The door had no lock, but it was firmly shut.
Chen Zhou hid his body against the side of the wall, carefully extending a hand to push the door open.
The old floorboards rubbed against the underside of the door, producing a teeth-grinding noise.
This sound was like a taut fishing line, suddenly pulling Chen Zhou's heart upward.
He didn't know if he had startled any creatures inside the room. He wanted to peek in but felt a bit of fear.
Maintaining his door-pushing posture, Chen Zhou pressed his ear to the wall, concentrating to listen to the movements inside the room, attempting to grasp the enemy's movements, but was constantly disturbed by the steady dripping of rain outside the cabin.
After a moment of hesitation, he finally couldn't suppress his curiosity and peeked his head through the crack in the door to take a secret look inside.
The room was darker than the cabin, with only a very narrow round window for light.
In the gloomy darkness, a stationary shadow could be faintly seen standing in the center of the room.
It was about half a meter tall, pitch-black all over, its outline long and slender with the same thickness from top to bottom, making it impossible to tell where the head was or the feet, or which was the front and which was the back. It just stood there silently, like a confident monster in a horror movie, contemplating how to toy with its prey.
At the instant he saw this shadow, Chen Zhou had the illusion of his heart stopping. He seemed to feel the icy gaze of the monster, making his hair stand on end, and he instinctively pulled the trigger of his hand crossbow.
The sharp crossbow arrow was ready to go and shot out with the push of the bowstring, making a "whoosh" sound as it brushed past the shadow and pierced into the wooden wall at the back of the room.
"Damn it!"
At the moment he saw the arrow miss, a fine sweat appeared on Chen Zhou's forehead under his hat brim.
He had only one chance to strike first, but he failed to aim carefully, committing an undoubtedly fatal mistake.
Pupils dilating, breathing quickening, his heart pounded violently.
Fear, panic, and tension surged forth, nearly overwhelming Chen Zhou.
The remaining rationality reminded him, "Run quickly, the monster will counterattack soon!"
But the surge of adrenaline controlled him to make the completely opposite choice—he drew the thrusting sword at his waist, ready to fight the monster to the death.
With both hands gripping the sword hilt tightly, aiming the sharp blade at the shadow, Chen Zhou focused intensely, guarding against attacks from any angle.
A long standoff ensued.
Time ticked by second by second, his brain working at high speed instinctively filtering out the sound of wind and rain, filling the room with deathly silence.
After a moment, Chen Zhou slightly relaxed his sweat-drenched palm.
Gripping too tightly, his fingers felt a bit sore.
As he moved, the sword tip wobbled slightly. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to attack, yet the shadow remained motionless, as if it were blind.
By this point, Chen Zhou finally sensed something was amiss.
At least three minutes had passed since he shot the crossbow arrow. During this time, the shadow hadn't moved or made a sound.
Thinking it over carefully, from the first glance to now, it seemed like it didn't even have the rise and fall of a normal breathing creature.
"Could it be... it's already dead?"
"Or was it never a living thing?"
Summoning courage, Chen Zhou ventured into the room, the sound of his boots striking the floor resounding prominently. If the shadow were truly some unknown creature, it would surely react to the noise.
But it remained utterly still.
Seeing this, Chen Zhou took another step forward.
He was getting closer and closer to the shadow.
The sound of rain outside the cabin weakened, and the light from the small window suddenly brightened, accompanied by a pungent stench. Finally, Chen Zhou saw the true form of the shadow.
As he suspected, the shadow was not a living thing at all, but rather a section of an iron tube extending up from the bottom of the cabin.
It was made of cast iron, pitch-black all over, with a long iron rod pressing on top, and a spout on the side that was previously invisible from the doorway due to the angle.
The stench came partly from the spout of the iron tube, and partly from the empty water buckets placed in the corner of the room, not at all the smell of a rotting corpse.
Besides the iron tube and water buckets in the center, the room also contained some piled planks and two large wooden crates.
Getting a closer look, Chen Zhou realized this iron tube looked very familiar, like he had seen it somewhere before.
After pondering for a moment, it dawned on him.
"Isn't this a Western well?"
He never expected this water-pumping device, relying on a piston, to appear on a wooden sailing ship from 1695. Shocked, Chen Zhou felt a disorienting sense of time confusion.
In his memory, when he was five or six years old, some village wells were still using pulley systems for irrigation. It wasn't until he started primary school that the Western well became popular in homes, and he often helped his grandmother pump the well.
With rural development and improvements, this once-popular imported good was replaced by more convenient and faster water pumps, burying the Western well into an unvisited corner of memory.
The childhood experiences led Chen Zhou to always believe that the Western well was a product of the modern era, and he never would have imagined this was actually manufactured more than four hundred years ago.
By the timeline, Hua Xia should have been in the Qing Dynasty at this time, with technology so backward that it still remained secluded, no wonder it was repeatedly humiliated by foreign powers in the late 19th century.
With rulers like this, it's no surprise that decline was inevitable!
After a brief moment of reflection, Chen Zhou figured out the purpose of this Western well.
If he guessed correctly, it was likely used to pump water from the bottom of the ship.
Stormy weather was common at sea, and this ship being made of wood, rain or seawater was bound to seep into the bottom cabin. If they were to carry the water up in buckets and pour it overboard, it would be time-consuming and laborious, possibly affecting the work of other sailors.