Chapter 55

The Chen Estate

As the saying goes: the rougher the seas, the more fish there are.

With the ship thrown into crisis and no one paying attention, players slipped into areas that had been off-limits, hunting for anything that might help them clear the instance. They didn't know why the storm had come early, but the math was simple: if they hadn't found the person behind the revenge plot before the ship went down, they went down with it.

Some players had decided the culprit was one of the mistreated crew. Others had fixed on Song Cheng. Either way, everyone was watching everyone else.

The players who'd settled on Song Cheng staggered to his medical suite at considerable personal cost — only to find it empty. Not just Song Cheng gone, but every trace of medical staff.

The room was chaos. Broken medication bottles and equipment on the floor.

"Where is everyone?" Player A turned the room inside out. "In waves like this, where would medical staff even go?"

Player B surveyed the disorder with a careful eye. It didn't look like storm damage — it looked deliberate. "There was a violent physical confrontation here recently."

He pressed a hand to the bedding. A faint residual warmth. "Song Cheng was moved less than fifteen minutes ago."

He looked around. A VIP medical suite on the Wangyue should have had security cameras. He couldn't find a single one.

Removed — or never installed?

An instance with such a simple main objective, and this many hidden layers underneath.

"Keep looking. We cannot let the mission target come to harm."

*

While other players were still looking for whoever had planned the revenge, Tiger had quietly slipped into the captain's cabin.

With the ship in emergency mode, the sixth floor was nearly deserted. Getting in was almost trivially easy. Tiger pressed something against the door gap to block any light, then switched on his torch.

The room gave him an immediate feeling of emptiness. Not just tidy — bare. Nothing on the desk or the bed. Nothing that suggested a human being actually lived here.

He'd taken two steps when his foot landed on something hard.

A wooden doll. Head and body separated.

Freshly painted — he could still smell it. He looked for the head, crouched, reached under the desk, and found a small white medicine bottle instead. He recognized this kind. His grandmother had taken it. Cancer medication.

The captain was terminally ill?

He filed that away, put the bottle back, and opened the wardrobe. In the corner: a safe with a complex locking mechanism. Tiger had tools. He pressed the Master Key item against it. The door swung open.

No gold, no jewelry. Several document pouches.

On a desk he might have walked past them. In a safe, his curiosity blazed. He climbed into the wardrobe, sat down, and started opening them.

The first: a transfer order for a first mate. Nothing obviously unusual — except the surname. The same as Xiao Chao's.

The second: the Wangyue's own letterhead. Another transfer order — this one for the captain himself, to be reassigned away from the ship. The paper was crumpled. Someone had drawn a large red cross through it, repeatedly, with tremendous force. Whatever composure the captain had maintained upon receiving this, it hadn't lasted long.

The third: a passenger manifest. Room numbers, detailed personal information, complete records.

What was interesting was what it didn't contain: any information about Xiao Chao, or Xiao Chao's employer.

Terminal illness. Transfer notice.

A dying captain who didn't want to leave his ship — planning to take everyone on board down with him.

What kind of person does that?

Tiger tucked the documents under his arm and was about to stand when he heard something outside the door. He killed his light, scanned the room in one sweep, hauled himself up onto the top of the wardrobe, and went still.

The door opened. The captain walked in.

The tape. Tiger's stomach dropped. He'd forgotten to pull the light-blocking tape off the door gap.

Fortunately the room was dark, and the captain was dragging an enormous suitcase — he didn't seem to notice anything wrong at the threshold.

The captain closed the door, retrieved an old wall-mounted oil lamp from somewhere, and lit it.

The flame swayed. The suitcase seemed to sway with it.

There was someone inside that suitcase.

Tiger's eyes went wide. He was already regretting, deeply, that he hadn't borrowed Curly Hair's invisibility item before coming in here.

The movement inside intensified. Something like a muffled groan came through the walls. The captain seemed to hear nothing. He hung the lamp with methodical calm, went to the sink and washed his hands, then turned back to stand before the suitcase.

He looked at it with a small, deliberate smile. Then he bent down and unlatched it.

Song Cheng.

Tiger recognized him instantly. The man was folded into a structurally improbable position, bound thoroughly, mouth sealed with tape, capable only of unintelligible sounds.

This is a full-scale crisis and the captain is not at the bridge — he's here, doing this. No wonder the Wangyue is going under.

"Mmph!" Song Cheng's gaze fixed on the captain — more precisely, on what was on the captain's back.

A girl in a school uniform, pressed close against him. Both hands locked around his throat. Eyes streaming red.

The ship lurched. Song Cheng pitched out of the suitcase and his head hit the corner of the table like a bowling ball.

Tiger, rigid on top of the wardrobe, did not breathe.

Both the captain and Song Cheng had blazing red indicators above their heads.

Wrongdoers punishing each other. The instance, staging this in real time.

"Frightened, Young Master Song?" The captain pulled on white gloves, peeled the tape from Song Cheng's mouth, and smiled freely. "Good evening."

"Help!" Song Cheng had no interest in conversation. He screamed at full volume.

The captain watched him without hurry, waiting until the screaming had worn his voice to a rasp, then spoke. "I had this room double-insulated before we left port. You can scream as much as you like — nothing carries outside."

"Besides, every crew member on the sixth floor has been sent to the emergency response. No one is going to find you." He stood, walked to a cabinet in the corner, and opened it to reveal rows of spirits and cigarettes.

He poured himself a drink. Lit a cigarette. "The Wangyue is going to sink tonight. We have an outstanding account between us."

Song Cheng, understanding the situation clearly now, began to plead.

"So this is what it looks like when people with money beg for their lives. Not so different from everyone else." The captain tapped his boot against Song Cheng's head and exhaled a smoke ring. "I'm pleased you still remember my daughter's name, Young Master Song."

"You're — you're He Yi's father?" The pieces connected for Song Cheng with horrible clarity — why the captain had cleared the medical staff, why he'd brought him here. He looked at He Yi's ghost, both hands still locked around the captain's throat, and in his panic said the one thing he shouldn't. "If you're her father, why does she hate you ?"

"Nonsense!" The deliberate smile vanished, replaced by something twisted. "She's my daughter. How could she hate me?"

"She's right there on your back, strangling you." Song Cheng's teeth were rattling. "She wants you dead."

"You're lying!" The captain grabbed Song Cheng by the hair and drove his head against the wall. "You killed her. If you hadn't chased her, harassed her, she would never have jumped."

Song Cheng was rigid with terror. His whole body shook.

Tiger, clutching the documents, was beginning to deeply regret entering this room.

"You all have to die!" The captain threw Song Cheng aside, indifferent to the blood. "The Wangyue belongs to me. No one can take it away."

"My dear girl — you understand your father, don't you." He lifted a picture frame from the desk. His blood smeared its edge. "I wasn't a good father then. But I've avenged you now. You can't blame me anymore."

"Of course a child wouldn't blame her father." He set the frame down and turned back to Song Cheng. "Everything you said is lies."

Knock knock knock.

Someone at the door.

The captain looked at it. He retaped Song Cheng's mouth, wiped his hands on Song Cheng's clothing, and opened the door a crack.

Not the staff member he'd sent on an errand. Instead: Shen Ran, in his wheelchair.

"Captain." Shen Ran glanced past the door. "Some crew members came looking for you. You weren't in, so they asked me to pass on the message — if I saw you return, please go to the bridge as soon as possible."

"In weather this bad, Mr. Shen should really stay in his room." The captain looked at his injured leg. "Once we're in port, if Mr. Shen wants to settle a score with Song Cheng, there won't be an opportunity."

Shen Ran registered the wrongness immediately. He reversed the wheelchair. "I don't follow, Captain."

"I mean..." The captain opened the door and pulled him inside. "This ship is going to sink."

Shen Ran blinked, adjusting to the lamplight. In the corner: Song Cheng, covered in blood, convulsing, unable to speak.

"As captain of the Wangyue, I'll give each of you a chance at the revenge you deserve." The captain half-closed his eyes, savoring it. "So you can die without regrets."

Shen Ran tightened his grip on the phone hidden in his sleeve.

"Don't bother trying to get a message to Chao Musheng." The captain saw it immediately. "The entire Wangyue has no signal. I've cut every possible means of outside communication."

"Why are you doing this?" Shen Ran asked.

"Why?" The captain's smile turned cold. "Do you know what I gave to become captain of this ship?"

"Because some staff member tried to die, they want to replace me? It won't be that easy." He pushed the wheelchair toward Song Cheng. "That Chao person — who does he think he is? What gives him the right to be captain of the Wangyue?"

"He broke your leg, didn't he. You hate him — he's right here in front of you. What are you waiting for?" He pressed a knife into Shen Ran's hand, eyes bright with mania. "The Wangyue and I — sinking together is our most magnificent finale."

He could already picture it: how many outlets would cover the Wangyue's sinking. He would be remembered alongside the ship, his name spoken for decades.

Tiger, from the top of the wardrobe, had one thought: this instance really does have a higher-than-average concentration of unhinged people.

"You won't succeed." Shen Ran said. "Even if this ship sinks, someone will raise it. Everything you've done will be found eventually."

"But what if every first-class passenger on the fifteenth floor welcomed death with a smile?" The captain's excitement pulled the veins taut across his face. "People don't care about truth — they prefer extraordinary legends. Perhaps a hundred years from now, people will still be discussing the Wangyue's smiling-death mystery. For those who profit from sensation, this isn't a tragedy — it's another unsolvable wonder of the world."

A hundred years from now, people would still be talking about the Wangyue. The thought nearly overwhelmed him.

*

As the storm intensified, the upper-floor passengers grew increasingly volatile. Staff moved through the lurching corridors distributing refreshments and water to keep people calm.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you." A server braced herself against the wall and knocked at the door of the most distinguished suite on the fifteenth floor.

"It's you." Chao Musheng opened the door to the same young woman he'd seen that morning. She looked exhausted, hair slightly disheveled. Without the foundation, the bruising across the back of her hand was fully visible.

She seemed equally surprised to find him answering. She gathered herself. "Sir — are you all right? Were you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

The ship lurched violently. Chao Musheng, noticing she was still in heels, caught her arm before she went down. "Careful."

A scream from down the corridor — another server had fallen.

"Would you consider taking the heels off?" He held the door frame. He couldn't stop himself from adding: "Is your supervisor actually right in the head? In weather like this, still making you wear heels to interact with guests?"

She pressed her lips together — the beginning of a smile. She looked down at the scattered fruit and pastries on the floor and bent to collect them. "These have been dirtied — I'll bring you a fresh arrangement."

"Don't bother — I'm not hungry." Chao Musheng sighed, reached into his pocket, and produced a purple-gold badge. "Go tell all the service staff to return to their rooms and stay there. Until the storm passes, personal safety comes first. If a supervisor gives you any trouble, send them to me."

The server looked at the badge in his hand. Her eyelids trembled slightly.

When she didn't respond, Chao Musheng didn't press. He stepped forward, badge raised. "All service staff — return to your rooms and put on your life vests. Until the storm ends, please protect yourselves."

The small purple-gold badge caught the emergency lighting with remarkable clarity.

The passengers who had been shouting at their servers went quiet, one after another.

"There's no need for anyone to worry — the weather will pass soon." He looked at the servers still watching him, and tilted the badge so they could see it more clearly. "Off you go, everyone."

The servers were silent. Some of them looked toward the young woman standing closest to Chao Musheng.

A brief pause. Then she bent down and gathered the scattered fruit and pastries from the floor. "Thank you, sir. We'll go now."

She met his eyes once. Then she took off her heels, held them in one hand, and walked away.

The others followed, one by one. One server even retrieved a piece of fruit she'd already placed in a guest's hand and took it back with her.

The guest stared: "..."

He didn't particularly want it, but what did it mean to put something in someone's hand and then take it back?

Whether it was their imagination or not, the storm did seem somewhat less intense than before.

The atmosphere on the fifteenth floor relaxed. People emerged in doorways, exchanged greetings, and began discussing business.

Xiao Wu, still in Chao Musheng's room: "..."

No wonder these people had money. The ship was going down and they hadn't stopped working.

That was professionalism.

*

Tiger had not witnessed the fifteenth-floor billionaires' professionalism. He had, however, witnessed the full arc of the captain's psychological state in comprehensive detail.

Because Shen Ran refused to cooperate — refused to put the knife into Song Cheng — the captain had tied him up too.

"You let Song Cheng do all of that to you and you don't even have the nerve to fight back. What kind of man is that?" The captain's contempt was total. "No wonder they use you."

Shen Ran, bound in the wheelchair, remained remarkably composed. "Deliberately injuring another person with a bladed weapon carries a minimum sentence of three years, up to the death penalty under the Criminal Code. I have a performance commitment. A law-abiding citizen cannot commit assaults in public venues."

Tiger: "..."

An absolutely ironclad reason.

"A performance." The captain laughed. "Perform for the fish, then."

He taped Shen Ran's mouth shut, settled his captain's hat, and spoke in a low voice: "I should go deal with the insubordinate pest who thinks he can replace me. Since you won't take your revenge — you can die alongside him."

Tiger's assessment: this captain is not a good person.

The moment the captain left, Tiger got out his phone, tapped out a message quickly, and dropped from the top of the wardrobe. He caught Shen Ran watching him and immediately explained in a low voice: "Quiet — I know Xiao Chao. I'm getting you out."

The door opened again. The captain looked at Tiger with a low, satisfied sound. "The little mouse who was listening."

"What the—" Tiger jumped at the sudden reappearance. How does he move like that?!

"Don't move." The gun was out. "One step and I feed you to the fish."

Tiger glanced back at Shen Ran, immobilized, and weighed his options. "Let's talk. Violence is uncivilized."

"Civilization." The captain smiled. "On the Wangyue, I am civilization."

"That's not entirely accurate." Tiger pushed back with as much confidence as he could, pulling the captain's full attention onto himself. "The fifteenth-floor guests — I've never seen you dare offend any of them."

The smile disappeared. The captain stared at him with flat, cold eyes, the gun moving slowly, as if considering where to aim.

Tiger grabbed the picture frame beside him and threw it at the captain's face. Then he ran.

If you pulled enough NPC aggression, the NPC would chase you and leave the hostages alone. That was the theory.

The corridor had no soundproofing. The captain didn't dare fire and draw attention. He came after Tiger with a knife.

Tiger ran. The captain chased. Eventually Tiger found himself backed into a corner, watching the captain approach step by step.

"You're terminally ill," Tiger heard himself ask. "Why are you still this fast?"

"The little mouse knows quite a few of my secrets." The captain slashed. Tiger dodged sideways.

"I hate rats in the walls." Dissatisfied, the captain cut several more times. Tiger kicked him back. The captain got up from the floor as if he hadn't felt it. "For tonight's magnificent finale, I made a lot of preparations in advance."

Pharmacological enhancement. Multiple weapons.

"Stop running." The gun again. "Out there is the ocean. Nobody is coming for you."

"Says who." Tiger quietly activated two protection items. "I already sent a message to a very particular person."

"Sent a message." The captain's tone treated this as a punchline. "I cut all signal from this ship. It doesn't matter who you called — not even a god could get that message out."

Tiger had a bone-deep certainty the captain was wrong. He'd seen the delivery confirmation on his screen before he jumped down from the wardrobe.

In the critical moment, he had sent his message to one person: Chao Musheng.

"Don't believe me?" The captain had always enjoyed watching small people struggle. "I'll let you check your phone."

Tiger looked. No signal showing, sure enough.

But — villains talk too much.

Tiger lunged forward, pinned the captain's arm, and drove his wrist against the railing with everything he had. The gun dropped into the sea.

The captain pulled a second blade from his waist with his free hand and drove it toward Tiger's throat.

Tiger twisted away, barely. He looked at the captain's stiff, strange posture. "You took banned substances, didn't you."

This time the captain didn't answer. He simply kept coming.

Neither of them had noticed that the waves had eased significantly. The heavy rain had stopped.

Tiger felt it before he understood it: something wrong in his body, his energy draining far too fast. His status panel had acquired a new negative effect.

Poisoned.

He'd been poisoned in the captain's cabin.

The man put toxins in his own room. What kind of person did that?

Tiger leaned against the railing, breathing hard. In his bag: one bottle of insecticide, originally exchanged to offer to Chao Musheng, declined. He closed his hand around it.

If it came to it — at least he'd take this lunatic with him.

Bang.

Tiger hadn't made his last stand yet. The captain went down first.

He looked at the man who had dropped from above, and then scrambled forward and threw himself at his legs: "Xiao Chao!"

He was the light of this instance.

He was the hope of survival.

He was the legendary gold-class protector himself — Chao Musheng.

"You really do have a talent for ruining things." The captain pulled himself upright, gaze glacial.

He'd disliked this young man from the first moment he'd laid eyes on him on the ship — the one who drew Xu Chenzhu's total attention and seemed incapable of helping it. He was exactly like that uncle of his. Nothing but trouble.

"He took enhancement drugs — no pain response, abnormal strength." Tiger got the warning out quickly. "There's also something wrong in the captain's cabin."

"I had people start handling the cabin the moment your message came through." Chao Musheng rolled up his sleep shirt sleeves. "Don't worry — I can take ten of him."

Anyone else saying that, Tiger would call it bravado.

Chao Musheng saying it, Tiger believed without question.

"The signal was completely down." The captain's rage at the sight of him was barely contained. "How did you receive a message?!"

Chao Musheng raised an eyebrow. "Maybe... good luck?"

"Even if you stop me — what does it matter?" The captain laughed. "In weather like this, none of you are getting out—mmph—"

He hadn't finished the sentence. Chao Musheng had already crossed the distance, put him on the ground, and pinned him with what looked like very little effort.

Honestly — what's the point of monologuing during a fight.

"I wouldn't say that — haven't you noticed the storm has nearly stopped?" He glanced back toward the doorway, maintaining the hold. "Rope."

A hand with well-defined knuckles extended a somewhat grimy length of hemp cord from behind the door.

Tiger swallowed.

He was watching Chao Musheng pin down a captain while his CEO stood in the doorway handing over the rope.

Xiao Chao had an impressive amount of face.

Xu Chenzhu, who had accompanied Chao Musheng downstairs and been firmly declined participation in the fight, was quietly fulfilling his rope duty.

"Don't move." Chao Musheng glanced at Tiger, who was preparing to throw himself at him in gratitude. "Medical staff are coming to check you over."

"Impossible!" The bound captain thrashed. "I deliberately drove us into the storm zone — it can't just stop!"

He had planned everything: manipulated the route without the first mate noticing, manufactured crises on board to keep him buried in extra work, controlled every variable of weather and timing and human nature. The Wangyue was not going to arrive at port. It was not possible.

Chao Musheng didn't engage with any of this. He handed the captain to the crew, walked to the cabin door — and at that exact moment, the ship's power systems came back online. The corridor lit up bright as noon.

Shen Ran and Song Cheng had already been taken out by the bodyguards. Chao Musheng bent and retrieved a child's drawing from the floor, overlooked in everything, and gathered the decapitated wooden doll from the corner, fitting the head back onto the body.

The drawing had a boot print on it. The hands connecting the father and daughter figures had been torn apart where the paper was ripped.

"Mianjian chi." He turned the doll over in his hands, his tone carrying a quiet edge of contempt. "Leaving it here would be an insult to him."

In the folk legend: a child who offered his own head to avenge his father. What possible resemblance did that have to this man?

Chao Musheng turned and gave Xu Chenzhu a brief smile. He handed the drawing to the crew member responsible for evidence.

"Zhaozhao." Xu Chenzhu spoke behind him. "The storm has stopped."

The wind was still.

*

The Wangyue docked in calm, golden weather. Police vehicles had been waiting at the pier. They took away a number of people from the ship.

Song Cheng. The captain. Every passenger who had been documented striking or abusing a crew member. The billionaires who had been performatively powerful all voyage stood quietly on deck, and not one of them made a sound.

"Something bothering you?" Xu Chenzhu stood beside Chao Musheng and let the sea wind move between them.

"Just a bit disgusted." Chao Musheng watched the last police vehicle pull away. "Song Cheng and the captain — neither one worth anything. One who doesn't treat ordinary people as human beings. And one who cheated on his wife when his daughter was six years old, walked out, ignored her for years, then — after she and her mother both died — collected a substantial settlement from the school in his daughter's name and used it to bribe his way to the captaincy. Built the Wangyue into a playground for the powerful."

Couldn't let go of the ship because of the status and money it gave him. And dressed up his greed as vengeance for a daughter he had already abandoned.

Hypocritical. Vicious. Hollow.

"If there really are ghosts in the world — I hope He Yi gets to haunt both of them." A long breath out. "And then move on, find her mother somewhere, and live a little better in the next one."

"Humanity has always been greedy and ugly at its worst." Xu Chenzhu looked at the water. "They start plagues and wars for advantage. Then dig their own graves with the same hands."

"Not everyone, though." Chao Musheng rubbed his cheek, turned, and spotted Curly Hair and a few of the servers standing in a corner of the deck. "Mr. Xu — I'm going to say a quick goodbye."

"Go on." Xu Chenzhu glanced at the group, and let his gaze settle back to the water without expression.

"Xiao Chao."

"Curly." He walked over. "The Wangyue is going into suspension for review. Are you thinking about finding other work?"

"Thank you, Xiao Chao. I don't have other plans at the moment." She watched the passengers disembarking. "Until we meet again."

"All right." He looked past her at Tiger, Xiao Wu, and the others. "Next time."

After Chao Musheng left, Tiger sat down on the deck in complete dejection.

Curly Hair nudged him with her foot. "What are you doing."

"Thirty minutes to end of instance. Sitting here in despair waiting to die."

Curly Hair smiled coldly. "Ha."

*

Half an hour later, Tiger was standing in the players' hall, intact.

"Curly!" He dropped to his knees in front of her. "From this day forward, I follow you."

She'd brought him back even through a failed clear. This woman was something beyond ordinary.

"Fine." She pointed at the new exploration instance listed on the board. "You're signing up for this one with me. Consider it repaying a life debt."

Tiger looked at the screen.

Exploration Instance: Chen Garden.

"Fine." He gritted his teeth and agreed.

*

After five days in the infinite space, Tiger and Curly Hair entered the new instance, where they were assigned the deeply honored role of... household servants.

The estate ran on rules, and there was work from dawn to dark without pause. If they hadn't been permitted to use their phones during working hours, Tiger would have assumed he'd entered a feudal-era instance by mistake.

"The master's distinguished guests will be arriving shortly. Everyone had better be sharp. If anyone offends a guest, you can pack your things and go."

Tiger looked across at Curly Hair, standing in the corner being briefed by the head steward, and quietly sighed. Owing someone your life was expensive.

This instance had a viciously high difficulty curve — half the players eliminated within a single day. By any standard instance logic, the arrival of distinguished guests meant a significant escalation.

The guests came. Tiger and Curly Hair stood at the entrance, bowing to each arrival.

"Welcome, honored guest."

Tiger rubbed his aching back when no one was watching. Had anyone told the Chen household that feudalism ended?

"Welcome, honored—"

Another car pulled up. Curly Hair had bent halfway into her bow when she looked up and met a familiar face.

Curly Hair: "..."

Chao Musheng: "..."

One day apart, and Curly Hair had already changed employers at impressive speed.

Tiger: !

Was he seeing things?

Was that... the golden thigh from the last instance?