Rules Ch.111

Chapter 111: Cruise Ship (9)

On the second day after entering the time loop, at 19:50 in the evening, more than a dozen people—including Everly—quietly gathered on the lower deck.

During the day, the Mary Jane’s failed attempt to evacuate had already caused panic among the cruise ship’s passengers.

When the ship passed through the transparent “membrane,” the sight of its bow vanishing into thin air as if erased by an eraser—and then reappearing from the other side of the time loop—had been witnessed by far too many people. Even though the ship’s broadcast later tried to explain it away as a mirage caused by refraction and total internal reflection of light, and claimed the ship had only stopped because of the storm, the passengers remained skeptical.

After all, anyone with functioning eyes could notice the eerie calm of the sea surrounding the Golden Anchor. There were plenty of superstitious people in America; it only took someone a bit overly devout to come out and proclaim things like, “We must have angered the gods and brought down divine punishment,” for a large number of wavering individuals to believe it.

To calm everyone down, the captain had no choice but to rack his brains organizing all sorts of random activities on board—both to distract the passengers and to give those with too much pent-up energy an outlet.

It wasn’t easy to bring the situation under control. By nightfall, taking advantage of the song-and-dance party being held in the banquet hall, the exhausted captain, first mate, and others finally found a chance to slip away.

Below the deck, sailors who had already received instructions were standing at the bottom of the gangway. They had used poles to push a test lifeboat to the edge of the time loop, waiting only for the captain’s order to place it at the designated position.

Everyone stood silently in the darkness, no one speaking, each second dragging on like an eternity.

Finally, after a long wait, the time reached 19:59. From that moment on, everyone tensed up, staring at the massive Golden Anchor before them with a mixture of hope and fear. The captain tightened his grip on the walkie-talkie, ready to notify the crew below to push the lifeboat forward the instant any change occurred in the ship ahead.

10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds… As the final minute ticked away, time seemed to pass unusually fast for some reason. Clearly, the longer the time loop stayed open, the better it would be for everyone on board—if it was too short, the Mary Jane would likely not have enough time to evacuate.

So with every tick of the second hand, everyone prayed silently, hoping time would slow down, hoping the massive ship before them would change as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, things did not go as they wished. It wasn’t until 19:59:53 that the change everyone had been waiting for finally arrived.

With a soft click of the second hand, the invisible “membrane” covering the sky suddenly vanished. A torrent of rain poured down without warning, and before everyone’s stunned eyes, the Golden Anchor seemed to fade like an old painting—its bright white hull rapidly became mottled with yellowed rust, its gleaming glass turned dirty and shattered, the railings broke, and the anchor corroded…

The thirteen years that had been skipped all at once left indelible marks upon the massive ship.

“Mark, push the lifeboat!”

Holding up his walkie-talkie, the captain issued the order to the crew at the bottom of the gangway.

Upon receiving the command, Mark immediately used the pole to push the lifeboat a little farther forward.

A few seconds passed in the blink of an eye. As the second hand ticked again and the time reached exactly 20:00, the dilapidated Golden Anchor instantly transformed back into its luxurious, gleaming appearance. The once pitch-dark ship lit up with beautiful colored lights, brightly illuminated, with music drifting through the air.

“The time loop has reset… we only have 7 seconds,” the captain said hoarsely.

Such a short time was nowhere near enough for the entire cruise ship to evacuate from the loop.

After a brief silence, everyone turned at the same time and walked to the side of the ship farthest from the massive liner. If the lifeboat stuck at the boundary wouldn’t be affected the moment the time loop closed—and could freely pass in and out—then the Mary Jane would still have a chance…

However, what they received was still bad news.

“Captain, the lifeboat—it’s broken!”

From below the gangway, the sailor Mark’s alarmed shout carried over from a distance.

Hearing this, everyone’s hearts sank. Flashlights in hand, they moved down the long folding gangway one after another, arriving at the metal platform at the bottom. There, they saw Mark drenched in sweat, gripping the towing rope and struggling to haul a half-submerged lifeboat frame up toward the ladder.

Since the time loop had already reset, the terrifying sea creature that had previously bitten Dali was, for the moment, no longer present beneath the water. Everyone stepped forward to help Mark, and before long, they dragged the lifeboat close and lifted it entirely out of the water onto the platform.

What remained was only one-third of the boat—a wreck.

At the point where the time loop had closed, the lifeboat had been cleanly severed from top to bottom. The cut was incredibly smooth—so precise that even the sharpest metal cutting machine might not achieve such a result.

And not far away, outside the time loop, amid the raging storm, the remaining portion of the boat could still be faintly seen drifting farther and farther away under the pounding waves, slowly sinking.

It was easy to imagine that when the Mary Jane attempted to pass through the edge of the time loop, once the loop reset, the entire cruise ship would suffer the same fate—split cleanly into two from the middle.

This was truly terrible.

“Is there any other way…? For example, if we throw off all the unnecessary items on the ship, could that increase our speed?” Everly suggested actively, knowing that the lives of everyone on board—including her own—were at stake.

Unfortunately, her idea, coming from a non-expert, wasn’t very useful.

“Even if we emptied the entire ship and left not a single bit of food or water, the Mary Jane still wouldn’t gain much speed. Its performance limit is fixed. This is a passenger cruise ship—when it was built, stability and comfort were the top priorities, not speed.”

“Then can we think of a way to contact the coast guard or other rescue organizations for outside help? For example, have them send enough lifeboats to wait outside, and at the moment the time loop disappears, take the people from the ship across?”

“We can’t get in touch with the outside world.”

Everly’s eyes widened. “What?”

The captain raised a hand to cover his face, his voice heavy with pain. “Ever since we entered the time loop, we haven’t been able to contact the outside… At first, I thought it was just the storm interfering with the signal. But now it seems the time loop itself is blocking it.”

After receiving nothing but bad news that night, everyone felt somewhat numb.

After a moment of silence, it was Everly who pulled herself together first.

“Let’s keep thinking. There has to be a way.”

So, more than ten minutes later—while the lower-deck banquet hall was still lively with music, dancing, and laughter—the group, their expressions grim, crossed the deck and gathered once again in the captain’s office.

Just as Everly had said, although the situation was dire, it wasn’t entirely hopeless.

The first option was, naturally, to find the source that created the time loop and shut it down completely.

But this was far from easy. On one hand, the crew had searched the entire Golden Anchor and hadn’t found a single person. Even if a witch did exist, she was likely hiding very well, and thoroughly searching such a large ship would be difficult. On the other hand, someone capable of creating a time loop on this scale must be an extremely powerful witch. They were all ordinary people—there was no way they could “convince” her by force.

The second option was to seek external rescue.

After the time loop reset, people had seen the remaining two-thirds of the lifeboat outside the loop in the storm. This proved that escaping from within the loop during the seven seconds when it failed was, in itself, possible. The Mary Jane couldn’t do it only because it was too large and too slow to fully exit within such a short time.

If replaced with smaller lifeboats, then as long as they prepared in advance, seven seconds would be more than enough to escape.

According to regulations, the total rated capacity of the cruise ship’s lifeboats must be at least 1.25 times the ship’s total passenger capacity. On the Mary Jane, including passengers and crew, there were 263 people. Since new passengers could board at ports along the way, the ship had a total of 17 lifeboats, each with a maximum capacity of 20 people.

All of these lifeboats were non-motorized, open boats, requiring oars to be rowed by hand. For the purpose of the experiment, one had already been damaged, leaving 16—more than enough to accommodate all the passengers on board.

However, the weather outside remained unpredictable. The heavy rain had lasted for two days with no sign of stopping. Additionally, to avoid the storm, the Mary Jane had steered nearly 10 nautical miles (about 18.5 kilometers) away from land, putting everyone very far from the shore. If all the passengers were to evacuate into lifeboats to escape the time loop, leaving the Mary Jane behind, their chances of survival at sea would be extremely low—they might be capsized by the waves before any rescue arrived.

After discussion, everyone decided on a plan: during the seven-second interval when the time loop failed tomorrow, they would send a single lifeboat carrying the rescue team out of the loop. That team would use a radio to contact the mainland and request help. Once rescue ships arrived nearby, the Mary Jane’s remaining lifeboats would be used to ferry the passengers in batches. This way, after leaving the time loop, the passengers could immediately board a sufficiently safe and stable vessel, avoiding the risk of drifting helplessly in the storm.

Once the plan was finalized, everyone reviewed it and agreed that it was highly feasible. The Mary Jane’s first mate even volunteered to personally lead the operation.

Time passed, and another day went by. On the third day of being trapped, the storm outside continued to rage.

Early in the morning, another piece of bad news arrived—Dali was dead.

Following Everly’s suggestion, he had been confined to a vacant presidential suite. The room was a spacious bedroom with large, sealed windows, and when he was placed inside, the crew had stocked it with ample food and drinking water.

However, that morning, when a crew member, feeling uneasy, opened the door to check, they found Dali frozen in a crawling posture, his face twisted in pain, dead on the carpet. His body looked like a desiccated corpse baked under a desert sun for days—skin and flesh shrunken, surface brittle, and on both sides of his neck, gill-like openings were stretched wide.

The food in the room remained untouched, though a cup of water had been knocked over.

Dali appeared to have died from desiccation.

To avoid panic, the captain kept this news secret. Inevitably, though, his own face looked even more haggard than before.

Trouble rarely comes alone. At the same time, the passengers on board were growing restless.

After three days with no signal, some passengers had started showing signs of discontent, while others were worried about delays in their itinerary. They gathered at the door of the captain’s office, shouting and clamoring, demanding explanations.

Unaware, the captain himself was already overwhelmed by the situation and had no patience to deal with them. All he could do was order the crew to continue running activities like dances and wine tastings to distract the passengers.

By 19:55 that evening, in an unnoticed corner, the first mate and two other crew members boarded a lifeboat equipped with portable radio communication devices. Using a safety rope for guidance, they approached the edge of the time loop.

Outside the loop, lightning flashed and thunder roared, the wind and rain raging fiercely.

Inside the loop, the sea was calm—no wind, no rain.

The stark contrast made everyone waiting nearby instinctively hold their breath, afraid that the first mate and the two sailors might be capsized the moment the time loop failed.

Fortunately, all three were seasoned sailors with over ten years of experience at sea, their skills at handling a boat nothing short of masterful.

At 19:59:53, just like yesterday, with seven seconds to 20:00, the time loop failed.

“Quick, row! Quick!”

Seeing the “membrane” vanish with their own eyes, and the storm and towering waves surging toward them, the first mate shouted the command. Together with the two sailors, they swung their oars, cutting swiftly across the invisible boundary, braving the waves, and successfully rowing the entire lifeboat out beyond the time loop.

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