There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

…………

When I woke up, I found myself in a cramped cabin, surrounded by inconspicuous passengers returning home, each doing their best to pollute the already limited air.

With a splitting headache, I peered out the cabin window and saw the familiar yet unfamiliar azure sea and sky. Seagulls cackled and chased the sea breeze, leaping among the steam clouds overhead. The coal ash on the ground, repeatedly trampled, seeped into the passengers' nostrils, triggering a series of light coughs. Everyone stood like a strange statue, constantly covering their noses and twisting their necks, scrambling for the limited air they could get.

"Old Sea Dog, go see if that guy we just picked up can afford the fare."

A burst of noise ensued.

"What are you standing there for! Remember me, I'm the captain, and you're just a lowlife on this ship! Listen to me!"

A rude and arrogant voice suddenly rang out outside the cabin, issuing a string of nonsensical commands, followed by the clattering of leather shoes against buttocks and various other objects.

"If it's another guy who can't afford the fare, throw him back into the sea!"

Before I could react, the tightly locked cabin door suddenly flung open, and a short man appeared with a sudden gust of sea wind. Even though the wind carried the stench of sweat, it made everyone in the cabin take deep breaths like addicts.

Upon seeing this man, I instantly understood what "old sea dog" meant.

The man's hair was greasy and curly, his eyes were much larger than normal, and a few sparse, unruly strands of gray beard hung from his mouth, making it impossible to tell his age. His slightly narrowed eyes carried a timid and cowardly fierce light unique to tamed animals.

If its appearance were to be compared to that of an aquatic animal, it would be neither as agile as a seal nor as robust as a sea lion; only the humble fur seal would be suitable in this context.

The old sea lion squinted for a long time before its eyes finally landed on me.

"Pay the boat fare, or get off."

...Could it be that I escaped from that plane and was then rescued by this ship by chance?

Was the plane attempting an emergency landing at 10,000 meters altitude, or was it shot down? It couldn't have simply disintegrated in mid-air, could it?

The joy of escaping and the confusion about my situation intertwined, creating a strange emotion that prevented me from directly answering this simple question.

"I already told you I didn't drown, I just fell asleep on the surface of the sea..."

A hedgehog-like figure got up from the ground, muttering grumbling in dissatisfaction.

Then, I saw this spiky-haired young man walk through the middle of me, push aside the guys blocking the door, and walk onto the deck, where he found the captain having a heated conversation with a middle-aged man.

...Okay, it seems I didn't wake up at all.

“I’ll pay for their boat fare! You absolutely cannot leave them in Kenford!”

The middle-aged man, carrying a bag in one hand, spoke earnestly, “The Federation army just surrounded Jovo City the day before yesterday… They took more than 7,800 adult residents to the woods and executed them, treating them as sympathizers of the rebels! I saw with my own eyes that the whole city was full of abandoned orphans, who could only sleep in piles of excrement and survive against the gray walls, while those babies had long since fainted from hunger, but no one cared! The next target of those madmen is Kenford Town, and the press room wants them dead!”

The captain, pipe in mouth and face ashen, said, “You didn’t tell me any of this when you stopped the ship! I don’t want any trouble with what you’ve said, nor do I want to meddle. I’m just a businessman! Understand?”

The captain slammed his hand on the gunwale, took off his pipe, and pointed, "Either you pay the full fare as agreed, or you all get off the ship! Do you understand what I'm saying? There's no other way!"

"All right……"

The middle-aged man hesitated for a moment, then opened his wallet and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

"If you can get the boat to this place, I guarantee you'll make a fortune."

Under the captain's skeptical gaze, the middle-aged man adopted the same imposing manner and continued in an unwavering tone, "I have no reason to lie to you, and you have no other choice... do you, Captain?"

Just then, the spiky-haired guy walked up to them through the cabin door and asked curiously, "What are you guys discussing? It sounds interesting. Can I join in?"

…………

When I came to my senses, I found myself in a vast expanse of black mud. A slippery, muddy net held my gaze fixed on the center of the swamp, and the surroundings were utterly silent, desolate, with nothing to be seen except for the black, rotting silt. It was this absolute silence and monotonous scene that instilled fear and a wave of nausea.

But when the passengers on the ship looked around, they realized that this vast expanse of mud stretched as far as the eye could see, and the turbulent sea lay beneath their feet. The drifting ship was stuck in it, like a small insect caught in a spider web, unable to escape no matter what it did...

Black ash fell like raindrops, quickly covering the ship with a filthy hull, polluting the seawater and the view. At that moment, the sky darkened completely, as if something opened just minutes earlier had unleashed an unprecedentedly malevolent curse, poisoning everything in the world.

"If I were to trust you again, I would be the biggest fool in the world!"

As the boat drifted with its engine off and the boat stopped, the journey became even more uncertain. The captain had long since lost track of his exact location, only knowing that it was approximately 20 degrees north latitude and 35 degrees west longitude.

The captain gripped the helm tightly, unleashing a torrent of vicious words directed at the middle-aged man in the bridge: "I knew getting rich quick was a scam! Even if it were true, it wouldn't end well! I heard an old prospector discovered mineral deposits on an island, and that once desolate island became a melting pot of greedy speculators. The town rose and fell rapidly, and a whole bunch of lunatics emerged! I think you're a lunatic too!"

The middle-aged man gripped his wallet tightly, forcing a wry smile as he said, "If I told you it was all a coincidence, you probably wouldn't believe me, Captain. But what we just salvaged is truly extraordinary! It's something that can't be measured in monetary value!"

A foul, fishy stench filled the wheelhouse, making the captain roll his eyes. He said irritably, "Is underwater junk and corpses considered treasure?"

The middle-aged man explained, "Judging from its shape, what we've salvaged is very likely the burial coffin of the sea tyrant Harald! This ghostly wooden ship coffin alone can fetch an astronomical price, not to mention the female corpse buried with him! Don't mind the smell; according to pirate custom, this female corpse was deliberately left to rot before being mummified! We've never seen a corpse this intact before!"

The spiky-haired man reached out and caught a piece of ash falling from the sky, saying worriedly, "What's going on outside? Is Harald's curse real? Are all those who try to search for his underwater tomb going to be swallowed up by the black tide?"

The middle-aged man quickly brushed the dust off his hands. "You'd better not touch these things! Captain, listen to me, head out to sea immediately!"

The captain glanced at the instrument panel; the pressure readings were dropping lower and lower. He cursed under his breath and said, "Sail? No chance! This ship has run out of coal trying to salvage it; it can't move anymore!"

After saying that, he shouted out of the ship, "Old Sea Dog! Tie the lifeboats together with ropes, and count the number of people on board again! Grab your oars and get ready to escape!"

The old sea lion, covered in coal dust, was as loyal as a human's best friend. He dropped his shovel and rushed into the cabin, returning moments later to report, "Captain, thirty-seven men!"

The captain kicked him in the backside and yelled, "Didn't you say there were thirty-six people?! You idiot, can't you count?!"

"You miscounted..."

The middle-aged man quickly asked, "What's wrong, Captain? Is there something wrong with the number of people?"

The captain said with a grim expression, "How come it's just one more person than the maximum capacity... Damn it, what's going on today..."

"Can this ship call for help?" the hedgehog-haired man asked immediately afterward.

The captain took a puff of his pipe. "I already radioed for help, but in this godforsaken situation, there's no way anyone's coming to our aid. Even if they did, who could possibly see us?!"

The hedgehog-haired man said, "Can I try? Maybe I can contact someone for help."

The captain scoffed, "Go try it yourself! You old sea dog, get ready to draw lots. Leaving one person to fend for themselves is better than the lifeboat sinking with them!"

The spiky-haired man operated the radio as if he hadn't heard anything, seemingly oblivious to the low cries and commotion coming from inside the cabin.

The middle-aged man leaned against the wall of the bridge, dejected, helplessly gazing at the falling ashes. Death's hand seemed to tighten, leaving no chance of life for these poor souls. The stone slabs and urns salvaged from the waterborne coffins also exuded an aura of death, as if their very existence was solely to guide the entire ship's passengers to the underworld…

"There's movement on the radio! But I can't understand this signal..."

Suddenly, the hedgehog-haired boy shouted.

The captain roughly shoved the young man aside, snatched the earphones, and held them close to his head, carefully discerning the ticking sound of the radio waves.

"Huh?! This signal is from an airplane broadcasting a rescue message... Someone is really coming to rescue us?!"

The old sea lion on deck also shouted, "Captain! There's a sound coming closer! It's getting louder!"

What followed was truly beyond the limits of human description.

If I had to describe it, it would be like an ant crawling on a canvas, smugly thinking it has glimpsed the whole picture, only to suddenly encounter the bizarre sight of the canvas being turned over, with various colors forming a vortex that stings one's reason, and just one glance is enough to shatter one's heart and soul.

Suddenly, the sound of a flute echoed continuously above the mud, as if groups of figures were silently dancing an eerie dance to the music, awakening the dark spirits transformed from ashes. But these chaotic movements only involuntarily conjured up images of the dark and terrifying scene beneath the endless mud.

Then, the dark world was torn open by the gale, allowing the passengers to peek out and witness something even darker than darkness itself...

It was an unimaginably wide and majestic column of smoke, so large that even the vast sea could not contain its body, shooting straight into the sky as if it were reaching the void of the universe!

The dark pillars kept shedding ash, which drifted into the swamp, seemingly never stopping until it filled the sea. It was probably the most terrifying storm ever seen in human history, tearing apart the coral, silt, and corpses in the sea, creating a catastrophic tornado.

Above the raging winds, everyone on board witnessed a black dot suddenly burst into view, gradually approaching the ship while brushing against the plume of smoke.

The "hymn" accompanied by a flute grew increasingly violent, while the life-saving signal on the radio became clearer. The captain's pipe had unconsciously fallen to the ground. This group of poor passengers and rude crew members had all, without prior agreement, revealed an expression of listening to a symphony, one of longing for the sacred and speechless rapture...

A gigantic airplane with wings like clouds hanging from the sky was flying overhead. Compared to the towering column of smoke, its speed was both swift and slow; compared to the current environment, its posture was both solemn and eerie. Finally, it made a brief encounter with the people on the ship.

It was this brief encounter that allowed everyone to clearly see, through the glass windows on both sides of the plane, rows of passengers sitting upright in their seats—all of them tightly fastened with seat belts, heads bowed, breathing masks blowing against their faces but no one wearing them, silently maintaining the same posture.

At that moment, a voice suddenly broke through the monotonous rescue signals in the captain's ears. He racked his brains to make out the words and finally managed to discern a complete sentence from the noise.

"...Sizzle...away from...sizzle..."

"...Sizzle...Be sure to stay away from...the storm..."

Chapter 618 Recalling My Dear Friend, Mr. Siennis

The solemn conference room was filled with people whose faces were grim. Everyone quickly flipped through the speeches on the table, but puzzled expressions spread through the crowd like the flu, fueling the growing silence.

Because the man standing on the podium had completely abandoned his prepared speech and was expressing his personal opinions without restraint, while intentionally or unintentionally attacking the public who were attending the hearing.

"...I have always believed that the general public has blindly followed the so-called aesthetic revolution and trend of thought, eagerly seeking to alleviate the boredom and emptiness after the destruction of war. But this behavior is no different from the decadent philosophy pursued by neurotic poets, and will only push the already crumbling social trend of thought to an even more hopeless state!"

"This dangerous liberalism is the greatest enemy of civilized society!"

The young people in the public hearing box stood up almost in a fit of rage, ready to defend their rights to fight and pursue their goals with their fists and fury, equating the gaunt, sinister middle-aged man before them with the rigid and cold-blooded military government, and knocking them both to the ground.

However, rows of soldiers and police firmly held back the flow of people, the serial numbers on their guns were as clear as new, and the blades reflected the stark contrast between iron and blood.

The old man on the platform coughed, trying to draw everyone's attention to the center of power, and then said, "Mr. Siennis, but I don't think that what you call 'socially harmful ideas' are essentially any different from the semiotics you advocate."

Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man's face broke into a subtle sneer, and he said confidently, "I have no stance on the name dispute between deciphering semiotics and predictive science, but thanks to Professor Craven's calculations, from Chappell Castle to the Pyrenees, from Conquest Island to the Southern Islands... we have already saved the Federation millions of pounds in expenses! These cases are discussed in detail on page twenty-three of your manuscripts, so I won't list them all here..."

Mr. Siennis, with a gloomy look in his eyes, clapped his hands and closed the speech manuscript in front of him completely.

"The reason I don't care about the derogatory term 'deciphering semiotics' is because, in the face of irrefutable empirical evidence, what does it matter if we are faced with a mad witch doctor, a mysterious divine oracle, or a magical octopus with flexible tentacles?"

With a feigned bow of humility to the jury, Mr. Siennis reverted to his arrogant demeanor, walked off the podium, and left through the second side door, unilaterally announcing the end of the hearing and leaving all the noise and controversy behind.

The assistant was the first to react, gathering the scattered materials on the table and running out the door. He caught up with Mr. Siennis and muttered a complaint, "Sir, why did you deviate from your prepared remarks? And your hostile attitude might cause you trouble..."

Mr. Siennis chuckled and said, "Haven't you realized yet? This so-called hearing is nothing more than a pawn thrown out by those old fogies in Parliament to silence the younger generation. The old foxes knew all along that Craven's contributions couldn't be hidden and that nothing would go wrong, which is why they made me the bad guy. Otherwise, why didn't they take this opportunity to discuss those damn things like the spy whistleblower bill, the economic sanctions bill, and the war settlement bill?"

They hurried past the corner of the council, which was known as the "glorious and splendid place," and left the venue completely under the escort of guards at the side gate.

The assistant turned pale with fright and hurriedly lowered his voice to stop him, "Sir! Please don't let the detectives from the Investigation Bureau hear this! This could really cause a lot of trouble!"

"Cousins, you need to remember one thing."

Mr. Siennis got into the car, lit a cigar, and as he slowly exhaled the smoke, he said softly, "The Siennis family's status is supported by plantations, transportation, manufacturing, and real estate. It has nothing to do with you, me, or anyone else who can be identified..."

Assistant Cousins ​​suddenly realized, "So you did this on purpose?! The council needed someone to draw attention, so you deliberately acted arrogantly and made sure all the limelight was on you?!"

Mr. Siennis finished his cigar with the air of someone who would get lung cancer after three cigarettes, then quickly and restrainedly stubbed it out. He said with little interest, "No, you still don't get it right. So you're just a Level 6 Assistant Civil Servants, while I'm a Congressman—those old guys want me to attract hatred, but I deliberately provoke the hearing panel!"

"Trying to use me, huh..."

Mr. Siennis roared, "Then I'll make sure they're in a difficult situation too!"

Cousins, now even more worried, whispered, "Haven't you offended both sides at once?"

"So what? The council needs our Siennis family to continue suppressing the Copperfield family's power, otherwise that old man's position as Speaker will never be secure. This is not friendly cooperation at all, it's at most mutual exploitation. If I don't use him to maintain Craven's position this time, do you expect me to write a letter of commendation to thank me?"

Assistant Cousins' jaw nearly dropped to the floor. He bent down, carefully tucked the manuscript into his wallet, and placed it beside Mr. Siannis. After a long pause, he sighed, "Politics really is... really complicated..."

Mr. Siennis said with displeasure, "If you want to use the word 'dirty,' just say it directly. Don't beat around the bush."