Boarding the Ship

When Lin Qingzhou opened his eyes again, all he saw was darkness.

The air reeked of mildew, mixed with the smell of machine oil and disinfectant.

The metal plate beneath him was hard as a rock, digging painfully into his back.

He pushed himself upright, and his head struck something with a dull thud.

He reached out and felt around. It was a metal rack, stacked with several suitcases bearing crookedly affixed labels.

He stared blankly for a few seconds before he realized. Zero's teleportation had dumped him in a storage hold.

Luggage belonging to the passengers was piled all around him, suitcases of every size stacked from floor to ceiling, leaving only a narrow passage down the middle.

A small round window high up in the bulkhead let in a few wisps of gray light. The whole space rocked gently in a steady rhythm, and a low, continuous engine hum came from somewhere in the distance.

He was on a ship.

Lin Qingzhou climbed out from between the piles of luggage and pushed open the rusty metal door.

A narrow staircase led upward, its handrail smeared with water that hadn't dried yet. He followed the stairs up, and when he pushed open the second door, he froze.

Before him lay the central corridor of a luxury cruise ship. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting warm yellow light across the polished marble floor.

The walls on either side were covered in subtly patterned wallpaper, with abstract paintings he couldn't make heads or tails of hanging every few steps.

The smell of mildew and machine oil was gone, replaced by a faint fragrance and a piano melody drifting from somewhere unknown.

He instinctively looked down at himself. He was still wearing the same coarse hemp tunic and trousers, smeared with dust, blood, and scorch marks from scraping through the ruins. One cuff was torn, and there was a hole worn through one pant leg.

A battle hammer hung across his back, and a magazine pouch was strapped to his waist. He looked just like a refugee who'd been dug out of a battlefield.

Compared with the well-dressed people in this corridor, he probably didn't even qualify as a refugee.

Lin Qingzhou's mouth twitched. He quickly pulled a passable set of clothes from his Storage Soul Tool and changed into them.

The piano music drifted down from the second floor, lilting and somewhat carefree. Whoever was playing seemed to be in a good mood.

Lin Qingzhou glanced up at the ceiling, then down at the floor beneath his feet. The ship had at least four levels. He was in the very bottom cargo level, where the luggage was stored.

Above him should be several more decks of cabins, and higher still, probably a restaurant, the deck, and an observation platform or something of the sort.

He'd never been on a luxury cruise ship back on Blue Star; he'd only seen pictures online. Now that he was standing inside one, all he could think was that every corner of it screamed "expensive."

Standing at the foot of the stairs, the first thought that crossed his mind wasn't, This ship is huge. It was, How much did a ticket for this ship cost?

He still had some Federation banknotes in his pocket, wages he'd saved up over the past few months working for Mang Tian, along with some cash he'd previously looted from Evil Soul Masters.

A rough calculation put it at a few thousand. But he had no idea how much tickets for a luxury cruise ship cost. If he didn't have enough money, he couldn't very well pawn his battle hammer to the captain.

There was no point worrying about it. He went up the stairs, pushed open the door to the second-floor corridor, and came face-to-face with a crowd.

People filled the corridor. Men wore well-tailored suits, while women in high heels stood in small groups along either side, holding champagne flutes as they chatted.

Waiters in white shirts and black vests moved through the crowd, balancing silver trays in one hand. A few young people passing by were taking pictures of the sea with their communicators, their laughter carrying halfway down the corridor.

Lin Qingzhou stood at the entrance to the corridor. The incongruity was like someone had dropped a lump of coal into a cream cake.

Yeah, he really didn't fit in.

A waiter nearby noticed him almost at once. He was a young man in his early twenties with a professional smile on his face, but the instant he saw Lin Qingzhou, it stiffened for a fraction of a second.

His gaze traveled from Lin Qingzhou's unkempt face to the battle hammer on his back. His lips moved as though he were hesitating over whether to call security.

"Hello."

Lin Qingzhou spoke first. He tried to keep his tone calm and natural, as if standing in the corridor of a luxury cruise ship looking as ragged as someone fleeing a disaster were perfectly normal.

"Sir... is there anything I can help you with?" The waiter's professional training won out, though his eyes were practically spelling out the question, How did you get on board?

"I just boarded as a passenger," Lin Qingzhou lied without batting an eye. "I wanted to ask if you have any rooms left."

The waiter blinked and stared at Lin Qingzhou for quite a while. The stiff smile had disappeared completely, replaced by undisguised scrutiny.

His gaze swept several times over Lin Qingzhou's rather ordinary clothes and dirty face. His lips pressed into a thin line, and he lifted his chin slightly.

"You didn't book a room in advance?" His tone was several degrees colder than before.

"I decided to board at the last minute," Lin Qingzhou said.

The waiter fell silent for a few seconds, a strange, hard-to-define look in his eyes. It wasn't simple disdain so much as the subtle hesitation of a rich man deciding whether to give alms.

Then he cleared his throat and spoke with an air of hauteur, each word seeming to come through a pane of glass.

"Our rooms are assigned according to the tickets. We do have a few vacant rooms, but if you want to purchase a ticket now, it will cost two thousand Federation Currency per room."

Two thousand.

The taut string inside Lin Qingzhou relaxed. Two thousand Federation Currency was practically a bargain for a ship decorated like this.

He had nearly ten thousand in cash altogether. Two thousand was well within his means.

It seemed tickets for a luxury cruise ship weren't as outrageously expensive as he'd thought. Or maybe this ship wasn't a top-tier luxury liner to begin with; it just looked intimidatingly fancy.

He showed no reaction and nodded. "All right, give me a room."

This time, it was the waiter's turn to freeze. He'd probably expected Lin Qingzhou to make an excuse and back out, or simply leave. He hadn't expected him to agree so readily.

The waiter studied Lin Qingzhou's face for two seconds. His expression softened a little, losing some of its hauteur, though suspicion still lingered. He held out his hand.

"Please show me your ID card, and I'll arrange your check-in."

Lin Qingzhou pulled his ID card from his pocket and handed it over, then counted out two thousand in Federation banknotes.

The waiter took the money and rubbed the bills between his fingertips to make sure they were genuine before looking up at Lin Qingzhou again. The disdain in his eyes had faded quite a bit, replaced by an inexplicable confusion.

A boy dressed in rags, still bearing traces of blood, casually producing two thousand Federation Currency in cash without even blinking was certainly an odd combination.

Yes, in the waiter's eyes, even the relatively decent clothes Lin Qingzhou had changed into looked no different from rags.

But his professional training kept him from asking questions. He quickly completed the paperwork, retrieved a key card from behind the service desk, and handed it over, his tone regaining some of its courtesy.

"Your room is on the third floor, Room 302. The elevator is at the end of the corridor, to the right. Breakfast is served in the second-floor restaurant from seven to nine. The pool is on the top deck and requires an additional fee."

Only then did Lin Qingzhou have a chance to ask the waiter about the ship. It turned out the ship's main route was from Eastsea City to Southsea City, on the southern shore of Heaven Dou City.

The destination turned out to be decent enough, so Lin Qingzhou didn't complain too much about how reliable Zero was.

Lin Qingzhou took the key card, thanked him, and turned toward the elevator. He could feel the waiter's gaze stuck to his back, probably still puzzling over what sort of person this strange passenger was.

But he didn't look back or deliberately quicken his pace. He'd long since gotten used to people staring at him in Aolai City, ever since the day he failed to awaken his Martial Soul.

The instant the door to Room 302 opened, Lin Qingzhou paused in the doorway, genuinely taken aback.

The room was undeniably luxurious. Its decor could even be called extravagant.

He'd lived for years in a villa in Aolai City, and even so, he'd never stayed in a room this lavish.

Lin Qingzhou quickly tidied himself up and went into the bathroom. He was going to take a nice, long shower and wash away all the exhaustion clinging to him.

When hot water sprayed from the showerhead, he stood beneath it with his eyes closed, motionless for a long time.

The hot water streamed down his hair, over the healed wound on his shoulder and the scars beneath his ribs that hadn't quite faded yet, then finally ran down the drain mixed with suds. Steam slowly filled the bathroom, and a layer of white fog clouded the mirror.