What happened the night before, nobody knew—except for Jian Qianyuan and that unfortunate dead partner of hers.
Lin Qiushi remembered that yesterday, Jian Qianyuan had also been one of the people eschewing the unpleasant taste of lunch. But sat before the same nauseating and flavored dead-fish lunch today, her odd behavior gave Lin Qiushi an unfortunate supposition. Could Jian Qianyuan have been affected by that monster as well…
Jian Qianyuan didn't care at all what the others thought. Once she finished eating, she left the dining room with a satisfied pat of her slightly distended belly. On her way out she seemed to have noticed the shocked looks everyone was sending her, and answered with a cold smile.
"The taste is actually pretty good. If you like, you should all go give it a try," she mumbled to herself.
Nobody answered her, and she shrugged in disinterest before leaving.
Lin Qiushi watched her enter a room. And when the rooms changed, Jian Qianyuan disappeared before the crowd.
The locations of the rooms kept changing; every few minutes, a new room appeared in front of the deck.
Some were lucky—people found their stuff inside the rooms and brought them out. Others not so much, never managing to find their original rooms.
Lin Qiushi, on the other hand, made a new discovery. While they were perusing the hallways, they were fortunate enough to see once more that locked room they'd discovered the day before. Only, something had changed about it. The door to that room now stood wide open, and the chain that had locked it from the inside was scattered in broken pieces all over the ground. It seemed to have been violently broken off.
"I remember this room," Lin Qiushi said. "Room 201." He looked at the door plate, thinking of the room number they'd seen yesterday. "Is there anything inside it now?"
Ruan Nanzhu stood in the doorway staring into the dark interior.
"You don't hear anything inside?" he asked.
"No," Lin Qiushi shook his head after listening for a while. He was sure he could hear nothing moving about.
"Then that thing probably left." Ruan Nanzhu approached and took a step inside, casually turning on a kerosene lamp on the table beside him.
The dim light illuminated what wasn't a terribly large room, and they got a good look at what was inside.
The room was both normal and abnormal. Normal was its furnishings, which were identical to where Lin Qiushi's group slept. Abnormal was the additional things inside the room: a bunch of fish scales.
These scales were scattered throughout the entire room, filling the space with a disgusting fishy stench. Lin Qiushi also noticed that on the floors, there was a sort of liquid—like water, but a bit more viscous—smeared all over. It was discomforting to look at.
And on the walls and furniture all around them, there were marks made by sharp claws, telling them that this indeed was the room that once held that monster prisoner.
Lin Qiushi inspected these claw marks and found them extremely deep; if those claws could do this much to hardwood flooring, then it was easy to surmise that a fragile human body for them wouldn't stand a single blow.
Gu Longming was gagging out of disgust, but Ruan Nanzhu took a napkin from his shirt and collected a few of the scales.
Though at present, they didn't know what the fish scales were for, it was better to be prepared just in case.
Lin Qiushi searched the rest of the room for other clues. Quickly, he found a man's shoe in the corner. It made Lin Qiushi think of the man who'd been eaten yesterday. Did the monster drag its prey back to its room?
As Lin Qiushi was contemplating this, Gu Longming said: "Time's almost up." The moment they came in, he'd started counting down, and there were still around ten seconds before five minutes were up.
"Let's get out of here," Ruan Nanzhu said. "This place doesn't seem to be of any more use."
Lin Qiushi agreed.
Not long after the three left that room, its location changed into another room. Lin Qiushi's expression was a bit downcast.
Ruan Nanzhu asked what was on his mind.
Lin Qiushi: "I think things might be worse than we thought."
"What do you mean?" Gu Longming asked in doubt.
"Is the monster's position truly fixed?" Lin Qiushi asked. "Or can it move around?"
Before he'd seen that room, he thought the monster's position was fixed. But upon seeing that ruined chain, he'd formulated an unfortunate hypothesis: the monster could move, and it could move throughout the entire labyrinth. Though, like the humans, it could not find the exit, all the people lost in the maze were just like food to it.
"Your guess is likely correct." Ruan Nanzhu glanced at his watch. "There are still thirteen people. That's enough to feed him for ten days."
Gu Longming forced out a laugh: "You guys are joking, right?"
Ruan Nanzhu shrugged.
"Only if you like this sort of humor."
At dinner, Lin Qiushi had thought he'd be able to see that bug-covered NPC. But the NPC didn't show. It seemed he only appeared in the dining room at lunch, and had its role refreshed consistently…
Everybody except Jian Qianyuan still ate their dinners listlessly.
When Jian Qianyuan appeared in the dining hall once more, she continued scarfing down the fish placed before her. Her unrestrained way of eating left the crowd with even less of an appetite, and they all dispersed after swallowing down some noodles.
Lin Qiushi's group was the same. Only, before leaving, Lin Qiushi took a closer look at Jian Qianyuan, wanting to see if there were any changes on her body.
To his puzzlement, Jian Qianyuan was still currently a simple human. Beyond suddenly loving fish, there was nothing odd about her.
"I'm really scared to see her become one of those things tomorrow." Gu Longming's current feelings about Jian Qianyuan were complex; he and Lin Qiushi were thinking of the same thing.
Neither Lin Qiushi nor Ruan Nanzhu spoke.
That night, Lin Qiushi wasn't getting much sleep. His mind was filled with thoughts of Jian Qianyuan, the way she was changing, and connections between all the clues.
As for Ruan Nanzhu, he'd taken out the fish scales from his pocket, set them on the table, and was currently scrutinizing them closely.
It wasn't raining tonight, and a clean bright moon hung in the sky, casting a silver glow down onto the ship deck and ocean surface. The sea wind brought with it salt and heat through the window, and the beds beneath them were lightly swaying. Had they not been in a door, the atmosphere here actually seemed a tad like a leisurely vacation.
Lin Qiushi looked out to his side. The scenery outside the window changed every five minutes.
Sometimes he could see the deck, and sometimes the stern. Sometimes it was just a black wall. The two people lying behind him seemed to be asleep already, their breathing going even. But just before Lin Qiushi fell asleep as well, he heard a peculiar sound—something was moving across the floorboards. The thing was heavy, enough to press soft creaks from the wooden planks, and it didn't seem to be wearing shoes. Lin Qiushi could even hear the quiet stick of flesh to wood.
This sound was getting closer, finally coming to a stop near their window.
Lin Qiushi held his breath. Through half-closed eyes he saw a gigantic shadow blocking the light from his window. …And Lin Qiushi smelled a wave of familiar fish rot—he knew exactly what the thing standing backlit before him was.
That giant fish-headed monster they saw last night.
It stood right outside Lin Qiushi's window, its nose twitching like it was in search of a specific scent. Lin Qiushi held his breath and didn't dare move an inch.
By moonlight, Lin Qiushi saw that thing slowly place its hands on their window, and then begin to shake the frame with those web-linked fingers.
The window wasn't strong, crunching loudly with the push. Ruan Nanzhu and Gu Longming too woke instantly from their sleep, and the first thing they saw was the giant silhouette standing outside. They could also hear that low, animalistic roaring.
Lin Qiushi thought at first that Gu Longming, fresh from a dream, would scream at the sight of this, but instead he only shuddered before pressing his voice low: "Fuck me, am I having a nightmare right now? Why is this thing at our door—"
Ruan Nanzhu was also calm, pulling out a dinner knife from his pocket that he'd stolen from the dining room.
"Maybe it discovered how tasty we looked?" he said.
Gu Longming patted at his own face and said in a tone of disbelief: "…do I look tasty?"
Ruan Nanzhu looked at him with sympathy: "I guess some monsters like extreme flavors."
Meanwhile, Lin Qiushi thoroughly applauded the enormous nerves on these two people.
The monster broke a hole in the window with a single shove, all the glass on it shattering and raining onto the floor. Then it started trying to climb in. Upon discovering the window was too small, those lumpy white eyes gave a twist, gaze falling sideways onto the wooden door.
"Fuck," Gu Longming swore. "It's not really trying to get in, is it?!"
"Looks that way." Ruan Nanzhu frowned. "Is death random then? No…No way! There's something we've missed!"
As they spoke, the fishman began slamming into the door, and the already-flimsy wood quickly began to topple under its barrage. Lin Qiushi could even hear the wood beginning to splinter.
"When it rushes in, I'll hold it back while you guys escape through the window." Ruan Nanzhu's voice rang clear and calm still. "Got it, Linlin?"
"No," Lin Qiushi said. "I'm not leaving you here alone. Do not make the same mistake."
He frowned, looking very unhappy.
Ruan Nanzhu fell silent, and then sighed like he was giving up something.
"Alright, as you wish."
He handed Lin Qiushi a dinner knife.
"I'm not leaving either," Gu Longming added beside them, jittery.
Though he looked exasperated, Ruan Nanzhu didn't try to talk them out of it. He looked at his watch and said, "thirty seconds. Just hold out for thirty seconds and keep it outside—"
Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming instantly understood—after thirty seconds, the rooms would change, and once the rooms changed they would be able to leave the room, losing the monster behind them.
But these thirty seconds weren't so easy to obtain, because the fishman had already used those sharp claws of his to tear away half of the planks on the door. It seemed moments away from squeezing that scale-covered body through the crack.
Gu Longming turned around and fetched a table to blockade the door with. Ruan Nanzhu dragged the bed over as well to add to the barricade.
Watching Ruan Nanzhu, however, suddenly reminded Lin Qiushi of something. He remembered that the first thing the fishman did when it got to their window was twitch its nose, sniffing—
"Give me the scales you collected today!" Lin Qiushi yelled.
"What?" Ruan Nanzhu startled.
"The scales that you found inside the monster's room—" Lin Qiushi began to repeat loudly once more.
But luckily, Ruan Nanzhu reacted swiftly. The moment he understood Lin Qiushi's meaning he pulled a small paper pouch from his pockets and tossed it outside through a break in the window.
The scales wrapped up in the paper pouch scattered all over the hallway outside. The fishman, once intent on breaking the door down, paused with it, before going over to where the pouch was and bending down as if to pick up the scales.
Seeing this, Lin Qiushi felt some tension release. But the very next moment, once it discovered that there were only scales in the paper, the fishman let out an infuriated roar. It turned around and lunged again for where they were.
All this moving around, however, was enough to last those long thirty seconds. The fishman lunged for them, and just before it would shatter the door, their room switched position, and the fishman disappeared from in front of them.
Lin Qiushi opened the broken door in a hurry and, after making sure the fishman wasn't outside, switched into another room with Ruan Nanzhu and Gu Longming.
His worry soon became reality, because about two minutes later, that fishman once again found their room. It completely obliterated the door before throwing itself inside.
At that moment, Lin Qiushi's group was hidden in a room not far from that one, watching everything go down from the window.
The endless sounds of destruction floated over. After it was sure that its prey had gotten away, the fishman left, heavily panting. It looked as if it had a new target though—that huge mouth of its was slightly open, revealing the sharp thin teeth all crammed inside and the saliva dripping out of a corner.
The three humans hiding in the room didn't dare to make a sound, not until the fishman had gone. Then, Gu Longming let out a long exhale of relief.
"Fuck me, it was following the smell of the fish?! I really thought we were dead there!"
None of them had thought that the fish would come into such effect here. Had Lin Qiushi not reacted so quickly, the three of them might have suffered a casualty among them.
Though the fishman was gone, Ruan Nanzhu's expression had not relaxed. His solemn eyes seemed to make Gu Longming uneasy, and Gu Longming asked, "what is it? Zhu Meng?"
"I think Jian Qianyuan is about to die," Ruan Nanzhu said.
Just as Gu Longming was about to ask why, he remembered the odd developments around Jian Qianyuan during the day. She seemed to have eaten a lot of fish, enough that when she left the dining room, they could all smell that hefty rotten scent on her. If even they could smell the scent, then undoubtedly that monster could easily sniff her out too.
Sure enough, not long after the fishman left, Lin Qiushi's sharp hearing caught a woman's scream. The scream sounded quite far from then, and Lin Qiushi could only vaguely hear it. As for Gu Longming and Ruan Nanzhu, they couldn't hear it at all.
The screaming continued, accompanied by sobbing and wailing, and in the end, it petered off, leaving only hair-raising bellows and sounds of chewing.
Those sounds came from the deck. Lin Qiushi didn't want to know at all what they would find up there the next day.
Of course it would be yet another scooped-clean body, with all its innards gone, leaving only an empty skeletal frame.
It seemed that Ruan Nanzhu could tell Lin Qiushi was having a hard time sleeping. He sat down at the side of Lin Qiushi's bed and lied down with Lin Qiushi, tucking his chin against the top of Lin Qiushi's head. He kissed the strands of hair gently.
The warmth of a body against his back gave Lin Qiushi's frozen voice box a little bit of comfort, but that terrifying sound still seemed to be echoing in between Lin Qiushi's ears. He felt like he could still hear Jian Qianyuan's wailing…
"She's dead," Lin Qiushi said.
"Mh," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Go to sleep. This is normal."
"Maybe I could've figured out a way to save her," Lin Qiushi sighed.
"But you had to save yourself first." Ruan Nanzhu's fingers traversed paths through Lin Qiushi's hair. "We're still short a long sword to kill it with."
In the myth, the weapon that Theseus used to kill the Minotaur was a long sword. But they hadn't seen any weapon on the ship that could damage the fishman—dinner knives were surely a no-go.
"We found the string," Lin Qiushi said, "and we also found the aperitif." When Jian Qianyuan died, he understood what aperitif actually meant.
Ruan Nanzhu kissed the tip of Lin Qiushi's ear.
"Sleep already. We'll talk about it tomorrow."
Lin Qiushi made a noise of agreement and closed his eyes.
He tried, but he didn't actually manage to sleep so well, only waited blearily until morning.
The weather wasn't good today. That thick cloud layer once again enveloped the entire sky, dim enough to scare people with.
Lin Qiushi got up early and went out onto the deck with Ruan Nanzhu and Gu Longming. None of them were surprised by the additional corpse there. Though its face was no longer discernible, the clothes told them that it was indeed Jian Qianyuan.
Her stomach had been torn open, and all the fish she'd eaten the day before was nowhere to be seen. Also gone were all her innards.
Shen Juexin, who'd already been seasick, vomited once more. Vomiting with him were a few of the weaker girls with a lower threshold of tolerance.
Lin Qiushi also spotted the girl who'd given him a heads up the other day, Xiao Mo. The erratic vibe of a newcomer had faded for her, and her expression was a lot number now, like she was already able to accept the horrifying scene before her.
Two days had passed. Jian Qianyuan was the second sacrifice to be eaten.
The group quickly took care of Jian Qianyuan's body, if "taking care" meant tossing it into the ocean and watching the fish take apart what was left of her.
"I saw that monster yesterday too." The number of people who'd seen the monster had increased, and someone was tremulously describing what happened the night before. "It passed by my door and walked to Jian Qianyuan's room. It split the door open and dragged Jian Qianyuan out…"
"It was too scary," that person said. "I couldn't help her. I'm no match for that monster."
Nobody could defeat a two-meter-tall monster. If they had some firearms, maybe they'd be able to put up a fight, but under these circumstances with only dinner knives at their disposal, nobody wanted to put their lives on the line.
Lin Qiushi was a bit tired. He found a place to sit down in the dining room and pushed the peas in his plate around.
The NPC who gave them food had also appeared, and he looked exactly the same as he did the first day Lin Qiushi saw him. Even his expression was unchanged.
Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu exchanged a look. Then Ruan Nanzhu got up first, walking toward that NPC.
"Hello sir," Ruan Nanzhu greeted him.
The NPC didn't speak, just stared coldly at Ruan Nanzhu. It was like he was a robot, and what to do when greeted by someone wasn't programmed into his system at all.
"Hello sir," Ruan Nanzhu said to him a second time.
The man still didn't respond.
With a tilt of his head, Ruan Nanzhu pushed the plate of food in front of them right to the ground. The fish inside the plates scattered all over, breaking into pieces.
"What are you doing?" the man finally spoke, sounding quite unhappy.
"I just wanted to ask," Ruan Nanzhu said, "when you're making the food, do you always bring so many insects along with you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
A casual swipe got Ruan Nanzhu one of the human-faced insects buzzing in circles around the man.
"You don't?"
Seeing this, the man set down the ladle for food preparation in his hand and made to leave. But Ruan Nanzhu caught him by a shoulder.
"And where are you going?"
The man began to shake violently.
Watching from afar, Lin Qiushi first thought the man was afraid of maybe angry, but very quickly he discovered that it was neither—the man was melting.
His body was rapidly shrinking, turning from head to toe into a mass of black. This lump dispersed in the dining room with a buzz—it was a hoard of flying insects.
Everybody in the dining room was stunned by this scene, before smacking at them like crazy.
But the insects came and went quickly, disappearing from the dining room just like that. And the NPC who had been right in front of them was now only a set of empty clothing.
"Motherfucker." Gu Longming hadn't seen this coming at all, and said blankly: "This brother was a mosquito demon?"
Lin Qiushi: "…" He didn't know what to say either.
Ruan Nanzhu scratched his head and peeked at Lin Qiushi. "Does this mean there's nobody to feed us fish from now on?"
Lin Qiushi: "…seems that way."
Ruan Nanzhu lifted his palms with an innocent expression. Everybody else in the dining room however—their expressions grew complicated. Who knew what came to mind.
Ruan Nanzhu: "That's a bit of a shame, isn't it."
The group: "…" Not a shame at all, thank you.