Be Careful, Scum Dad! Mommy Is Back!
Chapter 394: The Trap Set by Grandfather

Chapter 394: Chapter 394: The Trap Set by Grandfather

This number is not a small one.

Guests invited aboard could each bring one companion, totaling no more than a thousand people. The rest were all members of the Royal Cruise’s organizing committee, bodyguards, and staff.

For Cheng Cang and his people to arrange for such a large number of individuals to board, it was clear they had been planning the Royal Cruise operation for a long time.

"You... you all... what else are you hiding from me?"

The man looked at her calmly, smiled a little, and said, "Nothing."

Thinking back to the thick scent of blood she had smelled earlier on Cheng Cang, Lu Xining couldn’t shake the feeling that something about it was off.

She decided to ask directly, "What happened to the injuries on your body?"

"You mean this?" Cheng Cang, hearing her mention his wounds, loosened his jacket and took out a small object from an inner pocket—a miniature bag of plasma.

"I’m fine. The blood smell came from this. It was to confuse those people."

When Lu Xining saw the item in his hand, she knew it couldn’t possibly be something he had brought onboard himself—it would have never passed the ship’s security check.

Yet, after Cheng Cang removed his coat, the scent of blood coming off his body became even more potent.

She frowned slightly and said, "You should go to the bedroom and clean yourself up first."

After boarding the ship—

The luggage belonging to Lu Xining and Cheng Cang was taken by the staff.

By now, it had already been delivered to their assigned suites.

The Royal Cruise had arranged identical executive suites for all guests. The bedroom design fully preserved privacy, with spacious, well-lit living and dining areas acting as dividers between the quarters, ensuring separation of movement.

Those boarding together were typically arranged in adjacent rooms.

Cheng Cang’s suite was next door to Lu Xining’s. Sniffing the intense smell of blood still lingering on him, he nodded and said, "I’ll be back soon."

Once he left the room, Lu Xining opened the living room window wider. Sea breezes swept away the metallic tang of blood, and she began processing the information she had gathered from Cheng Cang.

Was all of this really a trap set up by her grandfather? She silently questioned herself.

Lu Xining lowered her gaze, her unfocused pupils resting on the sea. Under the thin shadow of her eyelashes, her eyes obscured any trace of emotion.

Unidentified seabirds circled the Royal Cruise, their cries pulling Lu Xining back to the present. She recollected her thoughts and rapidly reconstructed in her mind the web of relationships Cheng Cang had illustrated.

The son of Beicheng’s power manipulator, the only heir of high-ranking officials overseas...

A benevolent grandmother, a widowed grandfather, a mother kept entirely in the dark...

A sudden, impossible thought flashed through Lu Xining’s mind!

The more she thought about it, the deeper her alarm grew.

She lifted her head to look at the starry sky, in stark contrast to the pitch-black sea. Beneath the cold moonlight, the vast spread of stars shimmered with their unique brilliance.

In a daze, Lu Xining murmured, "Grandfather, you wouldn’t have done such a thing... right?"

Knock, knock, knock—

The abrupt sound of knocking startled her thoughts away.

Lu Xining closed the window and went to open the door.

The man was quick, truly quick; it had only been twenty minutes or so, and Cheng Cang had already cleaned himself up and returned.

The brief pause earlier had allowed both of them to calm down.

Cheng Cang knew she needed time to digest the information, so he had deliberately waited a short while longer before coming back.

But the time left for them was running out.

He needed to quickly convey the dark secrets hidden in the Royal Cruise’s lower decks.

The Royal Cruise’s once-in-a-decade secretive banquet wasn’t merely a game that cost ordinary lives; it was also a massive power reset for the world’s elite capital circles.

They siphoned the wealth of prestigious families worldwide and used the stolen riches in places hidden from public view to conduct inhumane biological experiments.

After entering the room, Cheng Cang didn’t waste words, spilling all his findings since boarding the ship to Lu Xining.

After splitting from her earlier, he had secretly infiltrated the lowest decks of the Royal Cruise.

Cheng Cang had disguised himself in internal staff uniforms and, through pre-arranged inside contacts, obtained a layout of the biological laboratory.

During his investigation, he came across rooms constructed for human biological experimentation. The figures inside couldn’t even be called human anymore—arms had morphed into octopus tentacles, legs into fishtails. Grotesque creatures, stripped of rational thought, were trapped in transparent chambers in the lower decks, wailing in agony.

The scenes weren’t gory, but they were horrifying enough to chill one’s soul.

Lu Xining listened to Cheng Cang’s account in silence.

The further he spoke, the graver their expressions became.

The Royal Cruise’s enigma lay in its near-perpetual wandering in desolate seas, except for the once-in-a-decade banquet, ensuring its experiments avoided public detection.

"But this isn’t even the most crucial part."

Cheng Cang hesitated briefly but eventually voiced the truth.

"They’ve developed numerous highly contagious pathogens. Just a single vial could wipe out an entire city."

Human lives... were far too cheap in their eyes.

In those transparent chambers, Cheng Cang also recognized familiar faces—many were former affiliates of the Chu Family, secretly stationed aboard the Royal Cruise in earlier years.

Now, they were reduced to experimental subjects in someone else’s cruel laboratory.

Cheng Cang also revealed that the escape equipment on the ship was located on the lowest deck. Should any incident arise, they would abandon the vessel and escape through the ocean floor.

Not only did the ship have strategically placed explosives set to obliterate it, but even the transparent chambers themselves were rigged with bombs.

Anyone attempting to open the chambers would trigger hidden explosives at their bases.

By then, the ship would be destroyed, the evidence completely erased, and those in power would return to their high-stakes games, enjoying undisputed wealth and status.

When he realized how easily he had uncovered these secrets, he knew something was wrong. As he rushed to leave, he was attacked by patrolling hounds, barely escaping with multiple injuries.

Fearing his subtle scent of blood might attract the hounds again, Cheng Cang deliberately concocted a quarrel with one of the internal contacts onboard.

In front of surveillance cameras, they traded punches, creating the illusion of his incompetence for the watchers hidden behind the screens.

One piece of information after another bombarded Lu Xining’s mind.

She lifted her eyes to meet the stern gaze of the man across from her. "Tell me the identities of those four individuals."

Hearing Cheng Cang methodically utter the names of those once-ungrateful people, the cold gleam in Lu Xining’s eyes grew sharper with each word.

Her grandmother, her grandfather, her mother, and even herself—all had suffered encounters with "The Farmer and the Snake."

Meanwhile—

Cheng Cang also disclosed the locations of Chu Family’s former subordinates on the ship, passing her a ring.

He said earnestly, "This was left behind by your grandfather."

"I apologize for my past actions, but you can fully trust me. Once you retrieve the ’Heart of the Deep Sea,’ we’ll leave immediately."

Lu Xining didn’t take the ring right away.

Cheng Cang placed it on the table in front of the sofa, only to hear her ask an abrupt question.

"The ’Heart of the Deep Sea’—is there really something else hidden inside?"

Or perhaps...

This was merely another elaborate scheme of her grandfather’s!