Upon boarding the massive vessel and entering the corridor, a waiter immediately approached to collect the life jackets.
Ji Xun slipped off his life jacket, his gaze sweeping briefly over the large trolley where the jackets were being piled up. Without lingering, he continued forward.
A plush crimson carpet, a hallway adorned with framed paintings, two doors resembling the entrance to a palace, and the sight that greeted him when those doors swung open—young women sitting serene and tranquil, blooming like a riot of vibrant flowers in a garden.
Every detail aligned perfectly with Meng Fushan’s prior descriptions.
With one hand casually shoved in his pocket and carrying absolutely nothing on his person, Ji Xun cleared security without a hitch.
The individual behind him, however, managed to trigger the alarm with something on their person. The instant the alarm blared, suit-clad security guards emerged like shadows from various floors within Ji Xun’s line of sight.
At first glance, their numbers weren’t overwhelming, but they were thoroughly equipped. Surveillance cameras monitored the area overhead, and the security personnel were outfitted with earpieces for constant communication, giving them high mobility.
And firearms, of course, were present.
Ji Xun’s gaze brushed lightly across the waistlines of these men. After all, this was a place where the wealthy bosses could openly use firearms to shoot and kill women. But it was discernable that not every guard was armed with a gun. It made sense; strict gun control laws meant the ship’s owner only needed to ensure he held absolute martial dominance. This wasn’t a gang war, so there was no need to arm every single man to the teeth.
For them, this was a piece of news that wasn’t entirely bad.
“Mr. Qian, you haven’t visited much lately. Lingling has been waiting for you for a long time.” A sweet, welcoming voice snapped Ji Xun’s attention back.
He looked ahead. A young woman, her eyes blindfolded with a strip of cloth, was being led by a waiter right up to him.
The woman possessed a sharp, delicate chin and full, ruby-red lips. Her exposed skin was as starkly white as snow, contrasting sharply with the strawberry-embroidered dress she currently wore. Strawberries in a snowy field—the red grew redder, the white whiter. The white was pitifully fragile; the red was endearingly lovely.
Ji Xun was still scanning his surroundings, leaving only a fraction of his attention for the woman. It wasn’t until she stepped closer that a faint, barely discernible tear mole was revealed beneath the edge of her blindfold.
It was located in the exact same position, an identical tear mole to Huo Ranyin’s.
Ji Xun dazed for a split second, but even faster, a wave of vigilance surged violently in his chest.
Every boss was assigned a woman upon boarding, but not every boss retained theirs. Throughout their time on the ship, they might give her away, lose her in a gamble, kill her… “losing” her in one way or another.
But unfortunately, Mr. Qian was not among those who had lost their woman.
This was “Mr. Qian’s” woman, not his. But right now, he was Mr. Qian. Would this woman notice anything amiss?
Ji Xun’s muscles wound slightly tight, though his exterior remained entirely nonchalant as he extended his arm for Lingling to take.
“Let us go to the room, sir.” She leaned in close, her voice carrying a fragrance that drifted like the chiming of wind bells. “The banquet will begin in two hours. During this hour, sir can bathe and rest to wash away the fatigue of the journey.”
“At a time as lively as this, why waste it resting?” Ji Xun countered. “Walk the ship with me.”
Lingling lowered her head, a ethereal smile playing upon her lips.
“Alright,” she replied. The women here were never taught how to say “no.”
With Lingling on his arm, Ji Xun stepped onto the elevator.
The ship’s hull comprised five decks in total—two below the main deck, three and a half above. The highest half-deck was the exclusive domain of the ship’s owner, Mr. Liu. Ji Xun strolled unhurriedly through the upper three decks, showing no rush. He inspected the equipment in the gym, swung a couple of strokes on the golf simulator, and admired the deep-blue, almost black horizon from the café.
In the midst of this, he naturally chatted with the waiters at various stations, silently committing to memory the schedule and patterns of every security guard he encountered.
Throughout the entire process, Lingling remained profoundly quiet. She behaved like a wind-up doll with flexible joints—one command from her master prompted one precise action. Aside from that, even her facial expression remained frozen. The ethereal smile she wore when they first met had stayed pinned to her face until now. Ji Xun’s face was concealed by a mask; her face was masked by a fixed expression.
It wasn’t until they sat down in the deckside café, where the cool sea breeze swirled around them like mischievous spirits from afar, that Lingling’s voice suddenly broke the silence.
“You seem a bit different compared to the past, sir.”
“Different in what way?” Even then, only thirty percent of Ji Xun’s attention was anchored on her.
“Your scent is different.” Lingling leaned in closer, lightly sniffing him. The blindfold, made from the same fabric as her dress, ran straight across her eyes. The embroidered strawberry vines resembled twisted chains, stretching through the air to twine around Ji Xun. “There is an extra hint of a nutty aroma on you, sir. It’s the scent of coffee… no, that doesn’t seem right… it’s the scent of smoke.”
Though it was perhaps inappropriate to think about it given the timing, Ji Xun couldn’t help but reflect:
That’s twice now. If we actually manage to make it off this ship in one piece, I am absolutely forcing Meng Fushan to quit smoking.
“What a sharp nose.” His stray thoughts didn’t impede his response. “I’ve taken up smoking lately. Business has been difficult to manage, and the pressure is mounting.”
He had heard Mr. Qian’s voice before and was confident he could mimic it to an eighty or ninety percent accuracy.
As for their physical statures, there were bound to be minor discrepancies in the finer details. However, he wasn’t engaging in intimate contact with Lingling, so she wouldn’t feel those areas. Besides, did she truly remember every physical nuance of a man she only saw once every two or three months?
Lingling straightened her posture, resting her hands loosely in front of her lower abdomen, resuming her serene and elegant composure.
She offered comfort to Ji Xun: “Do not trouble yourself, sir. As long as a person is alive, there is no hurdle they cannot cross.”
Ji Xun gave a perfunctory grunt in response.
She added, “As long as one can see, the world is beautiful in every way.”
Ji Xun’s gaze locked onto Lingling.
The blindfold still shrouded that smiling face. Was that last sentence a slip of suppressed hatred? Or was it the helpless resignation of things have come to this, I must survive? Perhaps both emotions were harbor in the woman’s heart. What Ji Xun found utterly incomprehensible was how the men who boarded this ship could harvest these women’s organs, blind their eyes, and still, without a shred of moral friction, draw physical and emotional warmth from them.
Did they truly believe that covering a woman’s eyes with a piece of embroidered cloth could permanently shroud their own atrocities?
“Is that all?” After a brief silence, Ji Xun asked softly.
“What?” Lingling turned her face toward him, like a small bird hearing its master’s call.
“When Mr. Liu extended the invitation, he mentioned that this time would be different,” Ji Xun probed. “How is it different?”
“It is indeed different.” The little bird spoke in soft, delicate tones, chirping away gently. “The game is about to begin.”
What is the game?
Ji Xun thought it, and he asked it. Subsequently, he let Lingling guide him forward. They retraced their steps downward, descending from the third floor back to the first, cutting across the banquet hall, and emerging onto the main deck via a completely different corridor than the one they had entered through.
The sun had entirely vanished beneath the distant sea, yet the illumination lamps on the deck had not been turned on. Heaven and earth had dissolved into an absolute, ink-like darkness. A dense white mist had rolled across the sea at some unknown point, drifting around the ship’s hull. It felt less like the vessel was resting on the water and more like it was suspended in the sky.
The opulence and commotion were cast far behind them. The only sound left in their ears was a faint, rustling friction resembling mice scurrying—the sound of Lingling’s massive dress skirt dragging along the ground.
Standing here, Ji Xun suddenly recalled the tales of ghosts and gods that Lan Lan had once described to them.
A crew of sailors, piloting a sampan through a vast sea choked with dense fog. Desperate to find a way out, they dragged their own corpses from the seawater to offer as a sacrifice to Mazu.
The sky is blue, the earth is wild, a solitary boat on a lonely path, desolate and bleak…
They walked within this sliver of a sampan abandoned to the vast ocean. When they reached the center of the deck, Lingling came to a halt. She lifted her fair palm, which resembled a white flower blooming in the dark night.
She pointed toward the deck ahead. “Right here.”
“Here?” Ji Xun asked, surprised.
“Yes.” Lingling nodded. “From here, one can go down. Below is where we live, and it is also the world of the game that is about to open.”
“It is a world where absolutely anything goes. You can kill someone, you can save someone, and we can also attempt to break free…”
“An infinite game world.”
