Qin Mao continued answering obediently.
"At death's door, I awakened as a Sequence Transcendent. My strength increased enormously, and I grabbed one of the Eight-Eyed Ice Weird Spider's teeth. Later, when it opened its mouth again, momentum flung me out, and I clung to a piece of deadwood and drifted out to sea..."
"So that's how it happened. You're pretty lucky for a piece of trash."
"Come to think of it, you ought to thank me! If I hadn't pushed you, you'd never have awakened your transcendent powers!"
Su Miaomiao clicked her tongue twice and glanced at her wrist with a sigh.
"Fifteen minutes are almost up..."
She pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.
No sooner had she spoken than Qin Mao's eyes widened. He looked at her and roared, "Bitch, who let you in? Get out!"
"Fine, I'm going..."
Su Miaomiao gave a soft huff, casting another [Heart Link] on him before leaving.
[Heart Link]: Each use increases the current target's affection toward you. This skill's effects can stack. It can be used three times per day, but only once per day on the same target.
Only after Su Miaomiao had left the Eerie Coconut and gone far away did Qin Mao let out a long breath of relief.
Cold sweat streamed down past the corners of his eyes.
"What a Sequence Transcendent!"
A skill that could interfere with other people's thoughts without them noticing;
A skill that could forcibly control someone for fifteen minutes;
And another skill that could gradually increase someone's affection for her.
So far, he had only managed to sound out three of Su Miaomiao's skills.
But honestly speaking.
All three of those abilities were unquestionably extremely useful!
Although none were direct offensive combat abilities, and all were mental-control abilities.
Their danger level was absolutely off the charts!
This time, it was all thanks to ability 4 of the [Free Person] Sequence, [Yearning for Freedom]:
"Your yearning for freedom surpasses everything, rejecting all restraints. Your mental power increases greatly: you can ignore low-tier mental control, resist same-tier mental control, and briefly oppose high-tier mental control. This physical ability can grow, becoming stronger as your Sequence level rises."
The moment Su Miaomiao acted, he had sensed that he was under mental control. He resisted that mental force while playing along.
She was very confident in her abilities, and Qin Mao's decisive performance and willingness to tell her everything kept her from suspecting anything.
"That was close. Thank goodness I awakened transcendent powers... no, thank goodness I awakened as a [Free Person]. If it had been another Sequence without mental resistance, even if I came back, she'd most likely control me again!"
With that, Qin Mao could make sense of many things.
"No wonder, back when she was getting intimate with Zhou Hao, that rich kid in the fleet, I was clearly a little jealous, yet a few soothing words from her made me stop caring..."
"No wonder, whenever we encountered eerie creatures while fleeing Bashu, coincidences kept happening. Someone else would suddenly expose their whereabouts and draw the creatures' attention, letting us escape disaster..."
So Su Miaomiao had long since awakened as a Sequence Transcendent with mental powers!
It fit. Everything fit.
Qin Mao's eyes were ice-cold.
"If you were an ordinary person and died after a couple of little tricks, that would be no fun... now I can finally rest easy!"
He temporarily concealed his murderous intent.
He looked at the Eerie Coconut's [Special Effect] and sneered.
Sacrificing an ordinary person... probably wouldn't be as effective as sacrificing a transcendent, would it?
The Solar-Powered Seawater Desalination Device aboard the Eerie Coconut had been activated and could collect fresh water normally.
It was much more efficient than the Simple Freshwater Collector.
Qin Mao drank a cup of cooled boiled water, then rose and headed toward the [Rose].
Time to get back to business.
The survivors aboard the Rose also wore filthy clothes, and their hair was greasy.
But they had only just reached the sea, so supplies weren't that scarce yet. They at least had enough food to avoid starving, so they were relatively spirited.
Yet after making a circuit, he found nothing worth judging.
Unwilling to give up, he made another circuit aboard the [Hope], only to discover there were no major matters requiring judgment there either.
Qin Mao began to envy those famous detectives' knack for stumbling onto cases. They didn't even have to look; disputes and cases automatically appeared wherever they went.
After several fruitless rounds, he couldn't help feeling a little discouraged.
Every extra day [Just Verdict] took to acknowledge him as its master meant another day of danger.
How about... finding a little bug to exploit?
Qin Mao saw someone catching fish, asked for two Mutant Fish, and put them in a separate basin.
"You two, have a fight! I'll be the referee!"
The strange fish gave no response, blowing green bubbles and slime. They were utterly disgusting.
The nearby survivors who heard him turned to look at him in surprise.
A woman studied him for a while, then pointed at her own head, widened her eyes, and tilted her head questioningly.
The old man beside her hurriedly shook his head and waved at her, telling her to mind her own business.
"You with the two heads, you spat at the other one once more. You win!"
Qin Mao rambled on.
[Just Verdict] showed no response whatsoever. Furious, he flung the fish back into the sea.
Turning his head again, he spotted a couple cuddling aboard the Rose.
Who knew how many days it had been since they had bathed or washed their hair.
Hugging that tightly-didn't they stink?
Qin Mao said, "I sentence you to a lifetime of loneliness for love..."
[Just Verdict]: ...
He tried every possible scenario that might have something to do with "judgment," but they all failed.
Then he heard children making a racket. Looking up, he saw two children playing rock-paper-scissors aboard the [Yaximu].
Qin Mao immediately grew excited.
A dispute? Here it was!
Meanwhile, two children of seven or eight were playing rock-paper-scissors.
Since deck space was limited and parents kept a tight watch, the survivors came out in batches for fresh air. Opportunities to come outside were rare.
So the children really let their true natures loose here.
"You lost! Give me the spicy strips! No cheating!"
The child in the red scarf waved his fist and shouted at the child in the black shirt, who had thrown scissors.
"Too slow! You threw too late! That's not fair!"
The two shoved each other, shouting at the tops of their lungs and running around the deck, while their parents sat nearby, smiling.
The red-scarfed child had won the round, but the black-shirted child refused to honor it and ran away, unwilling to hand over the bag of spicy strips they had wagered.
The red-scarfed child chased him until he was panting.
Seeing that he couldn't catch up, he immediately took a shortcut, only to collide with a nearby survivor's fishing bucket.
The little yellow croaker that the man had finally caught after two or three days of fishing dove out of the overturned bucket and straight back into the sea.
"Stupid bucket! You were in my way!"
"You!" The angler glared furiously at the red-scarfed child, but couldn't bring himself to lash out at a little kid.
The tall, burly father beside them immediately stood up. "He's just a child. Why are you making a fuss over a kid? I'll say sorry, and let's leave it at that."
The fish's owner ground his teeth in anger.
The only thing more infuriating than an angler losing his one and only fish was an angler losing his one and only fish in the apocalypse.
In the end, he swallowed his anger, sat back down, and cast his hook again in a sulk.
The black-shirted child looked back, saw this, and giggled merrily.
In a moment of inattention, he knocked over an old woman walking on the deck.
"Ow! It hurts so much!"
"Where are your parents? Your guardians? I'm not getting up unless you give me a piece of bread!"
Knowing they were in the wrong.
The man and woman both turned their heads away, pretending not to see.
"Born to parents who never bothered raising you..."
The old woman lay there for a few minutes. With no one to extort, she got up and walked away, cursing.
The red-scarfed and black-shirted children happily started running around the deck again.
The piercing shrieks and loud voices unique to young children rang out across the sea.
Many of the nearby survivors frowned, their faces full of disgust.
Just then.
A new character entered this heartwarming scene.
A handsome young man leaped from the twenty-meter Eerie Coconut onto the Yaximu, exaggeratedly rubbing his ears as he walked straight toward the two children.
[The next three chapters cover the details of the gun's master-recognition ritual. They weren't written very well, received quite a few negative reviews, and don't have much impact on the later plot. Readers who don't want to read them can skip straight to Chapter 36, where Qin Mao holds a meeting with the other three transcendents.]
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