Wondrous item distribution rules

At night, three adults and one child stood on deck in the faintly salty sea breeze, each with their own thoughts.

The pufferfish skin blew bubbles blankly, and the coconut tree swayed gently in the green light. On the silent deck, only the eerie whispers in the sea, audible with concentration, murmured tirelessly as always.

Ye Xuanyin gave a light cough, her sweet voice the first to break the silence.

"Hehe, you three split it! Your big sister here didn't help, so count me out!"

Yan Qi immediately shook his head in protest. "No, no, you three should split it! You saved Captain Yang, and that matters more than any wondrous item! Count me out. My fishbone arrows couldn't even break through its defenses..."

Yang Fan clutched the hem of his clothes. "I didn't land a hit either. You split it! Little Yezi saved my life, so you could give her my share!"

Watching the three yield to one another, Qin Mao froze, then rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Seriously, this was an apocalypse where they might not live to see tomorrow, and people were still being modest? How on earth had these three survived this long?!

Especially Yang Fan. He acted so composed and aloof in battle, but now that they were dividing the loot, he was like a bashful boy next door who had just met a girl.

Three sweet, innocent fools-a great white trio.

Seeing that the three were about to keep yielding, Qin Mao hurriedly interrupted.

"If none of you want it, just give it to me!"

Whoosh! The air instantly fell silent, and all six eyes turned toward him.

"Stop arguing! I can't stand seeing people fight, so I suppose I'll reluctantly accept this Curio Material!"

Qin Mao finished without blushing or missing a beat, rolled up the pufferfish skin, and made to carry it away.

Ye Xuanyin's beautiful eyes widened in disbelief, and she opened her mouth but said nothing;

Yang Fan and Yan Qi flushed bright red, their lips moving without producing a single word.

"If nobody's saying anything, I really will take it."

Qin Mao blinked his big, innocent eyes, picked it up, and walked off.

"Thanks!"

Once he was some distance away, the three behind him immediately erupted.

"Captain Yang! Look at him, with those honest-looking eyes and eyebrows!" Ye Xuanyin fumed.

Yan Qi touched his handsome face, equally baffled. "We've both got honest-looking faces. How's he so shameless?"

But they had already said it themselves: they didn't want it. With skin as thin as theirs, they simply couldn't go back on their word and fight for it now.

So when Qin Mao turned around, what he saw were three pufferfish with faces swollen red.

"Ah!"

He shook his head and walked back, setting the pufferfish skin on the ground, feeling rather helpless.

"I was just messing with you!"

A soon-to-be college student from an ivory tower, a polished urban office lady, and a male programmer who worked overtime every day...

Like most people in society, they were as ruthless toward enemies as the autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, yet couldn't bring themselves to be blunt or put aside their pride with their own people.

They often swallowed losses for the sake of saving face.

He couldn't help teasing them. "Hey! With skin that thin, you three have never haggled at a market or street stall, have you?!"

Yang Fan stammered, "Wh-who says I haven't! Every time I buy a starch sausage after evening study, I ask the vendor for extra chili!"

Ye Xuanyin also refused to accept that. "You don't understand! Getting a sausage for one cent by favoriting the shop before ordering takeout is the owner making a concession to us!"

Yan Qi rubbed his head and chuckled foolishly. "I did haggle once, but the owner refused and said it was already at cost. I was too embarrassed to keep going."

Qin Mao looked disdainfully at these three rookies.

He said firmly, "Even brothers need to keep their accounts straight, and relatives shouldn't go into business together! Today, we have to establish clear rules for distributing the fleet's wondrous items!"

"Surely it's not that urgent? Isn't it nice that everyone's being considerate..." Yang Fan said weakly.

But Qin Mao wasn't going to go easy on him just because he was the captain.

He shot straight back, "Ha! Not ashamed, but proud of it! You think your school's handing out model student certificates?"

"You give up this wondrous item today, but what about the next one? Sooner or later, you'll turn against one another. We might as well split up our belongings and go our separate ways now!"

After that fierce scolding, the boat fell silent.

The other three weren't stubborn people either. Seeing that Qin Mao had stripped away the niceties and put things so plainly, they immediately agreed to establish rules.

"Yes, we should have rules for distributing wondrous items!"

"Brother Qin, you've got thicker... you've got more experience. How do you think we should divide things?"

Qin Mao actually already had a draft in mind.

He calmly held up three fingers. "By contribution, naturally!"

"1. For a solo kill without any outside assistance, all loot belongs to the person who made the kill."

"2. For a joint kill, split the loot equally. However, if the slain horror was powerful, or someone made an outstanding contribution, they may receive an extra share according to their contribution, or have first pick. They choose one of the two."

"3. Although those of the Auxiliary Sequence can't kill horrors, they're equally important. In a joint kill, they're still entitled to a share of the loot even if they didn't participate in combat."

"Mm, that's about it! We can add more if disputes arise later."

"For Curio Materials we can't divide up yet, we'll stockpile them until there's enough to split, or trade them and divide what we get in exchange."

Everyone thought it over and had no objections to Qin Mao's distribution method, finding it workable.

Yang Fan: "Very fair distribution rules!"

Ye Xuanyin: "No problem. You have my approval!"

Yan Qi: "Buddy, same here!"

Finally, Yang Fan added another rule. "All loot must be distributed on the spot. Any objections must be raised and resolved then and there. No responsibility will be taken afterward!"

And so the Hope Fleet's wondrous item distribution rules were established.

After talking things through, the four discarded embarrassment, excessive courtesy, and other social conventions useless in the apocalypse, and all felt immensely relieved.

Those suspicions, worries, and resentful thoughts vanished without a trace, leaving their minds clear.

Their trust and relationships also grew much closer without them realizing it.

Just then, Qin Mao coughed, rummaged around inside the Chang-Driving Pufferfish's skin, and pulled out an eyeball the size of a ping-pong ball.

The eyeball looked vacant, its pupil only moving once after a long while.

[Curio Material]: Soul-Binding Evil Pearl

[Description]: An evil pearl capable of briefly drawing in and storing fewer than three departed souls, forcibly keeping them in the world.

"In that fight, I believe my gun made an outstanding contribution. I choose to exercise first pick and take this eyeball. You three can split the remaining skin and bone spines equally."

"Any objections?"

Yang Fan, Ye Xuanyin, and Yan Qi exchanged glances. None had expected another Curio Material to be hidden inside the pufferfish skin.

This guy actually hadn't secretly pocketed it.

It seemed his character wasn't all that bad.

"Sure, none of us have any objections!"

And with that, the distribution was complete.

Since there was only one Chang-Driving Pufferfish skin, it was temporarily stored aboard the [Hope].

The transcendents each returned to their own boats to reassure the survivors and deal with issues they had overlooked earlier.

Qin Mao lay alone in the Captain's Quarters on the deck of the Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance, reviewing tonight's battle, when he suddenly remembered a small detail.

"Huh... that's not right! What about the other corpse?"

"People fell overboard from all three of the other boats earlier, which means each of those boats had an ordinary human corpse controlled by the Chang-Driving Pufferfish. But why did Captain Yang and the others only find two bodies?"

"Where did the other one go?"

Qin Mao was too sleepy tonight and planned to ask tomorrow.

Unexpectedly, fresh news from Ye Xuanyin immediately afterward answered his question.

No corpse had infiltrated the Yaximu at all!

The boy in the black shirt who fell overboard, "Xuanxuan," had been pushed off the boat by his older brother, "Lele," who wore a red scarf.

At the time, everyone in the fleet thought a horror was behind the falls overboard. Nobody had suspected a person.

Only just now had Ye Xuanyin coaxed and bluffed the answer out of him using the Book of Answers.

"Wah... I hate him! I can't stand him! Mom and Dad always make me give in to my little brother. All the yummy food and fun things go to him... Even the water I won at rock-paper-scissors, I had to let him drink first!"

"Big sister, as long as he's gone, Mom and Dad will love me again, right?"

Ye Xuanyin's usually sweet, lovely face was covered in frost.

"Aren't you afraid your mom and dad will find out what you did?"

"It's fine!"

Red Scarf shook his head innocently.

"Before, Mom was always spending time with a kitten she'd taken in, and wouldn't play with me. So I secretly turned on the bathroom heater and shut it in the bathroom until it died."

"Mom found out afterward, but not only wasn't she angry, she even apologized to me and spent more time with me!"

Standing aboard the Yaximu, Qin Mao looked at Red Scarf's innocent, carefree smile, full of uncomprehending anticipation, and felt a chill slowly climb from his thighs through his entire body.

That chill seemed to come from the deepest underworld, so cold it would not dissipate. Even after he took out [Just Verdict] and gripped it again and again, his heart remained icy, without a shred of security.

This wondrous firearm, ranked two thousandth and rated epic, unfailingly effective against horrors, seemed as fragile as a flimsy paper shell before Red Scarf's pure, innocent smile.

Yang Fan shook his head amid the crowd and sighed in scholarly tones, "The venom of horrors falls far short of the human heart!"

Qin Mao didn't want to watch any longer and silently returned to the Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance.

Compared with the desperate, heartrending wails of Red Scarf's parents behind him, for the first time, he felt that the indescribable, eerie whispers upon the apocalyptic sea were actually so beautiful to hear.