Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 604: ……pain?
After retrieving the room keys for the night and picking up Ji Guan, the group didn’t linger and immediately headed for Floor B16.
The elevator descended slowly in a dead silence. In the enclosed space, only the sound of their ragged breathing could be heard. The number on the screen representing the floor didn’t change for a long time. If it weren’t for the hum of machinery, one would almost suspect the elevator wasn’t moving at all.
As the floors deepened, the time required to descend each level seemed longer than before.
After an unknown amount of time, the number on the upper right corner of the screen finally ticked slowly from -15 to -16.
With a ding, the elevator doors slid open to both sides, revealing a bottomless corridor in front of them.
“We have arrived at Floor B16.”
The elevator operator revealed a formulaic smile to the group inside. Under the blood-red lighting, the features belonging to “Tong Yao” on its face seemed to be slowly fading, like playdough pressed into a mold, gradually smoothing away the unique human characteristics to become another ubiquitous attendant.
“Please watch your step.”
The group left the elevator and entered the corridor.
The walls were blood-red, flanked by tightly closed metal cabin doors. However, unlike the previous floors, which only felt slightly worn, the walls on this floor were heavily mottled. The metal doors were covered in rust, looking as if they had weathered at least a hundred more years than the ones above.
“…” Seeing this, Wen Jianyan’s eyes flickered slightly.
In the accommodation floors of the Lucky Cruise, the lower the floor, the older it looked, and the heavier the traces of time.
The feeling this floor gave him was actually very close to Floor B18.
“President, what’s your room number?” Ma Qi poked her head over, asking curiously.
Wen Jianyan looked down, glancing at the rusty keychain in his hand, and read the text on it expressionlessly: “…D23.”
Tired. Don’t even want to curse anymore. Whatever.
The others: “…” Not surprised, ha.
One by one, they entered the rooms they had drawn. Eventually, only Wen Jianyan was left, walking alone down the corridor.
Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision and paused.
The space above one of the cabin doors next to him was empty; there was no room number sign.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingered on it for a few seconds. He took two steps back, looked to the left, then to the right—the door on the left said B11, and the one on the right said B13. Which meant the cabin in front of him should be Cabin B12.
Wen Jianyan leaned in closer, slowly touching a slightly faded corner of the door where faint traces of a metal plate having been attached could be seen.
…He had only seen this kind of cabin with the number plate removed on Floor B18.
His heart pounded. Wen Jianyan felt a thin layer of cold sweat seep out on his back.
Cabins with this characteristic were not empty but occupied by “Tenants” for a long time.
If one entered the cabin, found the number plate, and hung it back in its original place, the Tenant living there would be released and could even move freely within the cruise ship.
Just like that, Wen Jianyan stared at the cabin for a long time. Suddenly, he froze, seemingly thinking of something. He took two steps back, then turned and ran back without stopping.
He returned to the elevator entrance and pressed the button again.
A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened with a ding.
The elevator operator, whose face still bore a fifty percent resemblance to Tong Yao, stood under the blood-red light, smiling at him.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and asked tentatively:
“Can you take me to the floor where Dan Zhu is?”
Except for the Captain’s Dinner, Dan Zhu had never appeared on the first floor of the cruise ship, nor had she ever gone to draw a room key. This meant that Dan Zhu had a fixed room on this ship.
Before the instance began, at the celebration party for Chen Cheng’s promotion to the Nightmare Top Ten, Dan Zhu had said she would be staying downstairs during her time on the ship and that if anyone wanted to find her, they could give her name to the elevator attendant.
However… what Wen Jianyan didn’t know was whether this offer was still valid after the instance started.
“Of course,” the elevator operator smiled.
—So it was valid.
Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes.
And… the information he gained went beyond that. Although the elevator operator had been “replaced,” it still knew which floor Dan Zhu was on. This proved that on the Lucky Cruise, Dan Zhu was special. From the very beginning.
Whether before it mutated into an instance or after.
He stepped into the elevator.
The elevator began to move, sinking slowly downward.
This time, the descent took even longer. Just when Wen Jianyan suspected the elevator would run forever, it finally slowed to a stop and emitted a ding.
The numbers on the screen flashed.
[-17]
Seeing this number, Wen Jianyan’s eyes shifted slightly.
The elevator doors opened wide in front of him, revealing a corridor even more worn and mottled, bearing a higher resemblance to Floor B18.
“Miss Dan Zhu is in Room A2,” the elevator operator said with a smile. “You may proceed on your own.”
Wen Jianyan stared fixedly at the bottomless corridor in front of him. After a few seconds, he said, “…No need. I changed my mind.”
He withdrew his gaze. “Let’s go back.”
The elevator returned to Floor B16. This time, Wen Jianyan didn’t stop halfway and went straight back to his room for the night.
The furnishings in Room Ding were as terrible as always. The entire cabin was as cramped and enclosed as a pigeon coop, and due to the aging of the room, the stay experience was even worse than the upper floors.
But it wasn’t Wen Jianyan’s first time staying here, so he was long used to it.
He sat cross-legged on the bed, lowering his eyes, allowing himself to sink into his thoughts.
Starting from Floor B16, rooms were already being occupied by “Tenants,” and by Floor B18, those living there were no longer human at all.
And Dan Zhu lived on Floor B17.
And in a fixed room that didn’t require a draw.
Did this mean… compared to humans like them, Dan Zhu’s existence was actually closer to a “Tenant”?
Was this related to Dan Zhu’s ambition for the Captain’s position?
For him now, the whole situation was still confusing, and there were too many unanswered mysteries in this instance. But intuitively, Wen Jianyan felt he had touched upon something… very crucial.
While Wen Jianyan was thinking, a familiar knock came from the door.
Three shorts, one long.
The sound pulled Wen Jianyan back from his contemplation. He jumped up and looked at the cabin door.
It was Wu Zhu.
Wen Jianyan walked to the door, pausing just before his fingers touched it, seemingly hesitating briefly.
Should I turn off the livestream?
This thought barely circled his mind before he tossed it aside. Wen Jianyan pressed down and opened the door.
Whatever. It’s already come to this. No point.
But the moment he opened the door, Wen Jianyan regretted it.
Because he never in a million years would have thought this guy would bring him flowers—if his eyes didn’t deceive him, that thing looked exactly like the paper roses that appeared at the Captain’s Dinner—what the actual hell!
What did he think they were doing? Going on a date?
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s vision went dark for a moment. It took almost all his strength not to slam the door directly back into that annoying, oblivious-to-the-situation stupid face.
In the “Integrity First” livestream room chat:
[…]
[…]
[Huh?]
After a few seconds of silence, Wen Jianyan’s face turned ashen, his expression looking ready to eat someone:
“—First of all, throw that thing away for me.”
Wu Zhu looked down at the bouquet in his hand—he remembered the other person liking it when he shoved it at him during the Captain’s Dinner, strange—even though he didn’t quite understand Wen Jianyan’s motives, he moved his fingers. Darkness wound around his wrist and swallowed the white flowers in one bite.
“Get in.”
Wen Jianyan, face still livid, pointed inside.
Behind him, Wen Jianyan slammed the cabin door shut with such force it seemed he was slamming it not on the frame, but on Wu Zhu’s face.
After closing the door, Wen Jianyan returned to the room with a gloomy face. Since the room was so small, it only took him a turn of his body.
Wu Zhu was tall. With him there, the already small room became even more cramped.
“Sit down.”
Wen Jianyan stared at him for two seconds before stingily spitting out two words.
Wu Zhu sat down.
“Take off your clothes.” Wen Jianyan looked terrible, cherishing his words like gold.
Wu Zhu gave him a deep look and raised his hand.
Seemingly realizing his semantic error, Wen Jianyan raised his voice and hurriedly added:
“—Only take off your shirt!”
previously on Floor B7, two iron bars conjured by Carl Bell had pierced through Wu Zhu’s body—one through the chest, one through the thigh.
Wen Jianyan didn’t think his heart was made of stone to the extent that he could be indifferent to his ally’s condition… They were allies, after all… Even if it were someone else, he wouldn’t have just sat by and watched… This was a matter of basic human decency.
On this matter, his logic was consistent and well-founded.
After the clothing was removed, the pale chest was exposed to the air. Eerie curse patterns grew wildly under the skin, giving off a savage impact.
A hideous wound remained where he had been pierced earlier. The flesh was torn and lifted due to the violent force, but the overall condition was still much better than Wen Jianyan had imagined—although bad, it was evident that it had already begun to regrow. At this speed, it wouldn’t take long to fully heal, leaving not even a trace.
Wen Jianyan still frowned: “…You’re healing slower than I imagined.”
Except for that specially made brass knife, he had almost never seen anything capable of leaving a mark on Wu Zhu. Having been entangled in this ill-fated relationship for so long, no one knew better than him how hard it was to kill Wu Zhu.
“Mhm. I am greatly restricted here.” Wu Zhu didn’t seem to care much about this, his tone even lacking much fluctuation. “I thought you already knew.”
That was true.
The structure of the Lucky Cruise instance was closed off and impossible to invade from the outside. The night they arrived, Wu Zhu had said that the Nightmare’s control here was too high for him to exert much influence.
“But it doesn’t matter.” Wu Zhu narrowed his eyes. Under the light, his contracted pupils showed a hint of beastly savagery. He licked his lips. “I like the feeling of eating it from the inside.”
This was also true.
When Wen Jianyan conquered the racecourse, Wu Zhu took over the identity of one of the Tenants. In the time between entering and leaving Floor B5, he had hollowed out and swallowed even more Tenants, silently and slowly encroaching on this instance from the inside—just as he had done in every instance before.
“You can put on…”
Wen Jianyan nodded, preparing to end the topic, but his gaze suddenly flickered, lingering for a moment on the other’s collarbone.
“Wait.”
Wen Jianyan suddenly spoke.
He took a step forward, brow half-furrowed, reaching out to grab Wu Zhu’s collar and pulling it aside.
On the side of his neck was a shocking wound. The pale, marble-like flesh looked as if it had been sliced open by a sharp weapon. The edges were neat and steep. The surface was sealed by a layer of black shadow, but the flowing golden blood inside was still visible.
The shape of that wound… the position…
Everything was too familiar.
Wen Jianyan’s pupils involuntarily contracted slightly—this was clearly the wound caused by Chen Cheng’s talent earlier. Why did it appear here?! The words blurted out:
“How…”
“Oh, this,” Wu Zhu glanced at it, seemingly only just remembering he had this wound. He rolled his shoulder. “It’s a bit troublesome. It will take longer to recover…”
“I’m not talking about that!” Wen Jianyan interrupted him impatiently.
Wu Zhu looked at him in confusion.
“Lie down.” Wen Jianyan frowned deeply, roughly pushing him down, then yanked up one of his pant legs—although the marks had almost completely faded, the once hideous scars were still visible—Wen Jianyan knew clearly that these were injuries he sustained when trying to escape from Floor B18. Even though they were healed, the pain seemed deeply buried in his memory, lingering under his skin, aching faintly upon recollection.
“…So, you can’t heal injuries? Never could?”
Wen Jianyan let go and slowly took a step back.
He stared tightly at Wu Zhu, the shadow of his eyelashes falling over his eyes, obscuring the complex light within.
“Mhm.” Wu Zhu admitted lightly.
When doing all this, the other acted so naturally that Wen Jianyan had never considered how a monster that drew energy from malice could make his wounds heal in a breath.
Wen Jianyan opened his mouth: “So, you just transferred my injuries to… your own body?”
“Mhm.”
“So before as well…”
“Mhm.” Wu Zhu didn’t think it was a big deal.
Nor did he think to mention it.
If not for his slow recovery in this instance, Wen Jianyan might never have discovered this matter.
“You don’t think—”
Wen Jianyan stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.
“…”
Wu Zhu’s gaze moved, landing on Wen Jianyan’s face.
“What?” he asked.
Wen Jianyan didn’t answer.
Unknowingly, Wu Zhu had sat back up. His knees came together, trapping Wen Jianyan’s thigh that had somehow ended up between them. His gaze locked onto Wen Jianyan’s face, aggressively licking over his features, not missing a single minute change in expression.
He raised a hand to catch Wen Jianyan’s arm, his voice low and slow, repeating again:
“Don’t think what?”
The gaze was too direct. Wen Jianyan instinctively pulled his arm back:
“Let go—”
“Hiss.” As if his arm had been pulled painfully, Wu Zhu frowned and let out a dramatic hiss.
Wen Jianyan instinctively stopped his movement.
He tried to hold back but failed, asking hesitantly: “…Did I hurt you?”
At some point, Wu Zhu had sat up again. The distance between them was compressed to the minimum by his movement, making the already narrow cabin feel even more crowded.
“…”
Wu Zhu’s eyes flashed. He stared thoughtfully at Wen Jianyan for two seconds, as if self-taught, responding very naturally:
“Mhm.”
Without changing his expression or feeling any shame.
“You hurt me.”
As he spoke, Wu Zhu tightened his fingers, slowly pulling Wen Jianyan’s arm, shifting the other’s weight onto himself.
Wen Jianyan stumbled, losing his balance just slightly, and his thigh was forced to press against the other’s cold, pale lower abdomen.
Even though he was speaking words of weakness, the meaning expressed in his eyes was quite the opposite. Wu Zhu leaned in close, looking up at him from below.
Golden vertical pupils locked onto the human youth close at hand, like a python tightly coiling around its prey.
“But…”
“If you give it a kiss, maybe it won’t hurt anymore.”
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