The people leaving the entertainment hall returned to their rooms in an orderly fashion.
As the night wore on, the music grew softer. Gentle singing lingered aboard the ship, refusing to fade.
All at once, the music vanished, and silence returned to the ship. Not a sound could be heard.
Waves rose on the sea, lapping against the bottom of the cruise ship. Light, quick footsteps sounded from beneath the sea and spread steadily upward until they reached the ship.
In the cabins, everyone was asleep.
Figures appeared in the corridor, their feet three inches off the ground. Though they were clearly floating, footsteps still sounded.
The corridor lights abruptly came on, illuminating faces as pale as paper. The figures were all women, slender and dressed without exception in long gowns!
Dark patterns covered their exposed skin, intertwining in a shocking sight.
Their eyes were hollow and still as they wandered the corridor. Time passed, and the moment the early hours of the morning arrived in full—
Moonlight poured across the sea like flowing water, and waves rolled up. Bloodthirsty desire appeared in the eyes of the female ghosts in long gowns. They pressed themselves against the cabin doors, their bodies turning transparent.
In this way, they entered the rooms. Shadows wriggled in corners throughout the ship, and female ghosts floated out of them, footsteps ringing out! Drenched ghostly figures crawled out of the darkness, blood dripping from them.
They stood by the beds, looking down at the sleeping people before them.
In Si Yehan's cabin, he lay in bed with his eyes closed, already deep in sleep.
Blood-dripping ghostly figures crowded around his bed. Sharp hands fluttered in the air, poised to strike, yet never coming down.
Female ghosts filled the living room, floating about and occupying nearly every inch of it.
But Si Yehan had not triggered any of the five killing rules. No matter how many Ghost Slaves there were or how frightening they looked, they could not attack him.
In Chen Zhongshou's cabin, his brow was relaxed and his face calm. He was already fast asleep.
He turned over in his sleep. The moment footsteps sounded in the living room, Chen Zhongshou's eyes flew open. He sat up sharply, and his face darkened at once. This was the Weird Game, after all.
Those footsteps most likely belonged to a Ghost Slave, or even a ghost!
He had only left the military a few years ago, and he had always maintained the sleeping routine he had followed in the army. He was a light sleeper, easily awakened by the slightest disturbance.
He had nearly lost his life because of it in the previous instance, and he had not expected it to happen again.
As Chen Zhongshou lowered his head in thought, three heads had already leaned over the edge of the bed.
A ghostly figure lowered its head, appearing before Chen Zhongshou at an extremely twisted angle.
It was an utterly terrifying sight. Chen Zhongshou's pupils contracted sharply, and even with his exceptional mental fortitude, he nearly screamed. He involuntarily straightened up and lunged back against the headboard!
The ghostly figure before him was pitch-black, with bloodstains writhing across its face as it stared at him from a bizarre angle! The bloodstains moved, tracing a series of interwoven smiles.
Two more heads leaned over the bed. One to his left, one to his right, and one in front watched Chen Zhongshou! Cold sweat covered his back, and he was terribly frightened. Then three female ghosts floated in from the living room, three inches off the ground yet making footsteps, their pale faces radiating an overwhelming air of death.
Chen Zhongshou racked his brains for a way out, desperately searching the vast amount of information he had gathered earlier for something useful, hoping to deduce the killing rules from it.
"Those with lustful thoughts... those who died unjustly wander... don't look in mirrors at night..." Chen Zhongshou repeated the key information. He suddenly looked up and examined the room, glancing around until he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good, there's no mirror facing the head of the bed." Chen Zhongshou looked at the female ghosts and ghostly figures eyeing him hungrily. Fear spread across his normally composed face. Facing ghosts alone was an enormous psychological shock.
Chen Zhongshou forced himself to lie down and close his eyes. As he recalled the earlier information, inspiration struck him: being in a good mood! That was important too. He desperately tried to forget all the tragic events of his past and recall the few happy experiences in his life.
Military life had occupied most of his life. When he had first joined the army, he had experienced plenty of unpleasant things, but later he had been able to discipline new recruits for fun. Along the way, he had met troublesome soldiers as well as comrades he was close to.
Much of the physical training had felt worse than death at the time, but looking back on it now, it held a different kind of enjoyment. A classic saying suddenly popped into Chen Zhongshou's head.
By doing his utmost to brainwash himself, he relaxed, and his consciousness gradually sank into sleep.
The ghostly figures and female ghosts wandering around him showed no disappointment. They simply stood there quietly, blood streaming from their bodies!
One female ghost floated above Chen Zhongshou. Her face abruptly changed, the skin splitting down the middle to reveal rows of tiny teeth. Beneath the teeth, bloodshot eyeballs stared out, and bits of flesh were caught between the teeth.
If Chen Zhongshou had been pretending to sleep and watching, the horrifying sight before him would surely have jolted him awake.
Only when a person was awake could they be made to violate a killing rule.
The same scene was playing out in every room.
In Wang Yuxiu's cabin, she lay in bed with the corners of her mouth turned up in a serene smile.
Female ghosts filled the space to her left, while ghostly figures crowded to her right. Head after head stretched upward at grotesquely twisted angles, then bent down from the ceiling to look at Wang Yuxiu's sleeping face.
Footsteps wandered back and forth, sounding somewhat hurried.
In Jin Zhiguang's cabin, he leaned against the headboard, his face calm as he looked at the ghostly figures standing and the female ghosts floating before him. "A bunch of brain-dead, vile ghosts. You're disgusting, wandering around here in the middle of the night."
Nothing in the information mentioned in the envelope said he couldn't speak, so he cursed them without any qualms. Their terrifying appearances did not frighten him.
Jin Zhiguang closed his eyes and muttered to himself, "For now, I can only try to wait like this until I fall asleep."
From what he could tell, he would not die as long as he entertained no lustful thoughts and remained in a good mood. There was no mirror in the room, so he didn't have to worry about looking in one at night. To be safe, Jin Zhiguang wouldn't even look at the window.
With that thought, he opened his eyes, got out of bed, and drew the curtains, paying no attention to the ghostly figures or female ghosts.
If they could kill him, paying attention to them would be useless.
If they couldn't kill him, why pay them any attention?
In Cheng Zhuiyu's cabin, she lay sprawled on the bed with her arms and legs spread wide. Her flesh trembled as she snored so loudly that she drowned out the female ghosts' footsteps.
Female ghosts filled the room, while ghostly figures lay on the ceiling, looking down.
As for Xu Yuanjin, her brow was tightly furrowed in her room. Clearly, her experiences that day had not been pleasant.
As she slept, she had become meat on a chopping board, at anyone's mercy.
As her sleep deepened, ghostly figures gathered around her one after another, and female ghosts floated down as well.
Sharp hands slowly descended!