The wind howled loudly, intermingled with the sounds of the churning ocean waves, as well as the screams of women rising and falling within that surge. It felt eerily unnatural, like ghost light rolling up from an abyss, or floating specters entangled around dried trees in a graveyard—invisible, inescapable, circling your ears, crying out again and again…
Every bodyguard on the deck had blood on his hands.
Yet even in this terrifying atmosphere, cold sweat broke out along their spines.
What terrified them was not just the agonized cries of the women falling into the sea, but also the Ghost who had remained completely silent ever since those screams began.
Wasn’t the Ghost supposed to be a cop?
Why hadn’t the Ghost said a word?
Could a police officer really stand by and watch hostages die one by one like this?
Mr. Liu checked his watch.
When five minutes had ticked by on the delicate gold-and-diamond wristwatch on his wrist, he ordered the bodyguards without the slightest hesitation to throw another woman overboard.
Another piercing scream rent the night sky.
The scream was so agonizing, carrying a level of despair that even the winds and rains of a fierce storm could not muffle. That despair was faster than lightning, fiercer than thunder, piercing through the barriers of flesh to strike straight into human hearts—
Into whichever hearts still retained the faintest shred of conscience.
Ji Xun still made no sound.
So Mr. Liu waited, waiting for the second five-minute mark to arrive, to throw the third person overboard.
The slender second hand ticked away, sweeping across the dial five times. When the hand lined up seamlessly with the number 12, Mr. Liu issued his command once more:
“The third one—”
“Mr. Liu, he hasn’t made a sound this whole time. Is this threat not working?” One of the bodyguards present could no longer hold back from speaking.
If using women’s lives to threaten the police could buy them a chance at survival, everything had value.
But if the cop hidden in the dark truly disregarded human life like this… disregarded the lives of everyone on this ship… then was there really any point in continuing this threat?
Mr. Liu remained unmoved. He repeated: “The third one.”
And so, a third woman was thrown overboard.
The same piercing screams had become almost indistinguishable from one another.
Right at this moment—
A low chuckle rang out.
The Ghost, who had remained silent all this time, finally spoke again.
“Mr. Liu,” Ji Xun said in a relaxed, composure-filled tone from his hiding place in the corner, without moving an inch. Mr. Liu’s threat and the lives of the women seemed as light and weightless as paper at this moment, unable to shake him in the slightest. “Mr. Liu, oh Mr. Liu… I only said the police have obtained evidence of your crimes and are rushing over. I don’t believe I ever said that I am a cop, did I?”
A game of wits.
A psychological duel was taking place.
It was something not only Mr. Liu understood, but the bodyguards understood as well.
They remained silent, but after three women had been thrown into the sea in succession and the Ghost only now leisurely spoke up, their thoughts were already involuntarily being drawn along by Ji Xun’s words.
Not a cop!
That made sense! Precisely because he wasn’t a cop… he could act like this!
Otherwise, how could a police officer stand by indifferently as hostages died?
They had a whole ship full of hostages. Even if the police force actually arrived here, under the barrels of their guns aimed at the hostages, the police wouldn’t dare act rashly unless they could subdue everyone at once.
Not only were the bodyguards thinking this, but questions were also rising within Mr. Liu’s mind.
It was just that he kept his composure; on that old, sophisticated face of his, nothing could be read.
“Oh? Not a cop? Then who are you?” Mr. Liu asked.
“Your enemy, Mr. Liu,” Ji Xun chuckled. “Don’t waste your breath trying to guess which enemy I am. After trading in organs, kidnappings, and unlawful imprisonments for so many years, your enemies are as numerous as the raindrops falling from the sky right now—tens of thousands of them.”
“My enemy,” Mr. Liu repeated with a cold sneer. “A vigilante seeking personal revenge against me, whose every third sentence is about the police? Aren’t you afraid that when the police arrive, they’ll arrest you right after they arrest me?”
“I’m not afraid,” Ji Xun sighed. “My younger sister was supposed to get a heart transplant, but you barged in and intercepted it. The organ that belonged to her was stolen, and she died. My father was so grief-stricken that he lost focus while driving and hit someone, ending up in prison. My mother was beaten while trying to sell our house to apologize and compensate that family, dying of a concussion. That family ended up in prison too. My father, upon learning the full truth, committed suicide in jail. All at once, I became an orphan, homeless, wandering the streets. From that day on, I swore I would make the mastermind behind this pay…”
“…” The bodyguards looked at each other with strange expressions.
That was… genuinely tragic.
Tragic, yet carrying a faint hint of story-like absurdity.
“Something even the police failed to uncover—a completely normal sequence in the medical records—how on earth did you manage to trace it to me?” Mr. Liu said impatiently. “You don’t even draft your lies before speaking!”
“Mediocre minds never understand the genius of a genius,” Ji Xun mocked with a smile.
Mr. Liu only offered a cold sneer.
The bodyguards realized it now as well. What “story-like absurdity”—the Ghost was simply spouting a made-up story on the spot!
“He’s stalling for time!” Abang shouted.
Of course! Since he had contacted the police, what he needed to do now was stall for time, letting every minute and second tick away. With every passing minute, the police grew closer to them, and their situation became more dangerous!
“Keep throwing women down!” The bodyguards grew agitated, feeling thoroughly played.
However, Mr. Liu did not speak.
The Ghost was certainly stalling for time, but would continuing to blindly throw women overboard really work?
Or… was this a psychological war aimed at him?
Using the lives of three women to exchange for the safety of the remaining ones?
Or could someone be lying in ambush in the sea to rescue them?
No. In this kind of weather, with no small boats and no proper lifesaving gear, how could anyone rescue blindfolded women out in the ocean?
As for psychological warfare… it was possible, but perhaps not a method a police officer would willingly choose.
Something was wrong with one of the links…
Where on earth was this faulty link…
“Sigh, like I said, I’m not a cop,” Ji Xun sighed. “Even though my skills are great and I act a lot like a cop, I really am just an ordinary avenger…”
Ji Xun bantered and joked back and forth.
However, if someone were actually standing beside him, they would notice that his back was stiff and tense the whole time, veins bulging subtly on the hand holding the megaphone. His ears were perked up, listening intently to the screams echoing through the sea breeze.
Every time a scream rang out, the volume of his speech would involuntarily drop slightly so he could hear the rhythm of those screams more clearly…
The rhythm he, Huo Ranyin, and Meng Fushan had agreed upon!
Rewinding the clock to when Mr. Liu found Boss Wu in the bathroom, and Boss Wu roared out in fury—
Right at that moment, Ji Xun and his two companions, having just toggled the jammer off and on to successfully transmit their location and the ship’s situation to the police outside, immediately realized the danger.
“Bad news: Boss Wu was discovered,” Ji Xun had said. “Good news: Boss Wu has only seen me and Huo Ranyin, not you. Right now Mr. Liu only knows there are two of us, not three.”
“What’s Mr. Liu’s next move?” Meng Fushan got straight to the point.
“We interrogated Boss Wu without killing him, plus all the clues exposed under Mr. Liu’s nose right now,” Huo Ranyin said calmly, “Mr. Liu has likely already guessed our identity as police officers.”
“First, they’ll need to find the jammer—to find us—because we know the jammer’s location,” Ji Xun noted.
“With a mere eight men, they can’t find us,” Meng Fushan replied.
“So they’ll go to the deck to call for backup,” Ji Xun said.
“There are rope ladders on the deck. You managed to climb up using just a single rope; if Mr. Liu lowers the rope ladders, bodyguards will definitely come swarming up,” Huo Ranyin added.
“We have to stop that,” Ji Xun muttered to himself.
“…So what?” Meng Fushan pondered for a moment and countered, “The ship is huge. It takes time for their men to come up, and searching the vessel takes time too. As long as we play hide-and-seek with them long enough, that’ll do.”
“True. If they were merely hunting us down, playing hide-and-seek to buy time would be enough.”
“Maintained only if…
“What if Mr. Liu calls the bodyguards up while simultaneously seizing hostages to force us out?
“For instance…
“What if he ties up the women downstairs and threatens us: if we don’t show ourselves and disable the jammer, he’ll kill the women?”
Ji Xun asked the other two.
The moment they realized this possibility existed, the trio formed a plan.
First, look for an opportunity to strike Mr. Liu; second, toss all the rope ladders on the deck overboard to eliminate any possibility of bodyguards climbing up from below; third, use ropes to climb down from the window Ji Xun had originally used, blend in as guests, and while Ji Xun and Mr. Liu vied for control of the narrative, convince the bodyguards downstairs to remain neutral observers.
Fast-forward to the present moment, during the back-and-forth verbal duel between Ji Xun and Mr. Liu.
Down in the lower cabins, the bodyguards, guests, women, and crew members had all halted their activities. The joyous entertainment had ceased as well; everything was as if a pause button had been pressed. Everyone looked at each other with bizarre expressions and varying postures.
Things were escalating far too fast—
When Mr. Liu shouted from above to issue a sudden, harsh command, another person—who sounded clearly like a police officer—voiced his opposition. Furthermore, Mr. Liu hadn’t refuted the cop’s claim that police forces were rapidly approaching. In that case…
“Throw the women overboard!” Mr. Liu’s manager bellowed, commanding, “Help Mr. Liu!”
“Wait! What’s the rush?” A guest among the crowd immediately barked in reprimand. “Don’t recklessly throw away everyone’s future! Let’s analyze the situation first.”
“Right, no need to hurry. Let’s analyze the situation before doing anything,” another guest chimed in.
“The police are already on their way. Everyone shouldn’t go committing foolish crimes. Although Mr. Liu says he has video evidence of our crimes, it’s very likely just a reason he made up on the fly to manipulate us, right? I checked my room anyway—there are no cameras,” the first guest said.
His words gained agreement from quite a few guests.
Compared to the risk of becoming accomplices to murder, gambling or soliciting prostitutes—while humiliating—wouldn’t cause irreversible damage to their successful lives.
At this point, the second guest presented an opposing view: “But Mr. Liu isn’t completely without a chance of winning either. If Mr. Liu wins, how are we going to account for ourselves to him?”
His words hit home with a segment of guests who hadn’t voiced agreement earlier, aligning them with his stance.
Amidst the chaotic voices.
The first guest, Huo Ranyin, and the second guest, Meng Fushan, exchanged a glance across the room.
The plan was proceeding smoothly; everyone had walked into the trap.
“How about this,” Huo Ranyin said, “I have an idea. We follow Mr. Liu’s orders, but without offending either side.”
“How do we do that?” The bodyguard controlling the cabin couldn’t help asking.
“It’s pitch black outside, with heavy wind and rain. The people above can’t see clearly what’s happening down here. We can wrap heavy objects in the women’s clothes and throw them down, while having the women scream in coordination. From above, it will look like the women were thrown overboard. Doesn’t that achieve Mr. Liu’s goal of threatening the police? If Mr. Liu wins in the end, we didn’t sabotage his plans, so he won’t settle scores with us. If the police win in the end, that’s fine too—our hands are clean, and we protected the women. We won’t be at fault; in fact, we’ll have done a good deed!”
“That’s a great idea,” Meng Fushan immediately praised. “As subordinates, blindly following the boss’s orders is useless. Charging forward blindly only makes you cannon fodder—you won’t even know how you died!”
With the two opinion leaders united, the rest of the guests following them fell into line as well.
The bodyguards were still hesitating.
“Honestly, I think the most likely scenario is that the police and Mr. Liu’s men arrive neck and neck,” Huo Ranyin added fuel to the fire. “Even if Mr. Liu keeps his promise and takes us away, we can’t get to the deck and can only jump into the sea from the windows. But the police have firepower! Once they open fire, our lives will be out of our hands! Not to mention taking hostages—jumping out of a window, how do you hold a hostage? Even if you manage to grab one, dropping into the sea means losing them anyway. So everyone, be cautious. Don’t throw your lives away.”
This proved to be the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The bodyguards offered no further objections, proceeding according to the method outlined by Huo Ranyin and Meng Fushan.
At this very moment, on the deck.
After his initial anger, Abang looked hesitatingly toward Mr. Liu.
Mr. Liu’s track record of flawless calculations seemed to have suffered a crushing defeat this time… If the Ghost wasn’t threatened by hostages, and with the men below unable to come up, what other options did they have without additional manpower? Were they truly left to sit here, waiting for death as the police surrounded them?
Mr. Liu’s single glass eye stared coldly at the ship.
He looked at this ship that had once been his kingdom, containing everything he was most familiar with, but which was now gradually turning foreign.
Then, through the curtain of rain, he looked toward the pitch-black sea surface. The patterned clothing sinking in the water and the voices of the women had both cut off, just like those clothes about to drown in the ocean.
Suddenly, Mr. Liu let out a cold sneer.
“Old Wu.”
“What?”
Boss Wu turned his head, only to be yanked forward by Mr. Liu. Raising his hand, Mr. Liu aimed his silver handgun straight at Boss Wu’s head. Before Boss Wu’s shocked expression, he let out a taunting laugh and spoke into the darkness:
“Comrade Officer, Mr. Ghost—since you don’t care whether the women below live or die, I assume you don’t care whether this wicked old man lives or dies either. After all, if you can watch innocent women drop into the sea without making a move, you can certainly watch this old man get blown away by my bullet… You sneaky dog, somehow convincing the people below to trick me with dummies!”
