Ji Xun sighed at the endless expanse of the ocean for a good while before starting to think of a solution.
Problems were bound to occur; finding ways to solve them was the absolute top priority to push things forward.
As for why he was so eager to get up there: there was something wrong with the food he had eaten last night—it had likely been spiked with a hallucinogen of some sort. If that spiked food was possibly ordered by Mr. Liu to liven up the atmosphere, then once Ji Xun woke up today, went specifically looking for the game’s escape hatch, and found it blocked solid—completely unpassable—the situation became crystal clear.
It was impossible for the game’s host to both set the rules and break them.
Therefore, the only possibility was that something had gone wrong on the ship itself.
Apart from him and Meng Fushan, someone else was currently making a move on the vessel. What a stroke of cosmic coincidence that they happened to cross paths.
Ji Xun cast those momentarily useless thoughts out of his mind and focused his attention back on the immediate hurdle before him.
The ship’s hull was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. What stood in front of Ji Xun was a pristine white gunwale slanting outward and upward. Judging by the naked eye, his distance from where he was to the railing on the main deck wasn’t as hopelessly far as he had imagined. Imagination always managed to exaggerate actual difficulties—perhaps a tendency rooted in humanity’s basic laziness. It was roughly a seven- or eight-meter gap.
A seven- or eight-meter gap… climbing it freehand was out of the question; this wasn’t Wolverine starring in a movie. He had to rely on a little trick. For instance, throwing a rope up, threading it through the railing on the edge of the gunwale, and then pulling himself up step-by-step using the rope anchored to the rail.
This rope had to be thick enough—at least sturdy enough to bear the weight of a person.
Finding a rope was easy; there was one right at hand. Perhaps on a ship, there was never a shortage of such tie-down ropes. Throwing it up wasn’t hard either; doing it bare-handed would certainly test his arm strength, but tying a small heavy object—something like a softball—to it made it much simpler, and it would easily hook the end of the rope into the railing.
The rope went up, but it still had to come down… it still had to be able to come down right into his hands.
Ji Xun looked at the daunting vertical distance between himself and the gunwale railing, thinking to himself secretly: Suppose a ball of yarn is up on the roof, and you can’t effortlessly leap up like a cat to grab it, what other ways are there?
For instance… standing in the yard and using a long pole to stick it down?
Ji Xun gradually formed an idea.
He pulled his head back through the window and surveyed the small room he was in.
This was a utility closet below the deck, packed with all sorts of odds and ends. Ji Xun first dug out a coil of thick hemp rope and tied it to a thin cord. Then, using the thin cord, he wrapped it around a box of binder clips, walked back to the window, and tossed it upward.
On the first throw, he misjudged the distance; it slammed into the side of the ship and fell down. Ji Xun grabbed the line, hauled the box back into his hand, took a moment to gauge, made a tiny adjustment, and threw it a second time. It smoothly cleared the railing and plummeted back down due to gravity.
Success.
Ji Xun ducked back inside the room and began tinkering with new materials.
He grabbed a balloon pump and found an unopened pack of long, skinny balloons. He inflated a balloon, covered it in double-sided tape, and finally attached a long, thin string to it.
Then, Ji Xun stepped back out toward the window. He tugged the thin cord to keep the plastic box in a relatively horizontal position, aimed the balloon right at the plastic box ahead… and whoosh—launch!
Elementary school science.
As long as there was a backward thrust, the balloon would propel forward in the opposite direction.
In Ji Xun’s blueprint, the soaring balloon rocket had a relatively large surface area, and its elongated shape provided a stable forward flight path. As long as his marksmanship—err, his aim—was true, the double-sided tape would stick to the box of binder clips. At that point, he would just need to carefully pull the string to drag the thin cord attached to the box using the taped balloon. Then, using this loop, he could gradually replace the lighter thin cord wrapping the box with the thick rope.
This way, with the thick rope looped around the railing and both ends in his hands, he could pull himself up along the rope all the way to the deck.
That was the theory; reality was a showcase of creative failures.
Failed once, twice, thrice, countless times.
On another attempt after countless failures, as Ji Xun launched the balloon, he thought: If this really were a video game, once I get out of this, I’ll definitely unlock a new achievement title. How about:
#Balloon Slayer#, #He Who Kills Balloons#, or #The Man Who Walked Out from a Sea of Balloon Corpses#.
With another whoosh, Ji Xun waited for the flying balloon to drop into the ocean surface.
However, he waited for a moment, and the balloon didn’t fall. He gave the thin string in his hand a tug, and felt a hint of resistance feeding back. Ji Xun’s spirits lifted, and he hurriedly began reeling it in with utmost care. After pulling for a moment, the plastic box of binder clips finally landed into his palm.
An utterly ordinary plastic box in daily life was now pierced by the bright maritime sunlight, suddenly glittering with golden radiance and looking extraordinarily precious. Was it the ocean sunlight piercing through it? No, it was clearly the light of hope in his heart.
Ji Xun continued pulling the thin line as he mused, right until he pulled both ends of the thick rope back into his hands.
Next, he erased all traces of his presence and usage of items in the room, tied the thick rope around his waist, took a deep breath, gripped the rope, crouched on the window sill, and leaped forward!
The rope swung in mid-air, and Ji Xun swung with it.
The sea breeze blew gently, the ocean waves churned, and the maritime sun still radiated heat, dazzling his eyes.
Looking at his surroundings from this vantage point, everything seemed vast, while he alone felt minuscule. His life felt equally insignificant; right now, his sole connection to this entire world was this simple, dangling rope.
Truly like a grasshopper tied to a string, he thought. I wonder if I can hop onto the bow of the ship.
Ji Xun inhaled deeply, exerted power through both arms, and began climbing up inch by inch. Halfway up, he felt the seawater below was cold, and the sea breeze above his head was chilly too. He climbed little by little; with every inch he scaled, with every tremor he felt in his arm muscles, he recalled those nights during the past three years where he had wallowed in sleeplessness and the alcohol he had consumed.
It went to show that in this life, whatever debts you owe, you eventually have to pay back—sooner or later, it catches up to you.
The more tense a person is, the easier it is for their mind to wander. But that had its perks too; by the time Ji Xun snapped back to his senses, the exceedingly perilous climb was nearly at its end.
When Ji Xun’s red, chafed, and raw palms grabbed hold of the ice-cold railing above the deck, he let out half a sigh of relief. Gathering his remaining strength, he mustered one final push to haul his body over the railing and onto the deck.
With a soft thud, Ji Xun—now safely on the deck—relaxed completely:
It wasn’t my time to die after all. I actually made it up!
