[Beep beep! Down to 54%... then 43%. Danger, danger! At 0%, player death incoming!]
But Fu Shiyi ignored everything, diving beneath the water, searching desperately for any trace of Fu Jingchuan.
Ye Shu hadn’t boarded the ship, nor had that monstrous creature gone after her icebreaker.
"That’s one massive octopus!"
In spite of herself, Ye Shu muttered in awe, but her expression shifted into one of disbelief, as if suddenly remembering something.
Wait—that octopus… why did it look so familiar? Could it be the same one from the cruise ship?
No, not just similar—it was exactly the same!
She compared the markings and confirmed it with a chill—the same beast.
Monsters and NPCs couldn’t cross between different games. Which meant… the octopus before her could only be Lin Qingyue.
When nemeses meet, their hate burns even brighter.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend!
She would save Fu Shiyi’s boat, no matter what!!
Ye Shu leapt onto the iron ship, using her optimization ability to patch up the damage. Then she ordered the merman to hoist the ship with the icebreaker.
Meanwhile, Fu Shiyi still searched for Fu Jingchuan, refusing to give up—his determination burning amidst the cracks in the ice.
He showed no fear even when faced with the giant octopus. He hurled a grenade, blasting several tentacles clean off.
Ye Shu’s eyes widened in shock.
For all his usual air of nonchalance, the power Fu Shiyi now unleashed was staggering.
Clearly, Little Shiyi... loved his brother deeply.
The sight was moving.
"Roar!"
Even Lin Qingyue was surprised.
He’d been watching from beneath the ice for a while. This kid was always shouting 'Ye Xiaoshu, jiejie, jiejie,' or tricking her out of food—who knew he’d have the strength to fight back?
Ye Shu bared her teeth in a savage grin, sword in hand—she charged forward, severing several more tentacles, only for fresh ones to regrow endlessly.
Lin Qingyue saw the fury in her eyes—and found himself unreasonably irritated.
Ye Xiaoshu had never looked at him like that in any past instance.
That useless man seemed to weigh heavily on her heart.
In survival at sea, a ship was a player’s lifeline.
The instant a tentacle brushed against the steel ship, Ye Shu struck—one slice and it tumbled away.
Her peachwood sword pierced through the octopus’s skull. In a frenzy, Lin Qingyue’s body—reduced to little more than a head—reconstituted with rage, dragging Ye Shu into the water. Her sword was knocked from her grip.
"Glub, glub..."
Ye Shu pinched her nose and mouth shut, mind swimming, even as she tore free from the tentacles trapping her.
"Glub, glub... Lin..."
She couldn’t speak underwater; black sea flooded her nostrils. In a desperate move, Ye Shu fished out the Water Repelling Pearl from her inventory and clenched it between her teeth.
Only then did Lin Qingyue remember—humans couldn’t breathe underwater. While he hesitated, Ye Shu took the opportunity to break for the surface, stabbing him for good measure as she left.
"Cough—"
Sprawled over the ice, Ye Shu hacked up black seawater.
Her thermal suit was drenched, and she was nearly an ice sculpture herself.
Shivering violently, she struggled to move her numb legs. Thankfully, Fu Shiyi, now safely aboard, noticed her plight.
After a change of clothes, Ye Shu huddled in her cabin by a brazier. Her pale skin was bruised blue and purple; hands and feet tingled with cold, but some frostbite ointment helped.
She sipped ginger tea, poking at candied tangerine slices in the brazier, anxiety etching lines across her face.
With Lin Qingyue here, she had a terrible feeling about this game. She’d hoped to scrape through safely, but now...
Another day dawned.
No sign of the octopus. The sea was eerily calm.
The shattered ice had frozen solid again. No matter what, Ye Shu was not leaving her ship—she had more than enough supplies, no need to take risks.
The other three agreed wholeheartedly.
To everyone’s surprise, Fu Jingchuan was still alive and made it ashore before Ye Shu could.
That night, at precisely 23:55, the system’s chime echoed.
[Ding! Safe zone will refresh in 5 minutes. Black mist speed rising to 50 knots. Safe zone shrinks by another tenth. Players are forbidden from using any items, such as teammate cards. Good luck! You lucky survivors.]
A foreboding sense crept over Ye Shu.
This rule... seemed targeted directly at her.
Teammate cards were developed by the survival game store. Why ban them now?!
A few minutes later—
The icebreaker surfaced in another stretch of ocean.
This wasn’t in the known safe zone. Scanning her survival map, Ye Shu found no record of this location.
Not even a fishing boat was in sight... A tremor of unease passed through her.
Three minutes later, she managed to contact Pang Pangzi—he’d been thrown to the farthest reaches, barely avoiding the black mist.
The iron ship at 50 knots, the black mist matching—neck and neck.
Only a few hundred meters always separated them.
After that, she simply returned to her cabin and went to sleep.
Yes—slept.
Ye Shu didn’t believe much in coincidence. The weird rules—clearly designed to split her from Pang and the others. Only one person could pull strings like that.
The power gap was daunting, and she couldn’t be sure she could kill Lin Qingyue.
But the memory of those tentacles loosening on their own, deep underwater... that gave her hope.
Before dawn,
A fierce beast hauled itself onto the icebreaker.
Inside her cozy den, Da Piaoliang sat chicken-like, paws curled beneath. Suddenly, all her black fur bristled—like a spiky sea urchin on alert.
Lin Qingyue strode past her, not even sparing a glance.
Utterly ignored, the beast felt entirely confused: ...Did he just discriminate against me? No—against tigers, in general.
Over the past days, he’d come to a certain realization: he might actually be interested in this player, Ye Xiaoshu.
There was no denying—she was the only one, out of thousands of games, who’d ever had a chance of killing him.
All the rest had died, without exception.
Lin Qingyue broke into her room on instinct.
Tentacles lifting—he pushed inside.
In that exact moment, Ye Shu darted out like a giant rat.
Her sword stabbed straight for the octopus’s vital spot.
Tentacles shot to block, but too late.
The massive beast’s eyes widened in shock, pinning Ye Shu with a chilling, motionless stare. Her skin prickled with unease.
"Blub blub..."
Lin Qingyue gurgled some guttural monster speech. Ye Shu ignored him, very much wanting to stab again.
"Blub blub..."
Lin Qingyue grew agitated, glaring at his own weird form.
There could be no doubt—Ye Xiaoshu had seen through him. Otherwise, why such single-minded fury?
Ye Shu didn’t understand octopus—yet Xiaobai, the merman, did.
He looked at his master in stunned disbelief, words on the tip of his tongue.
Lin Qingyue was powerful, but in this juvenile body, he couldn’t shift into human form. With Ye Shu chasing murderously after him, he had no choice but to vanish underwater.
Once the octopus slipped beneath the surface, Ye Shu stared at the cracked ice, her thoughts a storm.
Was that really Lin Qingyue? Standing there, letting her attack? If the roles were reversed, she’d never give him a chance to live.
All at once, a wild idea formed in her heart.
The next two days passed in peace—Ye Shu ate, drank, and rested.
Until, at last, that emotionless mechanical voice sounded in her ear:
[Congratulations, Player Ye Shu! You have survived twenty days!]
[Congratulations, Ye Shu. World affinity +10.]
[Rank: SS.]
[You have successfully escaped this world.]
[Instance Record: 5,643 players have cleared Survival at Sea.]