By the time Ji Xun and Lingling returned to the banquet hall, the first dance of the evening had just begun.
On the white jade porcelain tiles, pairs of men and women whirled rapidly. Fluffy dress skirts flared open one moment and cinched shut the next, like flowers blooming and dying in quick succession against a white stone wall—as if their entire life force had been spent solely to nourish this single, fleeting moment of brilliance.
Across half the banquet hall, he spotted Meng Fushan leaning against a corner with his arms crossed.
Meng Fushan locked eyes with him from afar, then subtly shifted his gaze to the side. Ji Xun followed his line of sight and saw the heavy doors through which they had originally entered. Those palace-style double doors were now shut tight. Perhaps… no, evidently, these two doors had been thoroughly locked from the outside.
Returning directly to the corridor from here was impossible, which meant they could no longer head straight to the life jacket storage area. They would have to find an alternative route. No words were needed; their thoughts locked into perfect alignment in that single glance: first record the locations of the surveillance cameras, deduce the security guards’ patrol patterns, and then map out a completely new route to the life jackets.
Ji Xun guided Lingling to a seating area in a corner of the hall and told her, “I’m going to the restroom.”
Lingling nodded obediently.
Ji Xun turned and walked toward the restroom. If one wanted to evade surveillance to take care of private business in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, a public restroom was undoubtedly the prime location.
Entering a stall, he scanned every nook and cranny. Once certain there were no hidden pinhole cameras, he pulled out a pen he had swiped from the café. On a piece of paper, he sketched out his observed layout of the ship’s interior, the timing patterns and headcounts of the security guards, the exact locations and quantities of visible surveillance cameras, and any unvisited but suspected pathways—drawing everything onto a single sheet.
Finally, he flushed the toilet and stepped out of the stall.
When he returned to the main banquet hall, the music had changed to a different song, and the people on the floor had shifted as well. What remained unchanged were those flaring and cinching skirts. These complex, luxurious garments were excessively opulent, sometimes eclipsing the humanity of the wearers entirely, reducing the women into nothing more than interchangeable, faceless clothes hangers.
Lingling was still sitting in her original spot, looking as though she hadn’t budged an inch. He approached her, cleared his throat softly, and extended his hand. As if trained a thousand times over, she lifted her delicate hand to clasp his arm and asked, “Would you like to dance, sir? There is also a gambling area next door, though the stakes are quite low right now.”
Ji Xun had already heard about the gambling on this ship from Meng Fushan—those utterly inhumane atrocities…
“No need,” Ji Xun said. “Let’s get something to eat.”
They made their way to the dining area. The buffet tables were loaded with an overwhelming array of delicacies. Anything you had ever eaten, never eaten, heard of, or never heard of could be found here. The selection was as comprehensive as it was precious, and meticulously curated: ranging from deep-sea lobsters as long as an arm, to authentic local comfort food from back home, and even high-end molecular gastronomy.
Ji Xun had little appetite. He scanned the food stations, ultimately only picking up an orange cocktail from the neon-colored bar section. He remembered when he had first met Huo Ranyin; he had used a glass of Tequila Sunrise to swap out a drugged “Ocean Star.”
The glass shimmered under the ambient lights, casting a gleam onto the rim, which was coated in a ring of decorative granules. They were a mixture of gold, blue, and off-white particles, giving the impression of a golden beach where seawater turned into crushed diamonds, dragging broken seashells along with it. With the naked eye, it was impossible to tell what exactly this substance was.
Ji Xun took an experimental sip. His tongue picked up the flavors of sea salt and pineapple, which made the cocktail exceptionally refreshing. But that wasn’t all. There was another flavor dancing across his palate—a rich, deep note that Ji Xun had never tasted before. It transformed a cocktail that should have been light and casual into something with a long, lingering finish akin to rare wines or whiskies worth tens of thousands of dollars…
The sea salt was off-white, the pineapple was gold, so the remaining rich flavor had to come from the blue flakes.
What are the blue flakes? Ji Xun thought idly.
Another song drew to a close. The men and women on the floor dispersed, and a large crowd moved toward the food section. Meng Fushan was woven into the throng, brushing past Ji Xun.
Shielded by the surrounding crowd, they seamlessly exchanged items in broad daylight. Ji Xun passed over a folded slip of paper; what he received in return, judging by the tactile sensation against his palm, was also a folded note.
“You barely ate anything, sir,” Lingling spoke up suddenly, the crowding thrusting her naturally against Ji Xun’s side. “Have some more food. The seafood on this ship is incredibly fresh, harvested from the deep sea just an hour before cooking.”
With a subtle flex of his fingers, Ji Xun slid the paper note deep into his suit pocket. The only person close enough to witness his every minute action was Lingling.
Yet, ironically, Lingling was blind.
“Alright, I’ll give it a try.” He guided Lingling toward the seafood station on his arm.
A person was rarely just one thing. While the women here were targets of Mr. Liu’s oppression and cruelty, they likely harbored Mr. Liu’s eyes and ears as well. Therefore, while they posed an obstacle, they could conversely serve as a smokescreen and shield to mislead others.
The dances concluded, and the dishes had been sampled one by one. Just as the wealthy bosses in attendance were growing flush with alcohol and slipping into a sluggish lethargy, the banquet music suddenly cut off.
Ji Xun noticed the lazy bosses lounging in the seating areas straightening their postures. And it wasn’t just them; Ji Xun could even feel Lingling, seated right beside him, tense her shoulders slightly. Intuiting something, his gaze swept toward the velvet drapes in the center of the hall.
Suspended dead center in the banquet hall, those velvet drapes were not the usual vibrant red found in conventional venues, but a deep purplish-black. The dark velvet fabric was paired with golden tasseled hooks—slender, long, and curved. They looked less like hardware meant to hold curtains and more like… yes, more like the hooks in a slaughterhouse used to string up live pigs and sheep. Suspending them upside down, letting the warm blood drain entirely from the wounds torn open by the hooks, drying and coagulating on the floor until the vivid red turned purple and black, matching the exact hue of the drapes before him.
The hooks pulled, the drapes rose, and the entity behind them…
Ji Xun thought it might be a stage, or perhaps a massive projector screen. It was neither.
It was a door.
A massive, circular door forged from heavy gold-colored metal. The door featured a steering-wheel-like rotary handle, a live fingerprint scanner, an auxiliary combination lock underneath, and the most advanced integrated deadbolts. A door fully capable of rivaling a bank vault—perhaps it was originally designed for one.
This crushing weight of a door effortlessly pulverized the frivolous, carefree atmosphere engineered by the preceding singing and dancing.
A simple, crisp ringing broke the silence.
Together with everyone else, Ji Xun looked toward the origin of the sound—Mr. Liu’s seat. While everyone’s eyes had been riveted on the forward drapes a moment ago, Mr. Liu had slipped into the banquet hall unnoticed. This elderly man in his sixties, with thinning, yellowish hair, held a remarkably simple handbell and gave it a shake.
Seeing everyone fixate on him, he smiled faintly. “Gentlemen, good evening.”
“Good evening, Mr. Liu,” the crowd responded warmly.
Blended in with the throng, Ji Xun parroted the same words, while caustically mocking them in his mind—looking over the instant a bell rings, these wealthy bosses look a whole lot like dogs wagging their tails at the sound of their master.
“It is that time of the year again,” Mr. Liu announced. “Mazu’s birthday. Our annual game is about to commence. Our old friends already know the rules, but we have some new friends joining us for the first time, so we must provide a brief explanation. This heavy door sits right beneath the main deck. Through this gateway, we shall enter the world of the game.”
Mr. Liu’s cane tapped sharply against the floor. Beneath the ship’s deck—that was where the women were housed.
“What are the rules of the game? The single, solitary rule of this game is that no guest is permitted to attack another guest under any circumstances. This baseline rule will be rigorously enforced by the security units deployed inside with you. Within the game environment, alongside security, there will be waiters, doctors, and nurses to ensure all your needs are accommodated. Beyond that, the game is bound only by time. In two days, three at most, this sealed door will reopen, and those who ventured inside will be formally escorted out to return to the deck.
Now, what kind of game is this? And what sort of place lies beneath?
This is a completely open playground. You can kill, you can save, you can scavenge for weapons, or hunt for survival tools. You may commit any act forbidden in the outside world, claim ownership over any woman you lay eyes upon, or even choose to aid them all—yet no matter what you choose, those women will likely conspire by any means necessary to flee from your side. Because this is also the women’s game. You wish to keep them; they wish to leave you.
If they can manage to escape from beneath the deck, make it up top, and seize the lifeboats stationed at the gunwale of the second deck, they can flee this game, and even escape this ship entirely. Therefore, this is an entertaining game actively engaged in by both sides—an exercise in absolute freedom that liberates the mind and body from all constraints.”
Mr. Liu removed his monocle. Drawing a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket, he fastidiously wiped the lens, seemingly granting the crowd this window of time to savor his words.
Ji Xun used this interlude to scrutinize Mr. Liu intently. Once the elderly man removed the monocle, Ji Xun finally saw clearly: in stark contrast to his other piercing eye, the eye previously masked by the lens was a dull, ash-gray glass eye. It peered darkly at the crowd with a distinct, inorganic gleam.
Before drawing Mr. Liu’s notice, Ji Xun forcefully checked his impulse to continue staring, tearing his gaze away to scan the man’s immediate perimeter.
Flanking Mr. Liu were three individuals seated apart. They wore the same silver masks as the guests present, but it was evident their ages mirrored Mr. Liu’s… According to the findings from Meng Fushan’s investigation, this syndicate did not rely on Mr. Liu as its sole mastermind. The three figures ringed around Mr. Liu were likely the other syndicate heads.
Mr. Liu clipped the lens back over his eye. “There are far too many constraints on dry land,” he smiled. “We have families, friends, subordinates, employees—countless souls dependent on us for their livelihoods. This is the drawback of success. Yet success occasionally craves a momentary breathing room. Thus, this ship was born, along with the game within it.”
He stood up. “This is a joyous hour completely devoid of accountability!”
No matter how pleasant and melodious his phrasing sounded, it could not cloak the intrinsic, repulsive selfishness at its core. This was no game of absolute freedom shattering constraints; this was nothing short of an unspeakably horrific, engineered arena for crime.
Yet every person present was whipped into a frenzy. Gifted a seemingly tailored, high-sounding mantle of justification, they could discard law and morality entirely. Under the banners of “joy” and “freedom,” they unleashed their inner bestial nature without restraint. Through this, humanity devolved into beasts—beasts far baser than any found in nature.
Ji Xun sat in the corner, his thoughts freezing cold. He, too, joined the revelry, panting like a beast, cheering like a beast, consuming vast quantities of alcohol like a beast to celebrate the impending arrival of “freedom” and “joy.”
Afterward, the inebriated guests were escorted back to their quarters by the women and waiters accompanying them. The guests could barely steady their steps, yet they remained firmly cognizant of the game’s designated start time: 2:00 AM tonight.
Those willing to participate could guide their female companions down into the lawless world below deck at exactly two in the morning.
Ji Xun felt significantly more intoxicated than he had anticipated. He had carefully monitored his alcohol intake, so how could his head be spinning to this extreme?
Returning to his quarters as if treading on cotton, the world began to gyrate violently the moment his back hit the mattress. It felt as though he were swept into a torrent of time that would be impossible to perceive under normal consciousness. Flashes of his past—his sister, Meng Fushan, various familiar faces and events—whirled before his eyes like a zoetrope, tossing him back and forth along with the surging waves of time.
He sensed someone approaching his bedside, draping a freshly washed, warm towel over his face. A chaotic, buzzing hum seemed to reverberate near his ears. Is it Lingling?
Straining to open his eyes, he caught sight of Huo Ranyin’s face.
The man’s pale visage seemed to emit a faint, firefly-like luminescence in the dim room, and beneath those dark eyes that blended seamlessly into the night, a torrent of emotion surged—not just anger, but profound worry.
Huo Ranyin!
Absolute strength suddenly flooded Ji Xun’s limp frame. He lunged forward with all his might, but the figure of Huo Ranyin vanished like a mirage, a reflection of a flower in a mirror or the moon in water. After a brief sensation of weightlessness, his body crashed onto the thickly carpeted floor.
“Sir?” a voice like the chiming of wind bells rang out.
“…” Ji Xun lifted his head, watching the wide, strawberry-embroidered skirt hem approach his vision.
It was Lingling. There was only Lingling here.
“What time is it?” he asked, dazed.
“The clock in the room just chimed the hour,” Lingling answered. “It is nearly two in the morning. Sir, will you be participating in the game?”
Ji Xun closed his eyes in exhaustion. He systematically scrubbed the fragile, lingering illusion of tenderness from his mind, straining with every fiber of his being to break free from the alcohol’s grip and reclaim his clarity.
He heard his own voice answering Lingling: “Of course.”
I’m in.
