Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 585: The plot has changed
“…”
Cold sweat poured down Lion Heart King’s forehead. For a moment, he actually didn’t know how to respond.
The youth before him examined his pale face as if playing a prank. Only when the other’s back was nearly soaked with sweat did he mercifully cast a glance at Kong Wei.
Kong Wei obediently released his grip.
The steel-like palm on his shoulder disappeared. Lion Heart King was stunned, clearly not expecting to be released so easily. He pressed his still-aching shoulder and staggered to his feet.
He looked around, finally turning his gaze to Wen Jianyan.
“…What do you want?”
Away from the frenzied atmosphere of the auction, the other seemed no longer dangerous—at least no longer as sharp-edged as in his memory—but had become even more inscrutable.
“Money?” Lion Heart King said. “Then you’ve found the wrong person. We’re probably the most down and out of all the teams now.”
Speaking of this, his face twisted slightly for a moment.
In fact, except for the “Butcher” team that could barely put up a fight against the “Tarot Master,” the other teams were all somewhat struggling to maintain themselves.
“I know.” Wen Jianyan said with a smile.
This was the task he’d assigned Blond—find the team in the worst condition among all teams, and remotely inform them of the direction this “toy merchant” was heading via text.
Naturally, these “toy merchants” would all try their best to hide their movements. Unfortunately, for the “All-Seeing Eye,” such concealment posed no obstacle whatsoever.
Even with just a general direction, finding and controlling the teammates left outside during the “auction” was a piece of cake for them.
“…” Lion Heart King was stunned. He seemed to suddenly understand something. A trace of shock passed over his face, making his expression suddenly become ferocious. “So that’s how it is.”
“Mm? What?” Wen Jianyan looked at him with interest. “Tell me?”
“You’re ostensibly auctioning the factory, but actually just to find the weakest team among all teams at the auction, so you can buy all the factories they own at a low price, right?”
Lion Heart King’s teeth ground audibly.
On this level, although “toy factories” couldn’t be directly seized, they could still be resold and exchanged—that’s what the “Tarot Master” did. They used prophets to precisely locate other teams’ positions, then carried out cruel and merciless force suppression. When one’s life was controlled by others, whether to sell and how much to sell for could only be decided by the other party.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Ohhh! So that’s what the anchor was planning!]
[I was wondering why he bought land right away. Turns out he was trying to gain big with small investment.]
[Lmao, of course. Don’t forget what kind of person the anchor is. Building factories with money isn’t as interesting as zero-cost acquisition.]
“Unlike those fools, we know what this kind of approach leads to,” Lion Heart King stared at Wen Jianyan, his eyes cold. “If you want to get factories from me this way, I’d rather die—when that time comes, good luck to you.”
The muscles on his body tensed, as if he was about to explode the next second. Kong Wei, standing behind him, quickly pressed him down, firmly pinning him to the ground again.
And the instant that steel-like palm pressed down, Lion Heart King only felt the surging power in his body seem to drain away completely. He could only raise his head and cast an unwilling gaze at the other.
“Quite principled.” Wen Jianyan raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised. “Pretty smart brain too.”
He stepped forward and crouched before the other, saying with a smile:
“Unfortunately…
“You guessed wrong.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[…]
[Huh?]
Never mind Lion Heart King—even Wen Jianyan’s teammates were stunned. Clearly, they had also thought Wen Jianyan was pulling this move with zero-cost acquisition in mind.
“Guess who our real enemy is?” Wen Jianyan suddenly asked.
Chang Feiyu frowned. “Isn’t it all other players besides us?”
“If we were in a real Monopoly game, you’d be absolutely right.”
In Monopoly, making all players except yourself go bankrupt would win you the game.
“Unfortunately, we’re not in a real game right now.”
Wen Jianyan raised his eyes and winked at the huge screen in the void, his tone meaningful: “All players are not created equal either.”
Everyone was stunned and instinctively raised their heads to look at the screen overhead.
On the huge screen hung the rankings of all toy merchants. The name at the very top made hearts inexplicably skip a beat.
“…’Lucy’.” Wen Ya narrowed her eyes and murmured.
That’s right. On this level, the dealer was also a player, and she occupied a more advantageous position than everyone else.
Why had the Oracle entered this level early but been unable to win for so long?
Why, despite having an absolute advantage, had the Oracle been unable to quickly end the match like before?
The seemingly fair game was actually unfair from the very beginning.
“Buying toy factories, selling toy factories, monopolistic killing…” Wen Jianyan lifted his eyelids listlessly. “At the end of the day, we’re still playing their game, following their rules.”
Speaking of this, he raised his head, his gaze falling on the highest position on the leaderboard, his words meaningful:
“Conflict between players has been meaningless from the start. Our real target has never been each other.”
What he truly wanted to kill was the rule-maker of this level, Dealer No.2, Lucy.
—Whether it was to win this round of “Monopoly” or to obtain the last piece of the agate stone fragment.
These words went straight to the core.
Like parting clouds to see the sun, the originally chaotic and unclear situation suddenly became crystal clear.
Lion Heart King crouched on the ground, staring hard at Wen Jianyan.
Although he didn’t completely understand all the details, he wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t understand the other’s implications. Could it be that the other really didn’t intend to kill them? But…
“Anyway, that’s basically it,” he shrugged, saying casually. “You can cooperate, or you can refuse.”
“…As if you’d let us go if we didn’t cooperate.”
Lion Heart King’s voice seemed to squeeze out from between his teeth.
“Of course I would.” As if finding his words funny, the youth’s eyes curved as he laughed aloud.
Lion Heart King froze. The next second, he saw Wen Jianyan turn his head and casually drop a sentence: “Let them go.”
…What?
Before he could react, Kong Wei, behind him, had already released his grip, and his teammates were almost simultaneously freed from their restraints.
“Captain—” Several people rushed over and gathered around him.
Lion Heart King looked at the other in confusion, his expression stiff and tangled.
The other’s expression was calm, seeming not to care about their reactions. That young, handsome face had almost no emotion, making him completely unreadable.
“If you’re unwilling, I can switch to another team anytime. They know no less than you.”
Wen Jianyan stepped forward, staring unblinkingly at Lion Heart King, his light-colored irises reflecting the other’s face.
“But the reverse isn’t necessarily true.”
When a Nightmare top-ten anchor of unfathomable strength extended an olive branch, how many would refuse?
And how many would spare nothing to establish this connection?
“So you got one thing wrong—it’s not me threatening you to help me, but me providing you with a chance to survive.”
The other’s voice was as peaceful as his expression, his smiling eyes carrying the demonic radiance Lion Heart King had witnessed that night, almost making one feel fearful.
“It’s you who need me, not the other way around… Understand?”
As for what happened next, Lion Heart King’s memory was somewhat unclear.
But when he came to his senses, everything had already been settled.
Watching the contract dissolve into light particles before him, Wen Jianyan nodded in satisfaction:
“Pleasure doing business.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[…]
[Wait, wait, my brain is confused. So now Lion Heart King has to pay the anchor money instead???]
[Uh, seems like that’s correct.]
[I’m still dazed now. I feel like the process seemed fine, but thinking back, everything seems off…]
[I’m done. Put myself in their shoes, and I feel even I would be sold off in such confusion, then have to gratefully help him count the money.]
Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes and smiled.
What he had Blond observe wasn’t the team’s “strength or weakness.” The real quality he needed… was 【desperation】.
If not desperate enough, the other wouldn’t continue bidding knowing they couldn’t win the toy factory. If not desperate enough, the other wouldn’t try to die together the instant they were restrained.
Yes, this was an absolute loss-making deal for them. But people in desperate straits could never refuse the spider’s thread dangling before them. Those about to drown could never let go of the driftwood delivered to them.
And Wen Jianyan was currently that driftwood delivered to their door.
Even if the other knew they were signing an unfair contract, they couldn’t refuse—were powerless to refuse.
At the same time.
“Vice President, Pinocchio and his group have entered.”
A blood-stained, exhausted-looking man suddenly spoke. He seemed to have just experienced an extremely harsh battle, half his body soaked in blood, looking very disheveled.
He pointed at the last place on the leaderboard on the overhead screen.
“That ‘All-Seeing Eye’ should be them.”
“…Damn it.” The Gentleman’s expression was dark, rarely cursing. “What bad timing.”
His face even faintly showed a greenish tint. The consumption from going down to the negative eighteenth floor with Figaro by the elevator clearly hadn’t fully recovered yet. He could barely maintain his previous dignified appearance.
At this moment, he tightly gripped a thin piece of human skin paper in his hand, while the others stared hard at the distance, seemingly vigilant about something.
The blood-stained man asked, “Vice President, should we do something?”
“No need. They can’t make waves.” A female said irritably.
What she said wasn’t unreasonable.
Monopoly had progressed to this point. Victory or defeat was pretty much settled.
The Oracle currently owned far more toy factories than the third-ranked team, and Pinocchio’s group had just entered the game, having already missed the best initial capital accumulation opportunity. There was basically no possibility of catching up.
“Don’t underestimate him.”
The one who spoke this time was an unexpected character.
Su Cheng’s expression was calm, casually playing with tarot cards in his hand.
That female anchor who had spoken seemed to have long resented this new vice president. She sneered coldly: “You seem to know quite clearly.”
Su Cheng: “Of course.”
“Although he looks carefree and unreliable, those who underestimate him often pay the price.”
In the entire Nightmare, probably no one understood better than him just how much Wen Jianyan could counterattack from desperate situations and turn the tables against the wind.
“If we don’t restrain his actions now, it’s like raising a tiger to become a threat.” Su Cheng lowered his eyes and began playing with the tarot cards in his hand again, his movements extremely fluid, showing none of the unfamiliarity of when he first entered Nightmare and couldn’t even recognize all the card faces.
He moved his fingers and flipped over a card.
The pattern on the card was chaotic, grotesque patterns spreading across the entire card face—now, besides Su Cheng himself, no one could recognize the tarot card faces or the information they might contain.
“If you ask me, now is the best opportunity to strike.”
Su Cheng said.
The female anchor stared at him coldly. “You’re quite unsentimental.”
She didn’t like this “Tarot Master.” If someone could betray friends they’d known since humble beginnings, they could do the same to them someday—but the Gentleman didn’t mind, so she could only swallow her opinions and tolerate this traitor becoming a member of their team.
Su Cheng didn’t seem to take the other’s provocation seriously, just indifferently withdrew his gaze and collected the tarot cards back into his palm.
The female anchor wanted to say more, but only heard the Gentleman shout: “Enough! Jiali.”
“Don’t you know what we’ll face next? Is now the time to argue?”
The Gentleman said coldly.
Hearing this, everyone’s expressions became grave.
Clearly, what they faced was no simple child’s play, but a real death threat.
Jiali bit her teeth and forcibly swallowed all her opinions.
“As for Pinocchio…”
To be fair, the Gentleman very much agreed with Su Cheng’s assessment.
If the Gentleman had initially thought Pinocchio’s achievements had an element of luck, after fighting so many times, this contemptuous thought had completely disappeared—to be able to replace the former eighth in the replacement match, make the more veteran, more experienced Bricklayer die at his hands, and even escape from the auction by his own power… what this guy possessed was definitely not just luck.
But unfortunately…
This time was really too inopportune.
“Ignore him for now.” The Gentleman took a deep breath, stood up, and rolled up the human skin paper in his hand—just a brief glimpse revealed it was densely covered with writing. “We have more pressing matters.”
“The next wave of attacks comes in three minutes. Be prepared.”
The contract was signed. Everything was settled.
Lion Heart King took a deep breath and asked: “So what next? What are you planning to do?”
“Not sure yet.”
Wen Jianyan answered so matter-of-factly that everyone around couldn’t help but freeze for two seconds.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Huh?]
[Wait, what? You still don’t know what you’re going to do??? You looked so confident, I thought you had everything figured out!]
Wen Jianyan looked at Lion Heart King, smiled slightly, and continued:
“So the first step… I need information.”
Whether intentional or not, the dealer on this level had revealed far too little information to them.
If it were the early game, then as Lucy said, “you’ll know once you play” would indeed be feasible. But for them now, the situation was completely different.
Because…
No matter how the rules were distorted, “Monopoly” was essentially a multi-player strategy game.
When everyone was crossing the river by feeling the stones, such information gaps, while bringing crises, wouldn’t have much impact on the overall battle situation. But when each player entered at different times, the impact of information asymmetry was fatal.
In this situation, even someone as clever as Wen Jianyan would probably be a clever housewife unable to cook without rice.
This was why his first step had to be finding an “ally.” The Lion Heart King before him was less an ally than a pawn to provide him with sufficient information.
“Alright, I’ll start from the beginning.”
Lion Heart King took a deep breath and pointed at the badge on his chest.
“First, the person wearing this badge becomes the system-recognized ‘toy merchant.’ The title on the leaderboard is generated from this. Once worn, it can’t be changed, and only ‘toy merchants’ can roll dice and conduct toy factory transactions and sales.”
“Rolling dice lets you advance. Some squares have card items—stop on the square and you can take them.
Every time you reach an empty square, you can build a toy factory on it. Different toy factories have different prices and bring different returns. But if you stop at a square where someone has already built a toy factory, you have to pay to buy toys from it. If you want to leave without paying, you’ll receive very severe punishment. However, if you can kill the factory manager during this time, you can seize this toy factory and register it under your own name. The higher the price of the toy factory, the harder it is to seize.”
Lion Heart King made a face: “Of course, even the cheapest puppet factory—few teams can accomplish this.”
The only ones who could really do this were the first-ranked “Tarot Master” and the second-ranked “Butcher.”
Wen Jianyan nodded thoughtfully, indicating he understood.
He seemed to think of something and asked: “Oh right, do you know how many squares there are in the entire town?”
“Three hundred.” Lion Heart King answered quickly. Obviously he’d already gone around once.
He smiled bitterly and shook his head:
“So you should see it too. The current situation is terrible. This game’s progress has been pushed too far. Eighty percent of the squares here have already been occupied. Although item cards refresh, the remaining unoccupied empty squares are very few—”
Speaking of this, Lion Heart King seemed to suddenly think of something. He sharply raised his head and looked at the group before him:
“Wait, before reaching the empty square, did you pass through other toy merchants’ factories?”
“Yes, the ‘Butcher’s’ puppet factory.” Wen Ya answered.
There, they were forced to buy one puppet each, spending a large amount of money.
Hearing this, Lion Heart King immediately shuddered. He quickly stepped forward and pressed: “About how long ago?!”
“Uh,” Wen Ya was startled by him and instinctively stepped back half a step. She thought about it and answered, “Maybe less than half an hour ago…”
Her words had just finished when Lion Heart King’s face changed. He shouted sternly: “Quick, collect all the puppets and throw them far away, as far as possible!!”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Wen Jianyan. Seeing Wen Jianyan nod, they all quickly moved into action.
The puppets were collected together and thrown by Kong Wei, who had the most strength. Several puppets drew an arc through the air and landed with a thud on the ground in the distance.
Although the puppets were thrown far away, Lion Heart King didn’t seem relieved. Instead, he raised his hand and grabbed Blond’s arm with enough force to almost leave bruises:
“Quick, throw the dice! Quick!”
Blond was startled by Lion Heart King’s sudden action but still instinctively followed his command. He raised his hand and threw the two dice out.
Creak, creak.
Strange scraping sounds came from not far away. The puppets lying on the ground moved under some unknown force, as if gradually coming to life.
The dice stopped.
Finally, the numbers stopped at 9.
Lion Heart King roared: “Quickly go to that square!”
Creak.
Not far away, the puppet’s body was growing and enlarging at an unstoppable speed, then shakily standing up, taking stiff steps, slowly walking this way.
A cold aura released from its body, licking at everyone’s necks.
It opened its mouth, its jaw moving up and down making creaking sounds. Inside were saw-toothed teeth, sharp and snow-white, as if eager to chew living human flesh. Just watching made one’s hair stand on end.
Watching the distant puppet, Ma Qi, being a medium, paled slightly. But compared to when encountering “residents” before, her condition was obviously much better. She raised her hand and made a “5”—this was the code they’d set before descending to this level.
Once encountering danger, Ma Qi needed to quickly categorize them from one to ten and give teammates hints.
Her showing “5” meant the terror level of these puppets was medium—although somewhat difficult to handle, at least not unsolvable.
“Do we fight?” Chen Mo lowered his voice and whispered.
Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes: “Not yet.”
On one hand, he hadn’t figured out all the rules yet. There was no need to rashly engage in conflict now and needlessly consume their side’s strength. On the other hand, he was somewhat concerned about Lion Heart King’s earlier behavior. If the puppets’ terror level was only 5, he shouldn’t have been so alarmed—there might be more to this.
“Run.”
With Wen Jianyan’s command, everyone immediately turned and ran frantically.
Creak, creak.
The strange scraping sound followed like a shadow behind them.
Even without looking back, one could easily envision its eerie smiling face, exaggerated movements, and increasingly rapid steps in one’s mind.
Closer.
Closer.
At the critical moment, everyone rushed into the square.
And the instant they stepped into the square, the strange sound of hard objects scraping behind them disappeared.
Several people gasped for breath and turned to look behind them.
Just a few steps outside the square lay palm-sized puppets. They were motionless, faces smiling, arms and legs sprawled randomly, seeming like nothing more than soulless dead objects. But everyone knew that what had just happened was no illusion but undeniable reality.
“The toys you ‘buy’ from other toy factories will revive after a period of time,” Lion Heart King stopped walking, gasping as he explained. “And this time is calculated from when you leave or stand on a square—leave the square too long and the toys revive. Stand on one square too long without moving forward, and the toys also revive.”
“These things can’t be killed or destroyed,” not knowing what he was thinking of, Lion Heart King’s face turned pale. He gritted his teeth and said word by word, “Even if you think you’ve destroyed it, it will haunt you again until it completely devours its buyer.”
Everyone present was smart. Hearing Lion Heart King’s words, they all immediately realized the terrible trap hidden in this level’s rules.
No matter the reason, once you stepped onto the “Monopoly” board and entered one of the toy factories, the game began and could never stop.
If you didn’t buy, you’d be attacked by the toys in the factory—nine deaths, one life. But if you bought, you’d be pulled into a continuous, inescapable vortex.
It would force you to roll dice, move forward, unable to stop, only able to keep buying or selling until you went bankrupt or were disemboweled.
“Of course, it’s not like there’s no way to delay the toys’ revival,” Lion Heart King smiled bitterly and wiped his face. “…That’s to own more toy factories.”
Puppet factories could extend the puppet revival time. Teddy bear and doll factories were the same.
“…” Hearing this, Wen Jianyan showed a thoughtful expression.
No wonder.
Many problems could suddenly be explained.
The Oracle had enough factories, the toy revival interval was long enough, so they could move freely outside the negative fifth floor. But no matter how long the interval, there were still limits. So after the Oracle entered the negative fifth floor, their external activities obviously restrained considerably. Whether by the elevator or at the racetrack, even if plans failed, they didn’t persist but stopped at the right point and left—not because they were showing mercy, but because they had to return to the negative fifth floor to continue forward.
To some extent, this rule was somewhat similar to the capsule coins on the negative third floor that could revive at any time—once you started, you’d be locked in. Even if you wanted to cut losses midway, you couldn’t stop. You could only continue gambling.
Until you were twisted bit by bit into something inhuman, minted into casino chips, and circulated back to the gambling table.
“So,” Lion Heart King looked at Wen Jianyan and slowly said, “this is why I couldn’t sell the factories no matter what.”
The reason he had just been desperate enough to fight to the death was largely because he’d witnessed the terror of these toys. So he’d rather fight desperately than face the risk of so many toys reviving.
These factories had become a means of survival for the “toy merchants” within.
“Do you know the specific interval time?”
Wen Ya thought for a few seconds and asked.
“If you don’t have any toy factories, the safe time is half an hour. For each additional factory, the safe time increases by half an hour.” Lion Heart King said. “My current safe time is three and a half hours.”
Precisely because of this, he temporarily didn’t need to return to his own square but could act together with Wen Jianyan’s group. However, this situation obviously couldn’t last long. Once the safe time approached its end, they also had to return to their previous squares to roll dice and move forward.
Wen Jianyan nodded thoughtfully.
“Oh right, there’s also a mechanism—prison.” Lion Heart King said.
The term “prison” wasn’t uncommon in “Monopoly” games. However, when it appeared in an instance, it inevitably made one somewhat apprehensive.
Wen Jianyan: “How so?”
“Violate rules and you go to jail.”
Lion Heart King was brief and to the point.
“For example, once toy factories here are built, the interior can’t be entered. If you try to force your way in, you’ll be taken away by guards to prison.”
“There’s also an exception—using item cards to report other anchors to jail. Even if you get screwed, don’t panic too much. In prison, you can’t roll dice for the first half hour. After half an hour, you can roll once every five minutes. As long as you roll a total of 15 points or more, you can get out.”
“But I don’t seem to see any similar buildings…” Wen Jianyan looked around—the town wasn’t very large. Whether the buildings or layout inside were very simple—just one main road, countless branching paths, and low factories connected by the paths. There was no shadow of a prison.
“Can’t find it,” Lion Heart King shook his head, his expression showing a trace of indignation. “We tried following the guards before, but basically lost them after three to five steps. No items worked.”
While several people were conversing, a sudden “creak” came from not far away.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[!]
[Damn, scared me!]
[Ahhh, I was listening to the rules so seriously, I almost forgot the anchor just reached a new square!]
[Just don’t know whose factory this square belongs to and what type it is.]
The small path beside the square extended inward, connecting to a modest factory.
The rust-covered gate slowly opened before everyone’s eyes. A very tall figure swayed out from within.
Although mentally prepared, the instant it walked into the light, everyone’s hearts still couldn’t help but sink.
It was a huge teddy bear.
But unlike the previous puppet that, though strange, was obviously new, this teddy bear looked very… filthy.
Its head tilted, the stitching on its neck split open, revealing what should have been white cotton but was now a nauseating black-red color, looking like entrails. The fur all over its body was stuck together with half-dried blood clots. Its pitch-black button eyes were askew, watching the group before it at a very strange angle.
“Wel, welcome…” The teddy bear’s throat emitted intermittent distorted sounds. “To ‘Chameleon’s’ teddy bear, toy factory…”
Chameleon?
Wen Jianyan was stunned and instinctively raised his head to look at the screen hanging overhead.
Chameleon, ranked 13th, owns 10 toy factories.
But none of this mattered. The only important thing here was… this name had turned gray.
The next second, the screen above flickered, and Lucy’s smiling face appeared before everyone again: “Wow, congratulations! You’re so lucky!! You actually found a toy factory without an owner!!”
“Would you like to take over this masterless factory?”
It seemed that when a toy factory’s owner died, the land wouldn’t revert to empty space. The factory remained. When the next toy merchant stepped onto this land, they could choose whether to accept this factory.
On the screen, the little girl’s smile was innocent: “Since the factory is already built, you don’t need to pay any additional fees!”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
“What? Really?”
“Can’t be, giving such good conditions…”
Lion Heart King’s face turned slightly green. He looked at Wen Jianyan and very subtly shook his head:
—Don’t.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
“Holy shit, I just came back from another live stream room. This thing is a HUGE trap!!”
“Huh? Why? What did Lucy lie about?”
“No… strictly speaking, she didn’t.”
“This factory is indeed already built, and if you take it over, you really don’t need to pay again. But the problem is, because the toy merchant died, the teddy bear managing the toy factory will also rapidly break down. If the next anchor agrees to take over, they must find someone to replace this soon-to-be-scrapped teddy bear to manage the toy factory…”
“Holy shit?”
“No wonder when Lion Heart King was ready to die together he said ‘good luck to you then.’ Turns out it’s because of this… According to this rule, after the owner dies, the difficulty of taking over the square actually increases.”
“…Have to say, truly vicious.”
Oh no I caught up! Thank you for the translation 💖✨