The corridor remained quiet.
When the sound of Boss Wu’s loud shouting completely vanished under Mr. Liu’s threat, the corridor fell silent for quite some time. Nothing was left except the cold wind blowing in from outside the ship, rustling back and forth through the hallway.
It was a bit cold.
The bodyguards walking back and forth couldn’t help thinking this, but Mr. Liu sat right in the middle of the corridor with his eyes closed to rest his mind, motionless and steady as Mount Tai. Seeing him like this, their somewhat agitated hearts settled down accordingly.
A method to contact the outside world had already been found.
As long as they waited for the wind and rain outside to stop, they would be able to get in touch with rescue.
When that time came, this ship—everything—would return to the proper track.
They only needed to wait through one more dark night to reach the dawn.
At this moment, suddenly, a light “Zzz—” chimed out.
The sound wasn’t loud, but in the silent corridor, it was no different from a sudden clap of thunder.
Mr. Liu, who had been resting with his eyes closed, snapped his eyes open.
His gaze shot toward the direction of the sound—Abang’s waist-mounted walkie-talkie. That “zzz” was precisely the sound of electric current passing through. Following that, a voice came through the walkie-talkie: “Brother Bang? Is Brother Bang there?”
“Here!” Abang’s reaction wasn’t slow either. He immediately picked up the walkie-talkie and barked softly, “We can talk now? What’s the situation down there?”
“Everything is fine down below, but the passageway is broken and we can’t come up. The signal somehow—”
However, just as suddenly, the voice came to an abrupt halt, and the walkie-talkie turned back into a block of dark, cold scrap metal once again.
Abang didn’t give up, shouting into the walkie-talkie a few more times until Mr. Liu spoke up.
“Enough.”
“Mr. Liu, how did the signal suddenly appear and then suddenly disappear…” Abang asked the question that was on everyone’s mind right now.
Mr. Liu took off his monocle, held it in his hand, and wiped it with a handkerchief.
Without the concealment of the lens, his motionless glass eye became distinctly clear and horrific.
He wiped it slowly, thoughts gradually forming in his mind:
A signal jammer.
The killer had turned the signal jammer on, and then turned it off again.
Why?
To send a message to the outside world.
Someone had sent a message to the outside world during that brief moment just now.
Who was it?
The killer? The Ghost?
Previously, he had always assumed the Ghost and the killer were working together, but the Ghost had obtained Ah Tang’s gun and phone long ago. If they were accomplices, they could have turned off the jammer and contacted the outside world anytime and anywhere they wanted.
Why wait until now to turn off the jammer and make contact?
Especially considering those two earlier gunshots! Piercing! Abrupt!
At this point, rather than believing the Ghost and the killer were in league with each other, it made more sense to think that the Ghost and the killer were independent entities. The Ghost had fired two shots in succession tonight precisely to search for the killer while everyone was locked in their rooms individually… and thereby learn the location of the signal jammer.
But how did the Ghost know who the killer was? Did the killer give the Ghost a clue, or did the Ghost witness the killer commit a murder?
If it was the latter, the Ghost could have directly approached the killer and threatened them—but what were those subsequent two gunshots about?
If it was the former, the Ghost and the killer did not know each other, which meant they inevitably lacked mutual trust. If the killer had extended an olive branch, the Ghost would also have had to show sincerity to obtain the signal jammer’s location…
Either way, those two gunshots were of paramount importance.
Having figured out the cause and effect, Mr. Liu stood up from his seat and commanded Abang: “Have the Ponytail Boss open the door.”
Although he hadn’t quite followed Mr. Liu’s train of thought, Abang executed the command to the letter. He stepped forward and knocked on the door: “Ponytail Boss, please open the door.”
“My leg is injured… injured…” From inside came the Ponytail Boss’s desperate groans. “How can I open the door! You tell me… how do I open the door!”
Abang turned back to look at Mr. Liu.
Mr. Liu spoke again: “Go to Boss Wu’s place.”
Thus, the bodyguards moved in a grand procession from the front of the Ponytail Boss’s door to Boss Wu’s door.
It was still Abang who knocked: “Boss Wu, please open the door.”
However, there was no sound from inside the room.
Abang continued to knock: “Boss Wu, open the door.”
Still, there was no sound from inside.
Mr. Liu raised his voice: “Old Wu, don’t throw a tantrum. Open the door; I have important matters to discuss with you.”
There was still no sound from inside the room.
Mr. Liu slowly stepped back a pace and made a gesture. The bodyguards understood instantly.
Mr. Liu meant to shoot directly inside through the door!
Except for Boss Wu’s bodyguard, Xiao Han, the rest of the bodyguards didn’t hesitate much. They raised their firearms together with Abang and fired a round of shots directly at the door!
After a sound resembling a swarm of darts slicing through the air, there was still no movement inside—only a door shot full of holes standing right before everyone’s eyes.
The lock had already been loosened during the volley just now.
However, the doors on this ship were of high quality. It took several men working together, slamming into it multiple times and spending a good deal of time, before they managed to force the door open.
The men surged inside with guns at the ready, but there was no sign of Boss Wu inside the room—only a shattered glass door.
Was Boss Wu dead? But where was the body?
Had the Ghost kidnapped Boss Wu? Why?
Just as everyone was harboring various speculations, Xiao Han cried out: “The bathroom door—”
The bathroom door was shut.
Listening closely against the door, there was a muffled whimpering sound coming from inside…
Abang followed the same method, kicking the bathroom door open once more. This time, looking in through the wide-open bathroom door, they finally saw Boss Wu bound and placed inside the bathtub, his mouth stuffed tightly as well.
Boss Wu was still alive.
The bathroom, which could be taken in at a single glance, had no space where anyone could hide.
Mr. Liu was the first to step inside, pulling out the towel stuffed in Boss Wu’s mouth.
The moment his tongue regained its freedom, Boss Wu screamed at Mr. Liu in a high pitch: “Liu Yan, you motherfucking dumbass, fuck your ancestors for eighteen generations—”
“Enough!” Mr. Liu barked sharply. “Get to the main point!”
“The main point is that I’m motherfucking—!!”
“They have already turned off the jammer and contacted the outside world!”
“I—” Boss Wu felt a sudden surge of oxygen deprivation in his mind.
“Which means,” Mr. Liu continued coldly, “if we don’t hurry up, we’re going to be trapped like turtles in a jar. So, what did you see? Why did the Ghost spare you?”
Fear indeed brought clarity.
“I, I…” Boss Wu closed his eyes, reluctantly regaining his senses from his wild fury. “You don’t suspect me, do you?”
“Whether I suspect you or not depends on your upcoming statement.”
“You dumb son of a…” Boss Wu’s curses subsided at the cold, raised silver handgun in Mr. Liu’s grip. “Fuck, just when you thought I was making a racket to call Xiao Han back, those Ghosts were standing right outside the glass waiting! The moment you lost your patience and shouted at me to shut up or you’d shoot, they barged in!!”
“Those… ‘they’?” Mr. Liu filtered out all the unimportant details and seized upon the only crucial point. “There are two Ghosts?”
“YES!!!” Boss Wu shouted with all his remaining strength. “One I don’t know, and the other is Boss Zhou! You checked every single person—you fucking checked jack shit! The Ghost was fucking swaying right under your nose the entire day!”
Boss Zhou.
That face.
Boss Zhou was… introduced from above!
“What did they want with you?” Mr. Liu’s voice lowered. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
“They wanted to learn about what happened 40 years ago from me. They had a diary containing the things we wrote in the past. Holding that notebook, they questioned me against it.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Liu was silent for a moment. “And then?”
“And then, I told them everything.” Boss Wu said, “It doesn’t matter as long as we kill them all, right?”
“Then why didn’t they kill you?”
“I begged for mercy.”
Mr. Liu stared quietly at Boss Wu.
However, Boss Wu didn’t know why he was still sitting here completely in one piece either. All he could tell was this much.
A moment later, Mr. Liu withdrew his gaze and murmured, “Perhaps… I know why.”
Then, he waved his hand toward the back.
“Untie Boss Wu. Boss Wu will move together with us from now on.”
Mr. Liu didn’t give Boss Wu much time to adjust.
After Xiao Han untied Boss Wu, although Boss Wu’s blood circulation wasn’t fully restored yet, Mr. Liu was already instructing Xiao Han to support Boss Wu up and follow them.
In this moment of crisis, perhaps only Mr. Liu’s side was safe.
Grit-toothed, Boss Wu endured the piercing pain in his lower body and followed behind Mr. Liu.
Mr. Liu stopped paying attention to the corridor and led the group of bodyguards straight downstairs.
“Sir, where are we going?” Abang asked.
“To the deck,” Mr. Liu replied.
“The rain outside is still very heavy right now…” Abang glanced outside and said.
“Going out isn’t to contact the outside world,” Mr. Liu said briefly. “Going out is to shout down to the area beneath the deck, so the bodyguards down there can climb up along the rope ladder from outside the windows.”
“…” Abang was temporarily stunned.
He really wanted to ask: Has the situation truly reached this point?
However, considering that the Ghost had already made contact with the outside world, perhaps it was indeed necessary to take precautions—and also conduct a full-ship search to catch the Ghost and reclaim their lost dignity.
The crowd retraced the path they had just come up by, heading down once again.
While walking on the spiral staircase in the central hall, Mr. Liu said, “Stay alert.”
Everyone maintained their vigilance. The bodyguards dispersed around them, tightly encircling Mr. Liu and Boss Wu in the center. One group watched the movements above while another group monitored the movements below. Proceeding in an orderly fashion, the group quickly traversed the staircase, arrived on the first floor, and entered the corridor.
Not a single trace of movement.
It was exceptionally safe the entire way.
Instead, Mr. Liu found it somewhat unexpected.
By his judgment, the noise from forcing open the room door and Boss Wu’s loud shouting should have alerted the Ghost. The Ghost would likely take some action, and the best place to ambush them while being able to come and go freely was undoubtedly the central hall.
He hadn’t expected that the Ghost had no intention of ambushing them at all.
Could it be that the central hall was not the location chosen by the Ghost for an ambush?
They entered the corridor. On both sides were the monitoring room, the kitchen, the cold storage, the security checkpoint, and the storage room.
The doors to these rooms were not closed; most were left ajar with lights inside. Looking in from the outside, one could see the destroyed ruins left behind after being wrecked into pieces.
Mr. Liu still signaled everyone to stay alert.
The crowd didn’t relax either.
Holding their guns, they kept an eye on any location from which someone might rush out of the rooms… But even when they walked through this entire corridor and arrived before the two doors leading to the deck, no one appeared.
The Ghost truly seemed like a ghost—an intangible, invisible spirit.
The kind of ghost that made one doubt whether it actually existed.
Regardless, reaching this point had already accomplished more than half of their goal.
At this moment, at the entrance, the rain gear Mr. Liu had left here earlier was still piled up—many rain ponchos and a single umbrella.
The bodyguards consciously picked up the rain ponchos and put them on. Mr. Liu took the only umbrella. Unwilling as Boss Wu was, he could only use a rain poncho like the bodyguards.
However, the accident happened just like that.
As Mr. Liu raised his hand to open the umbrella, a shower of powder hidden inside the umbrella poured down directly onto his face, spilling into his eyes. A sharp pain instantly struck Mr. Liu’s brain. With a tragic cry, Mr. Liu flung the umbrella away:
“My eyes!”
“Mr. Liu!”
The bodyguards turned to look at their employer all at the same time.
It was also at this precise moment that the two heavy doors were kicked shut violently from the outside. The heavy door panels slammed into the bodyguards standing farther out, sending their heads spinning in a daze.
Immediately after, a clattering sound of iron hitting iron rang out. When the dizzy bodyguards exerted their strength to push against the doors in an attempt to open them, they saw iron bars clearly through the gap of the doors—someone outside had jammed iron bars through the door handles!
“It’s an ambush!”
“The Ghost is outside!”
After two such urgent shouts, before the bodyguards could draw their guns to shoot toward the outside of the door, another voice sounded from the corridor behind them. At the same time the voice carried over, a pungent odor also wafted in…
That was… that was…
The smell of gasoline!
“Everyone, please do not act recklessly. The door in front of you is locked, the carpet under your feet is doused in oil, and I have a lit match in my hand—”
