Fu Qingshi

Qin Mao paced slowly beside the stern rudder, toying with [Just Verdict] as he spoke at an unhurried pace.

"There are too many suspicious things about you!"

"My ship's mast is a wondrous item with a fanatical appetite for the blood of living creatures, yet you spent so long beneath it without getting the slightest reaction."

"Hmm, that sounds a little far-fetched."

Zhang Yu curled his lip, dissatisfied with that explanation.

"Of course that's not all," Qin Mao said gravely.

"I carried every single supply aboard this ship myself. I checked twice in total, and you haven't eaten anything at all... only corpses don't need to eat."

"Ah!" Zhang Yu clicked his tongue regretfully. "But I really haven't had much of an appetite."

Qin Mao continued.

"Most importantly, I don't think I would let someone aboard so casually!"

"Even a close friend I'd spent nearly half a year with could betray me. How could I possibly let anyone else aboard? Especially an old classmate I hadn't seen in years?"

"Particularly once I suspected you weren't alive... no, you might not even be Zhang Yu!"

"Bravo! To see through so much under my [Mind Veiling] is quite something! Anything else?" Zhang Yu clapped with interest.

"Yes. Actually, I first started suspecting you last night."

"Really? That early? What gave me away?"

"Nothing did. But, Brother Octopus..."

Qin Mao's throat shifted slightly.

"...haven't you ever wondered? Why do the other three ships have so many people aboard, while I'm alone on this one?"

Zhang Yu tilted his head in thought before answering seriously, "Because you simply don't trust other people?"

Qin Mao slowly shook his head.

"You probably don't know this, but my supernatural abilities grow stronger when I'm alone!"

[Free Person] Sequence 1, Lone Walker, ability 1, Enjoying Loneliness: your attributes double when you spend more than two-thirds of each day alone.

"In other words, if you really were alive, I should feel weaker."

"You boarded around one thirty yesterday afternoon, yet I'm still full of energy. That can only mean you might be a hallucination, something I imagined, or even a corpse... but the one thing you can't possibly be is alive!"

A chilly wind blew past. As he listened to Qin Mao's forceful reasoning, Zhang Yu's expression darkened.

From the very beginning, he had carried himself with the composure of a cat toying with a mouse and the nonchalance of a senior instructing a junior.

Even having his identity exposed hadn't particularly bothered him.

But now his eyes were like a frozen lake.

"Your condition for solitude is two-thirds of every day?!"

"And your attributes double?"

Qin Mao's pupils constricted sharply, and unease surged into his heart.

He had merely exchanged a few more words with the corpse, deliberately keeping his wording vague to avoid revealing his Sequence.

Yet this corpse had exposed it in a single sentence!

Before he could deny it, Zhang Yu dropped another bombshell:

"You're of the [Free Person] Sequence?!"

He sat on the deck, looking up at Qin Mao,

seemingly shocked, with disgust, wariness, admiration, and other indescribable emotions mixed in.

He paid no attention to anything else Qin Mao had said, fixating solely on the words "Free Person."

Qin Mao was just as shocked that the other man had uncovered his Sequence's true name from a single remark.

Sequences came in all sorts of strange forms, and overlaps between abilities were commonplace, not to mention that many Sequences had abilities with similar effects.

Yet this man had glimpsed the whole from a single part and exposed the truth with one sentence, based solely on Qin Mao's words about one passive effect of "Enjoying Loneliness," one of his Sequence 1 abilities.

He alone knew he belonged to the Free Person Sequence. That absolutely could not get out now!

Awakening two Sequences within a week would shock the world and could very well expose the system's existence. He was still far too weak!

At that thought, Qin Mao raised [Just Verdict] and aimed its muzzle at Zhang Yu's head again.

"Just my luck. Why the fuck have I run into another lunatic!"

Zhang Yu had barely finished cursing when he looked up and saw Qin Mao's gun again, making him laugh in anger.

He tried to activate [Impression Replacement] with the last of his remaining mental power.

To make Qin Mao confuse Just Verdict with a toy gun.

As far as he was concerned, even though he was dead, toying with a Sequence 1 using mental power should have been child's play!

He guided him with words. "How childish are you, kid? Why are you pointing a toy gun that can't fire at me?"

"Brother Octopus, are you still trying to trick me? We won't know whether it can fire until we try, will we?"

In an instant, Qin Mao's mind was deeply divided.

On one hand, his brain told him this was just a toy gun he had picked up while gathering supplies before the apocalypse. It had neither bullets nor a trigger and couldn't possibly fire, so there was no reason to draw it;

on the other hand, reason, judgment, and his sixth sense told him this gun might be the only key to breaking free.

His fingers kept trembling.

The conflict between his understanding of common sense and his current judgment made him feel intensely nauseated, as though he would vomit.

Forcing down that sense of wrongness, he not only kept the gun raised but also managed a mocking smile and lifted the barrel a little higher.

"Since you know my Sequence, you must know its abilities too, right? Even against a high-tier mental-power supernatural like you, [Free Person] can briefly resist long enough to leave a clue aboard!"

[Ability 4: Yearning for Freedom] grants immunity to low-tier mind control, resistance to mind control of the same tier, and brief resistance to high-tier mind control.

Holding the gun in his right hand, he gently brushed his left over the ship's wheel.

The word "gun," hastily written on the wheel in fresh blood, echoed the scar on his right index finger.

Across that murky span of time, he seemed to see himself a day earlier, caught in the instant mind control took hold. Without time to pull the gun from his pocket, he had endured the pain of cutting his finger on a wooden splinter and quickly written "gun" on the wooden wheel.

"I seem to have fired this toy gun just now. How about I try firing another shot?"

Seeing the fleeting astonishment on Zhang Yu's face, Qin Mao burst into laughter. "So I guessed right..."

From Qin Mao's reaction, Zhang Yu knew he had understood the key to breaking free, and his expression grew even uglier.

"Damn it! I clearly used [Impression Replacement] to hide everyone's memories of skills and items related to breaking mind control. How did you crack it? With one hastily scrawled word in blood?!"

"Brother Octopus, it was your expression. That astonished look just now gave you away-the ability has no flaws, but the person using it does!"

Qin Mao explained softly.

After those words,

Zhang Yu stood silently in the night wind, saying nothing for a long time.

He watched Qin Mao for a good while before suddenly forcing up the corners of his mouth and uttering something baffling.

"Unbelievable. [Free Person]... I've lost to you again... heh, this damned sense of fate!"

"What do you mean?" Qin Mao frowned, noticing that the other man's hostility toward him had suddenly vanished.

Of course, he hadn't spoken with a corpse for so long because he was a necrophiliac, nor was it solely because of the other man's supernatural abilities.

Rather, he wanted to get more intelligence and information about the apocalypse that he didn't know from this corpse's mouth.

In the apocalypse, a little more information meant another chance of survival.

"Nothing." Zhang Yu shook his head reluctantly, his smile as bitter as the desert wind.

"Much of my soul's power has dissipated, leaving me with only [Mind Veiling] and [Impression Replacement], but for a Sequence 4 to lose to a Sequence 1... that really is humiliating..."

Looking at Qin Mao, who was braced as though facing a formidable enemy, he wore a smile laden with exhaustion, as though even maintaining that expression drained all his strength.

"Kid, you're right... the ability has no flaws, but the person using it does. By the same token, a Sequence shouldn't have likes or dislikes. It's the person who awakens it who does."

He seemed to have completely come to terms with it and sat cross-legged on the deck.

"Could you do me a favor?"

"Why should I? Tell me first." Qin Mao didn't dare agree carelessly. They were still enemies, after all. Who knew whether it was a trap?

Zhang Yu simply spoke without standing on ceremony.

"If you ever meet another Free Person with a mole on his eyelid, please make sure you kill him. Hmm, he's probably Sequence 4 by now."

"Sure, if I can kill him." Qin Mao nodded like a pestle pounding garlic, serving up a grand, garlic-scented empty promise.

Although the fellow before him was dead, he clearly knew plenty of secrets. Sequence 4! At the very least, asking him how to advance his Sequence would be worthwhile. He had to keep him placated first.

Zhang Yu seemed oblivious to Qin Mao's perfunctory attitude.

"Um... could I make one more request?"

"Go ahead."

"Ahem, if you ever meet a girl named Zhang Jiayi, a [General] Sequence 1, please tell her I'm sorry."

"I buried everything I wanted to say where the stars and moon meet. But if she's forgotten me... then never mind."

"Oh, kid, I don't think you know who I am yet..."

The man straightened his torso, felt the gaping hole in his chest, and instinctively pushed up a pair of glasses that wasn't there. Though he sat on the deck in ragged clothes, he carried an air of looking down from above.

"My name is Fu Qingshi. I'm a scientist and a supernatural of the [Endless Heart Aspect] Sequence-Sequence 4, Heartmare!"