Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 552: Are you trying to kill me?!
One two three, one two three.
The two stepped on the beautiful beat of the music, spinning in the orchestra pit as if no one else was around.
This scene was like a work of art.
The man was handsome, the woman was charming. These two, whose looks were equally outstanding, would be the focus of attention anywhere—but on this alienated cruise ship, among countless terrifying corpses, the reason they attracted attention was no longer their looks.
“Wait,” watching the movement path of the two, Blond’s face was pale as a sheet, and he lowered his voice, “They aren’t thinking of…”
“Mn.”
Chen Mo’s face was dark as he uttered a short, affirmative syllable.
Anyone with a bit of discernment could see the changes on the scene.
While everyone else was being controlled, these two had already successfully broken free from the status quo and were even plotting a counter-kill.
“That’s one of the management levels of the Lucky Cruise Ship.”
Chang Feiyu lowered his voice.
Its difficulty and danger were top-tier even within this instance.
To put it bluntly, this was simply courting death.
But…
Chen Mo’s gaze fell on that red female figure that looked like a wound, and his heart sank inexplicably.
He withdrew his gaze and turned to look at Wen Ya:
“Do you know anything about your former Guild President?”
“Almost nothing.”
Wen Ya’s face didn’t look too good either.
“She rarely participated in the actual management of the guild, basically entrusting it to several Vice Presidents under her. I basically never met her, only heard some rumors…”
Chen Mo: “What rumors?”
“Most are irrelevant.”
Wen Ya took a deep breath.
“The most widely spread one is that Dan Zhu likes beautiful things very, very much. So Eternal Day is not only the guild with the most good-looking anchors among the three major guilds, but also the guild with the largest proportion of female anchors. If the strength of the anchors applying to the guild is equal, Eternal Day will definitely lean toward recruiting female anchors. Among the five high-level executives, there is only one male, and the rest are all female.”
“…”
Everyone was stunned.
Then it was understandable why their Guild President would be favored by Dan Zhu.
Although Wen Jianyan had many shortcomings, which would take a long time to list, what couldn’t be denied was… he did have an impeccable face.
“Besides that, what we spread the most is the persistent, long-lasting pursuit of our Guild President by the Guild President of Dark Fire…” Noticing everyone’s gaze, Wen Ya looked somewhat embarrassed.
“Cough, gossiping is human nature, okay?”
Finally, it was Chen Mo who pulled the topic back:
“What else? Is there any content related to Dan Zhu herself, especially her strength?”
“Unfortunately, almost none.” Wen Ya shook her head.
She hesitated for a moment before lowering her voice and saying: “I only know… her ruthlessness and cruelty are as famous as her beauty. Dan Zhu is indeed a good-looking anchor, but anyone who underestimates her because of this had better be careful—whether as an enemy or an ally, she is very terrifying.”
Dan Zhu.
Was a true femme fatale.
The group fell silent, their attention focused once again on the two in the dance floor, praying silently in their hearts, hoping nothing would go wrong.
In the dance floor.
As time passed, the distance to the target was getting closer and closer.
The music was still beautiful and smooth. Most of the anchors in the entire dance floor had been “converted,” turning into corpses with hollow faces.
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes to gaze at the beautiful face in front of him, his expression tender, but his deliberately lowered voice was calm and rational:
“What plan do you have?”
“Plan?” Dan Zhu laughed charmingly. “Isn’t it better to play it by ear?”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
Although he had noticed it before, this “cooperation” made him truly confirm… he really couldn’t get along with a personality like Dan Zhu’s.
Although he would also act according to circumstances, most of the time he preferred to plan before acting—after all, he really had no advantage in actual combat, so he had to use this method to fill the gap.
But Dan Zhu was an action-oriented person who did whatever came to mind. Her pace and habits were completely inconsistent with his, making it really difficult for Wen Jianyan to adapt, causing him endless suffering.
Unknowingly, Eaton Ethan was only one step away from them.
The distance was too close. Wen Jianyan could almost feel the other party’s chilling aura burning his back, and his shoulders even tensed up slightly involuntarily.
If Dan Zhu didn’t reveal her thoughts at this time, it would soon be too late—
Suddenly, the five fingers originally resting on Wen Jianyan’s shoulder slid, caught his tie, and pulled lightly downward.
“?!” Alarm bells rang in Wen Jianyan’s heart.
Before the last second, he subconsciously turned his head, but still couldn’t avoid it in time.
Soft lips carrying a rich fragrance brushed past Wen Jianyan’s cheek.
A beauty offering a kiss—especially a peerless beauty like Dan Zhu—should have been a fortunate event that most men couldn’t ask for more, but Wen Jianyan felt as if he had been stung by something cold and poisonous. Some premonition that chilled his spine rang loudly deep in his mind.
Misty eyes were close at hand.
Dan Zhu’s laughing voice came to his ear:
“Good boy, I’m counting on you here.”
Wha—?!
Wen Jianyan’s eyes widened.
But before he could do anything, Dan Zhu had already deftly broken free from his embrace. Her blood-red long dress flared in the air as she stepped on her high heels, walking elegantly toward Eaton Ethan at the edge of the dance floor.
And the moment Dan Zhu’s aura left, Wen Jianyan felt his hair stand on end.
He jerked his head around, only to see that all the corpses in the dance floor had turned their heads at some point. Those pitch-black hollow faces without features were facing him straight on. Although none of them had eyeballs, Wen Jianyan just had the feeling of being stared at by countless eyes full of malice.
Bad!!!
Almost without needing to think, Wen Jianyan understood his situation.
Since Dan Zhu went to deal with Eaton Ethan, the target for the other corpses to attack was only him—!
Fuck!!
Wen Jianyan blacked out for a second.
If he were any other type of anchor—like Hugo—even if forced into this situation, he would be 100% able to handle it with ease. But the problem lay here…
Although Wen Jianyan was also ranked in the top ten, he had almost no direct combat ability. His solo combat ability was almost zero. Getting out of trouble by relying on deceit and a glib tongue was already the limit of what he could do.
Staring at those cold, bizarre faceless corpses in the dance floor that were immune to items below S-rank, Wen Jianyan only felt darkness before his eyes.
—He didn’t think his tongue would be of any use in this situation.
…Sis! You want me dead!!
Before Wen Jianyan could despair over his fate, the corpses in the dance floor had already started moving. Pitch-black water flowed out from the holes on their faces, dripping onto the ground, gathering into thin black streams, swimming toward Wen Jianyan as if alive.
No choice.
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth.
Forced to this point, even if he wasn’t good at it, he had to bite the bullet and go for it.
It would be fine if they attacked him, but if he didn’t hold the line here and let the corpses leave the dance floor, affecting Dan Zhu’s side… then all their efforts would be wasted, and they would lose everything.
Outside the dance floor, everyone had been paying attention to the movements here, so as soon as the situation changed, they made a decision immediately.
Almost without any hesitation, Chen Mo gave an order:
“Go.”
An Xin turned to look at Qi Qian inquiringly. Qi Qian hesitated for a moment.
“Fine.” He sighed.
Strictly speaking, Qi Qian was unwilling to participate in this kind of battle with no benefits, but the alliance between the two sides had just been reached not long ago. Losing an ally at this time was unwise, especially when the other party had saved him not long ago.
The next second, a pitch-black Tang sword tore through the air.
Torn apart along with the sword shadow were two other corpses.
Chen Cheng turned his head and glanced at Qi Qian mockingly, then jumped into the dance floor carrying the sword.
“…” Qi Qian stared gloomily at his back and gritted his teeth: “Get in there. If you kill fewer than him, I’ll settle the score with you.”
With the two squads and Chen Cheng joining the battlefield, the pressure on Wen Jianyan’s side decreased sharply.
He gasped for breath in the interval of being attacked and turned to look in Dan Zhu’s direction.
A patch of red cloud and mist swirled around. Unknown if it was an item activated by Dan Zhu or part of her Talent, it blocked his vision completely. Wen Jianyan couldn’t see anything clearly, let alone help. He couldn’t even confirm the positions of the two.
Just as he was searching for their figures in the mist with his eyes, suddenly, a cold aura attacked from behind, a needle-prick sensation screaming behind his spine.
Not good!!
Wen Jianyan jerked his head around.
Sure enough, a corpse had broken through the defense line at some point and was coming straight at him!
Reflected in Wen Jianyan’s dilated pupils was the rapidly approaching terrifying figure. The hollow replacing the facial features was like a huge vortex, opening its mouth wide to swallow him.
As the anchor participating in the fewest number of instances, Wen Jianyan’s stock of S-rank items wasn’t much to begin with, and he was forced to consume a large amount in the encounter just now.
—Could it be that on the first day of the instance, he had to pay a heavy price and consume the usage count of an Epic-rank item?
No, now wasn’t the time to be stingy.
However, just as Wen Jianyan made up his mind, the corpse in front of him suddenly stopped moving. Rather than being bound by some invisible existence, it was more like the power controlling them disappeared—not just it, to be precise, all the corpses in the entire dance floor stopped moving.
After a brief suspension, like puppets with their strings cut, all the corpses fell to the ground in unison, leaving only the living panting heavily, standing transfixed in the pile of dead bodies.
“…”
Feeling something, Wen Jianyan turned to look behind him.
Unknown starting when, the red smoke had disappeared without a trace, leaving only Dan Zhu standing alone in the distance. Her head hung low, her face still wearing an unfathomable smile. Her fingertips toyed with a pitch-black, ancient-looking heavy coin, and at her feet lay a corpse.
Androgynous, pale and lifeless face, slender body bent into a weird arc, dead gray pupils dilated.
It was Eaton Ethan.
Seemed to be already dead.
Anchors seeing this scene were stunned in place.
Although everyone knew clearly that the terror level of the top three was in a completely different league from others, witnessing Dan Zhu personally snipe a instance manager without even getting a scratch, everyone was still greatly shocked.
Is this… the strength of the Nightmare Top Three?
Dan Zhu lifted her skirt, stepped over the corpse on the ground, and walked gracefully toward them.
She lowered her eyes to sweep a glance at the messy dance floor, then looked smilingly at Wen Jianyan:
“See, I knew you could do it.”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
Did it my ass, I didn’t do anything at all!
Wen Jianyan twitched the corner of his mouth. Just as he was about to say something, suddenly, he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye and raised his voice abruptly:
“Watch out!”
“?”
Dan Zhu was stunned. The next second, she felt her arm being grabbed and pulled violently to the side by a force.
She turned her head and looked at the spot where she had just stood.
Eaton Ethan’s corpse lay across the ground. His face was still as cold, pale, and lifeless as before, but what was terrifying was that his stomach was heaving bizarrely, bulging higher and higher as time passed. Almost the next second after Dan Zhu turned her head, his stomach was ripped open with a huge gash from the inside out. Immediately after, a hunched figure slowly crawled out from Eaton Ethan’s disemboweled body.
It was a pitch-black figure, as if a bottomless hole had been dug out in the air. Its shape looked almost exactly the same as Eaton Ethan.
It didn’t speak, nor did it attack. Just standing there made the temperature of the entire hall drop. Watching this scene, everyone couldn’t help but feel their hair stand on end.
Under everyone’s horrified gaze, that black shadow slowly melted into the bright light, and just like that…
Disappeared.
With the disappearance of the black shadow, the temperature of the entire hall began to rise again, and even the light in the hall seemed to become brighter than before.
“That… what was that thing?” Ji Guan asked, still in shock.
No one answered his question.
Nor did anyone know how to answer this question.
Dan Zhu glanced at Wen Jianyan and said smilingly:
“Quick reaction.”
She narrowed her eyes: “Worthy of a reward.”
Wen Jianyan let go of her hand, took two steps back, and said righteously:
“…No need, it’s what I should do.”
As if amused by Wen Jianyan’s action, Dan Zhu giggled again.
Crisis resolved, dust settled. The music originally flowing in the air also disappeared, leaving only the floor full of corpses, signifying the reality of the whole event.
Wen Jianyan involuntarily glanced at the ground.
Eaton Ethan’s disemboweled corpse lay in place, pupils dilated, devoid of breath, obviously dead as a doornail—after all, the person who struck was Dan Zhu, this point shouldn’t be doubted.
But Wen Jianyan still had a somewhat unreal feeling…
After all, this was also his first time proving through action that a high-level instance manager could be sniped on the first day of the instance. Wen Jianyan was somewhat unable to adapt.
Dead?
Just died like this?
While Wen Jianyan was deep in thought facing Eaton Ethan’s corpse, suddenly, a cold voice came from behind: “Good evening.”
Everyone was startled and jerked their heads toward the direction of the voice.
A tall, black-haired man in formal wear stood not far away. His features were handsome, but his aura was very cold, almost like a dead person. Although he didn’t look anything like Eaton Ethan, for some reason, he felt very similar.
Everyone’s nerves and bodies tensed up together, staring at him fixedly, vigilant against the impending conflict.
“Due to some special reasons, Mr. Eaton Ethan is unable to serve everyone recently. Therefore, his work will be taken over by me.” The black-haired man introduced himself, “My name is Alex, please advise.”
The hall remained dead silent.
This successor walked forward slowly, turning a blind eye to his predecessor’s corpse:
“Very sorry, as this Captain’s Gala Dinner was forced to be interrupted for some reasons, on behalf of the cruise ship, I offer my sincere apologies to everyone. As compensation, the ball will be held again in three days. I hope everyone will honor us with your presence then.”
“Finally, please come forward,” Alex walked toward the huge glass vessel that had stood silently in the corner of the hall all along. “Tonight’s room rate for the Negative Eighth Floor is one million a night. At the same time, rooms on the Negative Ninth Floor will also be open to everyone tonight, priced at five million a night.”
Eaton Ethan had already mentioned this price this morning. Even so, hearing such a high room rate, everyone couldn’t help but feel a pang in their hearts.
“Room keys still need to be drawn,” Alex said. “However, if you wish to maintain last night’s room, the room rate will be two million.”
“…”
The group exchanged glances, trading a solemn look.
Based on Wen Jianyan’s experience last night, obviously, tonight the Ding-grade rooms would face danger directly, and Bing-grade wasn’t considered safe either. If one didn’t want to spend five million to go to the Negative Ninth Floor, and didn’t want to bet on luck, one could only spend an extra million to maintain their room from last night…
In terms of exploitation and amassing wealth, this instance was truly vicious.
Alex continued on his own: “Of course, out of humanitarian sympathy for everyone, we will still open credit loans for everyone tonight.”
The heavy words pressed down on people until they could barely breathe.
No one wanted to pay, but they had to—without the protection of the cruise ship room, what awaited them would be instant death.
Chen Mo: “By the way.”
“?” Wen Jianyan turned to look at him.
Chen Mo said: “Captain, I don’t suggest all members move into the Negative Ninth Floor this time.”
“The cost is too high, and we still don’t know how long we have to stay in this instance, nor do we know how high the price will rise later,” Chen Mo frowned slightly, staring at his Guild President who had no restraint in spending money. “If you ask me, it’s enough for you and Blond to go to the Ninth Floor. The rest should be able to stay on the Negative Eighth Floor for another night, and keeping their rooms from last night is the most cost-effective solution.”
In the room draw, Blond drew the Bing zone, while Wen Jianyan drew the Ding zone. Their accommodation zones were the furthest back and also the most dangerous, so entering the Negative Ninth Floor tonight would be safer. However, the others’ room numbers were more toward the front, and nothing strange happened last night, so there was really no need to spend this unjust money.
Wen Jianyan: “But…”
“No discussion.” As the manager of the guild’s financial power, Chen Mo’s answer was categorical. “Since you are so willing to spend money, then you manage the guild’s account book after leaving the instance.”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
Bad, got pinched.
He gave a dejected “oh.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Have to say, Chen Mo is right on this point.]
[Although the anchor is very good at clearing instances, regarding financial management… mn. Those who understand, understand.]
[Hahahahaha indeed, judging from the anchor’s performance in the casino, the way he spends money on bets can simply scare people to death.]
[To be honest, having Platinumed so many instances yet only having that little savings, the anchor can be considered the first person in history… Where exactly did your money go!!!]
[Support Chen Mo controlling the financial power!! Support Vice President usurping power!!!]
After having his financial power seized by Chen Mo, Wen Jianyan was obviously not as arrogant as before.
In the end, only Wen Jianyan and Blond purchased room keys for the Negative Ninth Floor. Everyone else still stayed in their rooms from last night on the Negative Eighth Floor.
Wen Jianyan stepped forward apprehensively and pulled down the lever.
In the huge glass vessel, countless small balls began to jump. Soon, a small ball rolled out.
Wen Jianyan squinted, nervously opening the ball slowly.
A key fell out.
On the rusty metal tag behind, a few characters were engraved:
[Ding 13]
Ding.
Ding again.
Wen Jianyan: “………………”
He hates this instance!!!!!!
Since they already had the experience from last night, this time, the whole process was much faster.
The elevator stopped at the Negative Eighth Floor, and almost everyone left—they didn’t have Wen Jianyan’s experience from last night, so naturally, they weren’t willing to spend an astronomical price to enter the Negative Ninth Floor. Even anchors willing to spend an extra million to keep their original rooms were a minority.
Watching the figures of the anchors leaving the elevator, Wen Jianyan slowly let out a breath.
Tonight… casualties would probably appear again.
The elevator doors slowly closed and began to operate again.
The elevator sank slowly. Clearly, it only needed to go down one floor, but for some reason, it took a longer time.
Finally, with a “ding,” the elevator stopped.
“Negative Ninth Floor arrived, please watch your step,” the waiter said.
Wen Jianyan and Blond left the elevator. Appearing in front of them was a seemingly endless red corridor. The cabin doors on both sides were tightly closed, so quiet it made one panic inside.
Unknown if it was an illusion, this floor felt more oppressive than the previous one.
Wen Jianyan turned to look at Blond: “What’s your room number?”
Blond: “Jia 19.”
He looked at Wen Jianyan curiously: “What about you, Guild President?”
Wen Jianyan said gloomily: “…Enough, don’t say it.”
In this regard, Blond always had a small animal-like keen intuition. He shuddered and tactfully shut his mouth.
The two walked forward side by side along the corridor.
Blond quickly found his room and reluctantly parted ways with Wen Jianyan at the door. Wen Jianyan waved feebly and continued to walk deep into the corridor.
Unknown how long passed, he finally arrived in front of the room he drew.
Staring at this dilapidated, rusty iron door in front of him, Wen Jianyan couldn’t lift his spirits no matter what.
He listlessly inserted the key into the keyhole and opened the door.
The five-million-a-night room appeared before him.
Still the narrow hard plank bed, the bathroom where turning around was difficult for one person, and the very worrying hygiene conditions.
The basic layout wasn’t much different from the Negative Eighth Floor, but perhaps because the location was lower, the temperature on this floor was obviously much lower. The room was chilly, the damp cold air sticking to the skin, bringing a lingering gloomy coldness. Although there was no wind, he still couldn’t help shivering.
The living experience wasn’t even comparable to the Negative Eighth Floor, but the price was five times that of the Negative Eighth Floor.
Five times!
Thinking of the money he spent, Wen Jianyan’s heart was bleeding.
Suddenly, his gaze paused slightly, landing on the hard plank bed—something seemed to be placed there.
“…”
Wait, this is…?
Wen Jianyan froze, then quickly stepped forward, lowered his head, and looked toward the foot of the hard plank bed.
Lying there quietly was a rose.
—Exactly the same as the one that appeared at the banquet earlier.
