Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship

"Are you sure you don’t want to come aboard for a while?" Zhou Dai asked.

Since her left foot had healed, her mood had significantly improved.

"No, I still have a lot of things to handle," Yang Yi decisively declined.

"That’s a shame. Do you need me to help you back to your ship? You don’t seem to be walking comfortably right now."

"No need, my crew is already on the way to pick me up," Yang Yi replied.

Half an hour earlier, he had sent his coordinates to Suna, asking her to come and pick him up. By then, she should have been on her way.

“Fusion Card, you said? Why has your ship's name changed? This seems to be a rather rare item. I wish I could draw one too!” Zhou Dai remarked enviously.

She fiddled with her logbook and proposed a trade with Yang Yi.

The trade involved exchanging the corpse of a Brain Eater for a Twilight Veil, plus an additional 20,000 Shell Coins.

Although Yang Yi hadn’t charged her for the medical treatment, Zhou Dai insisted on paying him. There was no need to refuse this gesture.

After both parties confirmed the trade and pressed "accept," the transaction was locked. The deal was binding, with any breach incurring penalties from the Monster Vending Machine, and it had to be completed within eight hours.

Once that was settled, Zhou Dai started standing up. However, before she could fully rise, Yang Yi, seated close by, grabbed her arm.

"Stay a bit longer. It’s not entirely safe for me to stay alone," Yang Yi said.

Zhou Dai paused.

Given that the island's strange creatures were supposedly all dead, there shouldn't have been any danger.

But she didn’t dwell on it and certainly didn’t refuse. Sitting for a little while longer wasn’t a big deal.

Moreover, in her eyes, Yang Yi was quite charming!

It was a feeling that was hard to describe  — he just seemed very pleasing to the eye, especially his demeanor.

After about another hour, Suna arrived.

She was fully equipped — wearing a woolen hat, long fleece-lined boots, and a new survival belt at her waist. She held a pirate’s longbow, with several dozen armour-piercing arrows strapped to her back.

Apart from a down jacket, she wore nearly everything she could to keep warm, as she was more sensitive to the cold and had always lived in the warmer southern coastal areas.

About two hours before, she had received a private message from Yang Yi.

He said he was blind and needed her to come quickly to fetch him, also mentioning a strange woman by his side.

"What’s strange about her?"

Suna spotted Yang Yi sitting with an elegant and poised woman in white robes. The two were chatting happily, as if they had hit it off instantly.

Notably, Yang Yi’s left hand was still holding the woman’s wrist.

"You don’t seem to need any help," Suna commented, emerging from the forest with a calm expression.

Yang Yi instantly recognised her voice and let out a long sigh of relief, releasing his grip.

"My teammate is here!"

"Alright then! In that case, I’ll take my leave. May the Light bless you," Zhou Dai said, crossing her arms over her chest in a gesture of reverence. From her shadow, it almost looked as if she had no arms at all.

With that, she turned and walked away, her steps growing fainter as she headed towards her ship, the Radiant Goddess.

Once the sound of her footsteps faded, Yang Yi ran towards Suna's position. Unable to see her, he relied on his hearing to navigate, running forwards until the tip of a bow pressed against his cheek…

The familiar presence relaxed Yang Yi’s nerves.

“You’re finally here!”

Yang Yi’s vision hadn’t recovered yet. He could only hold onto the bow and move closer, speaking softly.

“That woman didn’t turn back, did she?”

“No,” Suna glanced in that direction.

“Good. Let’s hurry back. Something’s not quite right with her. We’ll talk on the way,” Yang Yi urged, ready to move immediately.

But Suna smirked faintly and said, “Oh really? Why did it seem like you two were having a pretty good conversation?”

“That was just to lower her guard!” Yang Yi’s expression turned serious.

“Do you think a normal person could suppress their pulse to under 10 beats per minute, or even stop it momentarily? And this happened after severing her left foot…”

Suna frowned and glanced again in the direction Zhou Dai had left, then said, “Explain in detail on the way!”

The two quickly ran towards the Nightmare Star.

As per her request, Yang Yi explained what he had observed.

When he had pulled Zhou Dai out earlier, he noticed she seemed to have no pulse. Further perception revealed that it actually was incredibly slow, and this occurred after her limb was severed.

A normal person wouldn’t be able to control their heart rate to reduce blood loss!

“Moreover, her behavior was inconsistent. I even suspect that if I hadn’t gone to save her, she might have torn off her own left foot and crawled out by herself!” Yang Yi explained.

Suna listened quietly, her brows deeply furrowed.

If Yang Yi’s observations were accurate, then Zhou Dai must have undergone some kind of transformation, which seemed to simultaneously affect her cognition and physical body.

“You couldn’t see anything and were accompanied by a mentally unstable woman. That’s why you held onto her wrist, wasn’t it? For a sense of safety — so that if danger arose, you’d still have a fighting chance…”

Suna suddenly felt a bit annoyed.

After all, she was standing right next to Yang Yi, and she was also a woman.

She stopped abruptly, cutting Yang Yi off coldly, “Are you implying something?”

“Of course not.”

“You sure you don’t want me to shoot an arrow straight through your head?”

“I’m not afraid. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone blind.”

Suna was slightly irked but decided not to continue the topic.

They reached the coastline when the sky was already growing dark.

Suna returned to the Nightmare Star first, using a grappling hook to pull Yang Yi into the cabin.

As soon as he boarded, Yang Yi instructed Suna to check the sea chart and closely monitor the Radiant Goddess.

The ship was visible on the chart, indicating that Zhou Dai had removed the Twilight Veil, likely in preparation for the trade.

However, the ship’s position hadn’t changed; it remained stationary.

Meanwhile, aboard the Radiant Goddess. 

After returning to her ship, Zhou Dai headed straight to the chapel.

What was once a prayer room had evolved into a chapel after the upgrade.

Inside stood the statue of the Radiant Goddess. Praying to it brought an unparalleled sense of tranquility, dispelling fear, and even slowly restoring sanity.

Holy water was also created here.

By placing ordinary freshwater before the statue and praying sincerely, one could produce holy water.

The process took 24 hours, though the prayer itself required only 30 minutes.

There were additional items before the statue: five glass jars, each containing the head of one of Zhou Dai’s former teammates.

“May you all return to the embrace of the Radiant Goddess,” Zhou Dai knelt, crossing her arms in reverence towards the armless statue.

Her former teammates had once aspired to join the Radiant Church.

Although they had perished, she still wished for them to bask in the Goddess’s light.

After praying for about 15 minutes, Zhou Dai rose, feeling spiritually cleansed, though her neck itched slightly.

She scratched at it and discovered a thin seam on her neck that oozed a faint purple fluid.

“What is this…”

She paid it no mind and didn’t bother checking her status panel.

Using a silk cloth, she carefully wiped her neck to avoid soiling her pristine white robe.

Then she turned back to the statue, crossing her arms again in prayer.

“May the light bless you all!”

Zhou Dai blessed the five jars before the statue.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Upon closer inspection, one of the heads inside the jars seemed to have changed — it had shrivelled slightly and appeared partially dehydrated.

Zhou Dai remained unaware of this. Nor did she notice the thin, tentacle-like appendages occasionally extending from the seam on her neck, writhing in a restless and excited manner.

After completing her prayers, she left the chapel and headed to the deck, preparing for the trade she had arranged with Yang Yi.

Had she opened her status panel, she would have noticed a new entry:

【Extraordinary Path… Brain Eater】

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