That’s it…!
It all makes sense now. Mr. Liu’s goal is 100% to use Chen Jiashu as a scapegoat to escape!
His “cooperation” with Chen Jiashu involves more than just his business, his shipping lanes, or his money—it involves Chen Jiashu’s life. Because only a dead man can be counted on to keep his mouth shut at the critical moment and not blab about things that could invite further trouble.
Having cleared this up, Meng Fushan felt a surge of excitement, but it cooled instantly. He began to think about the situation more methodically.
The plan Mr. Liu has laid out is undeniably venomous, but it has an unavoidable flaw… As for Chen Jiashu, if I were to go and tell him these things… No, it’s useless. Chen Jiashu wouldn’t believe me. I have no evidence to prove my deductions; all my reasoning is built upon my trust in Ji Xun.
Click.
The door behind him opened.
Meng Fushan, who had been pacing the corridor, turned around and saw Chen Jiashu’s door swing open. A woman stepped out first—Chen-Chen—followed by A-Bin. Chen Jiashu was going to rest, and A-Bin was escorting the woman out.
As the woman in the lead stepped out, her toe caught on the carpet, and she stumbled, nearly falling. A-Bin caught her arm in time to steady her.
The woman in the white dress had long, jet-black hair. Beneath that hair was a fair, petite face. Perhaps because she was on a ship and hadn’t seen the sun for a long time, her skin had a translucent quality. Beneath her cheeks and on her neck, faint blue veins were visible, like the wings of a cicada—frail and brittle.
But the owner’s appearance didn’t seem to match her temperament.
Meng Fushan watched as Chen-Chen, once steadied, yanked her arm from A-Bin’s grip without a word of thanks. With one hand pressed against the wall, she walked straight ahead. She moved with difficulty, like a blind person…
Why is every woman here blindfolded with silk? A thought surfaced from the depths of Meng Fushan’s mind, and he shuddered.
A-Bin noticed Meng Fushan, nodded faintly, and turned back inside. Chen Jiashu’s door closed again. That closing door signified a fundamental truth: who is one of “us,” and who is an “outsider.”
Everyone has their trusted ones. I trust Ji Xun; Chen Jiashu trusts A-Bin. To convince Chen Jiashu not to cooperate with Mr. Liu, I must first convince A-Bin, so A-Bin can influence him. Yet, A-Bin is merely a shield without a mind of his own. How could a shield influence its master?
Chen-Chen navigated the corridor. Her fingers pressed against the wall, tracing the path she had felt every day for months and years. She knew the positions of the frames and animal heads on the walls by heart. No matter how the decor changed, it would no longer cut her fingers or trip her feet like it did at the beginning.
She walked skillfully down the path she had taken countless times, entered the elevator, and pressed the button. This was the third floor, where the VIPs stayed—spacious rooms with sunlight and gentle breezes. They were brought here often, but this would never be their place.
Their place was on the B1 level. It was a cramped space below the deck, a place that had windows, yet the windows were never placed in their rooms. It was as if, once blind, a person no longer needed the sun.
She felt her way downward, walking the path she trod every day, until she reached below deck. The artificial ventilation always made the air here stagnant and oppressive, compelling the people who lived here to move upward—to move upward at any cost, to breathe fresh air, to hear the waves hitting the hull… so they would know where they were.
As she walked, she was suddenly yanked to the side by a great force.
She did not resist, even though sharp fingernails pricked her arm painfully. She already knew someone was beside her. Human senses are balanced; once vision is impaired, hearing, smell, and touch become incredibly heightened. She heard the heavy breathing beside her and smelled a familiar scent.
Mi Mi, Chen-Chen thought.
Mi Mi liked to wear heavy, overpowering perfume, unlike most women here. Most people here wore scent so faint it was lonely, like rats—preferring to hug the corners and melt into the shadows rather than be noticed. Only Mi Mi was different. Her perfume was aggressive and dense; from far away, it announced her presence, and long after she had left, the scent lingered as if she were still standing right next to you.
“Chen-Chen—”
Mi Mi called out, her breath carrying a sweet, over-fermented, rotting stench. Mi Mi loved to drink and often accompanied guests in heavy bouts of booze. Over time, her mouth had developed an inescapable smell of sweet decay, like fruit that had ripened to the point of turning.
“I found a good way out,” Mi Mi said, giggling. “A kind person said he would take me away from here. This place is so boring; I’m sick of it. Do you want to come with me? I’ll talk to my kind benefactor. Bringing two beauties along shouldn’t be hard. He’s already paid the price for one, so why fear paying the price for a second?”
Is she drunk, or is she sober? Chen-Chen wondered. No, instead of thinking about that, I should ask: is she really Mi Mi?
Scents are simple; one only needs to spray the same perfume. Voices can be recorded or mimicked. Breath, physique, and gait can be faked; even the face can be covered with a hyper-realistic mask to match a silhouette. Fraud is impossible to fully guard against.
But she had a unique way of identifying a fake.
Chen-Chen touched Mi Mi’s face, tracing her neck—which was hot and pulsing with excitement—down to her chin, her nose, and then to the cloth over her eyes.
This blindfold was rarely removed, and when it was, it was rarely due to the curiosity of the guests. Those guests, perhaps sensing something, rarely touched the silk. It was as if the blindfold didn’t just cover eyes, but Pandora’s box—once opened, misfortune was sure to follow.
She untied Mi Mi’s silk strip. These strips were usually untied by themselves or by each other.
She touched Mi Mi’s eyes, tracing the lashes and lids, then her fingers pressed past these two barriers to touch the eyeball itself. The soft part was the pupil; the hard part was the sclera. When she first touched it, the eye was dry, but soon, it secreted mucus due to the intrusion of a foreign object, which wetted her fingers.
Through the moisture on her fingers, Chen-Chen finally “saw” Mi Mi’s image. In the narrow, dark field of vision, it was a distant, blurred lump of light—the only thing a blind person could see.
Mi Mi was still giggling. “Believe me now? Chen-Chen, you’re always so paranoid.”
Chen-Chen pulled her hand back. “Sister Mi Mi.”
“Since you called me sister, don’t say I don’t look out for you,” Mi Mi said. “What about my suggestion? Out of all the sisters here, I thought of you first. Tell me, come with me.”
Mi Mi’s honeyed voice carried an unmistakable allure.
“No,” Chen-Chen said.
“Why not?” Mi Mi pressed.
Chen-Chen remained silent.
“…Oh, I forgot,” Mi Mi said meaningfully after a long pause. “You still have hope. A hope you never speak of to anyone else.”
The fingernails digging into Chen-Chen’s arm pulled away. Chen-Chen heard the click-clack of high heels—the sound of Mi Mi’s retreating footsteps—but her aura lingered, the perfume burning like a fire.
Daytime on the cruise ship was incredibly dull compared to the night. Meng Fushan wandered around during the day. Aside from the floor rumored to be Mr. Liu’s office, he saw the other three levels.
The massive cruise ship had everything. All sorts of delicacies, gyms, and leisure facilities. But compared to the elaborate preparations, there were very few guests. Meng Fushan walked the entire loop and encountered fewer than ten people outside of the crew. It seemed the madness of the night before had sucked the vitality out of the guests like a demon.
It wasn’t until late afternoon that some masked men appeared, dragging their companions up to the deck to watch the sunset or entering the game rooms.
Around 6:30 PM, A-Bin found Meng Fushan, bringing Chen Jiashu’s instruction: the three of them were to head to the rotating restaurant on the second floor for dinner.
“I heard there’s an interesting activity; I was told to be there by six,” Chen Jiashu said with a frown in the elevator. “They specifically said not to bring female companions.”
It was already 6:30. This was clearly intentional; Chen Jiashu was unwilling to follow orders blindly. Though he couldn’t guess what the “activity” was, the specific warning sparked some intuitive associations.
Meng Fushan asked, “A performance?”
The men knew what kind of performance that meant. Chen Jiashu acknowledged the thought but remained noncommittal. “Too early…”
Indeed, it was just dinner. Such shows usually happened later—at nine, ten, or eleven o’clock—amidst drinks and dim lights, watching the flickering desires deep within one’s heart.
The elevator stopped. They entered the restaurant.
Mr. Liu was there, too, sitting in a corner, elegantly enjoying his meal. The food on his plate looked like a vibrant piece of art—beautiful to look at, and likely delicious. Rarely, Mr. Liu, the master of the ship, was not the center of attention.
The center of the restaurant was a giant LED screen, showing a lifestyle program. A man sat on a sofa, back to the camera, flipping through a magazine. Strangely, what kind of TV program was worth the rapt attention of these bosses?
Meng Fushan stared for a moment, then realized his oversight: it wasn’t a TV program. Another woman had entered the frame, her eyes covered by a silk blindfold. As she appeared, the man on the sofa turned around, revealing a half-mask—he was dressed exactly like the bosses on the ship!
Why were they appearing on the screen?
Chen Jiashu seemed to have the same question. He looked left and right, nodded distantly toward Mr. Liu, and chose to sit at the center of the restaurant, where the others were clustered.
A waiter brought the menu. At the top were three sets of French cuisine prepared by the master chef. Chen Jiashu picked one, passed the menu to Meng Fushan and A-Bin, and asked the waiter, “What is this? What’s playing up there?”
The waiter replied humbly, “Just a little after-dinner entertainment.”
“Or an immersive experience,” a man at a neighboring table interjected. Everyone here wore masks, and no one knew anyone else, which saved the trouble of remembering names.
“An immersive experience?” Chen Jiashu asked, intrigued.
“A live performance, a real-life set. Call it what you want,” the neighbor said. “Don’t you think the women here are too wooden? While a few are passionate, most are like dolls—an order, an action. That’s not beautiful. So, everyone came up with a way to awaken their passion. For example, falling in love. Love transforms a woman.”
“Serious?”
“Of course,” the neighbor laughed. “Like how Lily is my ‘wife’ in City A and Fangfang is my ‘wife’ in City B. That kind of serious. But this place is too unique; the love that works so well outside doesn’t work as well here. In there—” he nodded toward the screen, “—most of the time, they’re playing ‘real-life escape’.”
“Real—life—es—cape,” Chen Jiashu repeated.
“Many women want to leave, we understand that, so we give them hope…”
“Can they leave?”
It was the question Meng Fushan wanted to ask, but it didn’t come from his mouth—it was A-Bin. The usually silent A-Bin spoke up, the first time doing so without Chen Jiashu’s command. Chen Jiashu was tolerant, not scolding him, instead looking at the neighbor with the same inquisitive eyes.
“Of course not,” the neighbor replied. “Since this ship hit the water, Mr. Liu has never let any woman leave.”
The appetizers arrived. The cold dish contained no grease, but Meng Fushan, having guessed the truth from these scattered words, felt a wave of nausea rise from his stomach to his throat. It was a blockage of disgust that couldn’t be vomited out, settling like a stone, pressing down on his heart.
“…So,” Chen Jiashu’s voice darkened, “you deceive those women.”
“We,” the neighbor corrected. “I don’t call it deception. In my view, besides the result, isn’t there also the process? Giving hope and expectation to the desperate, however brief—isn’t that a form of kindness?”
A-Bin set down his chopsticks. Chen Jiashu snorted, a sound laden with irony, responding to the neighbor’s shameless explanation.
Yet, aside from Mr. Liu, who truly didn’t care, and the waiters, everyone—including Chen Jiashu and Meng Fushan—was focused on the big screen.
On the screen, the woman was speaking. Her voice was urgent, her speech fast. At first, Meng Fushan could barely hear the man’s voice beneath her pleas; she was pouring out all her worries, fears, and the despair of being unable to escape.
As her voice faded, the man’s voice grew louder. Firm, resonant. He was lying to her with unquestionable authority.
No, not just him. Meng Fushan saw that the other “audience” members were interacting with the screen. They were discussing, analyzing the woman’s mindset, and giving the man ideas. These ideas were written on slips of paper and handed to the waiters, who passed them to the man on the screen.
The neighbor spoke in the tone of a “veteran”: “After playing this game a lot, the women aren’t as easy to fool. At first, as long as someone told them they could leave, they’d believe it instantly, becoming obedient and passionate. That’s when the other way of playing started: the people watching the TV write their desired ‘scenarios’ on slips of paper, accompanied by chips—chips can be gifted, did you know that?—if the ‘actor’ boss likes the idea, he makes the woman do it and collects the little ‘gift’.”
It wasn’t enough to plunder their tangible bodies and lives; they had to plunder their intangible emotions and spirits, seizing everything a woman might possess, every last thing.
How many pieces can a woman be sliced into? How many people can plunder a single woman?
Meng Fushan couldn’t describe which was more insane and disgusting: the scenes from last night, or the ugliness and despair of what he saw now. His eyes were glued to the screen, unable to look away. A-Bin, however, kept his eyes lowered, seemingly disdainful of even glancing at the screen.
Just then, a woman in a white suit walked into the rotating restaurant and leaned into Mr. Liu’s ear. This was a floor manager. Their suits had handkerchiefs in the pockets to denote which floor they managed. Her handkerchief was purple—a color Meng Fushan hadn’t seen on any of the managers he’d encountered earlier. He guessed this manager oversaw the women, as she was the only female among the male managers he’d seen.
“That’s Manager Zi,” the neighbor remarked knowingly. “Looks like those ‘misses’ ran into trouble.”
Chen Jiashu listened but said nothing. The neighbor ignored his subtle, silent rejection, passionately pouring out everything he knew—the game needed participants, and the more participants, the more fun the game. Naturally, he had no reason to spare Chen Jiashu.
“Manager Zi is the only female manager here. She looks after the misses. Every time she comes up to see Mr. Liu, it’s never good news. It’s always that one of the misses has been seriously injured… or died.”
“Died?” Chen Jiashu finally spoke.
“Some people have heavy hands.”
“Can they?”
“Of course not,” the neighbor said. “You have heavy hands, I have heavy hands—women aren’t grown on trees on this ship; how could there be enough? Everyone with heavy hands gets punished by Mr. Liu… No rules, no order. Mr. Liu means what he says.”
“Can we know what happened?” Chen Jiashu mused for a moment.
“Nothing we can’t,” the neighbor said. “Mr. Liu will tell us. There are no secrets here. Everyone, enjoy yourselves—cheers!”
He raised his glass to Chen Jiashu; Chen Jiashu tapped his glass against the man’s.
The neighbor’s intelligence was accurate. Since Manager Zi appeared, Meng Fushan’s attention had been fixed on Mr. Liu. He noticed that after Manager Zi finished her report, Mr. Liu finished his food, set down his cutlery, and clapped his hands lightly:
“Gentlemen.”
The elderly voice had an incredible allure; everyone in the restaurant turned their attention to Mr. Liu.
Mr. Liu spoke succinctly: “A small accident occurred. A gentleman privately lured a miss, promising to take her off the ship, but she reported him to a passing manager. This furious gentleman killed the miss in a moment of passion… So, according to custom, we shall publicly announce the mistake of this gentleman and drive him off the ship. What say you all?”
Meng Fushan noticed that no one voiced an objection; they even seemed intrigued. Though masks hid their faces, the beastly, cruel glint of spectatorship shot from their eyes. Among certain groups of humans, there is an unimaginable level of mockery and malice toward their own kind.
As Mr. Liu finished speaking, the LED screen flashed and cut to another image. The man on the screen was seized by two black-suited waiters. A manager in a white suit walked up to him, ignoring his loud curses and struggles, and reached up to tear off his mask.
The man’s true face was exposed to everyone.
A gasp went through the rotating restaurant—the people seemed to be sighing, “So it was you!”
Then, the two waiters dragged the man toward the exit of the casino. The man screamed and struggled the whole way, but his captors showed no mercy. Step by step, he approached the door they had entered through… when the door was right before him, the man suddenly collapsed. He began to wail, tears and snot streaming down his face, acting as crazed and undignified as an addict deprived of his drug.
Gambling isn’t a drug. But sometimes, it’s comparable.
The more undignified he was, the happier the guests in the restaurant became. By the time he disappeared behind the door, they were even applauding Mr. Liu, as if praising him for successfully weeding out one of the “black sheep” among them.
The rules were clear: luring was okay if done openly in front of Mr. Liu, but forbidden if done behind his back. Mr. Liu was absolute. The rules of the ship could not be violated.
After the small interlude, everyone continued to eat and enjoy the “program.”
Meng Fushan, using the excuse of the restroom, stood up and followed Manager Zi. He followed her from the second floor to the first, out of a casino door, and down a winding, oppressive corridor. Finally, he saw her stop in front of a stretcher covered with a white cloth.
The air here was foul and poorly ventilated. The most pungent scent was, naturally, blood, but besides that, there was an unmistakable aroma—a thick, intense scent, burning like a fire.
It must… be coming from there.
Meng Fushan’s gaze locked onto the stretcher. It was a makeshift one; if you didn’t look closely, you’d miss the thin poles lying on the ground and only notice the white cloth outlining a human shape.
A rising, falling, female shape.
A waiter in a black suit stood beside the stretcher. At Manager Zi’s nod, he opened a door behind him. As the door opened, a howling gale blew in, flipping up a corner of the white cloth.
That flipped corner revealed a pair of red lips, curled up against a stiff, pale face.
Meng Fushan couldn’t see exactly what the deceased looked like in that fleeting glimpse—perhaps he didn’t see her at all in that instant—but he saw the remnant of a smile on her face. A bizarre, eerie smile…
The smile flashed across Meng Fushan’s retina, and the two waiters quickly lifted the stretcher, carrying it out the door. Outside the door was the deck; he could feel the salty sea breeze mixed with the sound of waves.
Then—splash. A heavy object was thrown into the sea.
The sound of a corpse hitting the water. They were throwing the deceased women directly into the ocean.
Having figured this out, he didn’t dare linger. He retreated silently, preparing to leave. Just as he stepped back, his peripheral vision caught a small shadow on the floor behind him.
The light source was overhead, and the shadow should have been directly under the feet.
The shadow he saw appearing behind him meant…
Someone had been standing behind him all along, seeing everything he had done!
