Chapter 144

Chapter 144

The dead of night, a sea wind stirring, whipping up great waves. The water was the color of ink.

Darkness was the best cover.

Two figures alighted soundlessly on the edge of the deck. Tang Xian’an retracted the dragon wings from his back.

The ferry, which looked long-abandoned, was saturated with a cloyingly sweet scent, like an air freshener dangling from a rearview mirror. It was sickeningly thick.

“Likely a mental-type talent,” Tang Xian’an murmured, his voice low.

The vessel was named ‘Noah,’ after the ark. A mythical ship said to preserve hope when disaster struck.

In the early days, to keep passengers from noticing anything amiss, the ship had been studded with hallucinogenic clams.

Lu Yan’s gaze fell on a corner. A white, fleshy clam the size of a hand clung to the wall, its shell parting rhythmically. Inside, a crimson tongue, studded with white pearls embedded in the flesh like sores in a cankerous mouth.

A clam exhaled a plume of damp mist—the source of the perfume.

[Moonlit Pearl Clam (Pollutant)]

[Formerly a pearl oyster. Pollution Value 200-800. An animal, but lacking cognitive thought. Possesses Talent #147: Hallucination. Often used decoratively. Some fish-men enjoy attaching these clams to their bodies to lure passing sailors. The origin of many siren legends.]

[Incidentally, let me show you the view from the other fish-men on board.]

The dilapidated cabin interior brightened instantly. The sound of elegant music drifted from a grand hall. Waiters and waitresses, golden-haired and blue-eyed, handsome and beautiful, moved with trays, boutonnieres pinned to their chests.

The scene was straight out of the high society depicted in Titanic. In the fish-men’s eyes, they weren’t ugly monsters. They wore fine suits and gowns, faces adorned with blissful smiles.

A moment later, the vision faded from Lu Yan’s perspective.

In reality, the fish-men lay packed on the cabin floor like sardines, drool leaking from the corners of their smiling mouths.

Several attendants moved among them, wielding tridents. They’d casually spear one from the pile.

These figures wore filthy aprons, looking more like butchers than servers. Their bodies remained humanoid, but where their heads should be sat a squid the size of a human skull, its eyes large and vacant, eight tentacles dangling down to its chest.

[Lai’s Mimic Squid (Pollutant)]

[Pollution Value: 7200. A species of squid, one of the first marine pollutants to form colonies over a century ago. Possesses Talent #172: Neurotoxin. These pollutants inhabit the bodies of the first Deep Sea Cult devotees. The devotees knelt before their deity’s statue like lambs awaiting slaughter. The mimic squids were released to consume them. The faithful believed they would achieve symbiosis, not parasitism. They would become masters, not vessels.]

[Due to the parasitic relationship, these squids possess human-like cognitive ability. However, with non-original brains, their intellect is limited.]

A trident impaled a fish-man. Red blood flowed. The body convulsed in agony, yet the face retained its serene smile.

The fish-man was, unsurprisingly, carved up and shared.

The attendant with the largest head—likely the head waiter—claimed the soft organs and brain first.

[The cruise ship docks for 48 hours. Right now, with many passengers newly boarded and order chaotic, I suggest you secure a passenger identity. Hiding in the ship’s belly like 16th-century cargo would break my heart.]

“How?” Lu Yan asked.

[Thank Lu Cheng. He was once a high-ranking member of the Deep Sea Cult. Though, against a precog like me—ahem, us—he was helpless. This ferry does have his private VIP suite. You just need to pretend Lu Cheng has returned.]

[A son inheriting his father’s assets is fitting.]

“He’s not my father,” Lu Yan replied, expressionless. “And I don’t look like him now.”

[It doesn’t matter. Pollutants don’t identify by appearance. After all… you carry Lu Cheng’s blood.]

Lu Yan was silent for a moment. “Is that so.”

He grasped Tang Xian’an’s wrist. “To the third floor.”

Flight certainly avoided unnecessary trouble. The internal stairs would have been far more dangerous.

The entire third level was sealed, with no external access. Tang Xian’an carefully melted a pane of glass with his dragon’s breath. They slipped inside without a sound.

Don’t say it, Lu Yan thought to the system, but this is oddly thrilling. Like an affair.

The corridor on the third floor reeked of rancid fish.

The floor was slick, filthy water ankle-deep.

Visibility was near zero in the oppressive dark. Lu Yan led Tang Xian’an by the hand toward Lu Cheng’s suite.

“Don’t be alarmed by whatever you see,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you if we need to act.”

They reached the corridor’s end. No door, only a wall. It was overgrown with moss and seaweed. Crimson tendrils coiled within, like veins hidden beneath leaves.

[Place your hand on it.]

Lu Yan complied. Almost immediately, he felt something bite into his palm.

A seam split open across his hand uncontrollably. Several red tendrils, edged with sharp fangs, writhed out.

The two sets of tendrils met like rival stags, tangling in a silent, vicious struggle.

Lu Yan tried to pull back, but his hand was held fast, as if magnetized to the surface.

The fight was soundless and brutal.

Finally, the tendrils on the wall were drawn into Lu Yan’s palm like strands of noodles.

His stomach, numbed by days of poor appetite and little food aboard the ship, finally registered a faint sensation of fullness.

[Tasty?] the system inquired.

“Tastes like braised beef instant noodles. Not bad.”

With that, Lu Yan pushed the now-yielding surface. It swung inward.

The room, long uninhabited, was coated in a fine layer of dust. Water had seeped in, warping the wooden floorboards.

Lu Yan shut the door behind them.

Expecting electricity was impossible. He fumbled in the dark, lighting an oil lamp on the desk.

A warm, yellow flame jumped to life, its dim glow filling the space.

The room was windowless. Besides a bed, there was a desk. Shelves lined the walls, empty of books. An embedded wardrobe held a few sets of clothes and a damaged diving suit.

In a corner sat a medical kit. Lu Yan opened it. Standard supplies and vitamin C. Beneath them, used scalpels and an IV needle.

Inside the IV tubing, black residue stained the walls.

Lu Yan motioned to Tang Xian’an. “Come here.”

He held the tubing near Tang Xian’an. “Is this blood?”

Tang Xian’an bent, sniffed. “Yes.”

[A working dog, is it? Very good, puppy-dragon.]

Lu Yan set the needle down. “Tell me everything you know.”

[What do you wish to know? A pity. Lu Cheng kept diaries, but he ate them all.]

[In theory, I should grant your every wish. But this time, no one can help you. Not even me.]

[I’m reluctant to part with you, my treasure. But the closer we get to Laleye, the worse my signal becomes. I may go offline for a time… Before that, I’ll tell you what I can.]

“Lu Cheng gave me a blood transfusion. The blood in my body is his.”

[Yes.]

“‘Little Brother’ is the original owner of this body.”

[No.]

That single negation made Lu Yan pause for a long time.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat. A crimson flush spread across his skin.

A headache bloomed.

The tinnitus worsened, a sensation of water being forced into his ears.

Lu Yan asked his final question. “Has Little Brother been with me all along?”

This time, the system’s silence stretched.

So long that Lu Yan began tidying the bed, preparing to sleep, before the answer finally came.

[Yes. For as long as I have been with you, he has been with you.]

[Though I am omniscient, I regret that sometimes, even I do not understand his thoughts. Perhaps only you can know the answer.]

Lu Yan lifted a hand, covering his pale lips. He bent forward abruptly in a soundless cough.

He swallowed back the blood that rose in his throat. The thought that this blood might be Lu Cheng’s churned his stomach.

The ringing in his ears was so severe he didn’t register Tang Xian’an’s words until several seconds later.

“Can you hold on?”

Lu Yan opened his mouth. The taste of iron was thick. “Yes. Tang Xian’an.”

He rarely used the full name. Usually, a glance was enough.

“I’m here.”

Lu Yan’s fingers dug into Tang Xian’an’s arm. “If I become a pollutant… what will you do?”

It was a question Tang Xian’an had never considered.

Like asking who you’d save first—your wife or your mother—the person asking didn’t want a specific answer. They wanted a stance.

Reality was harsher than the hypothetical. A wife and mother might never fall into the water, but Lu Yan’s current state made becoming a pollutant a tangible threat.

Tang Xian’an didn’t dismiss him. He didn’t evade. He began to think.

If it were him, given the choice between becoming a pollutant and death, he’d choose the latter. He could not accept becoming the very thing he was duty-bound to eradicate.

His duty was the purification of pollution.

He'd wanted to save the world since he was sixteen. He hadn't succeeded. And yet, he had.

He was a line of defense. Maybe not the strongest, one that could crack, wear thin, crumble. But it had never taken a single step back.

Tang Xian'an had undergone countless training sessions. He understood, intellectually, that once a human became a pollutant, that human was dead.

What was called a 'pollutant' was a new creature, reborn from the old shell.

He knew this. Rationally.

But demanding that a human remain forever rational was, in itself, an impossible ask.

Tang Xian'an closed his eyes, making a quiet concession to the part of himself that refused the lesson. "As long as you are Lu Yan."

I don't care if you crawled from the abyss.