Frightening Joke: Above the Mist
Chapter 381: Footsteps

Chapter 381: Chapter 381: Footsteps

The bright moon hung in the sky, casting a massive shadow over the sea’s surface, so immense that not even the moonlight could reveal its form fully.

This colossal ship, capable of holding thousands, had all of its lights extinguished, and not only that, even the screams and commotion from the earlier disturbance had completely vanished.

It was almost like... a coffin floating on the sea.

Somewhere on the ship, Bai Yanliang steadied himself and got up to find himself alone.

He still remembered the sensation clearly; for a moment, the ship seemed to transform into some massive creature, its slimy and stinking surface distinctly apparent.

However...

Bai Yanliang wiped his hands, everything he had grasped earlier was slick with mucus, the floor was soft, but now his hands, body, and the ground were clean and normal, as if what happened before was just an illusion.

He knew it couldn’t be an illusion; this "ship" intentionally scattered them apart.

In the chaos, he only saw the glint of Yu Wenxuan’s dagger. As for Song Que and Gu Pingsheng, they likely "rolled" to some unknown spot on the ship as well.

What was the purpose of scattering everyone?

Bai Yanliang pondered while carefully probing forward.

The ship gave him an eerie feeling, the lights were gone, and he could barely make out the corridor’s path by moonlight.

There were few clues—a priority was to unravel the mystery of this Fog Gathering event.

A crucial question was the ship’s destination.

And... the woman in the gothic skirt.

Bai Yanliang was concerned about what she had said earlier.

"Do you know what’s below?"

"I mean at the very bottom... tens of thousands of meters deep, at the lightless depths."

"They are not creatures."

She clearly knew something. Could it be... this time, the ghost came from the ocean depths...

Once Bai Yanliang organized his thoughts, he decided to head to the captain’s room.

The chance of finding the gothic skirt woman was too slim under these limited visibility conditions, but the captain’s room would not move, so he aimed for the bow direction.

However, as Bai Yanliang moved along the corridor towards the bow under the moonlight, he found the surroundings increasingly strange.

Paintings.

On both sides of the corridor, more and more nonsensical paintings appeared.

Initially, there was one every five or six meters. As he walked, paintings emerged every two or three meters on the corridor walls. Though he couldn’t see them clearly, he could manually see the walls ahead were densely packed with paintings.

With a thought, Bai Yanliang stopped.

At this moment, silence reigned, and the entire ship seemed to have only him left.

He had walked for a while, yet the corridor distance did not seem to shorten, the bow still far ahead.

Was it preventing me from reaching the captain’s room...

Bai Yanliang looked at the paintings on the corridor walls.

The reason the corridor wall paintings seemed meaningless was that they were all fragmented.

By the moonlight, Bai Yanliang inspected them several times. All the paintings differed, depicting only parts of some immense object.

It looked like a giant puzzle, jumbled and hung on the walls.

From these "parts," it was difficult to deduce the "complete puzzle’s" content.

Just then, Bai Yanliang heard footsteps.

Footsteps came from the corridor ahead, where the captain’s room was located.

He immediately suppressed his breathing and slowly retreated.

At this time, who would come from the captain’s room?

————

Banquet hall.

Yu Wenxuan sheathed his dagger, holding his breath.

He heard approaching footsteps.

With a swift move, he hid in the darkness, watching the doorway.

In the moonlight, a slender shadow first entered the hall.

A peculiar woman in a gothic skirt walked in expressionless.

She crouched down, seemingly cutting her own palm, drawing and painting something on the floor.

Just then, the chandelier directly above the banquet hall, as if pulled by an invisible force, unexpectedly started to sway eerily, slowly... aiming at the woman in the gothic skirt.

She continued her work on the floor, unaware of the impending chandelier above her.

In the blink of an eye, the chandelier’s steel cable snapped!

The woman finally heard the noise. She tried to leap aside in shock, but her body froze as if made of iron at this critical moment.

Yet someone reacted and acted faster!

Yu Wenxuan, seeing it unfold early, no longer hid his presence. With a swift kick, he propelled himself and kicked her left shoulder.

As the woman flew sideways, the chandelier crashed into where she had been crouching.

As for Yu Wenxuan, after landing his kick, he flipped back, steadying himself with one hand on the ground, keeping even his breathing calm.

Only now did the woman in the gothic skirt come to her senses. Under the moonlight, she recognized Yu Wenxuan as the man who had spoken to her earlier.

How is he here?

The earlier disturbance, wasn’t it clearing this area?

Then why is someone here?

"You seem perplexed by my presence," Yu Wenxuan approached her, extending a hand with a smile, "Hello, miss."

He wasn’t especially charitable, only intervening because this secret-guarding woman nearly got "locked" and killed by something unseen.

He at least needed her to share what she knew before dying.

"No need to thank me." After pulling her up, seeing her still staring at him, Yu Wenxuan spoke first.

The gothic skirt woman opened her mouth, swallowing the comment "why not dodge together" back down.

She roughly sensed that this seemingly normal man might have some issues.

"Miss, may I see your hand?" Yu Wenxuan asked.

"No," she responded.

Yet in the next moment, Yu Wenxuan grabbed her hand, forcefully opening her palm to reveal a nasty wound.

This man was not asking but merely notifying her.

Palm blood...

Using a key, it’s done this way.

Yu Wenxuan thoughtfully glanced at the floor.

Sure enough, there was a half-drawn pattern.

Only... was this pattern a... door?

A half-drawn door?

"Let go of me!" She freed her hand from Yu Wenxuan, instantly clenching her fist again.

Yu Wenxuan’s expression was subtle.

This woman and this "ship" appeared not to share the same side.

This differed from his initial assumption.

Interesting...