The movement in the corner quickly caught his attention.
“Ji Shao, what’s going on? Get over here... Where did you pick up that kid?”
“I found her in the corridor of the first-floor cabins. I don’t know if she’s having a nightmare or what, but she’s dazed and incoherent.”
Ji Shao pulled out a length of rope and tied Gu Ningyun to a chair around her waist, securing it with a slipknot in front of her stomach.
“She can untie it herself once she wakes up...”
Gu Ningyun clutched the broken pieces of her talisman pen, her mind feeling that something was very wrong.
She pushed off the table to rise from her meditation mat, intending to find Jiang Yao, the artifact cultivator, to buy a new one.
She struggled against the table but failed to stand; instead, her stomach felt a dull ache.
She struggled again. It was no use—something was cutting into her belly.
There was always someone out to get her!
Gu Ningyun’s glazed eyes suddenly snapped into focus, and she immediately saw a pair of hands fiddling with something in front of her stomach.
One of those hands belonged to an arm with a sleeve that was missing half its length.
Ji Shao hadn’t expected Gu Ningyun to wake up at that exact moment.
Her current actions looked remarkably like she was kidnapping an innocent child, which could easily lead to a misunderstanding.
Just as she was about to explain, Gu Ningyun’s small face suddenly turned bright red.
The reason was simple: her memories were slowly flooding back.
Gu Ningyun suddenly remembered that she had been the one clinging to the woman and refusing to let go, even tearing off a piece of her sleeve.
That small scrap of fabric was still clutched in her hand.
She fished out a handful of spirit stones and stuffed them into Ji Shao’s arms. “Senior, I’ll pay for your clothes.”
Instead of being misunderstood, Ji Shao found herself being offered spirit stones. She felt a mix of warmth and amusement.
“I’m a sailor. Torn uniforms are a common occurrence at sea; there’s no need to worry about it.”
She returned the spirit stones to Gu Ningyun and untied the rope around her waist.
“Are you sure you’re awake now?”
Besides Ji Shao, there was another sailor present.
Gu Ningyun noticed a hint of anxiety in his expression. His feet were pointed toward the door, yet he hadn’t left yet.
Earlier, in her dazed state, she thought she had heard something about a first mate and a control room.
“I’m definitely awake now.
Senior, don’t worry about me. Please, go attend to your duties.”
Though they had only spoken for a moment, even that short delay was a hindrance given the situation.
Seeing that her eyes were indeed clear, Ji Shao stood up and ran off with the other sailor.
Gu Ningyun followed them out of the rest area and returned to the first-floor cabin section.
The doors to Cabins 17 through 20 were still tightly shut.
Gu Ningyun sent messages through both her main and alt accounts, but no one replied.
“Youngsters really do have it easy, falling asleep the moment their heads hit the mat,” she muttered.
Shaking her head helplessly, she jumped up and slapped a warning talisman on the top right corner of each of the four cabin doors, placing them where they wouldn’t be easily touched by accident.
As soon as someone opened a door to come out, she would be able to sense it.
After finishing with the last door, she turned and headed toward the deck.
Knowing nothing about the current situation, she needed to see what was happening for herself.
The spirit ship’s swaying had lessened slightly, transitioning from sudden, sharp tilts to a continuous, rhythmic rocking.
As the ship rocked, Gu Ningyun began to feel a bit drowsy.
It was as if she had returned to her previous life, to a sunset evening where she sat on a swing at the orphanage.
She closed her eyes, feeling the wind brush past her ears.
Every time the swing flew forward, she leaned back with all her might.
The swing flew higher and higher until she felt like a wisp of free-roaming wind.
She flew over the high walls of the orphanage, over the blue sky, through the white clouds, and past towering skyscrapers, soaring toward any place in the world.
When she returned from her trip around the globe, she would stand before the headmistress and ask loudly, “Headmistress, look at me! Am I not the most successful child you’ve ever raised?”
Suddenly, the iron chains of the swing snapped. Gu Ningyun was thrown high into the air, tracing a two-meter arc before crashing to the ground.
There were two dull thuds, but strangely, it didn’t hurt much.
She scrambled up from the ground and took two steps.
The headmistress shifted from standing to being upside down.
The world flipped and inverted.
A chaotic crackling filled her ears.
A sharp pain shot through her lower back, and her neck let out a loud pop.
Gu Ningyun suddenly realized she was lying on her side at the very edge of the ship’s hull. The deck was in front of her, and behind her was the surging, wave-tossed sea.
If it weren’t for the extra layer of railing added to the hull, one of the bars would not have caught her lower back.
She would have already fallen into the ocean.
A wave of intense lingering fear washed over her.
Her consciousness had never been clearer.
Gu Ningyun didn’t dare move recklessly; she rolled away from the edge and landed on the deck with a thud.
The ship’s side was a half-meter-high solid bulwark, so she didn’t have to worry about slipping through any gaps.
Something tried to surge into her sea of consciousness again, but this time, Gu Ningyun’s mind was exceptionally firm, and her sea of consciousness remained undisturbed.
Many cultivators were standing on the deck. Perhaps because they had been reassured by the sailors, there was no atmosphere of panic.
However, their attention was almost entirely focused on the sea, and they hadn't noticed the commotion in her corner.
As Gu Ningyun fell onto the deck, she happened to see the sailors leaving, seemingly heading to the array control room to provide support.
The pain in her lower back came in waves. Gu Ningyun lay where she was, her neck tilted at an awkward angle, as she circulated her cultivation technique to soothe the injury.
When she hit the railing, although her back had been stopped, her head’s momentum had carried it forward, causing her neck to be strained.
Not far from her was a set of stairs leading from the cabins to the deck.
From her position on the floor, Gu Ningyun could see several dents and scratches on the steps.
In the gap of the top stair, there was even a torn piece of green fabric.
Gu Ningyun silently pulled at her own green outer robe.
She touched her forehead, which didn’t hurt at all, and moved her legs, which hadn’t even suffered a scratch.
This spirit ship was all show and no substance.
The outer railings were built so sturdily, yet the interior stairs were like a shoddy construction project.
She had only bumped into them a little; surely it didn't warrant so many dents.
Sigh, what a sin. She hadn't done it on purpose.
“Woooooo—”
With a cry that pierced the clouds, a massive wave surged, and the water erupted with a thunderous roar.
A gargantuan black shadow leaped out from the seawater.
The spirit ship’s array was active, and its spiritual light shone upon the sea, making it as bright as day.
The patterns on its sides resembled two human faces.
The shadow revealed its full form.
It was a rank three late stage two-faced whale, sixty meters long, twenty meters wide, and sixteen meters thick!
The spirit ship wasn’t even as large as its head.
Two-faced whales typically fed on marine life, but human cultivators were their favorite snacks.
A spirit ship emitting spiritual light in the night was the target they paid the most attention to.
Enduring the residual pain in her back, Gu Ningyun crawled to the junction of the deck and the cabin area, wrapping her arms and legs tightly around a staircase pillar.
Since regaining her senses, she had surveyed the entire deck.
This pillar was made of the same reliable material as the ship’s railings.
Its position at the junction of the deck and the cabins was far from the dangerous edges of the ship.
There were no obstructions around it, allowing her to see the state of the sea at any time.
If anything happened, she could move forward to the open deck, backward into the cabins, or upward to release her flying boat. It was the perfect observation point.
A black figure was flying in mid-air. Judging by his cultivation level, it was likely the Golden Core stage captain.
Rate on N.U.
