***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to JustSomeOne for the donation! ^^
***
Lin Zhiyan and the lead staff member’s voices and footsteps had long faded.
But the eighth floor was no place to linger.
Staying on the same floor as those two would get them discovered sooner or later.
While Qi Lintian was calming down, Ruan Qing wiped away all the traces on his body with tissues, buttoned up his shirt, and zipped his school jacket.
But the uniform wasn’t high-collared—it couldn’t cover the marks littering his neck at all. Left with no choice, Ruan Qing cut a section of the curtain with a small knife and wrapped it around his neck like a scarf, completely concealing the evidence.
Everything on this luxury cruise ship was of the highest quality, even the curtains. Made of plush velvet, the fabric looked no different from an actual scarf, seamless and natural.
In fact, the material was even more comfortable than his clothes.
Qi Lintian frowned, displeased at seeing Ruan Qing hide the marks. Just as he was about to speak, Ruan Qing shot him a cool glance.
That look was faint, unreadable—as if it were just a passing glance—but for some reason, Qi Lintian shut his mouth.
Only after staying silent did he realize he had backed down.
But it was too late to say anything now. Ruan Qing had already pushed the curtains aside and stepped out, leaving Qi Lintian to follow with a scowl.
Since the eighth floor had almost no guests, there were few monsters there. The two headed in the opposite direction of where the other pair had gone and quickly left the floor behind.
The cruise ship was no longer the luxurious, pristine vessel it had once been. Now, bloodstains and corpses littered the halls, along with strange, viscous fluids.
The slime was identical to what Ruan Qing had found in the first victim’s glass of red wine.
His heart sank slightly. It was possible that not all the monsters came from the deep sea—some might have already been on the ship.
But whether they had boarded before departure or crawled on afterward was unclear.
Either way, their presence was undeniable. Their origin didn’t matter as much now. What concerned Ruan Qing more was the warning from those two: "The eye of the storm is dangerous."
Dangerous? Was there more to fear than just the monsters?
If even they considered it perilous, the threat had to be severe. After all, those two had moved through hordes of monsters without a hint of fear.
Could the ship really capsize?
As the owner of the Malegobi, Qi Lintian knew his ship well. He shook his head grimly. "No. This vessel is made of specialized materials designed to maintain balance at sea. It won’t sink unless we hit something like a death vortex."
"However." Qi Lintian paused before continuing, "If the cruise ship's hull is damaged, there's a high probability it will sink to the bottom of the sea."
The special material was sturdy enough and maintained balance well, but it had one fatal flaw—it was too heavy.
Anything too heavy was prone to sinking.
If the hull were breached, causing seawater to flood inside, the ship would undoubtedly sink.
Moreover, the cruise ship was simply too massive. Once an accident occurred, resolving it safely would be extremely difficult.
Under normal circumstances, Qi Lintian would confidently say no accidents would happen. But now, with unscientific monsters appearing, he couldn’t guarantee that nothing could damage the hull.
Ruan Qing wasn’t too surprised. He looked at Qi Lintian and asked, "Do you have the authority to restart the ship’s permission system?"
Originally, Ruan Qing had assumed the player had accidentally destroyed the system. But judging from Lin Zhiyan’s conversation with the lead staff member, the permission system hadn’t been destroyed—Lin Zhiyan had seized the opportunity to shut it down.
If they could reactivate it, the situation would improve significantly, as most of the monsters were still concentrated on the lower decks.
"I definitely have the authority to restart it, but I don’t know where the system is located." Qi Lintian seemed to recall something. "I think there might be cruise ship documents in my room."
Hearing this, Ruan Qing followed Qi Lintian to the ship’s sixteenth floor.
The sixteenth floor was the second-to-last level. Under normal circumstances, no one except Qi Lintian and his personal bodyguards had permission to access it.
But with the permission system deactivated—and the sixteenth floor being the farthest from the lower levels—it was now crowded with surviving passengers.
Ignoring them, Qi Lintian took Ruan Qing’s hand and led him to his study.
The study didn’t require an access card to enter, and inside lay two corpses in pools of blood—Qi Lintian’s bodyguards.
Perhaps the survivors found the presence of corpses unsettling, so the study was mostly empty.
Stepping past the bodies, Qi Lintian quickly rummaged through the room. Eventually, he found documents about the cruise ship, along with a floor plan, tucked in a corner of the bookshelf.
After carefully reviewing the materials, they realized there was no mention of which floor housed the permission system.
Even the core details were missing.
This was an incomplete report—anyone who looked closely would notice the irregularities.
But the person who prepared this document seemed to know Qi Lintian wouldn’t even glance at it—the contents were utterly half-hearted, only appearing thorough on the surface.
Qi Lintian’s expression darkened. "Lin Zhiyan must have planned this long ago."
Clearly, even before constructing this cruise ship, Lin Zhiyan had already been preparing for this day.
It was too late for regrets now. If they wanted to locate the ship’s permission system, they’d have to search for it themselves. Fortunately, Qi Lintian still had his own access card—along with the ship’s master permissions.
But Ruan Qing wasn’t so optimistic. He pressed his lips together. "Would Lin Zhiyan really give you the ship’s true permissions?"
No.
If he were Lin Zhiyan, he’d never grant Qi Lintian that authority.
The same realization struck Qi Lintian, and his face grew even grimmer.
Suddenly, Ruan Qing remembered the access card he’d given the player in the suit—Lin Zhiyan’s access card. If there was even the slightest chance of activating the ship’s permission system, it lay with that card.
After all, Lin Zhiyan’s own card would undoubtedly have the highest clearance.
When Ruan Qing shared his thoughts with Qi Lintian, the man immediately seized on a critical detail. His gaze turned sharp as he stared at Ruan Qing. "Why do you have Lin Zhiyan’s access card?"
Ruan Qing: "..."
He didn’t want to answer, but Qi Lintian clearly had no intention of letting it go. His unrelenting stare seemed to warn that unsatisfying explanations would lead to unpleasant consequences.
Suppressing a sigh, Ruan Qing lowered his voice. "Last night."
Qi Lintian’s eyes turned dangerously cold. "Night?"
"Afternoon!" Ruan Qing corrected himself instantly—almost too quickly. "I misremembered. It was yesterday afternoon."
"When that accidental death happened yesterday, he left his office after getting the news. I took the chance to steal his card then."
Only then did Qi Lintian’s expression ease slightly. "Stay away from him next time."
Ruan Qing nodded obediently, playing along as Qi Lintian led him out of the room by the hand.
But halfway down the hallway—
The System’s voice echoed in Ruan Qing’s mind.
[The Demon’s Eye is on the desk.]
He froze mid-step, whirling around to stare at the office desk.
On the corner of the desk sat an exquisite box, and atop the box rested a spherical object.
It was entirely black, with only a single curved line running from left to right—a downward arc.
That was the emblem of the Malegobi Cruise Ship.
Ruan Qing had seen it before, embroidered on the suit of Qi Lintian’s bodyguard. But it had happened so fast that he hadn’t gotten a good look, assuming it was just an ordinary design.
Only now did he realize—it might not have been a sphere at all.
It was an eyeball.
And that so-called "arc" wasn’t just a line—it was the eyelid of the eye.
But because the eye was closed, no one had ever thought to see it for what it truly was.
Ruan Qing stared at the eyeball, puzzled, and spoke faintly in his mind:
'Why are you suddenly giving me the Demon’s Eye?'
If he remembered correctly, the System had always withheld his rewards. He had never received any items dropped in the dungeons, no matter how well he performed.
The top-performing player in a dungeon was supposed to get a chance to draw rewards—sometimes even rare dungeon-exclusive items.
But he had never gotten one.
After raising the issue once and receiving no clear answer, he had stopped asking.
And yet now, for the first time, the System was voluntarily giving him something—and not just anything, but the Demon’s Eye, an item even Su Zhen had coveted.
The System’s voice was low as it explained:
[This dungeon is special. Without this item, you might get infected.]
[Those eyes, they’re highly contagious.]
[Once an eye latches onto you, you’ll eventually turn into one of those monsters.]
And if he became a monster, clearing the dungeon would be impossible.
Ruan Qing had already noticed the eyes’ infectious nature—they seemed alive, burrowing deep into the monsters’ flesh.
'What if I cut out the infected flesh with a knife?'
[No.]
The System answered immediately, then repeated firmly:
[It won’t work.]
[Once the eyes infect you, their fluids seep into your bloodstream, spreading through your entire body. Eventually, new eyes will grow from within, until your whole body is covered, and you become one of them.]
The System hid part of the truth, exaggerating the danger to dissuade Ruan Qing from taking any risks.
In reality, cutting away the infected flesh doesn’t usually work—but if you’re fast and ruthless enough, severing the parasitized part before the slime spreads through the body might just stop the infection.
But most people aren’t that decisive, nor that cruel. A single second of hesitation, and the infection takes hold completely.
In other words, once parasitized, death is practically inevitable.
Yet the System knew this young man was truly ruthless enough. If he learned of this method, he wouldn’t hesitate to amputate part of his own body without flinching.
That’s why the System risked giving him the Demon’s Eye.
The Demon’s Eye was once part of that entity’s body. Its power is so terrifying that it unconsciously corrodes everything around it—including its user.
Like the NPCs in every dungeon corrupted by the dark energy, the user would eventually become nothing more than another fragment of that being, fully assimilated. They might cling to the illusion of their former self, but it’s just their pre-corruption memories playing tricks on them.
That’s also why the System didn’t dare give him any other artifacts, much less the Demon’s Eye. After all, his body was frailer than most, making him even more vulnerable to erosion.
But now that Ruan Qing could wield divine power—and had already sealed the Demon’s Eye—it shouldn’t pose a major threat… as long as he never actively uses it.
