Chapter 126: The Sea of Wandering 19
At noon, upon learning that Zhuang Ningyu’s speech function had recovered, the colleagues from the Jincheng team applauded one after another. Even the always steady Ye Jiaoyue was no exception. The Capital team, while exclaiming “So this is how you usually are,” also clapped along unwilling to be left behind. Although we don’t know if Captain Zhuang might be transferred from the south to the north in the future, we definitely won’t be the ones holding things back!
For a moment, the entire Room 103 was filled with cheerful air! Zhuang Ningyu briefly thanked everyone and said he would treat everyone to a meal after getting out, suggesting they could submit their requests on the “Walk In Walk Out” mini-program for now. The Capital team was stunned again: Your department even has a dedicated app for team meal requests?
Jincheng Team: “Ah, don’t you have one?”
Capital Team: “…In development, in development.”
And quickly shifted the topic back to work: “Do you think the mermaids will come again tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” Zhong Mu said. “They are obviously no match for the Bard. Coming in greater numbers is just sending themselves to death. Continuing a frontal assault makes no sense.”
“So the mermaid NPCs are finished?” another colleague asked.
“Not that simple,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Mermaids are everywhere in this game. And if I’m not mistaken, they have actually been following us all along, just not showing themselves anymore.”
Upon hearing this, everyone turned their eyes in unison to the porthole. The daytime sea was as calm as a piece of brocade studded with gold threads. Green waves rippled, blue and light swaying and blending. White water birds, white spray, and white clouds showed no shadow of any evil creatures.
“Following us?”
“The ship’s draft is noticeably deeper than the previous two days, so either there’s something on the ship or something under it,” Zhuang Ningyu explained. “Considering the ship’s speed has actually increased despite the deeper draft, I lean towards the mermaid clan clinging to the bottom of the ship, acting as motors and guiding the course. They want to take us somewhere. Let’s send a probe down to check.”
Qing Gang agreed and fished out a dark blue camouflaged underwater probe from his backpack. The round machine slowly sank to the seabed, and the footage was transmitted to the computer screen in real-time.
This sea area didn’t look suitable for fish growth. Many particles suspended in the water body. At first, it was just a bit murky, but later, it gradually turned into thick mud soup. Sunlight was quickly swallowed by depth. Under night vision, the sea presented an apocalyptic gray-yellow color. Soon, something messy like a black garbage bag appeared in the lens, drifting with the water waves.
Mermaid hair.
Although mentally prepared, when the underwater probe aimed the camera at the ship’s bottom, everyone gathered in front of the computer still broke out in goosebumps. Densely packed mermaids were currently adsorbed on the hull like barnacles, guiding the ship forward. Their skin, soaked in seawater, was pale and swollen like drowning victims. Although they could be counted as living creatures, they showed no signs of life, only highly visually polluting copies.
Ye Jiaoyue touched the inner pocket through her jacket and took out her role card. Zhuang Ningyu caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye and asked, “Hot?”
“No,” Ye Jiaoyue answered. “Cold.”
Or simply icy. Rubbing fingers on it created the sticky illusion of touching a popsicle in winter, and all the writing had disappeared. Based on everyone’s experience recently, the card becoming hot meant new guidance was about to appear, while the card becoming icy… Zhuang Ningyu looked at Yi Ke: “Can you know why?”
Yi Ke had already skimmed through most of the “Wandering Kingship” game materials. He recalled those flashy skills and didn’t find descriptions of cards turning hot or cold, but the King had the power to exercise [Winter Seal].
[Winter Seal] My King decides to seal the ominous prophecy to avoid disturbing people’s hearts.
“Duration of the seal?”
“Maximum 24 hours. The sealed prophecy will not appear again after the seal is lifted. This skill has no cooldown and can be used continuously, but each use consumes a ‘Winter Seal’ item card.”
Ye Jiaoyue’s role was the Prophet. Only one line of text had appeared on her role card so far: “When the gods need sacrifice, the hand of the King holding the scepter will be steadier than the executioner’s,” indicating her prophecy was not subject to the King’s authority.
Within twenty-four hours, Zhuang Ningyu looked at the pale fish swarm on the screen, thinking, what will happen?
The mermaid clan’s active time was at midnight.
Sticky bubbles floated gently upward in the black-blue seawater, rising and falling with the waves, emitting a soapy light.
Thud, thud! Two muffled sounds came from a hidden cabin. The fishy wind drilled in through the window gap, making the coarse white cloth covering it rustle. A thick fish tail drilled out of the porthole and silently dove back into the deep sea. At the same time, a new line appeared on Fu Dong’s King card—
“The Prophet defied the King’s will,
The deep-sea allies then followed the decree,
Delivering the gift safely,
The power of prophecy will shift from the old to the new tonight,
From now on, no rebellious words will be heard by the monarch!”
Thud, thud! The strange muffled sounds continued.
A small camera flattened itself like a spider and crawled in through the door gap. The high-definition night vision device could clearly transmit the indoor scene without auxiliary lighting. This was a utility room at the bottom of the ship. Just now, two mermaids sneakily crawled in through the broken porthole, carrying a heavy object wrapped in white cloth on their shoulders, appearing to be about the height of two people. At this moment, this heavy object was standing alone in the center of the room, and the “thud thud” sound was the noise of “IT” moving left and right.
Qing Gang: “What the hell is that?”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Looking at the exposed base below, it should be a statue.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the dripping wet white cloth was shaken off. It was indeed a statue, a pure white and delicate statue, back facing the camera. The body lines flowed smoothly, gender indistinguishable. From shoulder to waist to hip, everything tapered proportionately and simply. The skin texture was like cold moonlight flowing in the forest, possessing a beauty beyond gender—so beautiful that one was reluctant to look away, so beautiful that it was hard to associate IT with the filthy mermaid swarm.
Qing Gang held his breath and watched for a while, suddenly blurting out: “Is it possible that IT was kidnapped by mermaids?”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t even turn his head, directly pressing the protective wristband on his wrist.
Beep— Mental pollution cleared to zero.
Sobered up, Qing Gang: “…Sorry Captain Zhuang, I embarrassed the Jincheng team!”
“Not embarrassing. Absolute beauty itself carries oppression and aggression. I didn’t remind you beforehand,” Zhuang Ningyu comforted casually, his gaze still on the screen. The statue was currently turning toward the door at a neither fast nor slow speed. The profile still showed no gender, or rather, TA had no gender. Those folds of fabric draping over the chest were there so the viewer’s gaze would land on beauty, not sex.
Yi Ke was also watching the statue on the screen. When that breathtakingly beautiful face, holy enough to cause palpitations, revealed about two-thirds of itself, he finally couldn’t help frowning. Meanwhile, the protective wristbands on the action team members’ wrists were flashing fast like glow sticks at a concert; the value was about to exceed 500, reaching the “Severe” level!
“What’s the situation?” Du Bai stretched his neck wanting to observe carefully, but Yi Ke pulled him back.
“It’s the Goddess of Beauty of this sea, Seransha,” Yi Ke warned. “Don’t get too close.”
“Any skills?”
“No skills, just beauty, pure beauty.”
“Then why is there such severe mental pollution?”
“Because,” Yi Ke stared at the halo floating around the sculpture—it wasn’t actually a halo; a closer look revealed a layer of transparent, sticky film—”This isn’t Seransha herself, but a marine monster secretly parasitic inside Seransha’s statue because it covets the god’s beauty: the Jellyfish Ghost.”
[Jellyfish Ghost] No specific form, can parasitize any object and replace the original host in a very short time.
“No specific form, then how to deal with it?” Ye Jiaoyue asked. “Can your poetry anthology hit it?”
“No, the Jellyfish Ghost can only be destroyed mentally.”
“Method?”
“Let it see the real Seransha.”
In the setting, because the Jellyfish Ghost had possessed Seransha’s statue for a long time, it hallucinated that it was Seransha. It considered itself the Goddess of Beauty all day long. Even though its main body could flow freely with seawater, it insisted on laboriously moving forward encased in the heavy white statue. All those attempting to tell it the truth were eventually parasitized, devoured, and then discarded by it. The corpses of the outspoken floated with the giant waves; since then, truth was hard to find.
“The only thing that can restrain it is Seransha. When making eye contact with the real Seransha, it will die of shame,” Yi Ke repeated. “However, the Jellyfish Ghost’s parasitism has conditions. As long as you don’t look directly into its eyes, your body won’t be occupied. Also, it can only move at night; once the sun appears, the ghost will disappear.”
While speaking, a mass of semi-transparent bubble-like substance completely peeled off from the statue. It shaped itself into a humanoid form, dragging two thin, twisted legs, floating out from the door gap.
“How to summon Seransha?” Zhong Mu glanced at the wall clock. 2:30 AM. At least three hours before sunrise. Could it be they had to dodge everywhere wearing sunglasses during this time?
“Seransha cannot be summoned,” Yi Ke said. “In this game, TA is always just a legend, a symbol, a sign. No one has ever been lucky enough to see TA.”
“Then we’re done for.” Du Bai looked at the ghost floating this way in the corridor. “Without Seransha, isn’t this sister… or brother, or whatever, an invincible existence? Although not looking directly causes no harm, it’s disgusting.”
“It is harmful,” Yi Ke corrected. “Although the Jellyfish Ghost itself cannot hurt people through non-parasitic means, it has long used Seransha’s appearance to bewitch the Sailor Skeletons who died at sea. Sailor Skeletons will help it control the host and pry open the host’s eyes. They will also chop people with axes, but we can also chop them with axes; this point is better than mermaids.”
“Let’s go to the deck,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “If we really have to hack at each other, we need an open space.”
The Jellyfish Ghost indeed followed everyone’s footsteps, floating to the deck together. Without making eye contact with it, the mental pollution index of the surrounding environment dropped linearly. Cold, salty wind blew against their faces. Several dark spherical objects were vaguely floating on the sea surface. Suddenly, a blinding light shot down from the ship, and the spherical objects immediately retracted their sharp teeth exposed in gloating smiles, plunging into the seabed with a “splash”—it was a few mermaids watching the show.
The Jellyfish Ghost’s body floated back and forth on the deck, invisible hands gently stroking the shoulders of action team members. It didn’t make eye contact with everyone but headed straight for Ye Jiaoyue with a clear goal. First approaching quietly from behind, then abruptly stretching its neck, the long neck topped with a head circled around to Ye Jiaoyue’s face with a “swish,” almost nose to nose!
It wanted to possess the Prophet.
Ye Jiaoyue was prepared; the Jellyfish Ghost didn’t succeed. Soon, “clack clack” sounds arose around them. Gray-black skeletal claws hooked onto the ship’s rail. A moment later, a broken skull slowly emerged, black eye sockets filled with mud and sand. Climbing further up, strips of kelp hung between the ribs.
Qing Gang: “I’m never eating kelp again.”
Zhong Mu pulled the trigger, the laser cutting the kelp in two.
“Roar—” An empty, leaky sound came from the mandible that was about to fall off.
“These skeletons will reassemble,” Zhong Mu reminded colleagues. Broken bones falling on the deck would eject themselves, find other connectable parts, and then form a new Sailor Skeleton.
The poetry anthology and excerpt notebook had no advantage in this battle because the Jellyfish Ghost couldn’t be hit, and the connections between Sailor Skeleton bones were too brittle. A light touch from a poem would cause them to scatter into a pile with a “clatter,” then reassemble within three seconds.
Complete bones reassembled quickly, while shattered bones took longer to connect. So the most direct way to deal with them was to smash the bones into unjoinable fragments. Qing Gang raised the axe he just snatched from a Sailor Skeleton, chopping “clang clang clang” on the metal deck, deeply understanding what “not deadly but disgusting” meant. The two monsters appearing tonight had low attack power but were purely annoying.
Ye Jiaoyue turned her head, dodging the Jellyfish Ghost’s suddenly widening eyes five centimeters away again. Taking the opportunity, she threw the axe in her hand, instantly breaking two skeletal claws reaching for her.
“Captain Zhuang,” Fan Xiaoying lay by the ship’s rail, “More and more skeletons!”
Bones collided in the seawater with “clang clang” sounds. Qing Gang wiped seawater from his face, lamenting that blob of jelly was really good at swindling, and there were really many gullible monsters in the sea.
“Captain Ye!” Zhong Mu raised her hand and fired, shattering two skeletons pressing on her captain. Ye Jiaoyue rolled on the ground and stood up, agilely dodging the gaze. The Jellyfish Ghost’s sneak attack failed again. Seeming somewhat angry from shame, it floated in place for two circles. Seeing Ye Jiaoyue already protected in the middle by several action team members, its mass of squishy eyes rolled twice, then suddenly flew straight out of its head, braking quickly in front of Du Bai guarding the perimeter!
No one knew this thing could eject itself. Du Bai couldn’t dodge in time, his body stiffening for an instant! At the critical moment, a silver bullet shot from a distance, accurately piercing through two eyeballs. Although it couldn’t cause substantial damage, it made the “gaze” shake for a moment. Even a split second was enough for the well-trained Du Bai to regain his sanity.
Yi Ke put down the smoking gun and turned to look into the depths of the ocean. Under the blood moon, the same scene as the previous days played out, but the protagonists changed from mermaids to Sailor Skeletons.
“Does this game only have human wave tactics?” Alice gasped heavily, glancing at the time; less than an hour had passed.
Lasting through tonight wasn’t difficult, but if this thing came every day… Alice clenched her teeth, having no time to think more, raising her hand to chop two more skeletons.
The Jellyfish Ghost, however, had changed tactics. Although it preferred maintaining an elegant and beautiful posture, waiting for those stupid sailors to open the host’s eyes for it, now, seeing the deck almost covered with filthy bone powder, it had to curl its body back into a ball, and then—
Pop pop pop pop. With a series of dense sounds, countless semi-transparent objects the size of ping-pong balls detached from the main body. A closer look revealed they were all eyes! Using its ability to create its body arbitrarily since it had no specific form, it pinched out nearly a hundred pairs of eyes!
“Watch out!” Zhuang Ningyu shouted a warning!
In just a few seconds, every action team member was surrounded by at least five pairs of eyes, and Ye Jiaoyue was encircled without dead angles. Dodging gaze was no longer useful because no matter which direction one looked, one might see a pair of eyes.
“Close your eyes, everyone!” Ye Jiaoyue ordered!
Vision was completely blocked. Fortunately, fighting blindfolded was a routine training item in school. After closing their eyes, everyone immediately dispersed to different directions tacitly to avoid accidentally injuring companions.
Although the situation wasn’t completely out of control, if this continued, everyone would consume a lot of stamina even if uninjured. Zhuang Ningyu cleared the monsters beside him, turned his head to the left, and saw Yi Ke also looking at him.
In the next moment, an eyeball teleported over, and Yi Ke had to close his eyes again.
Two hours until dawn.
Fu Dong and Song Qiaowei stood in the shadows, watching the chaotic situation on the deck. The ghosts and skeletons didn’t harm the King and Queen, perhaps because the two had become “loyal allies” of the mermaid clan. A round skeleton rolled over; Song Qiaowei frowned in disgust and kicked it back.
The skeleton quickly found its own limbs and stood up again.
A rare look of relaxation appeared on Fu Dong’s face, an expression of superiority unique to those in power that Song Qiaowei was familiar with. The King and Queen were slowly breaking free from the predicament of useless cards, gradually becoming masters of the situation with tangible power.
Alice slipped and stumbled forward; a skeleton seized the chance to press down on her.
Du Bai’s arm was also injured.
Qing Gang threw away the axe and punched through the chest of the skeleton in front of him with bare hands.
Ye Jiaoyue was in the most difficult situation among all. The Jellyfish Ghost stuck closely to her eyes, waiting for a chance to possess, while a new batch of sailors, bewitched by the ghost, had climbed over the ship’s rail!
Ye Jiaoyue wiped the blood from her face, grabbed a skeleton hanging on her back backhanded, and threw it forward in mid-air. “Crack crack” shattering sounds came, but soon, connecting sounds followed.
“Captain Ye!” Zhong Mu swept away the eyeball in front of her, raising her gun to help, but a white figure had already flown past at extremely high speed in the wind and rain!
Bang bang bang! Sailor skeletons along the way were constantly knocked aside. Zhuang Ningyu pulled up Ye Jiaoyue, pushing her to the other side of the deck. He ignored the loose eyeballs floating around him, raised his head, and used his cold eyes to directly meet the chaotic eyeballs embedded in the Jellyfish Ghost’s main body!
The God of Beauty descends in person.
The ghost was terrified, covering its face with both hands, emitting hysterical screams of breakdown!
Seransha—
Brilliant light penetrated the despicable shadow. The mimic’s semi-transparent body cracked piece by piece, shattering into the fierce wind with a crash!
Accompanying its death from shame, the Sailor Skeletons also turned into scattered bones, washed away without a trace by huge waves.
Zhuang Ningyu breathed a sigh of relief, stood in place for a few seconds, then turned to look at Yi Ke.
Yi Ke leaned on the railing, lifting his eyelids: Heh.
Zhuang Ningyu: “…”
As for the other team members, they all looked confused. What happened?
“Didn’t you say that ghost only dies of shame when seeing the Goddess of Beauty, what’s-her-name Se?” Du Bai asked in shock. “Why did it explode seeing Captain Zhuang?”
Qing Gang slapped his thigh: “I wanted to say it just now. Didn’t you guys feel that statue actually looks a bit like Captain Zhuang?”
The others: “Really?”
Yes.
At first glance of the statue, Yi Ke actually discovered a clue. That face he kissed many times every night before sleep, no matter in what form it appeared, no matter if artistically processed, he could spot the hidden basic features at a glance. Zhuang Ningyu didn’t realize it initially, only having a flash of insight halfway through the fight.
“Maybe coincidence, probably.” Zhuang Ningyu really didn’t want the names of the Goddess of Beauty, himself, and Fu Han to appear together in the analysis report. In fact, his stomach was starting to hurt now. So he waved his hand feebly: Go back and rest first; talk tomorrow if anything.
Qing Gang continued chattering while walking: “Did you guys really not notice? That statue really looks like Captain Zhuang!”
Zhuang Ningyu, trailing at the end of the line, raised his hand to cover half his face and rubbed vigorously.
Yi Ke led him back to Room 102 and closed the door backhanded: “Shower first.”
The fewer words, the bigger the matter. Zhuang Ningyu knew this principle well. The water flow from the showerhead was a bit small, trickling sparsely, and not very hot. So Yi Ke pulled the person closer into his arms to prevent catching a cold, and helped rinse the foam from his head.
Whether he was angry was evident. After all, usually when Comrade Xiao Yi washed his wife’s hair, he would kiss first before reminding him to close his eyes and lower his head, and his technique was very gentle. Zhuang Ningyu lowered his eyes in the mist, watched for a while, then reached out to touch, but Yi Ke slapped his hand away: “Not allowed.”
Zhuang Ningyu cupped his face with both hands, rubbed up and down, asking with an innocent face: “You’re not really angry because of that sculpture, are you?”
