Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 625: The Sun in upright position
Beneath the twisted, writhing flesh, two maimed hands briefly clasped.
Just like the first time the other revealed his identity to him.
In a trance, Su Cheng lowered his eyes, slightly stunned.
Before he knew it, so much time had passed…
Things have changed, as if everything is different.
Yet, it seemed nothing had changed at all.
Wen Jianyan smiled: “See, I knew you’d figure it out.”
“What if I hadn’t?” Su Cheng looked up and asked.
The other shrugged and said, “Then I would have had to use my Talent.”
That was why he asked Dan Zhu for two minutes.
If Su Cheng couldn’t be reasoned with, he was prepared to use his Talent to forcibly alter reality—however, since the success of this move relied too heavily on probability, Wen Jianyan preferred to keep it as a backup plan.
Su Cheng chuckled.
Wen Jianyan was still the same Wen Jianyan.
Never harboring meaningless fantasies.
Never fighting an unprepared battle.
“What do you want to do,”
Su Cheng looked up, staring at Wen Jianyan with those dark eyes, seemingly assessing something.
Perhaps due to the assimilation and erosion by the instance, he spoke very slowly.
“Let Dan Zhu become the Captain?”
Wen Jianyan scoffed: “How is that possible?”
The Lucky Cruise Ship was not only the original vessel of the Nightmare but also a ghost ship carrying countless fierce ghosts, transporting misfortune to reality.
Dan Zhu’s form of existence was already closer to a fierce ghost, so naturally, she had no intention of considering humanity—since Wen Jianyan had no intention of turning the world into purgatory, letting such a capable, ambitious, and unprincipled “person” become Captain wouldn’t yield a better result than now, possibly even worse.
“Can you contain the growth of these… things?” Wen Jianyan pointed to the surrounding walls of flesh.
Su Cheng: “Barely.”
“Can you attack Dan Zhu enough to distract her?” Wen Jianyan continued asking, “Not for too long, one minute is enough.”
Su Cheng: “Should be… possible.”
The bright red flower branches on his body began to retreat, signaling the end of the agreed time.
Wen Jianyan sped up his speech: “Start containing now, stop the moment I’m pulled out, then grab Dan Zhu’s attention. Can you do it?”
Su Cheng nodded.
Wen Jianyan had no time to explain why, and Su Cheng didn’t need to ask.
Even after so long, even after parting ways and even crossing swords… their cooperation remained tacit.
Outside.
The wall of flesh that was writhing just now stopped growing as if it had lost its life, becoming lifeless, appearing dead.
Dan Zhu narrowed her eyes, staring upwards.
She crooked her finger, and the blood-red thorny flowers pulled outward.
Because there was no resistance to the withdrawal, the speed was much faster than before.
In the blink of an eye, she caught a glimpse of Wen Jianyan’s figure.
At least on the surface, it looked like he succeeded.
But did he persuade that old friend, or kill him with his own hands?
Curiosity flashed briefly in her mind.
Without warning, Dan Zhu caught a glimpse of the young man above tilting his head slightly… In the next second, the instincts cultivated from countless instances and battles rang alarm bells in her mind.
She reacted reflexively.
Almost at the same instant, the blood wall that was like dead matter just now suddenly regained vitality, whistling as it attacked in this direction, the pressure like a mountain and sea—that unreserved, highly targeted offensive was almost like a suicide attack, the threat it brought several times, dozens of times greater than before—
Dan Zhu had to mobilize all her energy and attention to defend.
The red thorny flowers in mid-air snapped abruptly.
Dan Zhu finally had no time to attend to anything else.
Wen Jianyan was already prepared to fall. He turned his head and shouted sternly:
“—Now!!!”
From the beginning, he never intended to let anyone become Captain.
Whoever it was.
Good or bad.
So, before entering here, he had already laid out his plan in advance.
Before Wen Jianyan’s voice fell, An Xin had already raised his hand.
The arrow shone under the bloody light, the bowstring drawn to the full, the bow body bent almost to the point of breaking—
Whoosh!!!
With a sharp sound tearing through the air, the arrow carried the force of a thunderbolt, cutting through the light path, tearing the air, chasing toward the end of the target with lightning speed!
And the end of the target—
Was precisely the weakened center point amidst countless spiderweb cracks in the middle of that black glass wall!!!!
The moment the arrow touched the glass, time seemed to slow down. Under everyone’s bated breath, the arrow continued to drill inward. The glass emitted a creak cracking sound, seemingly still resisting. The arrow trembled, wrestling with it, until—the pressure finally exceeded the load—
At this moment, time finally returned to its normal flow.
Under everyone’s helpless gaze, accompanied by a deafening, almost world-shaking loud noise, the entire face of the pitch-black glass exploded!
Countless fragments flew, refracting the blood-colored light.
The liquid emitting a cold aura lost its confinement, gurgling out!
While everyone retreated at top speed, running out of the Captain’s Room, Wen Jianyan let go, allowing himself to fall from mid-air.
Wind rushed into his ears, all colors mixed together, spinning like a kaleidoscope.
Everything below rushed toward him. The water surface was getting closer and closer, just a second before plunging into it—
[Holy Infant] item, activated!
Invincibility countdown starts.
Splash!
Wen Jianyan fell into the water.
The cold aura was bone-chilling, surrounding him firmly in an instant, but it was blocked out as if by a thick layer of glass, unable to invade a bit.
Completely unable to breathe.
But thank goodness, he could live without breathing right now.
Chaos surrounded him. Countless bubbles rushed up, blocking his vision, making it impossible to see anything clearly. Infinite gravity seemed to drag at his feet; everything around him hindered him, trying to pull him into a deep eternal sleep.
All Wen Jianyan could do was follow the intensifying invisible guidance in his side, blindly moving forward.
He had no other way, blindly reaching out his hand.
Fingertips…
Seemed to touch something.
Cold, hard.
Even though he couldn’t see, Wen Jianyan was clearly aware of one thing:
He caught it.
It wasn’t like he groped and found it blindly, but more like… it actively fell into his palm.
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, tightened his fingers with all his might, and yanked hard!!
“—!!!” Even underwater, Wen Jianyan could still feel the violent tremors of the world around him. Eerie, almost scream-like sounds seemed to come from far away. He instinctively, with difficulty, opened his eyes.
That huge brain floated not far away.
Without the glass barrier, it looked even uglier.
The surface was riddled with wrinkles, presenting a strange dead gray color, making one feel disgusted from the bottom of their heart—just as Su Cheng said, it looked like it had been dead for a long time.
Under Wen Jianyan’s gaze, the brain that lost its containing tank began to twist rapidly, shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In the blink of an eye, it turned into the size of a normal human brain.
The next second, all the liquid around him receded like a tide.
Wen Jianyan fell down awkwardly. His legs gave way, he knelt down entirely, then lay on the ground, coughing violently. In his tightly clenched right palm, a point of golden light shone.
—That was a golden, gem-like heart.
Correct.
Wen Jianyan wouldn’t let anyone become Captain.
But the problem was, how to achieve this?
The heart was clearly here, but Wu Zhu had no authority in the “Lucky Cruise Ship” instance. His power was firmly blocked outside the instance… Carl Bell told them personally.
Wu Zhu once said that although his heart was hidden deep inside as a furnace core, it wasn’t powering the ship itself.
As time passed, Wu Zhu showed unparalleled pain.
And time was crucial for the change of Captain.
Since Wu Zhu’s heart wasn’t powering the ship, what exactly was it used for? And whose existence did it maintain?
The answer was obvious.
The reason the [Brain in a Vat] could still exist after death was because it was continuously powered.
Wu Zhu’s heart was the key maintaining all this.
As long as it was cut off from the source, without power supply, no one could become Captain—whether it was Su Cheng attempting to usurp the position, or Dan Zhu who truly held the candidate identity.
This was the true strike at the vital point, removing the fuel from under the cauldron.
Wen Jianyan staggered to his feet, his distorted hearing gradually recovering—amidst the continuous “beep beep” alarms, mixed with the roar of the keel and the sound of the ship collapsing, it took Wen Jianyan a moment to realize that it wasn’t him shaking, but the ship beneath his feet.
He looked up.
Just as Wen Jianyan initially expected, the wall of flesh had disappeared.
In the center of the clearing, Su Cheng knelt on the ground, head bowed.
“Su Cheng!!” Wen Jianyan raised his voice—he heard his own voice sound sharp and distant, exceptionally unfamiliar amidst the buzzing alarms from all directions.
Su Cheng paused and looked up.
His face seemed to have returned to normal. The eerie patterns from before had completely faded. Except for a somewhat dazed look in his eyes, everything seemed unchanged.
“This ship is done for!!!” Wen Jianyan shouted, “Run!!”
Su Cheng shook his head, slowly stood up, and stumbled to follow his steps.
One after another, the two ran toward the door of the Captain’s Room. The ceiling above was collapsing, pieces shattering at their feet.
The group waited anxiously at the door, counting the passing seconds.
Wen Ya sharply spotted them:
“Over there!!”
Seeing the two rush out of the Captain’s Room in a sorry state, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
“So slow,” Chen Cheng’s mouth was as unforgiving as ever. “We almost lost patience waiting.”
“…Anyway, thanks,” Wen Jianyan couldn’t quite catch his breath, “and good job.”
Indeed.
In the action just now, both timing and efficiency were perfect.
Because of this, they could catch the brief moment of Dan Zhu’s distraction, revealing the dagger at the end of the map, pointing straight at their true destination—the Brain in a Vat.
Seeming to think of something, Wen Jianyan looked up, glanced around amidst the increasingly sharp alarms, and asked, “Speaking of which, where is Dan Zhu?”
“Haven’t seen her since the counterattack started.”
Wen Ya was concise.
“And we’ve been guarding here the whole time, didn’t see her leave through the door either.”
If not for the faint scent of rotting flowers floating in the air, one would almost suspect this oppressive Eternal Day President had never appeared.
Strange…
A doubtful thought flashed through his mind.
“So this guy…” Chen Cheng’s gaze landed on Su Cheng behind Wen Jianyan, raising an eyebrow seemingly in a bad mood, “Rejoined the team?”
Wen Jianyan was pulled back to reality by his voice:
“Yeah.”
“It’s thanks to him that we could hold Dan Zhu back just now, leaving her no energy to attack us.”
The Tarot Master stood with lowered eyes without saying a word, giving no feedback to the two’s remarks.
Chen Cheng rolled his eyes, letting out a dissatisfied scoff.
But even he knew not to pick a fight at this moment.
In the shaking corridor, the sharp “beep beep beep” alarm echoed in their ears. The pipes composing the walls burst, liquid emitting a cold aura gurgled down. The system broadcast was blurred, the content barely discernible.
“Instance ■■——abnormal malfunction occurred, imminent ■■ shutdown——…”
“Please… anchors proceed to ■■■■ deck as soon as possible——”
“Those failing to arrive within the stipulated time… bzzt… will——■■■ unable to leave.”
“Countdown… ■■ minutes…”
Damn it!
That voice made everyone shudder.
The instance was closing!
And they actually couldn’t hear the countdown clearly!
Chen Mo frowned deeply, his expression solemn: “Must go, we need to speed up.”
The distance to the deck wasn’t short.
Ma Qi hesitated: “But the path outside…”
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the Ouroboros ring—on the cold metal surface, the residual blood had been completely absorbed. logically speaking, Wu Zhu should have received his message, but he didn’t appear immediately…
Did something happen?
But it didn’t matter, Wen Jianyan always had a Plan B.
He lifted his eyelids, laughing briefly:
“…Don’t worry.”
Wen Jianyan took out his phone from his pocket, turned on the screen, and soon, a winding route leading into the distance appeared on the screen.
“This is…” Wen Ya was stunned.
“Figaro.”
Wen Jianyan said.
“Remember? When I allowed him to join the team, I signed quite a few unequal treaties with him.”
This wasn’t the first time Wen Jianyan signed similar agreements with Figaro.
However, the previous times he didn’t use any of the unequal terms inside, which led Figaro to somewhat relax his vigilance. And given the urgent situation at the time, he naturally didn’t have time to carefully deliberate the specific details of the clauses.
“I only said I understood his leaving the team,” Wen Jianyan shook his phone, “I didn’t say I agreed.”
“So, look, this is his location.”
The group: “…”
No wonder Wen Jianyan said earlier that Figaro leaving the team was more useful than staying… so it was for this.
Truly planning every step, utilizing everything available to the extreme.
“Alright, don’t just stand there.” Wen Jianyan urged, “Time to go!”
Only then did everyone wake up from their dream. The group started running, dashing outwards madly.
The sharp “beep beep beep” alarm filled the air, screaming like a death chaser, making their brains ache:
“Please… anchors proceed to ■■■■ deck as soon as possible——”
“Those failing to arrive within the stipulated time… bzzt… will——■■■ unable to leave.”
“Countdown… ■■ minutes…”
Amidst the collapse, the group ran for their lives, shuttling quickly through the ruins.
Since they couldn’t know the specific closing time of the instance, they could only do their best, running forward at top speed, only hoping to leave this place as quickly as possible.
Soon, that long, narrow staircase from the beginning appeared before them again.
In the darkness, the stairs floated dangerously.
They ran up along the stairs, but the ground beneath their feet inexplicably became softer and softer.
From behind came Ma Qi’s tense voice:
“…Don’t look down!”
It was fine before she said it, but upon hearing it, Wen Jianyan instinctively glanced down.
The moment he saw what was below clearly, he sucked in a cold breath.
The originally solid ground beneath his feet had unknowingly turned into the texture of human skin. Blurred lines crowded together, seemingly vaguely showing the outlines of facial features:
“—I wouldn’t have looked down if you hadn’t said anything!”
Ma Qi: “…”
Well, so sorry about that.
After a long run, the stairs came to an end.
One after another, the group crawled out of the picture frame.
What waited outside was still the maze.
The rules and order of the entire instance were collapsing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
On the walls, on the floor, even on the gambling tables… emerging human facial features became more and more obvious.
Their expressions were either sorrowful or joyful, angry or resentful, but without exception, all had their eyes tightly closed, unknown if they were long dead or fallen into eternal sleep.
Wen Jianyan involuntarily recalled what Dan Zhu said before entering the Negative 6th Floor—“If you really want what’s best for him, give him the token sooner. At least then he can become one of the administrators later. Otherwise, he’ll turn into something worse—a waiter? A security guard? Or perhaps part of the deck.”
Furthermore, Dan Zhu’s “flowers” bloomed on corpses, which should have been useless on reinforced concrete.
But they could erode walls, floors, even everything… so this was the reason.
On this cursed ship, whether it was the deck, the keel, or anything else… everything was composed of people.
Wen Jianyan felt a chill down his spine, his hair standing on end.
Just then, from the gaps in the maze, “waiters” walked out of compartments with smiles. Their faces were pale, pairs of eyes staring straight at them, the bottom of their eyes filled with unconcealed desire and malice.
Wen Jianyan immediately realized that the collapse of the instance was a double-edged sword.
They could leave, but it also meant other ghosts lost the constraints of rules.
“Get ready.” Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, whispering.
Although he said so, he actually didn’t have much confidence in his heart.
Their squad had been consumed too much in the depths of the instance. Could they still handle these tide-like dangers while shuttling through the maze…?
The answer was likely unknown.
Bzzt. Suddenly, the overhead lights flickered.
Endless darkness surged from the corners, swallowing the light in the blink of an eye.
Before everyone could react, only pitch blackness remained before their eyes, where they couldn’t even see their fingers. That darkness felt tangible, blocking out almost all sounds. Even the beeping alarms faded away, leaving a deathly desolate silence in their ears.
Wen Jianyan’s shoulders tensed for a moment, but soon—
He looked up and called out softly:
“Wu Zhu?”
“It’s me.” In the darkness, the familiar deep voice sounded by his ear.
“…” Wen Jianyan let out a long sigh of relief.
He opened his mouth, seemingly having a thousand questions to ask, but the first words to come out were: “Where is the elevator?”
“This way.”
In the dead silent and peaceful darkness, everyone was blind, pushed forward by some invisible force. They couldn’t see the road ahead, only blindly rushing forward, and precisely because of this, all dangers couldn’t find them either.
Finally, the darkness blocking their vision dispersed.
The elevator was waiting for them just a step away.
Wen Jianyan didn’t see Figaro’s figure. That guy obviously left as soon as he got the chance—it seemed the restriction Dan Zhu left wasn’t permanent, or even if it was, after Wen Jianyan took away Wu Zhu’s heart, the restriction likely became invalid.
An Xin dashed forward and smashed the elevator button.
The elevator operation button lit up.
Wen Jianyan stopped, panting, and turned to look at Wu Zhu standing beside him.
On that marble-pale face, he could hardly find the previous weakness and pain.
“Hey.”
Wen Jianyan called him, “Are you okay?”
Wu Zhu paused, his golden eyes lowered, looking deeply at him: “Yeah.”
“I found what you wanted,” Wen Jianyan stuffed the golden, gem-like heart warmed by his body temperature back into Wu Zhu’s hand, “You—”
Before he could finish, a ding sounded.
The elevator stopped on this floor. Amidst strange clicking sounds, the elevator doors slowly opened—
Wen Jianyan decided promptly: “Forget it, let’s go up first.”
The group walked quickly into the elevator.
“…”
Seeming to notice something, Wen Jianyan paused and looked back.
Su Cheng stood outside the elevator door, stopping for some reason.
He turned his head, looking behind him.
Wen Jianyan: “What’s wrong?”
The next second, the gradually enriching fragrance in the air suddenly caught Wen Jianyan’s attention.
Rotting, cloying…
Like flowers blooming on graves, feeding on the bones of the dead.
It was Dan Zhu.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze sharpened.
She caught up!
“Get in, quickly!” Wen Jianyan urged, “We need to leave here ASAP—”
Remember, what he did just now wasn’t exactly kind. At least enough to enrage Dan Zhu. Once she found them, she probably wouldn’t show any mercy.
“It’s okay, you don’t need to worry about Dan Zhu,”
Su Cheng suddenly spoke, interrupting him.
“Even if she chases here, she can’t affect you anymore.”
…You?
Wen Jianyan’s heart skipped a beat, a faint ominous premonition beginning to ferment in his heart.
“Do you know?”
Su Cheng turned his head.
He continued speaking to himself: “In predicting the specific direction of events, Tarot isn’t actually that accurate—most of the time, I only roughly know what will happen next, but I’m not entirely clear on every link inside.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s heart was in his throat.
He heard his eardrums being battered by blood, pounding wildly.
Wait.
What does this mean…?
“Just now, you asked me whether to trust you or the prophecy…”
Su Cheng looked at him, speaking softly.
“But actually, in my view, there is no difference between the two.”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils constricted sharply.
In that instant, Dan Zhu’s ghostly voice seemed to ring in his ears again—[Darling, what’s happening to your friend is unprecedented—you don’t think he can do this without paying any price, do you?]
“Damn it, what are you saying?” Wen Jianyan heard his own voice urging in his ears, “Get in the elevator, we can leave here—”
“I said it. This ship always needs a Captain.”
The Tarot Master was pale, his eyes calm.
“Even if no one can truly sit on that seat again, it’s the same.”
“Dan Zhu and I are equally close to the Captain’s position, so we will both stay.
I can only send you as far as here.
And because there is no Captain in the true sense, this ship will no longer be able to operate as originally planned. It will be locked down by its own rule restrictions just like this. Everything will come to a halt, so you don’t need to worry about these ghosts leaving here anymore.”
Wen Jianyan indeed found the only solution among thousands of dead ends.
The cruise ship was backlashed by its own rules and could never operate as before.
He succeeded.
But… precisely because he succeeded.
“I am now neither alive nor dead… neither existing nor non-existing.”
“Precisely because I am now tightly bound to the fate of this ship, I naturally cannot leave—or rather, leaving would only mean meaningless true death—no one can change this,” Su Cheng’s voice was even and calm, seemingly having long accepted his fate. “So, my advice is, don’t waste your time and Talent here. They have more uses.”
The iron door of the elevator beneath his feet was like a horizontal line, cutting apart life and death. Clearly only a step away, but it felt so far that it could never be crossed.
Su Cheng looked over from afar.
He slowly opened his palm, the Star & Moon Tarot floating.
“Look. I didn’t lie to you. This is indeed the only path to survival.”
Those chaotic, twisted, eerie, and ominous lines dispersed like dark clouds, slowly revealing the pattern below.
The Sun, upright.
Symbolizing life, victory, and freedom.
“My friend.”
The prophet slowly revealed a smile, just like when they first met:
“I wish you a brilliant future.”
