Chapter 135: The Sea of Wandering 28
Torrential rain poured down, beating the sea surface into countless patches of white foam. The whole world was churning, which made the black vortex hovering motionlessly in the air look particularly peculiar and eerie.
Fan Xiaoying’s item card could create a black abyss, but judging by Zhuang Ningyu’s current situation, the vortex beneath him likely had nothing to do with Fan Xiaoying’s design. Just a moment before sliding into the deep sea, he gritted his teeth and, relying on the explosive power of one arm, inched a few centimeters up the railing. The fierce wind swept through, and the cold, acidic rain slapped directly onto his face, making his complexion appear exceptionally pale. A layer of white fog quickly clouded his goggles. Zhuang Ningyu lifted his other arm, wanting to take the goggles off, but his shoulder joint was restricted, causing him to frown in pain.
The waves continued to slap against the broken hull one after another, roaring in anger. The freezing seawater made Zhuang Ningyu shiver uncontrollably. His black hair was plastered messily against the side of his face, and his stiff fingers finally began to slip, bit by bit. None of his teammates were by his side; Yi Ke wasn’t there either. The entire sea area was wrapped in a thick white mist, and visibility was less than five meters.
In an instant, the wind grew even stronger, yet the white mist continued to gather and condense. Instead of being blown away, it grew thicker and thicker. The temperature plummeted, and extreme cold set in. Zhuang Ningyu’s eyelashes were soon coated with a layer of white ice crystals, and his frozen hands could no longer exert any strength.
He was sliding toward the unknown abyss.
BOOM! A loud noise suddenly rang out!
Accompanying the loud noise were a dozen modified rescue speedboats breaking through the waves. The two overseas private rescue teams that had entered the Rule Zone earlier and gone missing for days finally reappeared. Their motors roared, shredding the sound of the wind, as they braked steadily five meters away from the vortex. Two rescue ropes equipped with steel claws were immediately thrown from the speedboats—clang, clang—firmly latching onto the half-section of the ship where Zhuang Ningyu was!
The rescue team members skillfully grabbed the ropes, preparing to slide over to save him. However, they saw Zhuang Ningyu merely glance in their direction from afar, then use his single arm to pull himself up effortlessly, flipping onto the deck and quickly running in the other direction.
All of this happened extremely fast. The rescue team members watched Zhuang Ningyu’s back disappear into the white mist, their expressions a mixture of shock and confusion. After a long while, one of them spoke into his communicator: “Tell your BOSS that he might have been tricked.”
In another part of the white mist world, Fu Dong had also been driven to desperation by a strange abyss. Even though he tried countless times to trade various item cards for his safety, the merfolk refused to disperse. Their expressions were ferocious, their blood-streaked sharp teeth bared outside their lips, and the air was suffocatingly foul.
“Princess!” The merfolk opened their huge mouths, letting out roars from hell!
“Princess!” The red spirits inside the swaddling clothes screamed along with them. The infants’ voices had a peculiar, piercing pitch, as if capable of penetrating eardrums and reaching straight into the brain!
“Princess!” The Sea God’s devoured spiritual body bizarrely appeared in mid-air as well, his black eye sockets filled with blue tears of blood.
“Princess!”
“Princess!”
“Princess!”
Only this one sound remained in all directions. Fu Dong breathed rapidly. He was standing on half a broken ship, his feet slipping, arms hugging the mast, vision blurred, teetering on the edge of collapse!
His facial features were in agonizing pain, seawater flooded his nasal membranes, his eyeballs were bloodshot and swollen, and his brain fell into extreme chaos brought on by panic. Above was the weeping Sea God; around him were dancing spirits; below were the ferocious merfolk. The giant waves roared like mountains crashing. Death was coming in the next second—no, perhaps in this very second!
Fu Dong’s eyes nearly split open as he looked at the body bobbing in the waves. It was wearing a familiar high-end suit, but the face had been gnawed clean by the merfolk, revealing ghastly white bone and equally ghastly white brain matter.
“Cough, cough!” He vomited violently, hugging the mast as he collapsed into a sitting position. Song Qiaowei’s “corpse” was quickly swept away by another wave, but the fear remained deeply retrenched. His lips trembled, and his emotions finally shattered. Regardless of everything, he shouted loudly toward the outside of the white mist: “Sisi is at—”
BANG! A gunshot cut off the rest of his sentence. Fu Dong’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Blood gushed from the hole in the center of his forehead, and the world turned red.
The storm receded in an instant. Or rather, there never was a real storm, no merfolk, no Sea God, no spirits, and naturally, no corpse of Song Qiaowei.
When the world returned to calm, the Princess’s item card in Qing Gang’s hand was still slightly warm.
[Realm of Illusion] The palace is filled with hypocritical lies, so the unloved Princess eventually learned master-level disguise.
And Zhong Mu, as the Minister who secretly assisted the Princess, held an item card capable of creating thick white mist to block all true vision, helping the Princess achieve her goals. She and Qing Gang had partnered on nearly a hundred missions before this and shared a tacit understanding that required almost no words. This time was no different; with only a brief adjustment period, they skillfully created the white mist illusion, successfully deceiving the arrogant yet cowardly King.
In the new data sent by the investigation team, it turned out that Fu Siheng was not Fu Dong and Song Qiaowei’s biological son. Their real child was someone else—a daughter, who had been hidden away for unknown reasons since birth. Fu Siheng, raised with high-profile spoiling by the whole family, was merely a substitute for the real Princess.
After reading this, Zhuang Ningyu instantly understood the merfolk’s cries for the “Princess” and their angry accusations of “Liar” in the game. The King had made a covenant with the merfolk under the Sea God’s witness, promising to give the Princess to them. Who knew that the couple would later hide the real Princess and try to pass off a fake one? The merfolk were enraged, coming to the door to demand the King honor his promise and hand over the real Princess.
This was the secret of the Kingdom!
After Qing Gang and Zhong Mu’s item cards appeared, Zhuang Ningyu, following a brief discussion with Ye Jiaoyue, decided on this test. The clever Princess and the Minister combined forces to create a crisis illusion, separating the King and Queen into different hallucinations. Human nature faced a direct challenge. At the intersection of life and death, the Queen never spoke, but the King chose to surrender to the opponent.
The person who fired the gun was Song Qiaowei.
The Queen held one last item card: [Eye of Insight]. The Queen, who had raised the Princess from childhood, knew all of the Princess’s little tricks, including the illusions she took such pride in. The Queen saw through the truth hidden behind the storm and clearly watched how her husband, just a few meters away, was played for a fool, showing his ugliest side in his panic.
She didn’t tell him about the fake Princess’s little trick. Instead, just as her husband was about to surrender to Fu Han outside the game—or rather, the invisible giant behind Fu Han—she chose to pull the trigger.
Her daughter would never become a lab rat for the organization.
Even if Sisi possessed the most special constitution, even if handing over this daughter could grant her billions in benefits, she couldn’t do it.
The white mist turned into a blinding gold. The giant waves raised by the Wandering Sea enveloped all the players.
The secret was revealed, and the game ended.
In the next moment, Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke appeared in the suite of Bluebird Pavilion 2801. Returning with them were the crazed Song Qiaowei and Fu Dong’s corpse, missing half of the back of its head.
The colleagues and police who had been guarding the room immediately surrounded them. Zhuang Ningyu waved his hand, declining his assistant’s support, signaling that he was fine. His gaze fell on Fu Dong’s wound, bleached pale by seawater, and he felt a pang of regret for not assigning a person to guard each of the couple physically. The Queen being able to see through the Princess’s illusion was something he only realized abruptly after hearing the gunshot, but by then, it was too late.
“Captain Zhuang,” a team member came over to report. “Captain Ye and the others returned to the rescue ship they were on previously. Everyone is safe. They are currently sailing toward the port of Country G. The embassy has already arranged follow-up matters.”
“What about Fu Han and those two rescue teams?” Zhuang Ningyu asked.
“No trace of Fu Han. After the Rule Zone vanished, only the ‘Wanderer’ speedboat he was on when the accident happened appeared in the missing sea area. The two rescue teams did return, and it looked like they intended to sail away immediately, but they were intercepted by our joint forces with Country G’s military. They don’t seem very cooperative at the moment; the command center is negotiating with Ed Yang, preparing to have him mediate.”
Entering the Rule Zone from Point A means the return point must be Point A, so the appearance of the two rescue teams was expected.
But Fu Han didn’t appear, which could only mean he never entered the Rule Zone from that sea area in the first place.
The colleague couldn’t figure it out. “The boat is there, but the person is mysteriously missing. How did he do that?”
“It’s simple. Let’s assume Fu Han didn’t lie at the very beginning. After leaving the birthday party, he really did encounter Rule Zone A in Sea Area A. Based on the timeline and radar data, he likely cracked the rules very quickly and then rapidly replicated and iterated a ‘Game Version’ Rule Zone A+ based on the original Rule Zone A,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “After escaping from A, he only let the empty Wanderer enter the replicated A+. He himself took another boat, left the incident area, and chose a new entrance B. Just like the Fu couple, he used the connecting channel between the two Rule Zones to re-enter A+. That way, when Rule Zone A+ was cracked, his return point would be B.”
Colleague: “Whoa, that’s possible? But how did Fu Han manage to stay completely invisible inside A+?”
“It might not work in other Rule Zones, but this one is special.” A person entered from outside the door. “Its very existence was caused by a card game.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Grandpa.”
Yi Ke also called out. Zhong Pinghe patted both their arms. “Good work.”
“Not hard at all.” Yi Ke, sweet-mouthed and obedient, pulled over a leather chair. “Grandpa, sit. Did you find out the truth about the Rule Zone?”
“Pretty close,” Zhong Pinghe said. “An illegal smuggling ship once had an accident in that sea area. According to the confession of a few crew members, a dispute occurred while they were playing a card game. Because they had been drinking and emotions were high, the player who drew the King card actually hacked the player holding the Queen card to death with a knife.”
The Queen card player was a young newcomer, rootless and without background. The rest of the crew tacitly chose to cover for the ship’s boss—the King—and threw the Queen’s body into the sea, claiming it was an accidental fall.
“The Queen died unjustly, so the solution to the Rule Zone was for the King to receive justice.” The colleague understood roughly. “But I still haven’t sorted it out—what role did Fu Han play in the Rule Zone?”
“Card game. We are the cards. Fu Han is the player. Or, to be more precise, an observer in the position of a player,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Is that easier to understand?”
“I understand that, but Fu Han never showed his face throughout this game, and… there’s no evidence pointing to him being the player, right?” the colleague tentatively suggested.
Indeed, Zhuang Ningyu had only suspected it before without concrete evidence. That was why, at the last moment, he had Qing Gang create a seemingly dangerous illusion for him as well, to see if he could get an answer. As it turned out, the Princess’s brilliant illusion deceived not only the King but also the player. In the nick of time, Fu Han inevitably exposed his identity, sending the two rescue teams to break the game balance and forcibly barge in.
“The car is downstairs. Go get a checkup first, eat something, and get a good sleep,” Zhong Pinghe said. “By the way, Little He told me yesterday that there are quite a few contradictions in this Rule Zone. He might need to talk to you alone later.”
“Because there was more than one replicator behind it,” Zhuang Ningyu replied. “Besides Fu Han, there’s the Invisible Giant.” The starting points of the two sides were different, and when manifested in the same Rule Zone, contradictions arose. Moreover, based on his understanding of Fu Han, the man wouldn’t accept taking orders from the Invisible Giant like Fu Dong did. So, it was hard to say what the purpose of the current entanglement was.
After their checkups, the young couple returned to the Guanxing Building and could finally rest properly. Both sets of parents had already sent over food. Having drifted on the sea for so long, the sudden return to land left a lingering sensation of swaying beneath their feet. After showering, Zhuang Ningyu paced back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back, trying to regain the stable feeling of solid ground. Yi Ke held him steady: “Wifey, stop swaying. If you really can’t adapt, I can buy you a large-sized ‘kiddie ride’ to help you transition.”
Zhuang Ningyu’s mind immediately played the 3D surround sound of “What is Dad’s Dad Called?” from the supermarket entrance. It was even more annoying. He slapped the troublemaker away and went to the study for an online meeting. It was mainly about the research team’s business. He Mo didn’t let him stay for the whole thing; after covering the important parts, he kicked him out of the meeting room to go sleep. Zhuang Ningyu wasn’t very sleepy, so he dialed that number again. The receiver only gave a busy tone.
As expected.
“Wifey?” After a while, Yi Ke poked his head into the study. He whispered first, and seeing Zhuang Ningyu make an “OK” gesture, he brought in some freshly cut watermelon. He casually moved Zhuang’s phone aside, but inadvertently unlocked it with Face ID. Recent calls: Fu Han (22).
“…”
Zhuang Ningyu: I should have refused to let him register his face on my phone back then!
The 1.88-meter-tall handsome guy squatted at the door of the study, radiating a stubborn, 45-degree angle of sorrow from his back. Zhuang Ningyu sat at the desk, elbows propped on the table, left hand supporting his forehead. “I already said it was for work.”
“For work, you call him 22 times!” Yi Ke accused. “You’ve never called me 22 times!”
Zhuang Ningyu: “I can call you right now.”
Yi Ke: “No, a forced melon isn’t sweet.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Come here.”
Yi Ke: “I won’t!”
Then he started digging up old grievances… well, not really old, but forced grievances: “You also pretended to be in danger, acting so hard just to make him come save you, and you didn’t let me appear!”
Zhuang Ningyu: “But if I let you appear, I wouldn’t have been in danger, so how could I force Fu Han to react?”
How is my fragrant wifey so good at talking? Kiss kiss kiss. Yi Ke couldn’t suppress the corners of his mouth. He turned his head away resentfully, hugged his knees, and scooted toward the door frame. Coax me more, coax me more.
Zhuang Ningyu: “Wife—” He stopped halfway, remembering Comrade Little Yi’s sense of ritual. That title couldn’t be used for this kind of thing. So he changed tack, “—Teacher.”
Yi Ke: “?”
Yi Ke: Although I’ve always felt that teacher-student romances are highly inappropriate and even a bit immoral, who asked my wife to be a contemporary literary youth deeply addicted to this twisted, struggling, sour dynamic!
Zhuang Ningyu: “What are you doing!”
Yi Ke: “Class is in session.”
He threw his wife over his shoulder and ran toward the bedroom. Zhuang Ningyu laughed and cried at the same time: “Stop it, put me down!”
Yi Ke: “I won’t.”
The bedroom door was kicked open with a BANG. The two rolled onto the bed together. Zhuang Ningyu pointed at the clock on the wall: “It’s only four in the afternoon.”
“What’s wrong with four o’clock?” Yi Ke said self-righteously. “Grandpa said we should get a good sleep.”
Zhuang Ningyu pulled his ear: “Don’t confuse the issue. The old man can’t take the blame for this.”
“Says who? I think Grandpa is very fashionable. He could totally give guidance on our sex life and provide strategic direction, basic principles, and key focus points for the development of our relationship.” Yi Ke held his wrist. “Last time I even saw him wearing the Chanel x Pharrell collab sneakers.”
“Don’t even mention that.” Zhuang Ningyu felt a headache. “He accidentally stepped in a puddle while out working, and the only shop nearby sold fake trendy brands. The owner was unethical, cheating even an old man. He charged him 880 for a knockoff pair. Grandma scolded him for half a day when he got home.”
Yi Ke buried his head in Zhuang’s chest and laughed.
After laughing enough, he nuzzled up, whining, and lowered his head to kiss those soft lips. He kissed him tenderly over and over, coaxing, “Be good, don’t think about work. The meeting is tomorrow. Just sleep well today.”
Zhuang Ningyu filed an application: “Then can you bring my phone over?”
Yi Ke: “No!”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Okay.”
The remote-controlled curtains slowly closed, and the light in the bedroom dimmed. Yi Ke pulled the man into his arms, reaching out to skillfully massage his neck. There was no sound of waves in his ears, only his lover’s heartbeat and breathing. Zhuang Ningyu managed to close his eyes, but in his half-asleep state, he continued dreaming of drifting in the sea. Feeling uneasy, his calf kicked out violently. Yi Ke immediately held him tighter, whispering soothing words in his ear. The dream stabilized, the storm receded, and the seawater vanished. Zhuang Ningyu’s breathing gradually deepened, and he finally slept soundly. His exhaled breath was hot, very well-behaved, like a warm cat curled up in someone’s arms.
Yi Ke chuckled, kissed the soft hair, and fell asleep holding him. Although this Rule Zone had been physically exhausting, the two didn’t manage to sleep until the next morning. At around 10 PM, Zhuang Ningyu was lying on his stomach playing on his phone. Yi Ke leaned beside him, one hand massaging the small of his back, then stroking downwards.
Zhuang Ningyu: “…”
Yi Ke: What? It’s perfectly natural for a husband to touch his wife’s butt!
Although Zhuang Ningyu acknowledged this “natural law,” he didn’t want to acknowledge it under such bright lights. He pulled the hand away, forcibly moving it back to his back, asking for a massage. But Yi Ke refused. He tossed the phone aside, flipped over, and hugged the person to lecture him: “Wifey, you can’t be like this. You’re too easily shy. If this goes on, when will we ever get to act out your favorite imprisonment storylines?”
“I’m not shy. I’m just experiencing existential anxiety triggered by your bright bedroom lights; it’s a basic normal human reaction,” Zhuang Ningyu corrected him calmly. “And I don’t love any imprisonment storylines. Don’t talk nonsense.”
Yi Ke continued to press down on him: “But in those books you read often, the pages describing forced love are almost worn out from turning.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t bat an eye: “No. It’s lightweight paper. Poor quality. It tears easily.”
Yi Ke kissed his bright red ear: “It’s okay, Wifey. You don’t have to deny it. I’m very willing to cooperate.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t want to make up any more excuses: “Shut up!”
Yi Ke giggled, continuing to nuzzle his chin against the smooth back of Zhuang’s neck. On the cruise ship, his kisses had been rough, wrapping repressed lust within the intimacy. Now, back in the bedroom, he was surprisingly restrained and gentle. Zhuang Ningyu relaxed completely under his nuzzling, lying on his stomach with his face turned to the side, playing with the hand Yi Ke placed before his eyes.
“Wifey.” Yi Ke wrapped one arm around his shoulder. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” Zhuang Ningyu pushed himself up and turned over, changing into a face-to-face embrace. He rested his chin on the other’s shoulder, his legs crossing to wrap around that firm, powerful waist.
He rarely took the initiative to invite intimacy; wearing yellow banana pajamas with two buttons undone was practically his maximum limit. They kissed for a while, and feeling the atmosphere was right, Zhuang Ningyu reached out for the remote control to turn off the lights. But Yi Ke snatched it away and only dimmed them to the lowest setting.
“I want to watch.” He pinched that exquisite chin, lowering his head to bite again.
“Watch what?” Zhuang Ningyu was thrust into, his waist sinking unconsciously. Yi Ke pressed down again, his kisses landing relentlessly on Zhuang’s eyelashes, his voice husky: “Watch you cry.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “…Mm, if you need me to, I can act a little.”
Yi Ke’s movements paused slightly, and then he laughed out loud. “You won’t need to act.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Why… mph.”
Yi Ke pinned his wrists down forcefully.
The fiery kiss was like a violent storm, but hotter than the kiss was the temperature of his lover.
The beast that had been caged for so long finally broke loose, its impact filled with mad, fierce wildness.
The ceiling swayed into a blur of wet light.
He really didn’t need to act.
In the latter half of the night, Yi Ke kissed the ear of the person in his arms and said, “Baby, the pillow is wet from your crying.”
Zhuang Ningyu took small breaths, completely unable to speak. A moment later, cool liquid was fed into his mouth. He swallowed with difficulty, mechanically. Water ran down his chest, which was covered in red marks. Yi Ke tossed the cup aside and lowered his head to catch the drops with the tip of his tongue. Zhuang Ningyu arched his body involuntarily, drawing a soft chuckle: “So good.”
Another cup of water was fed to him. Yi Ke didn’t continue. He carried him into the bathroom, forcibly ignoring his re-ignited desire.
No choice—work tomorrow.
That’s just what a considerate good husband does.
