

The next step was the final step, the transplantation of Z’s eyes.

The operation was scheduled for late at night. Since Miss Margaret stayed up for several all-nighters to make the prosthetic eyes, she was so tired that she slept all day, and only woke up only at dusk.

The surgery took place in the basement of the Möllen studio. Since the time of Grandpa Möllen, that was where they operated on patients.

The basement was airtight, with only a stone table covered with white sheets as the operating table. Patients had to enter such a deep underground space before they could see the light again; it seemed somewhat religious and aesthetic.

The medical technology of this era was still very backward, although thanks to the promotion of germ theory, people at least knew the importance of sterilization. Fabian’s surgical instruments were sterilized by alcohol, and the rest was a matter of lighting.

Duan FeiZhou used to struggle with lighting when he was practicing in Aberdeen, but now he didn’t have to worry about it. He asked the Möllen siblings to bring ten lamps, then used an occult technique to make them float into the air and form a circle to create a simple shadowless lamp.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Margaret looked at the circle of oil lamps, and lamented, “This lighting won’t produce a visible shadow, but also ensures the brightness. If you installed a circle of light bulbs on a disc, and then used occult magic to make it glow, couldn’t the same effect be achieved?”

Duan FeiZhou gave a thumbs up towards her. Miss Margaret, just change the word “occult” to “electricity” and you’ll be the inventor of the shadowless lamp decades ahead of schedule! He and Margaret were alone in the operating room, along with the patient, Z. Fabian and Xenophon were locked out because they couldn’t help.

Z was lying on the operating table, and the circle of simple shadowless lamps illuminated his face which was as white as a statue.

Duan FeiZhou, as he cleaned his hands with alcohol, asked, “Are you sure you want me to perform the operation? I’m an unlicensed black doctor.”

“I can’t trust anyone else.” Z said indifferently.

“In case there’s an accident…”

“It won’t happen.” Z was firm.

Duan FeiZhou’s heart was warmed by his trust.

Immediately afterwards Z said, “Mr. Thales has taught you the occult arts. If there is an accident, you can use an occult technique to heal me immediately.”

Duan FeiZhou “…” He turned to Margaret. “Anesthesia.”

Margaret took a bottle of laudanum from the prepared medicine.

“No need for anesthesia.” Z said. “My ability to feel pain is very low.”

“Low doesn’t mean no pain.” Duan FeiZhou said. “And if you move suddenly in the middle of the operation, it will affect me.”

“I won’t move around.”

Duan FeiZhou ignored him. Outside this basement, Z might be his boss, but inside the basement, he was the main surgeon. Who gave Z the courage to call out to the chief surgeon on the operating table? He snatched the laudanum from Margaret’s hand and held it to Z’s lips, “Will you drink it yourself, or shall I pour it down for you?”

Z bristled, but drank the liquid from the vial honestly.

When he figured that the laudanum was almost ready to take effect, Duan FeiZhou put a cloth over Z’s face, and took the scalpel from Miss Margaret.

He had done surgery in worse circumstances. Compared to Aberdeen’s Mire Street, the conditions in this basement were considered luxurious. However, he was still nervous. This time it wasn’t a stranger under his knife, but Z. He suddenly understood why some doctors never operated on their own family members to avoid incidents.

What’s more, he had to operate while he continuously fed energy into the shadowless lights to keep them floating. Thanks to Mr. Thales’ guidance, he had gradually mastered the method of transforming energy unconsciously. He extracted the energy from his brass ring, then fed it to the floating lights. Everything was as natural as breathing. This allowed him to concentrate on the surgery.

After he removed the eyeballs, Duan FeiZhou stopped the bleeding with an occult technique, then stepped back from the operating table while Miss Margaret took over.

Miss Margaret picked up a prosthetic eye, adjusted the angle, and began to chant an incantation. As she murmured dreamily, a few strands of silk stretched out from the bottom of the prosthetic eye. They seemed to be alive, as they drilled into the hollow eye socket and docked with the nerves.

Duan FeiZhou watched all this in awe. The occult technology that didn’t exist in his world was invented far in advance in this world. The mystery of the machinery and the mystery of the occult arts merged at this moment.

Miss Margaret pressed the prosthetic eye into Z’s eye socket, then did the same to the other prosthetic eye. She moved quickly, and within minutes, both prosthetic eyes were moved into Z’s eye sockets.

“The gauze,” she said.

Duan FeiZhou took a roll of gauze from the surgical tray and handed it to her. She blindfolded Z’s eyes and wrapped them several times.

“It’s done,” she said. “It’s normal to feel a burning sensation under his eyes for the next few days. That means the artificial nerves are slowly integrating with his nerves. When the burning sensation disappears, the gauze can be removed.”

Duan FeiZhou sighed with relief and lowered the lights in the air. One by one, they landed smoothly, then obediently lined up in the corner. “He isn’t too sensitive to pain, and may not feel any burning sensation. How long exactly will it take?”

Miss Margaret thought for a moment. “According to past cases, usually in two to three days. To be on the safe side, let’s wait for three days before taking it off.”

Z lifted his hand and touched the gauze on his face. Because the small half of his face was covered, Duan FeiZhou couldn’t see his expression. However he noticed that Z’s fingertips trembled slightly.

They had booked tickets to return to London the day after tomorrow. The voyage from Geneva to London was about one day. In other words, when they landed in London, it would be the day of Z’s recovery.

Z sat up. His movements were somewhat sluggish due to the effects of the laudanum. However, his will was perfectly clear. He smoothed his disheveled silver hair, and turned in Miss Margaret’s direction. He whispered, “Thank you, Miss.” 

It was the first time in his life that he had thanked an occult practitioner who was not a Nightman.

“You’re welcome. You’re a patient, that’s what we’re supposed to do,” Margaret said gently as she gathered up the medical waste.

Z jumped off the operating table, and extended his hand toward Duan FeiZhou. Duan FeiZhou shook his hand. He tugged Z and slowly walked out of the basement. They walked through the dark corridor, and picked their way up to the light.

Xenophon and Fabian were sitting in the first floor shop. The two men were so bored that they simply played chess.

Seeing the two men coming out of the basement, Xenophon looked up and exclaimed, “Wow, Boss, you look…Just like a blind man.”

The last time Duan FeiZhou heard such sensible nonsense was an hour ago.

“How long do you have to wear the gauze?” Xenophon asked.

“Three days.” Z replied.

“Wow, just in time for us to go back to London.” Xenophon was overjoyed. “I’ll send a telegram to Miss Acheson and ask her to pick us up.”

“No need to go to that trouble.”

One thing about Xenophon was that he tended to ignore what he didn’t want to hear. He upset the chessboard (he was already on the verge of being beaten by Fabian, who was glowering) and said to himself, “Why don’t you just ask everyone to come and pick us up the station? You can see them all at once.”

Z sighed.

Miss Margaret also came up from the basement at this time. She was holding a blood-stained tray, with the removed eyeballs hidden under a pile of red gauze.

“Do you want to take your eyeballs back?” she asked. 

The corners of Z’s mouth twitched. “No, I guess not.”

“Then I’ll burn them for you.” Margaret handed the tray to Fabian. 

The latter made a face and grumbled, “Why do I have to do all the chores…”

The group thanked Miss Margaret once again for her amazing skills. As they were about to leave the store, the young girl called out to them as if she had remembered something.

“Please wait a moment.” She walked quickly toward Z.

“Is there anything else?”

She grabbed Z’s hand and peered at it carefully in the light, “I’m curious about one thing. Who made your prosthetic arm?”

The perennial smile on Xenophon’s face disappeared. Duan FeiZhou felt a sudden chill radiating from Z beside him. The only person who dared to ask Z this question to his face was an unworldly tech geek like Miss Margaret.

“Why are you curious about this?” Z asked flatly.

“I vaguely noticed it when I examined your body before.” Margaret grabbed Z’s other hand, stared at the brass-colored skin and said, “The technique of making your mechanical prosthesis looks just like our family’s ancestral technique of making prosthetic eyes. Your mechanical prosthesis is also powered by an occult technique, right?”

The chill emanating from Z deepened. If they had been surrounded by water, that water would probably freeze into ice.

When it came to the occult arts, Miss Margaret was very eloquent, “I can feel the power of the secret runes. The runes in your prosthetic limbs and the eyes are very similar. If I have to say what is different, it is that the runes in the prosthetic eyes have been improved in some places to remove the complicated structure. They are more concise. These improvements are all due to my grandfather. My grandfather never made prosthetic limbs, so I’m curious. Who actually made your prosthetic limbs? Could it be that you actually knew my grandfather, but pretended not to?”

“I think,” Z said. “That I did not know your grandfather.”

Miss Margaret looked up, pondered for a moment with a puzzled face, and then had a realization “Then you could have known The Lady?”

“What lady?” Z’s hand, which had been holding Duan FeiZhou’s hand, clenched sharply.

“I once heard grandfather say that he wouldn’t make prosthetic eyes at first. But decades ago, there was a female occult practitioner who happened to move next door to our house. She was fleeing here, and our grandparents gave her a lot of help. She taught my grandfather the method of making prosthetic eyes out of gratitude.”

Z’s breathing was very ragged. “Where is that woman?”

Fabian was just returning, “Moved away a long time ago,” he said. “She’s as English as you are. Grandfather said she was targeted by a detective who specialized in catching occult practitioners, and had to take refuge in Switzerland. She lived here for a few years, then returned to London when the storm had passed.”

Z’s fingertips sank deep into Duan FeiZhou’s skin, but he didn’t notice it at all. The female occult practitioner that Margaret referred to, could it be the same nurse who had transformed Z’s body? She came to Switzerland for refuge, and incidentally taught her knowledge to her next-door neighbor. Decades later, the neighbor’s granddaughter became a master mechanic and made a pair of prosthetic eyes for Z?

Like a cycle of fate, and a bitter irony.

“Are you still able to contact the woman?” Z sounded anxious.

Margaret shook her head. “She moved away long before we were born. We don’t even know her name. I was trying to get her contact information from you.”

Duan FeiZhou squeezed Z’s shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Calm down. Miss Margaret is innocent.”

Duan FeiZhou lifted up his sleeve. His arm was bruised by Z’s grip.

“I’m afraid I don’t know her whereabouts either.” Z’s lips curled. “It might be a good thing for that woman to disappear forever.” He slightly bowed towards the Möllen siblings. “Farewell.”

After he said that, he walked into the night without looking back.

The Möllen siblings stood side by side in front of the shop, as they waved goodbye to the three customers. After their figures were swallowed by the night, Margaret wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shivered. She said to her brother, “It’s cold. Let’s go back.” 

Fabian’s expression was complicated, as he continued to stare in the direction the three had left.

“Sis, I contacted my counterpart in London yesterday.” He lowered his voice, to keep the neighbors from overhearing. “They said that among the detectives of the London Police Department, there is a blind one. White hair, red eyes and all four limbs are prosthetic. Everything is right!”

“So what?” Margaret was distracted.

“They’re detectives who specialize in hunting occult practitioners!”

“It’s not like they’re here to get us.”

“This isn’t England, so of course they don’t have the guts.” Fabian said with hatred. “If I hadn’t already signed a contract and taken their money, I wouldn’t be doing this business! Next time, we must find out who the patients are before we receive them. I don’t know how the Countess knows such people…”

“Fabian.” Margaret glared at her brother condemningly. “How can you say such things? Shouldn’t we help them because the patient is a policeman?”

“But if you help him, he will arrest more occult practitioners in the future. Our fellow citizens!”

“Fabian, we are mechanics. What is the purpose of how we make machinery? Is it simply for the sake of machinery? Of course not. We are trying to make people happy through machinery. From the smallest clockwork dolls to the largest steam engines, it is the same. The same is certainly true of mechanical prosthetic eyes. This is our job. It’s not our place to judge people, that’s God’s job.”

“But Sister…”

“Fabian, you still have a lot to learn.” Margaret stroked her brother’s head, and walked back into the store with a smile.

Z was silent all the way to the hotel. When he returned to the hotel, he only said to Duan FeiZhou, “Good night.”

Duan FeiZhou was eager to talk to him about the female occult practitioner, but Z obviously didn’t want to discuss it. He had to give up. Was the occult practitioner that Miss Margaret had mentioned really the nurse who had rehabilitated Z? Could it be a different person? If so, then the culprit who had turned Z into his current shape had been lurking in London all these years… right under the noses of the Nightmen. No wonder Z was so irritated.

He went back to his room, changed into his pajamas, and fell head first into bed.

As soon as his head hit the pillow, Duan FeiZhou fell into a deep sleep. He had a strange dream. He was standing in the dungeon of Scotland Yard, the cell where he had been imprisoned.

For a moment, he thought he had gone back in time to the day when the battle of Jack the Ripper ended. Then he suspected that perhaps the current moment was the reality. The trip to Greece that followed was a hallucinatory dream for him.

The sound of footsteps came from the corridor. They were approaching, and finally stopped at the door of his cell. Duan FeiZhou couldn’t help but swallow a mouthful of saliva. He remembered that it was Z. However, the footsteps didn’t belong to Z, because there was none of Z’s distinctive mechanical scraping sound.

The door opened. A man with black hair and yellow eyes walked in. He was clad in black as if he were a giant raven.

“…Xenophon?”

The Nightman smiled slightly. “Hello.”

“Am I dreaming?”

Xenophon nodded his head.

Duan FeiZhou asked again, “Why are you in my dream world?”

Xenophon spread out his hands. “Don’t forget that I am Mr. Thales’ favorite student. Although I’m not very good at spiritual spying, at least I can use it.”

Duan FeiZhou felt very uncomfortable. It was the same feeling as if his diary was being peeked at. This was probably the discomfort of privacy invasion. “You’re snooping in my dreams?”

“Yes.” Xenophon answered with a straight face. “I want to see what your little brain is thinking all day long.”

Duan FeiZhou crossed his arms, and glared at him in annoyance, “What’s this all about?”

“Actually, I wanted to do this a long time ago. I just hadn’t found the opportunity.” Xenophon said cheekily. “I want to see what secrets you are hiding.”

Among all the Nightmen, Duan FeiZhou thought Xenophon was the most unpredictable one. Xenophon’s brain waves were often not on the same channel as the others. Duan FeiZhou thought that the cynical look was just his disguise, and his heart was much more complicated and deeper than his appearance.

“You’re…Invading the privacy of others!”

Xenophon stood with his arms folded. “That’s funny. Shouldn’t a normal person answer ‘I’m not hiding anything’ when asked such a question?”

Duan FeiZhou choked, then said, “…But I’m not a normal person.” 

“Good point.” Xenophon actually looked like he approved. “I don’t think you’re an ordinary person either. Before I go back to London, I think I need to check you out. If necessary, I can keep you from going back to London.”

“Why? What have I done wrong?”

Xenophon looked like he had heard something funny, “What have you done wrong that you don’t understand? Who the hell are you? What is the purpose of mixing into Scotland Yard?”

In a flash, Duan FeiZhou forgot to breathe.

–He knew.

— He knew that I was the Master of the Secret Trading House.

But how exactly did he know? No one could reveal the identity of the Master of the Secret Trading House, and all those who knew the secret were bound by the occult contract. Who told Xenophon?

“Your face has changed.” Xenophon’s eyes shone with a different light. “In dreams, acting often fails to conceal true emotions. I admit that you acted quite well and almost fooled even me. Boss Z may have been in a moment of confusion and did not notice your flaw, but I was different.” He opened his mouth and smiled like a raven. “You were already an occult practitioner before you joined the Nightmen.”