Ye Shu gave her clothes a cursory wipe to clean away the bloodstains. Dissatisfied, she headed to her room for a hot shower.
It couldn’t compare to the former ironclad, but the icebreaker’s built-in water system and room temperature hovering around ten degrees meant there was no need for a brazier to keep warm.
Every little creature on deck had their own room.
Da Piaoliang, who had been with Ye Shu the longest, naturally occupied the adjoining cabin.
The merfolk couldn’t get used to human beds and simply settled into the inky sea below the ship. That made it easier to track the movements of those fish monsters. As for Xiaobai, his stainless-steel washbasin had been swapped for a larger bathtub.
After about fifteen minutes, Ye Shu emerged refreshed from her room.
The sunlight at six o’clock was dazzling, yet all warmth escaped her.
Any blood that clung stubbornly to the deck had already been rinsed away by the merfolk. Xiaobai had even thoughtfully sprayed some air freshener to clear the odor.
On the neighboring iron ship, Fu Shiyi was also scrubbing the deck.
Black and red bloodstains marred every surface, evoking a chill deep within the heart.
Clearly, those fish monsters hadn’t singled out Ye Shu last night—they treated every player equally.
Sensing something, Fu Shiyi looked up and met Ye Shu’s gaze. The boy had several random splatters of blood dotting his face, yet he grinned, baring his teeth in a friendly smile. "Yezi-jie… morning!"
“Morning…”
Ye Shu replied absentmindedly as she opened the sea chat channel.
[Is everyone still alive?]
[A horde of those freakish fish crawled onboard last night. If I hadn’t lucked out with a weapon from a treasure box, I’d be feeding the fishes for real.]
[Me too! Those monsters felt endless—kill one wave and another crashed up. Completely unstoppable. Thankfully, they seem to fear sunlight. As soon as dawn broke, they vanished. Otherwise, I’d be dead from exhaustion by now!]
[Glad I’m not the only one. For a second, I thought the game was targeting me. Knowing everyone is dealing with those fish makes me feel better.]
[Feel better? Kid, learn how to talk. If you keep running your mouth in front of me, I’ll cut you down.]
[Bring it on, big oaf! All you do is yap… Wait till your grandpa here teaches you a lesson!]
[Enough! Stop arguing! Haven’t you noticed how many players disappeared? Just last night, half are gone. At this rate, humanity won’t last a few more days… We’re young and fit, so we scrape by with weapons from treasure chests, but what about the old and the children…]
[From what I’ve heard, the survival game didn’t exclude the elderly, the weak, or even the sick.]
[Right! Now that you mention it, I’ve been so obsessed with levelling up I didn’t even notice.]
Ye Shu said nothing.
It was as she feared. Players had suffered a catastrophic blow, plummeting from four billion to a mere twenty… The ones who couldn’t gather the resources to upgrade their rafts—children, the elderly—they stood no chance against those deep-sea monsters. Death was a certainty.
The tone of the chat shifted, losing its edge under the guidance of more level-headed participants. Still, the relief was only surface deep.
Entrapped from the very start by the survival game’s machinations, humanity was compelled to obey its rules. Whether gathering tools, upgrading ships, or seizing others’ vessels, the true winner was always the game itself.
If one wished to live, there was no choice but to comply.
Everyone understood this, yet it changed nothing.
…………
Daytime.
Ye Shu and her animal companions fished for treasure chests,
Hunted sea monsters, racking up points.
Nighttime.
Cleared away any fish monsters that dared attempt an attack.
She also had to find time to synthesize and stock braziers and pure water—truly, her hands never stopped.
No food was to be found in the black sea’s treasure chests. Players with provisions could conserve strength during the day to survive the nightly assaults, but for those who ran out… hunger and cold gnawed at them. Some quietly died, while others, forced by desperation, started robbing fellow players, even turning players themselves into prey.
Shen Xingchen gazed out at the black sea and blue sky, pressing her hand to her brow, a sigh escaping her lips. "Thank goodness I traded for freshwater and biscuits the other day—should be enough if I ration for half a month…"
If she couldn’t find more food after that, she’d become just another skeleton bleached by the sea, or perhaps even fodder for another player.
Little did Ye Shu know, as she fought monsters, that her trading platform had become a lifeline for many.
A few days passed.
Day Fifteen of the survival game.
The black sea’s dead water was as flat and still as ever.
The player count continued to dwindle, yet the black fog and the fish monsters remained, if anything, only stronger.
The safe zone had refreshed two days prior.
The black fog now swept in at a speed of thirty knots.
The safe zone had, once more, shrunk in size.
Still, no food appeared in the black treasure chests. Even Ye Shu was running down her supplies, resorting to what she’d hoarded earlier. If not for those stores, even feeding her little animal band would be impossible.
“Splash splish—”
“Creak—”
Ye Shu drove her wooden sword into the hide of a mutant fish, lopping off its head with a single cut.
One slice, one monster sent to oblivion.
The system’s notification chimes had barely paused since she began.
Glancing at her points tally hovering on the screen, Ye Shu marveled at her own strength. She could battle these sea monsters for hundreds of rounds more.
Da Piaoliang spat out a few fish bones, eyeing the gore with obvious disdain. With practiced ease, she skirted around a lunging mutant fish, traversing the railing on silent, padded paws. Her black fur rippled in the ocean wind.
Compared to this feline and a certain other rather uncanny creature, Xiaobai was less adept in combat. The little one was known for speed, not brawn. After several days of fighting, he was exhausted, chest crisscrossed with claw marks, scales on his lower half torn, blood oozing from more than one wound—a ghastly sight.
The final shroud of darkness before dawn faded at last.
The fish horde slithered back into the deep sea.
“Awoooo… Ugly merfolk, compare yourself to your master if you dare—”
Da Piaoliang, preening with satisfaction, mocked with an all-too-human smirk stretching across her fuzzy cat face.
Xiaobai couldn’t understand her strange dialect, but even so, her smugness was infuriating.
Seeing that a fight was brewing between the two, Ye Shu cut in.
“No bickering on the ship. If you must, take it outside.”
Any damage to her supplies would be her problem to fix.
“Awooo… Fine, I’m not fighting. But, master, I’m hungry. I need a whole pound of strawberries to recover.”
“So that was your angle? With all the fish you’ve eaten, you’re still not satisfied?”
Ye Shu squeezed Da Piaoliang’s soft, shrunken belly, fishing out half a bowl of strawberries and a chunk of frozen watermelon.
“Never seen a weirdo like you chow down on fruit. That’s all I’m giving you. No more.”
Da Piaoliang knew to quit while ahead.
Sunlight shone across the endless water, and only then did Ye Shu notice—somehow, the black sea had frozen over!!
From a distance, the ocean looked like a vast slab of chilled herbal jelly.
Ye Shu tested it—the ice was thin, shattering with a single step. Nothing to fear.
And besides, she’d just upgraded to an icebreaker. Nothing to worry about!
With those comforting thoughts, Ye Shu returned to her room to sleep.
Days of non-stop fighting caught up to her; she slept straight through to the next morning.