Chapter 95: Tail Ship 13
"etc."
Jiang Yuelu originally thought that the flying of the tail ship was just the idea of the city lord... but it seems not.
"You mean, this ship can fly?"
Dad shook his head. "Although his skills are already among the best in the world, he is still a long way from flying into the sky. This idea is really too fantastic."
Tong Mian didn't understand, "His boat can sail into the ghost cave, why can't it fly into the sky?"
"It has something to do with the wood he used to build the boat. I don't know where he got some magical wood from, but the hull built with this material can resist the corrosion of the water of the underworld. That's why I saw him on the rainy sea. But, you know, flying into the sky is a different matter."
After listening to his explanation, Tong Mian nodded to show his understanding.
"And then what?"
"After that..."
Recalling the past, he fell into deep thought again.
At first, everyone was excited about Will's idea because they hadn't seen him so excited for a long time. But Will's wife and 15-year-old son knew that "a boat that could go to the sky" was just a fantasy. But in order to let Will have something to do and not lie down and do nothing, they still tried to act like they were busy.
But soon, they got a little tired.
"Mom, when will Dad wake up? There's no such ship, right?"
The wife hugged her son tightly and said, "Soon, it will be soon."
The "Sober Will" they had been waiting for not only did not appear soon, but became even worse. The former kind father and husband was like a possessed man, sitting in the room with blueprints, eating and sleeping in a pile of wood. These were nothing, but what his wife could not accept the most was that Will's temper became increasingly violent. One day, he even slapped the child.
"That night, I heard a quarrel on the boat that was more violent than a tsunami." Dad said absentmindedly, "Can you imagine? A woman who had never spoken loudly was hysterical like a madman that day."
"Never hurt your loved ones at any time," Jiang Yuelu pointed out.
"Oh, wise insights, but Will didn't understand them at the time. He had walked into a vicious circle, locking himself in a castle of loneliness. His beloved wife couldn't wake him up, and neither could his son. But there was one person who could. Do you know who else could knock on Will's door?"
"who?"
Everyone was immersed in the story.
"Will's little girl."
“She was the most supportive person to her father.”
"She believed deeply in Will and believed that he could build a ship that could fly high into the sky. It was not because her dream was to fly, but because she was only eight years old and still dreaming. She trusted her father as if she believed that a fairy tale would come true."
"When she knocked on the door, Will couldn't say a harsh word, and couldn't even throw a toy at the door. He could only open the door helplessly, squat down, and endure all his anger to ask his little daughter what was wrong."
"At times like this, she would usually hold the rabbit in her arms and ask, 'Dad, can I know how the Little Bird is doing?'"
Little Bird, this is the name she gave it.
An eight-year-old child, unable to understand complicated drawings, thought that a ship could only be carried high into the sky by the wind if it had wings.
"His wife and son were disappointed with his boat, but his daughter would come every day to ask about the boat's condition. Will cherished this little friend very much, and he would report the day's progress to her every day."
“Use a poetic language that children can understand.”
——Today, a little feather grew on its left wing.
——Two feathers, good progress!
——It feels a little uncomfortable today and can’t grow any longer…
The daughter nodded sensibly: "It's very hard to grow a feather every day. Let it have a good sleep today. Daddy too."
This was probably the best moment of the day for Will.
"But Daddy," she began carefully, "can you sleep with Mommy tonight? Stay with us."
Will felt that his mood suddenly became bad again, "Maybe I will be busy until very late today..."
"But……"
He saw that his daughter was hesitant to speak, "What's the matter?"
He would soon know what happened. Because of the long cold war, his wife could no longer bear it and ran away with their son, leaving their home forever. Seeing the empty room and the shredded photos, Will was not angry as he had imagined. Instead, he became stubborn.
Just wait and see! Sooner or later my ship will be able to fly high into the sky!
The old man shook his head and said, "What a pity. His dream never came true. On the day of setting sail, the ship ran aground on the sea."
Jiang Yuelu: "What about his wife and children?"
"He had been secretly following his wife's movements, and invited her to come and watch the night before sailing, probably out of a desire to prove himself. That day, his wife came as invited."
The old man said with regret: "She shouldn't have come, otherwise she might have survived the terrible tragedy. With the child."
"Tragedy?"
"Oh, wasn't I finished? Will's ship did fly."
Jiang Yuelu was helpless: "No. You didn't say that."
Like father, like son, and Drake isn't the only one who's forgetful.
"That day, the ship finally took off..."
That day, the ghost den was surprisingly peaceful, the boiling rotten water subsided, all the waves were still, it was such perfect weather, it seemed just to welcome the departure of the dream ship.
The ship now has two names.
One was the Little Bird named by his daughter, and the other was the stern boat that Will wanted. In order to make the boat ascend smoothly, he had to improve the hull. Now its appearance did not look like a boat, but like a circle, like an endless ring, filled with wooden boards in the middle.
A sternboat... a fitting name, isn't it?
He once again looked at the ocean, trying to find his wife's face in any breeze, but the sternboat was too tall. He and his daughter stood on the deck, and the whales in the distance became tiny black dots.
"Still not coming..." he whispered.
"What's wrong, Dad?"
"Nothing. I mean, we should get going."
As the boat was spinning and drifting away from the sea, he suddenly saw two ink spots smaller than whales in the eyes of a flying bird. Just as he turned around in surprise and wanted to call his wife loudly, the disaster came at that moment.
However, what is extremely ridiculous is that even though it fell from mid-air, the stern boat that they had poured so much effort into was still intact, but their family has since been buried in the sea forever...
“I was just watching.”
"I watched them die and suffer heavy losses. The ghosts in the ghost den devoured their remaining souls in an instant. I watched the ship run aground in the sea. One year, five years, and decades passed. Finally, a strange voice appeared again."
The old man said, "The Lord of the Capital has arrived. He has sent this half-broken ship back into the sky."
"You all know what happened next."
"He brought the ghost market, and the stern boats prospered as a result. The boats were filled with ghosts traveling back and forth from all over the country. But gradually, people were no longer happy because of the novelty. They gradually discovered that there was no real freedom here."
Jiang Yuelu felt that what he was going to talk about next was the problem.
"Before boarding the ship, you must have seen the [Fortune Scale] and the smiling face on the ghost face."
"We have already experienced the [Fortune Scale], except for him." Jiang Yuelu glanced at Tong Mian, "The wealth we were measured out to be pitifully small."
"As for the [smile on the face]... are you talking about this one on our faces?"
The old man suddenly looked at them with sympathy, "Oh, poor children, you don't know your own situation. It's time for you to see it. The changes in you are not just the appearance of a string of numbers."
He raised his little finger, and a golden mirror appeared, which he placed in front of the three people. "Look at your faces now."
Tong Mian was the first to come forward. He touched his forehead in surprise: "...Huh?! What you typed before was clearly a smiley face?"
But now what the mirror clearly reflects is a crying face.
The downturned corners of the mouth, the deep tear marks, one glance at them will remind you of lifelong regrets, that face seems to be endowed with the magic of sadness.
Jiang Yuelu pondered, "After following Drake to the Land of Despair, I confirmed that there was still a smile on his face... Did it change when the numbers appeared?"
In other words, after confirming that they do not have the ability to pay with happiness, the other party deprives them of the smiles on their faces.
“Let’s take inventory.”
"We came here, a place that can accurately measure how much happiness and pain a person has, a ghost market where all transactions are made with happiness and pain. But after boarding the ship, we came to the registration center, where we were marked with a smile, and after entering the ghost market, we realized that we could only pay with happiness."
"Generally speaking, ghosts' pain is greater than their happiness. So we heard the first lie when we boarded the ship. Pain cannot be traded on the ship. Pain is an erased existence. It becomes a sign of crying, a sign that can only appear in despair. If you have this mark on your face, it means you will be kicked out of happiness."
"Then, we came to the ghost market, where we heard the second lie. The Tianzihao is not an honor. We sat there, forced to [buy] something we couldn't afford, something we had to pay for with happiness, like forced consumption."
"But on this ship, happiness is a hard currency, a treasure. It is like shells in ancient times and gold in the trade market later."
Jiang Yuelu said: "In a world full of happiness and gold, the three of us are just poor people who can't afford even a little happiness."
"As it should be, we became debtors, just like the other ghosts in the Land of Despair, with a string of numbers that we can never pay in our lifetime. In simple terms, they also took on debts because they [did not have the happiness points to pay], so they came to the Land of Despair from happiness."
Judging from Drake's statements, this reasoning seems logical.
Dad nodded: "Only happy ghosts will have a smile on their faces. And these ghosts who cry all day long can only have endless sadness and pain."
Jiang Yuelu seemed to understand that smiling faces and crying faces represent two types of people. The former are qualified to live in happiness, while the latter can only survive in despair.
The question now is, who are the people who are qualified to give [qualifications]? After coming on this ship, happiness and pain, the amount of comfort and pain, smiling faces and crying faces, debt figures... these are all [forced upon them].
There was a man who was high above them, looking down at them, examining them, and commenting on their happiness and suffering.
"Your expression seems to say that you have found a clear path in the fog." Dad looked at him with appreciation and encouraged him to speak out loud.
"It's not a clear path, just some personal guesses." Jiang Yuelu paused, "You are rebelling against the Ghost King and the Lord's rule here because you refuse to acknowledge--"
“There are only things in this world that can be measured by [happiness].”
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