(4/4)
Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 550: Captain’s Dinner
“Ding.”
The elevator doors opened time and again, and waves of anchors walked in. As time passed, the number of anchors arriving on this floor was gradually increasing.
Obviously, everyone had received the same public mission.
Wen Jianyan and the others stood in an inconspicuous spot, watching this scene from a distance.
The anchors looked vigilant. A large portion of them appeared nervous and neurotic, as if bound by invisible heavy pressure. Wen Jianyan noticed that the vast majority of them had those blood-red circular scars on their hands.
“Why look at them?”
A lazy voice came from behind.
“Most of these people won’t even make it out of the initial floors.”
Wen Jianyan turned his head and looked in the direction of the voice.
Sure enough, that merciless comment just now came from Chen Cheng.
He had appeared behind Wen Jianyan at some point, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, eyelids lowered, his young and handsome face wearing a familiar arrogant expression.
This was the first time Wen Jianyan had seen him since they split up in the morning.
Wen Jianyan raised an eyebrow: “So, you’ve already gotten out?”
His gaze fell on the back of Chen Cheng’s hand—it was smooth, without any dice-like red scars. Clearly, Chen Cheng had either not acted at all or had already left the Negative Second Floor, so all the marks brought by his actions had disappeared.
However, Wen Jianyan leaned toward the second possibility.
“Of course,” Chen Cheng answered coldly. “It’s your speed that’s too slow.”
Wen Jianyan shrugged:
“Can’t be helped, I have other things to worry about.”
It had to be said that meeting with Figaro and exploring the Negative Seventh Floor had wasted quite a bit of his time. But even so, Wen Jianyan’s speed wasn’t too slow. If Chen Cheng said this…
Could he have already reached the Negative Fourth Floor?
Wen Jianyan blinked, hiding the surprise in his eyes.
“Other things?” Chen Cheng raised an eyebrow, looking puzzled. “What is more important than the instance?”
“Like the auction, right?”
Behind them, a serious, deep voice interjected.
Everyone was stunned and turned their heads to look.
A tall man with a slightly sinister face walked over from the direction of the elevator. It was Qi Qian. Tong Yao followed expressionlessly closely behind him, and An Xin was waving at him with a beaming smile from the back.
“…It’s you.”
Seeing the newcomer, Chen Cheng’s expression turned somewhat gloomy.
“It’s me.” Qi Qian nodded with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Wen Jianyan then remembered that both of them had participated in the Top Ten Challenge and likely had interactions in the previous instance.
His gaze shifted between the two, revealing a thoughtful expression.
Judging from the performance of both sides… they didn’t seem to have left a good impression on each other.
“Tomorrow night is the first session of the auction,” Qi Qian ignored Chen Cheng’s existence, turned to Wen Jianyan, and asked politely, “Want to participate together?”
“Auction?” Chen Cheng frowned at him. “What auction?”
“What?” Qi Qian narrowed his eyes and slowly turned his head to look at Chen Cheng. “You don’t know? What a pity.”
“However, if you really want to go, why not go find your Guild President?” A temperatureless fake smile appeared on the face of this Dark Fire Vice President. “As far as I know, Ms. Dan Zhu is also in this instance. If your attitude is good, maybe she can give you one.”
“…”
Chen Cheng stared at him, his face ridiculously bad.
He turned his head and swept a glance at Wen Jianyan, gritting his teeth: “And you? You’re planning to act with him?”
Wen Jianyan, who was inexplicably dragged into the battlefield: “?”
What does your conflict have to do with me?
He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything to ease the atmosphere, he was preemptively interrupted by Qi Qian standing aside:
“Otherwise what?”
Qi Qian smiled:
“Do you have an invitation?”
Chen Cheng’s tolerance for humiliation finally reached its limit. He turned around angrily and left.
Watching his retreating figure, Qi Qian clearly showed a satisfied expression.
“…”
Wen Jianyan blinked slowly, not saying a word from start to finish.
His team members stood behind him, sometimes turning to look in the direction Chen Cheng disappeared, sometimes looking at Qi Qian beside them, with somewhat strange expressions on their faces.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[…]
[Hahahahahaha Chen Cheng: Encountered new style bullying, guess who didn’t receive an invitation letter?!]
[Teammate’s expression looks like they’ve seen a ghost: What, our captain is actually this charismatic?]
[Wen Jianyan, a must-have medicine for intensifying conflicts.]
[Ahhh dying of laughter!]
After Chen Cheng walked far away, Wen Jianyan let out a long sigh. He turned to look at Qi Qian and said somewhat helplessly, “Can you two resolve your grudges privately? Could you not drag me into it?”
Qi Qian also seemed apologetic about his performance just now: “Sorry. It’s mainly because this guy was somewhat too annoying before.”
He looked in the direction Chen Cheng left, narrowed his eyes, his expression somewhat gloomy:
“…The final winner, tsk.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan thought of Chen Cheng’s mouth that really didn’t know how to speak—even when facing teammates, he didn’t restrain himself. When thrown into a challenge match full of opponents, it was really hard to judge how much power he could exert in the end.
Especially since the person who won in the end was Chen Cheng.
“…Mn.”
Qi Qian’s resentment was understandable.
After driving Chen Cheng away, Qi Qian’s expression finally relaxed slightly. He turned to look at Wen Jianyan and picked up the topic that hadn’t finished just now: “So, what do you think? Want to participate in the auction together?”
The auction invitation was for a single person, meaning only the person who obtained the invitation could participate in the auction, and couldn’t bring the whole team like with the pass.
Even though the invitation had opened new acquisition methods, judging by the difficulty, those who had obtained it so far were probably still few and far between.
Wen Jianyan: “Sure.”
To be precise, he couldn’t ask for more.
Figaro wasn’t someone worthy of trust. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t pull some tricks at some point. Qi Qian’s existence could greatly reduce the risk.
“However,” Wen Jianyan seemed to think of something, “how did you get your invitation?”
Qi Qian answered very concisely: “Negative Third Floor gachapon machine.”
Just as Wen Jianyan thought.
Chen Cheng’s progress was faster than theirs. He probably didn’t linger on the Negative Third Floor and directly exchanged the prize money drawn from the gachapon machine for a single-person pass to enter the next floor. Precisely because he didn’t activate the special gachapon machine at all, he didn’t have the chance to get the auction invitation.
However, unlike the young, aggressive Chen Cheng who was used to acting alone, Qi Qian was a senior veteran anchor and the Vice President of Dark Fire. He had rich experience leading teams and more meticulous thinking, so naturally, he wouldn’t miss anything.
He thought for a moment and continued to ask: “Besides this? Did you twist out—”
Qi Qian’s eyes moved: “You mean, ghosts?”
Clearly, they also guessed that there was danger in the gachapon.
Wen Jianyan nodded.
Qi Qian shook his head: “No. Our luck was relatively good, everything we drew was prizes.”
Wen Jianyan, who drew two ghosts in a row: “…”
Fine, fine, just targeting me, right?
“By the way, aren’t you going to introduce your new team members?” Qi Qian looked over Wen Jianyan’s shoulder at the few people behind him.
“Of course.”
Wen Jianyan shrugged and turned sideways: “Chen Mo, Wen Ya—I don’t need to introduce these two, right?”
Qi Qian nodded: “Naturally.”
As the actual managers of the guild, Chen Mo and Wen Ya had long dealt with Qi Qian, the Vice President of Dark Fire, so naturally, they weren’t strangers.
“Ji Guan and Blond.” Wen Jianyan pointed to two others. “Two old members.”
“As for these three…” His gaze turned to the other three. “Kong Wei, Chang Feiyu, Maggie—the voice you heard after turning into a die earlier was hers—these three are new members.”
Qi Qian: “Pleasure, pleasure.”
Immediately after, Qi Qian also simply introduced the few newcomers he brought to Wen Jianyan.
Aside from Tong Yao and An Xin, who had already been in a instance with Wen Jianyan, he also brought seven Dark Fire guild members. Although Qi Qian’s introduction to them was equally brief, Wen Jianyan still sensed some subtle differences from his tone:
Among these few new members, there seemed to be three whom Qi Qian valued more.
A woman named Qiao Ziru, a man named Lin Muye, and a young man named Miao.
“You brought quite a few people.” Wen Jianyan swept over the large group of anchors behind him and raised an eyebrow.
Qi Qian replied: “Same to you.”
Wen Jianyan: “So, you guys were planning to have a team-building on the ship initially?”
Qi Qian: “…Yeah.”
Wen Jianyan smiled: “Haha, what a coincidence.”
Generally speaking, guilds like theirs rarely put so many members into a single instance at once. The cost of cultivating a senior anchor was too high, and the more anchors participated, the easier it was for the instance difficulty to increase, and the survival probability would be lower—so they had long learned not to put all their eggs in one basket.
This time they all miscalculated… no one expected an ordinary team-building would evolve into an instance.
And an SS-rank one at that.
Truly fatal.
No wonder Qi Qian was willing to give up a group pass to maintain a good relationship with Wen Jianyan… In such an instance, having an extra ally was better than having an extra opponent.
While the two were exchanging information and forming an alliance, the number of people arriving on this floor was still gradually increasing.
However, as the three-hour time limit approached its end, fewer and fewer people came up via the elevator.
Everyone present knew clearly—
Those who hadn’t arrived by now probably wouldn’t come later either.
In the last minute before the three-hour limit ended, a “ding” came from the elevator entrance. The elevator doors slowly opened, and a graceful woman walked out from the blood-red light.
The woman’s face was white as porcelain, carrying an elusive smile. Even if she did nothing and said nothing, she attracted the gaze of everyone present like a magnet.
In an instant, the entire First Floor of the casino fell silent.
Wen Jianyan heard hushed voices coming from all around.
“…It’s her?”
“It really is her, looks like the rumors were true…”
“Dan Zhu is also in this instance!”
“…What? That Eternal Day Guild President?”
Under the stares from all directions, Dan Zhu walked toward one of the tables. Her smoky gaze swept sideways at an anchor standing dumbly aside. That anchor shuddered and hurriedly reached out to help her pull out a chair.
Dan Zhu sat down gracefully.
Before everyone present could recover from the shock of Dan Zhu’s appearance, a familiar voice rang in their ears:
[Ding! Congratulations anchor on completing the public mission: Proceed to the First Floor of the Lucky Cruise Ship within three hours to participate in the Captain’s Gala Dinner.]
[Reward Points: 5000.]
Hearing this, everyone’s heart tightened—it was about to start.
The sound of rhythmic footsteps came from the back.
Click, clack, click.
A slender man wearing a tailcoat walked out. His face and voice were androgynous, between male and female. However, contrary to his face, his body exuded a gloomy death aura only found on corpses. His eyes were hollow, looking hair-raising.
It was Eaton Ethan.
One of the management levels of the Lucky Cruise Ship.
“Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Captain’s Gala Dinner of this voyage. As the organizer of this dinner, I extend my welcome to you all.” Saying this, Eaton Ethan raised the wine glass in his hand.
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s heart sank slightly. Since Eaton Ethan was the organizer of this Captain’s Gala Dinner, then the Captain of the Lucky Cruise Ship probably wouldn’t attend.
True, after all, the instance had just started its first day. Based on his experience with instances of this difficulty, the more important the clues were, and the more related to the instance’s core, the less easily they would be placed in front of the anchors.
Although he had already guessed this result, Wen Jianyan still couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
He looked up and scanned the hall.
As if realizing something, Wen Jianyan suddenly froze slightly.
The people from Oracle didn’t come.
Not a single one.
Strange.
Wen Jianyan frowned. He knew that not completing the public mission wasn’t fatal, but that didn’t mean the cost wasn’t significant.
…What on earth did the Oracle people go do?
As Eaton Ethan’s voice fell, a line of waiters filed out. They wore crisp uniforms and white gloves. On the silver trays were glasses of crystal-clear amber champagne.
“Please,” Eaton Ethan said.
Everyone present exchanged glances and took champagne from the waiters’ trays.
Suddenly, the sound of a glass shattering came from the end of the hall, followed by the dull thud of a heavy object hitting the floor.
“Ahhhh—” After a brief silence, a miserable scream rang out.
Everyone was horrified and jerked their heads toward the direction of the sound.
The anchors surrounding the accident site hurriedly retreated, clearing a space. Wen Jianyan looked toward the center of the clearing—only to see two anchors lying face down on the ground. The glasses in their hands had shattered at some point, spilling liquid all over the floor. And mixed in the liquid was a bit of thick black fluid.
Wen Jianyan moved his steps, changing his angle.
Even though he was mentally prepared, when he saw the person’s face clearly, his heart still skipped a beat.
The anchor’s face was deadly white. Under the half-open eyelids, the eyeballs were covered with a cloudy film, seeming to have lost vitality. Gurgling black water gushed out from his seven orifices, flowing slowly on the ground.
Wen Jianyan jerked his head to look in Eaton Ethan’s direction.
Eaton Ethan maintained the posture of raising his glass. That face full of death aura hadn’t changed at all compared to just now, seeming unaffected by this accident. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly, appearing even more bizarre because of it.
In an instant, the entire First Floor of the casino fell into a deathly silence.
The extra corpses made everyone freeze in place. Anchors who hadn’t touched the champagne glasses looked nervous and didn’t dare to reach out, while those who had already taken the champagne glasses but hadn’t died stood stiffly, not knowing what to do, nor knowing if they would be the next to die.
Wen Jianyan glanced toward Dan Zhu.
Dan Zhu leaned lazily against the back of the chair. From Wen Jianyan’s angle, he could only see her snow-white profile hidden in her fluffy black curly hair, and her slender fingers swirling the wine glass. Her fingertips were blood-red with polish as she leisurely tilted the glass.
Full, soft red lips pressed against the rim of the glass, sipping unhurriedly.
In an instant, Wen Jianyan seemed to realize something. He glanced at the corpses on the ground again, turned his head, and whispered to the few people behind him: “Quick, change into formal wear.”
In the traditional sense, the Captain’s Gala Dinner required formal attire.
All the anchors who died after taking the glass wore casual clothes, while those who took the glass and were fine—regardless of whether they drank—wore formal attire suitable for attending a dinner party.
After Wen Jianyan, the remaining anchors also reacted one after another.
Some figured it out themselves, while others followed suit seeing others do so.
Wen Jianyan and his teammates, as well as the Dark Fire group, changed clothes quickly. They used the corner terrain to place barriers. The ladies changed inside, while the men weren’t so particular and just changed outside directly.
Maggie poked her head out from behind the barrier and whispered:
“Captain, do you want to come in and change?”
Wen Jianyan had already unbuttoned his shirt and taken off his outer garment. He looked baffled:
“What? Why?”
Maggie secretly pointed to the rear.
“!” Not far behind, An Xin looked away somewhat unnaturally.
Wen Jianyan: “…”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Hahahahahaha!!]
[Maggie: Guild President, someone covets your body.]
[Hahahaha who doesn’t covet! I ask who doesn’t covet!]
Wen Jianyan twitched the corner of his mouth: “Thanks, but no need.”
Saying this, he pulled off his upper garment, revealing broad shoulders and a firm chest.
Maggie: “Captain has a good figure!”
Wen Jianyan shot her a glance and began putting on the shirt.
Maggie chuckled twice and ducked back in.
Wen Jianyan’s movements were natural and swift.
He didn’t care too much about An Xin’s so-called feelings—this emotion was built on some vain illusion. First, he had unintentionally chosen a female image that fit An Xin’s preference back then; second, it was the suspension bridge effect in the instance.
And this was just a shallow illusion easily shaken. Wen Jianyan felt there was no need to even avoid it.
He lowered his eyes and deftly buttoned his shirt.
Making the other party clearly realize he was male might be much more useful than other things.
Within ten minutes, everyone in their team, men and women alike, had changed into formal wear. The group exchanged glances, stepped forward, and took glasses from the waiters.
This time, nothing happened.
Chen Mo took a sip of the liquid in the glass, turned his head, and whispered to everyone: “The Captain’s Gala Dinner in the instance heavily emphasizes rules. It seems there won’t be only one such trap… be careful.”
Everyone nodded.
Other anchors also finished changing into formal wear and reached out to pick up glasses from the silver trays. After everyone had drunk the champagne in their cups, Eaton Ethan then spoke slowly:
“Please be seated, everyone.”
The entire hall was very quiet, with only the sound of chaotic footsteps and the squeaking of chairs scraping against the floor.
Wen Jianyan and Qi Qian’s teams occupied three tables. They sat down cautiously, not touching anything on the table to avoid triggering violation conditions.
When the noise disappeared, all anchors were seated in their seats.
“First of all, welcome everyone to the Lucky Cruise Ship. This dinner is a welcome ceremony. I hope to spend a wonderful journey with everyone in the upcoming itinerary,” Eaton Ethan began. “Next, waiters will serve the meals we have carefully prepared. After the meal, there will be a traditional ball. I hope everyone has a wonderful evening.”
Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes.
Indeed, even in the real world, the Captain’s Gala Dinner followed this flow.
Cocktail party, dining, and finally the ball.
Just as his voice fell, the waiters carrying trays filed forward again.
Soon, plates covered with silver domes were placed in front of everyone.
Everyone exchanged glances. Only after the medium nodded did they carefully raise their hands to uncover the lids in front of them, revealing exquisite appetizers emitting rich aromas.
Even more incredible was that the dishes in front of everyone seemed different.
It had to be said that although the Lucky Cruise Ship had been alienated into a instance, it still retained its original characteristics… Even though it was fraught with danger, it was still incomparably luxurious in terms of pleasure, enough to please any picky passenger.
“…”
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and slowly raised his hand to uncover the lid.
However, when he uncovered the lid, he couldn’t help but freeze slightly.
Unlike the others… the plate in front of Wen Jianyan was empty, without any food.
In the middle of the snow-white bone china plate lay a rose folded from a napkin, quietly resting there.
