Delicate, Yet Shamelessly Freeloading [Quick Transmigration] Chapter 49

Chapter 49: The Blind Widower in the Infinite Game (16)

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This person didn’t seem to have a single spot on their body that wasn’t soft and tender.

 

Especially the inner thighs.

 

Normally hidden beneath clothing, never seeing daylight—maybe only when sitting down would the soft flesh on either side press and rub against each other.

 

So back then, when he’d straddled his back, it had been so slippery he almost couldn’t stay on and had to cling tightly to Chu Jingting’s waist.

 

So now, after just a few teasing bites meant only to scare him, the skin yielded like soft tofu, instantly marked with trembling red bite imprints.

 

If the cabin door hadn’t suddenly been banged on—

 

Even Chu Jingting didn’t know what he might’ve done.

 

He only wanted to intimidate Shui Que. He just wanted to ask him: Did Xie Qian touch you?

 

Even if Chu Jingting couldn’t figure out why he cared so much about such a thing.

 

With his fingertip, he wiped away the teardrop at the corner of Shui Que’s eye. Then Chu Jingting tugged the short’s fabric—pushed up to the base of his thigh by his own doing—back down, covering up the evidence of his guilt.

 

Li Jianshan was stunned, staring at the two people standing inside the door. “Whoa, what’s going on here?”

 

Shui Que’s eyelashes were damp, clumping together, and he looked utterly shaken—on the verge of tears, yet refusing to cry. He was reluctantly dragged to the doorway by Chu Jingting.

 

Li Jianshan didn’t dare to assume whether the two of them had some kind of falling out. He awkwardly said, “Haha… woke up on the wrong side of the bed?”

 

Shui Que shook his head.

 

“Where’s the Thousand Smoke?” Chu Jingting stepped forward half a pace without a change in expression, subtly blocking Li Jianshan’s curious gaze.

 

“Oh, right, right!” Li Jianshan quickly realized what was more urgent. “Come on, follow me to the deck!”

 

Shui Que and Chu Jingting were the last players to arrive. Aside from them, everyone else was already there—and there was one extra: Yuan Yu.

 

Yuan Yu was learning under the second officer, and his duty hours matched the second officer’s—from midnight to 4 a.m., both day and night.

 

Atticus noticed something was off. “Where are the other crew members? We haven’t seen a single person besides us since coming up here.”

 

Even among the four crew members scheduled for this shift, only Yuan Yu was present. The deck was eerily quiet, with only the flag above fluttering restlessly in the wind.

 

“They drank too much and passed out,” Yuan Yu explained.

 

On the day they departed from the port, the crew had brought barrels of rum onboard from the tavern—enough to get completely smashed.

 

But even so, it was unusual to see only a single trainee seaman left on deck.

 

Something about tonight felt deeply unsettling.

 

They were standing at the stern.

 

Li Jianshan held a small telescope and pointed ahead. “See it? That ship sailing toward us.”

 

In truth, they didn’t even need a telescope. Even with the naked eye, they could spot the cargo ship moving in the same direction on the pitch-black sea, but clearly much faster—nearly catching up to the new Thousand Smoke.

 

It had been Li Jianhe who first noticed it.

 

He immediately woke Li Jianshan and informed the others.

 

The ship was getting closer. The midnight sea had grown inexplicably cold—several degrees colder—and thick fog blanketed the water.

 

The ship was extremely old. The bottom of the hull, just above the sea, was covered in barnacles and oysters. The hull itself was mottled with rust, looking like a skeletal frame about to collapse. At the bow, a tattered half-flag flapped like shredded paper, and from it, they could barely make out the characters “Thousand Smoke.”

 

Soon, it drew up alongside the new Thousand Smoke, sailing slowly and so close that it looked like the two ships might collide.

 

The other ship’s mast light glowed faintly in the fog.

 

Through the thick mist, they could see no one on the old ship’s deck.

 

Li Jianhe, frightened, whispered, “A g-ghost ship?”

 

[Main Quest 4: Folklore Public Course – “Inheritance and Development of Island Folk Culture: A Case Study of Thousand Smoke Island,”. Topic: Records of Seafaring Life and the Truth of the Thousand Smoke.]

 

The ghost ship’s appearance—

 

This must be the final main quest.

 

There was no choice now—they had to go over.

 

And the Thousand Smoke in the mist seemed to be deliberately waiting for them, gently swaying in the waves, holding position nearby.

 

Atticus pulled down a lifeline hanging by the ropes—a line usually used to secure buoys in port. Now, he flung it toward a metal post on the other ship, linking the two vessels together along the sides.

 

“What are you hesitating for? Get over there!” Atticus called, waving.

 

The Thousand Smoke was a cargo ship from at least ten years ago—smaller in both scale and capacity.

 

With the ships tethered side by side, it was possible to cross over using the rope—swinging or dropping down and landing on the other side’s forecastle deck.

 

Atticus was the first to try the jump and confirmed it was safe.

 

Without a word, Chu Jingting picked up Shui Que, cradling him like a child and placing him in front.

 

As they climbed over the ship’s edge, Shui Que shut his eyes and could only hear the rush of the wind—

—and then the steady thud of landing, followed by the creaking groan of the deck.

 

Chu Jingting suddenly lowered his voice and stared at Shui Que with unblinking dark eyes. “Scared?”

 

“Your leg is wet?” he stated, more than asked.

 

If not for the urgency of their current mission, Shui Que would’ve seriously considered biting him. He struggled to get down from Chu Jingting’s grasp.

 

In a small voice, teeth clenched, Shui Que made sure to clarify each word: “That was your drool.”

 

They were speaking so softly, it was like whispering secrets into each other’s ears.

 

Atticus couldn’t hear what they said. He was just annoyed that he had jumped over alone. Carrying someone else over would’ve been easy.

 

“Hey,” he turned and said, “if you’re scared, just stick with me.”

 

He didn’t like teammates who dragged others down, but for the sake of the mission, Atticus figured he could tolerate babysitting a burden.

 

…It was just to clear the game, after all.

 

The blond young man still had his usual awkwardness, but the pointed hostility he’d shown at the beginning of the quest had vanished.

 

Chu Jingting responded coolly, “No need. I’ll take care of him.”

 

[LOL, remember how you two were dissing my baby at the start?]

 

[Clingy vine~]

 

[I can’t take this anymore. Too many dogs raising this baby bird…]

 

[Atticus = defeated dog.]

 

The rest of the group also crossed over.

 

“Yuan Yu, little brother? Why are you…” Li Jianshan sounded surprised. After all, Yuan Yu was the only one present who wasn’t a player. He could’ve easily written this ghost ship off as a dream, stayed on the new Thousand Smoke, waited for the rest of the crew to wake up, and safely returned to Thousand Smoke Island.

 

Yuan Yu glanced at the group and had likely already guessed they weren’t really maritime students here for fieldwork.

 

“I’m following him,” Yuan Yu said.

 

He was referring to Shui Que.

 

The group moved from the stern’s forecastle deck toward the bow. Shui Que couldn’t see clearly in the unfamiliar environment and needed someone to guide him. Chu Jingting instinctively reached out to take his hand, but Shui Que avoided him and moved toward Yuan Yu instead.

 

Yuan Yu turned his head and naturally let Shui Que take his arm. He walked slightly ahead on Shui Que’s left side and asked after a moment, “Want me to carry you?”

 

Shui Que shook his head.

 

Chu Jingting stared at him quietly for a while, then said nothing and moved to the front of the group.

 

They climbed up the companion ladder from the boat deck to the bridge deck.

 

The door to the bridge was rusted along the edges, with peeling white paint. It wasn’t locked—a simple twist opened it.

 

The ceiling light was on, and a brass signal bell hung in one corner.

 

To the left of the entrance, a calendar was pinned to the wall by a nail.

 

As expected, the year matched one from ten years ago. It was the kind of old almanac commonly seen in the village, with large numbers for the Gregorian calendar, lunar calendar dates below, auspicious and inauspicious times, and even the direction of lucky gods.

 

Typically, people would tear off a page each day.

 

The yellowed paper had stopped at July 17th—lunar June 16th.

 

Li Jianshan casually flipped through it. There was nothing unusual about it—except that it was too old and bore marks of being soaked and dried again. It was just an ordinary old almanac.

 

The bridge equipment on a ten-year-old ship was clearly outdated: voice tubes, magnetic compasses, radar indicators, and celestial navigation devices. There wasn’t even a basic autopilot gyroscope.

 

A barometer and navigational chart were posted on the wall.

 

A helmsman’s logbook was left on the console, recording daily wind direction, wind force, temperature, relative humidity, and log readings.

 

It was a journal devoid of any personal touch.

 

From what they could see in the bridge, there were no clues about what had happened aboard the Thousand Smoke.

 

The same was true of the adjacent chart room.

 

Only one thing struck them as odd.

 

Xie Huahuang pointed to a corner in the hallway. “The peace axe from the fire cabinet is missing.”

 

The peace axe—another name for a fire axe.

 

The chart room stored books like sailing guides and tide tables, making it a fire risk. A fire cabinet was placed nearby. Its glass door stood open; the extinguisher and hose were still in place, but the axe slot was empty.

 

Generally, a fire axe is used to break through doors warped by heat or to clear flammable debris. The other two items showed no signs of being used. For now, the ship’s interior didn’t look like a fire had occurred.

 

“When a ship’s in danger, things like that are probably used to cut ropes, anchor chains, stuff like that, right?” Atticus shrugged. “Maybe a crew member cut a rope and just forgot to put it back. It’s not like they used it to chop someone up or anything… right?”

 

No one responded. Even Li Jianshan, who usually loved to lighten the mood, went silent.

 

The sea breeze picked up, blowing through the corridor with a chill and dampness.

 

They exited the chart room and returned to the deck on this level, preparing to go down.

 

From a distance, Li Jianhe pointed and exclaimed, “The lifeline! The lifeline’s been cut!”

 

Looking down from the upper deck, they saw not only that the lifeline had snapped, but also that the distance between the two ships was steadily increasing, with the fog growing even thicker.

 

While they had paused there for just a moment, the ship had drifted even farther away—the outlines of the New Thousand Smoke’s hull were now barely visible in the white mist.

 

Xie Huahuang wiped his glasses and said, “Even if we set aside the idea of someone being attacked, if this fire cabinet was opened recently, it at least means that someone was on board just now… and deliberately cut the lifeline.”

 

“When we were still in the wheelhouse.”

 

There was definitely someone else on this ship besides them. It wasn’t just an empty vessel adrift.

 

Atticus quipped, “Well, it is a ghost ship. Having ghosts would be par for the course.”

 

But the sense that the enemy lurked in the shadows while they were exposed made everyone’s skin crawl.

 

Yuan Yu took Shui Que’s hand—his palm warm—and asked, “Are you scared?”

 

Shui Que, who had already been through several instances, certainly wasn’t about to let a local NPC—who’d never even seen anything supernatural—ask him that. Not to mention, he was a whole year older than Yuan Yu and considered himself the “big brother” here. He patted Yuan Yu’s hand and said, “It’s fine, don’t be scared… I’ll protect you.”

 

That last line came out a bit lacking in confidence.

 

After all, his combat power was probably worse than a lump of coal.

 

But Yuan Yu still answered, “Okay.”

 

Chu Jingting gave a cold snort.

 

As they descended to the main deck, only the mast lights glowed faintly in the thick fog.

 

A steel ladder led down into the lower deck and the ship’s hold.

 

The first level down led directly into the dining room, with a structure similar to that of the new Thousand Smoke ship. Yellowing world maps and basic breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus were posted on the cabin walls, and a row of sailor uniforms hung along the wall.


On each side were two round portholes, beyond which lay the pitch-black ocean.


Two of the ceiling lights no longer worked, casting the dining room’s corners into dimness and stains.


Shui Que and Yuan Yu trailed at the back of the group, with Li Jianshan covering the rear and Atticus leading the way.


[Get down.]


Said the Overseer.


Why the sudden harsh tone?


Before Shui Que could react, Yuan Yu had already grabbed him and rolled them both sideways.

 

A cold, metallic wind swept past, and an axe smashed into the wooden floor, gouging out a pit.


They hadn’t even noticed that the neatly hung uniforms on the wall were actually headless people!


Thin shadows, with blackened, skin-and-bone bodies—each neck ending in a clean, flat cut.


The leader of the headless ones drew out a peace axe, exuding a terrifying aura, and raised it high overhead!


Yuan Yu’s pupils shrank; clutching Shui Que, he rolled sideways again and scrambled back to his feet.


The axe cleaved through the air, its iron-rust and blood-tinged stench mixing with the sea breeze.


Atticus casually grabbed a chair and hurled it.


The headless leader staggered back a step.


Chu Jingting darted forward and engaged the headless one in close combat.


Among the headless in the dining room, only the leader had an axe; the rest were either barehanded or held small knives and daggers.


Most of their team were armed with machetes—purchased from a shop in town before leaving the island.


Counting carefully, there were ten headless ones fighting them!

 

The other side not only had the numerical advantage—in no time, Li Jianshan shouted with a tilt of his head, “It’s no use! You can’t kill these things!”


Any limbs chopped off with machetes were simply picked up and reattached by the headless ones. In contrast, Li Jianshan and the others were already showing wounds.


While kicking away a headless one at his feet and blocking the leader’s axe with his machete, Chu Jingting turned and shouted, “Run!”


Xie Huahuang grabbed Yuan Yu and Shui Que and began pulling them deeper into the corridor.


Cabins lined both sides, and at the corner, two more headless ones dragged their feet into view.


Li Jianhe followed behind them. Gritting his teeth, he raised his machete against the two unarmed headless figures.


“You guys go ahead! Go—find clues!” Li Jianhe yelled.


Yuan Yu caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye, then pulled Shui Que and twisted open the door of a cabin at the end of the corridor. Xie Huahuang quickly followed them in.


They locked the door from the inside. The shaky nameplate on the door read: Yuan Wen [Trainee].


After everything that had happened that night, he could guess what Shui Que and the others were after.


Their father had a habit of keeping a diary.


Yuan Yu had been old enough to remember those things.


He rummaged through every possible hiding spot in the cabin and finally found a stack of stapled note paper in a box under the bed.


Yuan Yu flipped through it quickly. “Maybe this has what you’re looking for. Clues.”


Shui Que was still reeling, breathing heavily from the recent sprint.


Xie Huahuang scanned the diary at lightning speed, occasionally reading aloud to Shui Que, who couldn’t see.

 

Two names previously mentioned during their intelligence discussion—both tied to important figures—surfaced again.


One was Yuan Zhou and Yuan Yu’s father, the diary’s owner Yuan Wen. The other was Zhang Ping, the eldest son of the old high priest.


The name Shen Yi appeared intermittently in the handwriting.


“Remember what Shen Xue’s mother told us? Shen Yi was her younger sister—the little boat bride who never returned ten years ago,” Xie Huahuang said to Shui Que.


Shui Que nodded.


Put simply, it was an ugly affair.


Zhang Ping had pursued Shen Yi for many years without success. At that time, the little boat had yet to be pulled ashore by her family. Zhang Ping tampered with it, and the boat eventually drifted back to the remote mangrove coast at the southern end of Thousand Smoke Island. There, Zhang Ping went against Shen Yi’s will and forcibly had sexual relations with her.


In the end, Shen Yi jumped into the sea and took her own life.


Yuan Wen discovered Zhang Ping’s dark secret.


Major matters on Thousand Smoke Island had to be decided by the old high priest.


Stern and seemingly impartial, wholly devoted to Lord Wubao, the old priest remained silent for a long time. Eventually, he pressured Yuan Wen into silence by offering him a trainee spot on the Thousand Smoke ship.


Yuan Wen and Zhang Ping were both trainees on this voyage. They saw each other day and night—impossible to avoid. Yuan Wen tossed and turned at night, deeply uneasy. More than once, during idle talk with other crew members, he nearly confessed Zhang Ping’s crime.


On the return trip, the captain ordered several barrels of rum.


“I’m going crazy.”


“Tonight, I’m off duty. The captain invited us to drink in the dining room. I hope I can stay clear-headed.”


The diary ended there.


But the rest was easy to imagine.


During the drinking session, Yuan Wen probably revealed everything—perhaps emboldened by alcohol. To silence him, Zhang Ping lashed out violently.


Once someone was killed, the entire ship turned into a death trap on the ocean.


There was more than one fire cabinet onboard, and not just one peace axe. It was impossible no one fought back. Some survivors were likely.


But all over the ship, they’d seen soaked facilities, mud in the corners, and signs of a sudden storm. The sea rescue team had received a distress signal via radio but found nothing.


This suggested that in the true end of the story, the Thousand Smoke had indeed sunk.

 

They had basically pieced together the truth of the Thousand Smoke, but no message indicated that the mission was complete.


Something was still missing.


What was lacking? Whose hand had yet to be uncovered?

 

The cabin door was hacked open with an axe.


A single intact head pushed through the hole—wearing the captain’s naval hat, bluish-white eyelids lifting.


After confirming they were all inside, it withdrew and began hacking wildly at the door again, wooden splinters flying.


As it entered, Yuan Yu hurled a chair at it, forcing the captain back just far enough so he couldn’t block all three of them at the door.


Xie Huahuang rushed to help and gave Shui Que a push toward the stairs at the far end as he went out the door. “Run! Head to the next level!”


The Overseer prompted: [Forward. Go downstairs.]


Shui Que tested the way, then ran down the iron stairs with a thumping rhythm.


[At the stair landing, turn right.]


Had Shui Que not been on the run, had he been able to see—he might’ve glimpsed, through the port window on the left, the tiny black outline of Thousand Smoke Island in the distance, now revealed under the fading sea mist and the full moon. But tonight, the lighthouse at Dongshan emitted no flash of white light.

 

The next level was the storage hold. White wooden crates were stacked like mountains on green iron racks, their corners bound with black iron hoops.


Pipes crisscrossed the floor in a chaotic web. The diesel engine wheezed like a gravely ill patient, shaking and gasping without pause.

 

Overseer: [Roll.]

 

This time, Shui Que reacted quickly and rolled on the spot.

 

The last headless man—


His axe smashed into the damaged hull.


Seawater gurgled in through the rivet holes.

 

As Shui Que rolled, his knee slammed into a pipe, breaking the skin and starting to bleed.


The battered hull, riddled with scars, swayed in the towering waves. Wind and rain lashed against the ship’s sides with a crackling roar.

 

During a major storm, the ship would tilt thirty to forty degrees.


Shui Que gurgled as he rolled to the other side.


This time, he didn’t hit anything sharp.

 

A sticky tentacle wrapped around him like filling in a dumpling.


Shui Que shook his head.


He realized the tentacle catching him was bigger than anything he’d ever encountered—and it was still growing.

 

Countless tentacles filled an entire level of the ship.


The sea monster let out a high-pitched shriek.

 

Shui Que could no longer understand what it was saying.
The air was filled with chaotic murmurs and garbled whispers, forcing him to cover his ears.

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Huge shoutout to @candycorns2 on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.

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