Chapter 123 The Second Sacrifice
No one knew what happened last night except Jian Qianyuan and her unfortunate companion who had died.
Lin Qiushi remembered that Jian Qianyuan had been among those who complained about the taste of lunch yesterday. But when faced with today's equally disgusting and bland dead fish lunch, her strange behavior gave Lin Qiushi a bad suspicion. Could Jian Qianyuan also be under the influence of that monster...
Jian Qianyuan didn't care what others thought. After she finished her meal, she left the restaurant contentedly, rubbing her slightly bulging belly. As she left, she seemed to notice the horrified looks everyone on the deck gave her. She smiled indifferently and muttered to herself, "It actually tastes pretty good. If you like, you can go try it too."
No one responded to Jian Qianyuan's words. She shrugged in frustration and turned away.
Lin Qiushi saw her casually enter a room, and then the room changed, and Jian Qianyuan disappeared from everyone's sight.
The rooms are changing all the time, and every few minutes, a new room appears in front of the deck.
Some people were lucky and the things they placed in the room were taken out by other people, while others were unlucky and could never find the original house again.
However, Lin Qiushi did make a new discovery. As they walked through the corridor, they were lucky enough to see the locked room they had discovered yesterday. However, this time, there was a slight difference. The door of the room was wide open, and the chain that had originally locked the door from inside was scattered on the ground, broken into several pieces, as if it had been violently broken.
"I remember this room," Lin Qiushi said. "It's 201." He looked at the house number, and the one he saw yesterday came to mind. "Is there anything inside now?"
Ruan Nanzhu stood at the door without moving, looking into the dark door and asked, "Is there any movement inside?"
"No." Lin Qiushi shook his head after listening for a while. He was sure that he didn't hear anything.
"That thing should have left." Ruan Nanzhu took a step forward, stepped in, and casually lit the kerosene lamp on the table next to him.
The dim light illuminated the small room, allowing them to see the inside clearly.
This is an ordinary yet extraordinary house. What is ordinary is its furnishings, which are no different from where Lin Qiushi and the others live. What is extraordinary is the extra things in the room - some fish scales.
These scales covered almost the entire room, and the room was filled with a nauseating fishy odor. Lin Qiushi also noticed that the floor of the room was covered with a layer of liquid that looked a bit like water but was more viscous than water, which made people feel very uncomfortable.
The scratches left by sharp claws on the surrounding walls and furniture also told them that this room was once the room where the monster was imprisoned.
Lin Qiushi checked the scratches and saw that they were very deep. For a solid wooden floor, the scratches were so deep. It seemed that the fragile human body would be even more vulnerable in front of them.
Gu Longming was disgusted by the things inside, but Ruan Nanzhu took out a tissue from his arms and collected some scales of the thing and put it in.
Although we don’t know what these fish scales are used for at present, it’s better to be prepared just in case.
Lin Qiushi searched the room for other traces. Soon, he found a man's shoe in the corner. This shoe reminded him of the man he had eaten the previous day. Could it be that the monster had dragged its prey back into the room? Lin Qiushi was just thinking this when Gu Longming said, "Time's almost up." He had been counting the seconds since he entered, and it was still several dozen seconds shy of five minutes.
"Let's go, let's get out first." Ruan Nanzhu said, "This place probably has no other use."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
Not long after the three of them left the room, the room was replaced by another room. Lin Qiushi's expression became slightly silent.
Ruan Nanzhu asked him what he was thinking about.
Lin Qiushi said, "I think things might be a little worse than we thought."
"What do you mean?" Gu Longming asked in confusion.
"Is the monster's position truly fixed?" Lin Qiushi asked, "or can it move?" Before seeing the room, he had always assumed the monster's position was fixed. But now, seeing the broken chains, he had a darker suspicion: the monster could move, traversing this maze. Although, like humans, it couldn't find the exit, humans lost in the maze were like food to him.
"Your guess should be correct." Ruan Nanzhu looked at his watch. "There are still thirteen people, enough for him to eat for ten days."
Gu Longming laughed dryly and said, "Are you kidding me?"
Ruan Nanzhu shrugged: "If you like this joke."
At dinner time, Lin Qiushi had originally thought he would see the NPC covered in bugs, but he discovered that the NPC hadn't appeared. It seemed that the NPC only appeared in the restaurant during lunch, a fixed NPC that respawned...
Everyone was still eating dinner listlessly, except Jian Qianyuan.
She appeared in the restaurant again and continued to eat the fish in front of her with relish. However, because of Jian Qianyuan's unrestrained eating style, everyone lost their appetite and just ate some noodles and left the restaurant.
Lin Qiushi and the others did the same, but before leaving, Lin Qiushi carefully observed Jian Qianyuan to see if there were any changes in her.
However, what puzzled him was that Jian Qianyuan was still a simple human being. Apart from suddenly becoming fond of eating fish, there was nothing abnormal about her.
"I'm really afraid that when I come here tomorrow, I'll see her turned into that thing." Gu Longming now has complicated feelings towards Jian Qianyuan. He and Lin Qiushi are thinking the same thing.
Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu remained silent.
That night, Lin Qiushi didn't sleep much. He kept thinking about Jian Qianyuan, the changes that had occurred in her, and the connections between the clues.
Ruan Nanzhu took out the fish scales from his pocket and placed them on the table, observing them carefully.
It didn't rain tonight. A bright moon hung in the sky, casting a faint silver hue over the cabin and the sea. A salty and warm sea breeze streamed in through the window, and the bed beneath me rocked slightly. If it weren't for the door, the atmosphere would have felt like a leisurely journey.
Lin Qiushi looked outside with his side profile. The scenery outside the window changed every five minutes.
Sometimes he could see the deck, sometimes the side of the ship, and sometimes just a pitch-black wall. The two people lying behind him seemed to have fallen asleep, their breathing becoming even. However, just as Lin Qiushi was about to fall asleep, he heard a very subtle sound—something moving on the wooden planks. It was heavy, causing the planks to creak softly. It seemed to be wearing no shoes, and Lin Qiushi could even hear the sticky sound of skin touching wood.
The sound got closer and closer, and finally stopped near their window.
Lin Qiushi held his breath, half-squinting his eyes as he saw a tall shadow blocking the light from his window. Then, Lin Qiushi...sniffed a familiar fishy odor—he knew what that thing standing against the light was.
It was the huge monster with a fish head and a human body that they saw last night.
It was standing in front of the window of Lin Qiushi and the others at this time, and seemed to be twitching its nose in search of some scent. Lin Qiushi held his breath and dared not move.
In the moonlight, Lin Qiushi saw that thing slowly stretched its hands to the window and began to shake the window vigorously with its webbed hands.
The window was not strong and it made a loud noise when it was pushed out. Ruan Nanzhu and Gu Longming, who were still sleeping, woke up instantly. As soon as they woke up, they saw a huge figure standing outside the window and heard a low sound like the roar of a wild beast.
Lin Qiushi had expected Gu Longming, who was asleep, to scream in horror upon seeing this scene, but he only shuddered. He lowered his voice and said, "Fuck! Am I having a nightmare? Why is this thing at our door—"
Ruan Nanzhu was also very calm. He had already taken out a table knife from his pocket that he had taken from the restaurant and said, "Maybe he found that we look delicious?"
Gu Longming touched his face and said in disbelief: "...Do I look delicious?"
Ruan Nanzhu looked at him sympathetically: "There are always monsters who like strong tastes."
At this moment, Lin Qiushi was simply in awe of the two men's broad-mindedness.
The monster stretched out its hand and pushed a big hole in the window. All the glass on it shattered and shattered all over the floor. Then it tried to get in through the window, but when it found the window was too small, it moved its bulging white eyes and looked at the wooden door next to it.
"Fuck." Gu Longming cursed, "Is this thing really planning to come in?"
"That's what's going on." Ruan Nanzhu frowned. "Is death random? No...that's impossible! We've missed something!"
Just as they were talking, the fishman began to hit the wooden door in front of him with force. The wooden door, which was not strong to begin with, quickly became shaky under its impact. Lin Qiushi could even hear the sound of wooden boards breaking.
"If it rushes in later, I'll stop it and you guys escape through the window." Ruan Nanzhu's voice rang out, still very calm. He said, "Did you hear me, Linlin?"
"No." Lin Qiushi said, "I won't leave you alone. Don't make the same mistake as me." He frowned, his expression very unhappy.
Ruan Nanzhu was silent for a moment, then sighed as if giving up something, "Okay, as you wish." He handed Lin Qiushi a dinner knife.
"I won't leave either." Gu Longming said nervously from the side.
Ruan Nanzhu looked helpless, but he didn't try to persuade them anymore. He looked at his watch and said, "Thirty seconds, hold on for another thirty seconds, keep it out—"
Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming understood instantly - after thirty seconds, the room would change again, and they could leave here and leave the monsters outside behind.
But these thirty seconds were not so easy to gain, because the fishman had already split half of the door panel with its sharp claws, and was about to squeeze its scaly body through the gap.
Gu Longming turned around and moved the table against the door, while Ruan Nanzhu planned to pull the bed over to block the door.
Lin Qiushi watched Ruan Nanzhu's movements, but suddenly remembered something. He remembered that when the fishman walked to their window, the first thing he did was sniff—
"Give me the scales you collected during the day!" Lin Qiushi shouted.
"What?" Ruan Nanzhu was slightly stunned.
"The scale you found in the monster's room—" Lin Qiushi repeated it loudly again.
Fortunately, Ruan Nanzhu reacted very quickly. After understanding Lin Qiushi's meaning, he took out a small paper bag from his pocket and threw it directly out through the gap in the window.
The scales wrapped in the paper bag were all scattered on the corridor outside. The fishman, who had been concentrating on banging on the door, stopped and walked towards the paper bag, bending down as if he wanted to pick up the scales.
Seeing this scene, Lin Qiushi felt relieved. However, the next moment, after discovering that the paper bag contained only scales, the fishman let out an angry roar, turned around and pounced towards them again.
But these few actions were enough to last them through the long thirty seconds. Just before the murloc pounced on them and was about to smash the door, their room changed position and the murloc disappeared in front of them.
Lin Qiushi quickly opened the wooden door that had been broken into several pieces. After making sure that there were no fishmen outside, he and Ruan Nanzhu and the others moved to the next room.
His worries soon became a reality, because about two or three minutes later, the fishman found the room they were in again, completely destroyed the door panel, and rushed into the house.
At this time, Lin Qiushi and the others were hiding in another small room not far from that room, watching everything happening outside through the window.
The sound of things being smashed continued to be heard. After making sure that his prey had escaped, the fishman left with heavy breathing, but judging from its appearance, it seemed that it had a new target. Its huge mouth was slightly opened, revealing white and fine fangs, and saliva flowing from the corners of its mouth.
The three of them hid in the house and didn't dare to make a sound until the fishman walked away. Gu Longming breathed a sigh of relief: "Damn it, it actually followed the smell of fish to find us. I thought we were dead!"
They had not expected that the fish would play such a role here. If Lin Qiushi had not reacted quickly enough, at least one of the three of them would have died here.
Although the fishman had left, Ruan Nanzhu's expression remained tense. His solemn expression made Gu Longming feel uneasy. He asked, "What's wrong? Zhu Meng?"
"I think Jian Qianyuan is going to die." Ruan Nanzhu said.
Gu Longming was about to ask why when he recalled the unusual behavior of Jian Qianyuan during the day. She seemed to have eaten a lot of fish. Even when they left the restaurant, they could smell the strong fishy odor on Jian Qianyuan. And since they could smell it, there was no doubt that the monster could also easily smell it.
As expected, not long after the fish-man monster left, Lin Qiushi's keen hearing caught a woman's scream. The scream seemed a little far away from them, and Lin Qiushi could only hear it roughly, while Gu Longming and Ruan Nanzhu seemed unable to hear it.
The screams continued, followed by sobs and wails, until they faded away, leaving only the numbing roars and chewing sounds.
The sound came from the deck, and Lin Qiushi didn't want to know what they would see on the deck the next day.
I think it was another hollowed-out corpse, with its internal organs eaten away, leaving only an empty skeleton.
Ruan Nanzhu seemed to notice that Lin Qiushi couldn't sleep, so he sat down beside Lin Qiushi's bed, lay down with him, rested his chin on the top of Lin Qiushi's head, and gently kissed his hair.
The warmth of a body behind him gave Lin Qiushi some comfort from the cold voice, but the horrifying sound seemed to continue to echo in his ears. He could almost hear Jian Qianyuan's wails...
"She's dead." Lin Qiushi said.
"Yeah." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Go to sleep, this is normal."
Lin Qiushi sighed: "Maybe I have a way to save her."
"But you have to save yourself first." Ruan Nanzhu's fingers threaded through Lin Qiushi's hair. "We still lack a longsword that can kill it."
In the myth, Theseus killed the Minotaur with a long sword, but now they didn't see any weapons on the ship that looked like they could hurt the murloc - a table knife certainly wouldn't work.
"We've found the clue," Lin Qiushi said. "We've also found the appetizer." After Jian Qianyuan's death, he understood the meaning of the appetizer.
Ruan Nanzhu kissed the tip of Lin Qiushi's ear and said, "Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
Lin Qiushi nodded and closed his eyes.
Although he said he was sleeping, he actually didn't sleep very well. He just stayed awake in a daze until dawn.
The weather is bad today. The thick clouds covered the sky again, and the light was frighteningly dim.
Lin Qiushi got up early and went to the deck with Ruan Nanzhu and the others. Not surprisingly, he saw a body on the deck. Although the face could not be seen clearly, judging from the clothes, it was indeed Jian Qianyuan's.
Her stomach was cut open, and all the fish she had eaten yesterday was gone, along with her internal organs.
"Ugh—" Shen Juexin, who was already seasick, vomited again. Several girls with weaker tolerance also vomited with him.
Lin Qiushi also saw Xiaomo, who had given him the hint that day. She had lost some of her newbie awkwardness, and her expression had become much more numb, as if she had already accepted the horrific scene before her.
Two days later, Jian Qianyuan was the second sacrifice to be eaten.
Everyone simply disposed of Jian Qianyuan's body. When they said they disposed of it, they just threw it into the sea and watched the remaining parts of her being eaten by fish.
"I also saw that monster yesterday." More people saw the monster, and someone described what happened yesterday in a trembling voice, "It walked past my door, walked to Jian Qianyuan's house, then split the door open and dragged Jian Qianyuan out of the house..."
"That thing is too scary," the man said. "I can't save her. I'm no match for the monster."
No one can beat a two-meter-tall monster. If they have hot weapons, they may be able to struggle, but when they only have a dinner knife, no one dares to joke with their own life.
Lin Qiushi looked a little tired. He found a seat in the restaurant and sat down, fiddling with the plate of beans.
The NPC who distributed food to them also appeared. He looked exactly the same as when Lin Qiushi saw him on the first day, even his expression had not changed at all.
Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu looked at each other. Ruan Nanzhu stood up first and walked towards the NPC.
"Hello, sir." Ruan Nanzhu greeted him.
The NPC didn't say anything, but looked at Ruan Nanzhu with cold eyes, as if he was just a robot, and the fact that others greeted him was not part of his program.
"Hello, sir." Ruan Nanzhu said to him for the second time.
The man remained silent.
Ruan Nanzhu tilted his head, reached out and pushed the plate in front of him directly to the ground. The plate and the fish in it fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
"What are you doing?" The man finally spoke, his tone very unhappy.
"I want to ask you," Ruan Nanzhu said, "when you cook, do you also carry so many bugs on your body?"
The man said, "I don't understand what you are talking about."
Ruan Nanzhu casually grabbed a human-faced mosquito that was circling around the man and said, "Don't understand?"
Seeing this, the man put down the spoon he was using to prepare food and turned to leave, but Ruan Nanzhu grabbed his shoulder and asked, "Where are you going?"
The man's whole body began to shake violently.
Lin Qiushi watched from afar. At first he thought the man was afraid or angry, but he soon realized that it was not fear or anger, but the man was melting.
His body began to shrink rapidly, from head to toe, and turned into a black mass. This mass spread directly in the restaurant with a buzzing sound - it turned out to be a dense swarm of mosquitoes.
Everyone else in the restaurant was stunned by the scene and started clapping like crazy.
But the mosquitoes left just as quickly as they came, disappearing in the restaurant. The NPC who had just stood in front of them was left with only an empty set of clothes.
"What the hell." Gu Longming hadn't expected this at all. He said in surprise, "This guy is actually a mosquito spirit?"
Lin Qiushi: "..." He didn't know what to say for a moment.
Ruan Nanzhu scratched his head and turned to look at Lin Qiushi: "Will no one give us fish to eat in the future?"
Lin Qiushi: “…It seems so.”
Ruan Nanzhu spread his hands and made an innocent expression, but the expressions of the other people in the restaurant became complicated, and no one knew what they were thinking.
Ruan Nanzhu: "That's quite a pity."
Everyone: "..." No regrets, okay? Thank you.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
