Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 623: The only path to freedom
“…”
Hearing these words, everyone’s pupils contracted.
What…?!
Deep in the crimson corridor, the woman stood gracefully with a smile on her lips. She stared at the young man not far away with her deathly eyes, seemingly waiting for his answer.
Wen Jianyan, under her gaze, opened his mouth but couldn’t utter a word.
Even though he had guessed Dan Zhu’s question, when he actually heard it, his mind still went blank for a moment.
To stop Su Cheng from becoming the Captain, he had to…
Kill him?
This…
Dan Zhu, however, seemed to have already gotten the answer she wanted.
She chuckled lightly and beckoned:
“Come here.”
After a brief hesitation, Wen Jianyan stepped forward.
“Open your hand,” Dan Zhu said.
Wen Jianyan opened his palm.
The next second, something landed in his palm. The touch was incredibly cold; the moment it made contact, Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but shudder.
He lowered his eyes and looked closely.
Three pitch-black coins lay quietly in his palm.
These were… the tokens of the three administrators?
Wen Jianyan was stunned, instinctively looking at Dan Zhu, not understanding why she would do this.
“Do you know why I’ve spent so much time and still haven’t found the Captain’s Room?” Dan Zhu asked.
Wen Jianyan shook his head.
“Of course, it’s the work of your ‘old acquaintance’.” Dan Zhu smiled slowly, but there was no mirth in the depths of those cold, hollow, dead eyes. “These corridors… these walls, they are alive. They can be changed at will to block my path and will even attack me under the orders of that ‘Acting Captain’.”
“But, guess what?” Dan Zhu walked forward methodically, her high heels clicking on the floor, producing crisp echoes. “At such a distance, he can only know the location of the candidate, and naturally, he can only directly attack the candidate.”
Wen Jianyan realized Dan Zhu’s purpose almost immediately.
Suddenly, the three cold coins in his palm felt exceptionally hot.
Unknowingly, Dan Zhu had walked right up to him.
She leaned in slowly, an incomparably gorgeous smile on her lips, the intense scent of rotting flowers pressing down on him:
“So, I hope your old acquaintance harbors the same compassion for you.”
Dan Zhu stepped back, her gaze sweeping over the people behind Wen Jianyan, pausing on Chen Cheng for a few seconds—Chen Cheng tensed up as if facing a formidable enemy—but in the end, Dan Zhu didn’t attack. She just chuckled lightly and withdrew her gaze:
“Alright, let’s go.”
Beneath the woman’s feet, flowers emitting the aura of death twisted and wriggled like living creatures, biting and growing forward.
“However, I suggest you walk in front. Otherwise, I won’t be responsible for whatever happens.”
The crimson corridor was filled with a suffocatingly strong fragrance.
In the dead silence, a scalp-tingling rustling sound echoed.
The floor, walls, ceiling… everything in all directions was being torn and devoured by Dan Zhu’s Talent. Wherever she passed, only a scene of decay remained, like paper left in the sun for too long, brittle enough to crumble at a touch.
The coins in his palm were extremely heavy.
Perhaps it was Wen Jianyan’s illusion, but the longer he held the coins, the colder his body became, as if being eroded and transformed by some powerful dead object.
This was also the first time Wen Jianyan felt the so-called “token guidance.”
It was hard to describe. Although no specific images appeared in his mind, he just knew which direction to take. Faintly, it seemed an invisible line was pulling him, leading him to where the Captain’s Room was.
The corridor would still twist and change from time to time.
But every time this happened, Dan Zhu would use her Talent to “correct” it.
Only then did everyone truly experience Dan Zhu’s real strength as a top-three Nightmare anchor, the founder and President of Eternal Day.
Flower seeds took root, sprouted, and bloomed right under their eyes. Slender branches pierced deep into the steel-like barriers. Strange vitality was born deep within the lifeless solid walls, then grew madly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In just a few seconds, the obstacles blocking their way were forcibly torn apart and crushed…
Destructive and unstoppable.
BOOM!!
Terrifying vibrations echoed deep in the corridor, making everything seem precarious.
With each sound, the entire ship seemed one step closer to collapse.
The path continued deeper.
In the air, the scent of rotting flowers grew stronger.
“Damn it… I can’t breathe,” Chen Cheng frowned tightly, muttering in a low voice, “I really can’t get used to this smell no matter what—”
Saying this, he turned to look at Wen Jianyan, seemingly seeking some agreement, but the moment his gaze landed on the other, Chen Cheng froze:
“You… what’s wrong with you?”
Under the dim light, the young man’s skin appeared unnaturally pale, even faintly greenish, as if all vitality had been sucked dry.
On the side of his neck, faint blue vein patterns could be seen extending downward like a spiderweb, eventually disappearing under his collar, forming a shocking contrast with his bloodless skin.
“Is it the tokens?”
Chen Cheng reacted almost immediately.
Those damned tokens.
As a veteran anchor who had been through many instances, Chen Cheng naturally knew what kind of impact such items could have on their holder in similar instances…
Moreover, they were now in the core, so such influence would naturally be amplified.
Dan Zhu, who had long since half-become a fierce ghost, naturally didn’t care, but for ordinary humans, the side effects brought by this thing were almost as great as its utility.
But Wen Jianyan didn’t answer his question immediately.
He suddenly stopped, raised his eyes, and looked to his side: “Did you hear that…?”
“Hear what?” Chen Cheng frowned. “Hear what?”
Wen Jianyan seemed dazed for a moment. He stared fixedly at the wall beside him, seemingly listening very intently to something.
Chen Cheng instinctively looked in the direction he was staring.
Dead silence.
All he could hear was the sound of his own footsteps.
“Nothing.” Wen Jianyan seemed to snap out of it. “…Let’s continue.”
The deeper they went, the more frequently the corridor changed.
However, even so, the “direct attack” Dan Zhu mentioned earlier didn’t occur.
Just as she expected, the manipulator behind the scenes seemed to truly have scruples… and refrained from striking a killing blow.
Just like that, the group advanced step by step toward the core.
Finally—
A tightly closed door appeared before them.
On the rusty nameplate, the words “Captain’s Room” were striking, stinging their eyes.
They… had finally returned here.
Wen Jianyan paused.
He turned his head and looked at Dan Zhu behind him: “We’re here.”
He hesitated for a moment and proposed: “These three tokens… can I hold onto them a little longer?”
“Oh?” Dan Zhu slowly raised an eyebrow. Those hollow eyes stared at Wen Jianyan, the silent oppression making one’s hair stand on end. “Why?”
“Just as I told you before, my goal is to stop my old friend from becoming the Captain of the Lucky Cruise Ship,” Wen Jianyan let her stare, his expression open. “And just as you can see now… he also has reservations about me. The Captain’s tokens will be more useful in my hands than in yours—this might avoid a direct frontal conflict, which I think is also something you don’t wish to see.”
Dan Zhu’s strength was undeniable, but… Su Cheng had arrived here too far ahead of them. He had long stolen most of the Captain’s authority, possessing terrifying dominance.
Otherwise, Dan Zhu wouldn’t have stagnated earlier, finding it difficult to advance.
If a conflict really broke out, it would likely turn into a protracted battle of attrition.
And that was exactly what Su Cheng wanted.
After all, based on the information he previously revealed to Wen Jianyan, time was likely the only thing he needed to become the official Captain.
“As for the ownership of the tokens, you don’t need to worry…” Wen Jianyan looked at Dan Zhu and said, “Trust me, there is probably no one in this world who wants to be Captain less than I do.”
“Of course, it’s normal if you don’t believe me.”
Wen Jianyan chuckled briefly, then suddenly changed his tone. It was a life-and-death topic, but he spoke in a joking manner:
“It’s enough as long as killing a contract breaker poses no difficulty for you.”
All of them had flower seeds planted by Dan Zhu in their bodies, and this time they clearly couldn’t distance themselves or hide their tracks like before.
For Dan Zhu, wiping them out was a piece of cake.
Dan Zhu narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Wen Jianyan for a few seconds. She drawled, smiling leisurely:
“Fine, you can keep them for now.”
Behind the door of the Captain’s Room lay the familiar empty room.
The moment he stepped into the room, Wen Jianyan’s steps paused for an instant.
Under the blood-red light, the empty room seemed to distort briefly. In that short second, everything seemed to change, but when Wen Jianyan looked closely, those things vanished completely, as if it was all just his hallucination.
“…”
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath. In his lowered palm, the three cold coins weighed heavily, releasing an endless chill that made his finger joints stiff.
He turned his head and looked at his teammates beside him.
His gaze held a silent question.
Ready?
Everyone returned his gaze with unwavering determination.
Of course.
So, Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze and walked forward step by step.
At the end of the room was that pitch-black glass wall—
The light source was turned off, and the brain floating behind it had hidden itself along with it, leaving only the dense spiderweb-like cracks on the surface, testifying to what had happened earlier.
The black-haired, black-eyed Tarot Master stood in the center at the front.
He seemed to have been waiting for them for a long time.
His palm was half-open, the Star & Moon Tarot floating above it, but the image on the card was pitch black.
Looking closely, one could barely discern that the image hadn’t disappeared but was replaced by chaotic, eerie lines. Those lines were so frantic, twisted, and uncomfortable that perhaps only the Tarot holder could discern what was drawn on it.
“…”
Su Cheng slowly raised his head.
However, he didn’t look at Dan Zhu, his greatest threat. Instead, his gaze cut straight across the empty Captain’s Room and landed on Wen Jianyan.
“You really came,” he said. “—And as a Captain candidate.”
“Just ten minutes ago, I told you everything you wanted to know. Even though I could have sent you away from the Captain’s Room immediately, ensuring you’d never have the chance to discover the truth, I didn’t do that—I revealed my entire plan to you without reservation, and then asked you as a friend…
No, I begged you. Begged you to believe me.”
“Just believe me this once.”
Su Cheng smiled slowly, but there was not a trace of warmth in his smile.
Unlike the last time they met, this time, all the concern, all the pleading, all the sorrow vanished. The Tarot Master’s pale face held no expression, cold as steel. The person Wen Jianyan was familiar with seemed to have been extracted from this shell, leaving only a strange and distant shadow.
His voice was cold and mocking.
“But you just couldn’t do it, could you?”
“Watch helplessly as you step onto a path of no return, becoming something like a brain in a petri dish?”
Wen Jianyan said,
“Yes, I really couldn’t do that.”
“…It seems you still don’t understand.” Su Cheng gazed at Wen Jianyan from afar, his eyes filled with disappointment.
“But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
He withdrew his gaze. His pale fingers slowly closed, grasping the Star & Moon Tarot floating above. Veins bulged on the back of his hand from the force. The Tarot card twisted and crumpled in his grip, finally vanishing into specks of black ash.
“I always hoped this moment wouldn’t happen, but clearly, fate works this way.”
Rumble.
Rumble.
Vibrations originated from beneath their feet.
The entire ship seemed to be shaking with it.
“No matter how you struggle, it cannot be defied.”
The walls began to shake, the scarlet lights flickering on and off.
“No matter how you try, it cannot be changed.”
Shadows grew.
A layer of eerie red membrane quickly covered Su Cheng’s feet, climbing up his legs… It was like a branch born from beneath the ship’s floor, rapidly burrowing into the human body.
The pulsating exposed flesh grew like a living thing, lifting his body high.
“This guy…” Chen Cheng’s expression couldn’t hide his shock. He gritted his teeth, whispering, “He’s actively assimilating with the instance—!”
If this continued, even if Su Cheng truly gave up on becoming Captain, he wouldn’t be able to return!
“You’re wrong about one thing. I won’t become that brain floating in the water.”
In just a few seconds, the membrane of flesh had spread to below Su Cheng’s neck. Thin red blood vessels spread like spiderwebs on his skin, climbing up his cheek. His eyes were pitch-black, letting in no light.
“There’s something I didn’t say—indeed, it is eternal life, but this kind of eternal life is meaningless. It is merely drowning in the Nightmare forever.”
“Do you know why we can only catch glimpses of its existence in the memories of instances?
Because the so-called Oracle President, the Nightmare Number One, died long before everything started for us.”
Su Cheng’s voice came from far away.
“What’s contained in the tank is merely his corpse. It just hasn’t been discarded yet because it couldn’t be replaced for the time being.”
“Then what about you? Do you think you’ll be different?”
Wen Jianyan tilted his head back, gritting his teeth.
“You think after utilizing you to the fullest, the Nightmare won’t discard you just like it?”
“Of course it will.”
Half of the Tarot Master’s face was covered in crimson patterns.
His voice was cruel, paranoid, and high-pitched, echoing in the empty room.
“—The Nightmare arrived on this ship, and it will depart on this ship.”
“My friend… you are the new god cultivated by the Nightmare, the chosen Captain. From the first moment you came into contact with the Nightmare, you were destined to become its helmsman.”
Su Cheng gazed down at Wen Jianyan. Before his face was swallowed, a familiar, human sorrow finally flashed across it.
“It always needs a Captain.”
“After I become Captain, I will sink into the seabed with it. By then, everything will end.”
The walls of flesh rose in the air, wriggling and growing desperately.
The ground shook, metal ground against metal, and the keel wailed.
“In my three thousand seven hundred and eighty-one prophecies, this is the only chance for survival.”
“And also the only possible path to freedom for you.”
