Chapter 102.1: The Destiny Unordinary Duo
The sea around Green Billow Star was vast and boundless.
In preparation for the Pirate Conference, some pirate groups had set out as early as a month in advance, or even three or four months ahead of time, following the guidance of the crystal balls and making their way in a certain direction.
Across the enormous expanse of ocean, pirate ships could be seen one after another.
And aboard each pirate ship were Blue Sea people, one after another.
Cheng Qisheng could not only see the various roles these Blue Sea residents were playing aboard the pirate ships, but also the detailed accounts they kept of the pirates’ assets.
Yes, these Blue Sea residents had even drawn up complete inventories for the pirate ships they had “parasitized.”
What supplies were aboard each pirate ship, where they were stored, how many crystals there were, how many item cards they had, and what each of those item cards did—all of it was recorded with meticulous clarity in the Blue Sea people’s ledgers.
They had learned these accounting habits from the puppeteer Ma Ruolin.
She was a Velvet Star native. Before the apocalypse struck Velvet Star, Ma Ruolin had worked as an accountant at a company.
This allowed her to calculate the accounts for “selling” Blue Sea residents both quickly and accurately, without ever making a mistake when it came time to divide up the proceeds.
After Ma Ruolin took over the sl*ve trader Qi Wen’s ship, batches of Blue Sea residents would constantly come to her, drawn by her reputation.
Some of them, after being “sold,” simply put down roots aboard their buyers’ ships and never left.
Others would come back after being “sold,” only to be “sold” a second time, then a third.
—Usually, this happened because something had occurred aboard the ship, or because the “buyer” wanted to do something to the Blue Sea residents they had purchased. Or perhaps the “buyers” did not possess the Kansidang Key, leaving the residents unable to keep up the act. In that case, they would simply turn on the buyers and kill them.
Every time Ma Ruolin received Blue Sea residents who had killed their “buyers” and returned to be “sold” again, she couldn’t help feeling like some kind of unscrupulous trafficker herself.
But regardless of how she felt about it, Ma Ruolin’s accounts remained impeccably clear.
She had a cheerful personality, and whenever she chatted with everyone, she would always say her catchphrase:
“Accounts are something you have to keep up with every day. That way, you won’t be tearing your hair out when the end of the month comes around.”
To the Blue Sea people, this catchphrase automatically became:
“Loot is something you have to keep track of every day. That way, you won’t be tearing your hair out when it’s time to haul in the net.”
A few months ago, the Blue Sea residents still had to maintain their cover with utmost care.
But as more and more of their own people joined the crews, they gradually had the time and energy to investigate the resources aboard these pirate ships.
Now, on the surface, a large number of pirate groups were still operating as usual.
In reality, the great Blue Sea Creator God had already received the master ledger.
At present, there were a total of 3,983 pirate groups that had been “occupied” by Blue Sea residents over the past five months.
Although the circumstances and crew sizes varied from pirate group to pirate group, meaning that not every pirate ship had been completely filled with Blue Sea residents, even the Blue Sea residents with the smallest number of infiltrators had successfully figured out exactly how many resources and crystals were aboard their respective pirate ships.
At this moment, Cheng Qisheng stared at the record of 4.72 million crystals in the master ledger and felt as though her eyes were about to turn into crystals themselves.
Green Billow Star! What a great place!!!
Staring at that number, Cheng Qisheng felt as though there were two little people arguing inside her head.
Little Man 1: There are 4.72 million! Why not haul in the net right now? Let’s get our hands on all the crystals we can first!
Little Man 2: Yeah! Yeah!
Cheng Qisheng took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
She casually picked a grape from the agricultural zone and, while eating it, reminded herself:
“Floating farmland. Think about the floating farmland…”
4.72 million crystals was certainly a lot, but supposedly, the floating farmland that stretched across more than half of the Kansidang territory was worth far more than those 4.72 million crystals.
Besides, if even ordinary large pirate groups were this wealthy, then Kansidang itself would naturally have even more resources and crystals.
Stay calm, Cheng Qisheng.
You already have the Replica Mask, worth 500 million crystals. Surely you can resist the temptation of a measly 4.72 million crystals.
What’s more, robbing pirates wasn’t the Blue Sea’s only way of obtaining crystals.
3,983 pirate groups might sound like a lot, but in reality, all the Blue Sea people who had infiltrated them numbered only a few million in total.
There had been 190 million Blue Sea people who left the Safe City altogether.
And they had obtained quite a lot of things, too.
Of course, with such a huge population, there were naturally residents who managed to acquire plenty of resources.
And naturally, there were also residents who weren’t quite so lucky.
…
“So where exactly are the pirates?”
Ma Yuetian stood on the top deck, squinting into the distance for a long time. Ahead of him, there was nothing but sea.
Forget pirates—there wasn’t even a single local ship in sight.
Back when Ma Yuetian and Zhu Feifan’s ship had been destroyed by a sea monster, the two of them had borrowed money from the Rush Rush Rush crystal hunting squad to buy a narrow little boat, along with a huge pile of supplies and materials.
They had sworn that they would use all kinds of resources from Green Billow Star to forcibly transform this little boat into a large ship.
Then, on Green Billow Star, they would launch their own ship-based agricultural enterprise.
Several months had passed. The two of them had diligently “fished” every day, and throughout the entire reconstruction process, they had strictly followed the Precautions for Ship Reconstruction issued by the Central AI before they left the city.
First, they laid out a large floating platform on the spot. Then they secured the hull in separate sections, widened and expanded the ship’s sides, and built houses or cabins upward from the main deck…
They had followed every single step with absolute rigor, even double-checking with each other to make sure neither of them had overlooked anything.
In the end, they completed the entire reconstruction using socks, broken door panels, rotten nails, torn fishing nets, half a piece of foam, damaged circuit boards, sealed plastic buckets, metal scraps from cans, used syringes, ruined tires, an oversized refrigerator that was half-broken, plastic bags, and drink straws—all of which they had “fished” up.
The narrow, ordinary little boat had successfully been transformed by the two of them into something that was no longer ordinary.
Anyone who saw it would absolutely never be able to say, “That’s an ordinary ship.”
Because from a distance, it now looked like a giant pile of floating garbage.
Its battered hull, covered in “patches” everywhere, looked like a sheet of plastic that had been gnawed on by a sea monster. The broken material flapped wildly outward over the “windows” with every gust of wind.
The walls were a patchwork of this and that, with tire rubber used to seal the gaps around the doors against the wind. For insulation, they mostly used discarded cardboard boxes. In some places, they simply didn’t have enough cardboard, so the two of them had actually stuffed a small sea monster of just the right width into the wall cavity.
The only place on the entire ship that could be considered clean and tidy was the top deck.
That was because it was the only place where they had spread out a large piece of sea monster hide, a full three meters long when unfolded. It was surprisingly comfortable to sit on.
At this point, someone might wonder:
Why hadn’t they put such a good piece of sea monster hide inside one of the rooms? Why put it on the upper deck instead?
Because the sea monster hide was poisonous.
Only when it was left on the upper deck and constantly exposed to the sea breeze would it not poison people. Once it was placed inside an enclosed space, it would take less than five minutes for someone to start hallucinating.
Of course, since the hide was poisonous, the meat was poisonous too.
So after the two of them killed that rather large sea monster, they got nothing from it except this piece of hide.
Thinking about this, Ma Yuetian was overcome with sorrow.
Unwilling to give up, she spun around on the spot in a full 360-degree circle, like an owl.
Nothing!
Still nothing!
Ever since they parted ways with the Rush Rush Rush back then, their Destiny Unordinary had not encountered a single other ship.
Ma Yuetian now understood perfectly why the locals they had met aboard the Rush Rush Rush had been so excited when they saw all the supplies on the ship.
Who was it that said Green Billow Star was overflowing with resources?!!
Ma Yuetian and Zhu Feifan were practically eating three days out of every five by now, and the most outrageous part was that they could barely fish up any materials such as wood or discarded door panels!
Which meant that the two of them, without any electrical equipment, couldn’t even start a fire to cook!
At first, Ma Yuetian had hoped they would be able to fish up more everyday necessities.
They couldn’t.
Later, Ma Yuetian started hoping that maybe they could at least encounter some more sea monsters. Even if they didn’t have crystals, they could still eat sea monster meat.
But over the course of several months, the two of them had encountered only two large sea monsters, and both had been poisonous, crystal-less varieties that couldn’t be eaten. They had barely seen any medium-sized sea monsters at all. As for small ones, there were some, but either they couldn’t be eaten, or they were so tiny that there wasn’t even enough meat for a single meal.
Now, Ma Yuetian had completely snapped.
All she wanted was to see a pirate ship.
Then she would charge aboard and rob the robbers.
But there was nothing!!!!
Where were all those supposedly numerous pirates on Green Billow Star?!
Oh, Great God!
How on earth had the locals survived here?!
—Knock knock.
The sound of someone tapping on a bottle came from below. Since they no longer had any materials to make a door, Ma Yuetian had hung up a broken bottle and was treating it as a doorbell.
She crawled across the sea monster hide and poked her head over the edge to look down.
Even a garbage ship had its advantages. For example, since their Destiny Unordinary was cobbled together from pieces everywhere, there were inevitably gaps where the sections didn’t quite connect. This gave the ship surprisingly good visibility.
For instance, right now, Ma Yuetian could look through one of the little gaps and lock eyes with her teammate Zhu Feifan below.
Very convenient.
Zhu Feifan was also half lying on the “floor” made of plastic bottles, speaking weakly.
“Sis Tian, I really can’t hold out anymore. I haven’t managed to fish up a single fish in three days. Do you think it’s possible that I awakened a supernatural ability called Bad Luck?”
Ma Yuetian had already awakened a supernatural ability, one related to water.
So if either of the two really had Bad Luck, it was definitely Zhu Feifan.
Ma Yuetian said, “Don’t think of yourself that way. You have to believe that this is a test from our great God.”
“We’re this unlucky right now so that we’re saving it all up to welcome even greater luck!”
Mentioning the great God did indeed perk Zhu Feifan up a little.
If it were simply a matter of being unlucky, then yes, it was pretty depressing.
But if all of this was a test from their God, he instantly felt like he could keep going.
“Oh, Great God! Thank you for your trials!”
Zhu Feifan no longer felt miserable or discouraged. He even took the initiative to ask for a greater challenge.
“Please forgive me for complaining just now. Your devout believer is ready to face even more trials!”
Cheng Qisheng, who had just shifted her attention to the two of them: “…”
Don’t say things like that.
Who was testing you?!
She looked at Ma Yuetian again, and sure enough, she too had the expression of someone thinking, A little hunger is nothing. I can go another three or five days without food.
The great Blue Sea Creator God couldn’t help but rub her forehead.
They were already this hungry, yet they were still forcing themselves to endure.
It was only because they were Old Eighths with such sturdy constitutions. If they were Velvet Star natives or Dazzling Star natives, they would have been done for after three days without food.
Cheng Qisheng decided to try using her bird’s-eye view to find an area with plenty of prey for them.
But after scanning the surrounding area, she couldn’t find any particularly active sea monsters, even from above.
In fact, from the surface of the sea, there weren’t even any schools of fish passing by.
This situation was clearly abnormal.
But right now, the most important thing was to save the two starving Old Eighths.
Forget it. She’d find them some reinforcements instead.
Cheng Qisheng sensed for the nearest believers to the two of them. Even if they came flying, it would take at least a month for them to arrive.
The great Blue Sea Creator God fell silent.
She began trying to remember whether there had ever been a case of an Old Eighth going a month and three days without food and still surviving.
While Cheng Qisheng was still frowning and pondering what to do, the two people in question had already bounced back to life, happily energetic once more.
“Come on, come on, let’s keep fishing!!”
“I’ll use my ability to produce some more water for us to drink. If we get hungry, we’ll just drink water.”
“Or we could break open the sea monster bones we’ve collected and eat the marrow inside. We can grind the bones into powder, too. It’ll give us some calcium!”
The two of them immediately got to work, dragging out a huge pile of white bones.
They were all leftovers from the small sea monsters they’d eaten.
What? Why had they kept the bones after eating the meat?
Well, wasn’t it because the two of them couldn’t fish up anything useful?
Clean, varied in shape, and capable of being used as oars, windbreaks, or even beds, the bones were actually some of the higher-quality items in their storage.
Even if they had no immediate use for them, hanging them up still looked better than hanging up a pile of flattened plastic bottles, right?
Ma Yuetian picked out a piece of bone about the size of her palm.
“Let’s eat this one today.”
Then she picked out a small-leg-sized, grotesquely shaped sea monster skull.
“Tomorrow, we’ll eat this.”
Zhu Feifan picked up a fang that was as long as a human arm and still had barbs along it.
It had been left behind by the sea monster that had destroyed their first ship.
“Can we eat the tooth?”
Ma Yuetian thought about it.
“Probably not?”
“Besides, let’s save this one for last. You forgot? We couldn’t beat it. Keeping this tooth around will remind us of the lesson we learned and help us never forget our original goal.”
Zhu Feifan felt that made perfect sense.
Right.
Green Billow Star was enormous, but what if they encountered that sea monster again someday?
That was the first time in Zhu Feifan’s life, as someone with a fear of blood, that he had directly fought a living creature to the death.
The sensation of the creature’s green blood splattering across his face, the tremendous force with which it struggled, and the pain of its scales scraping across his arm were all sensations Zhu Feifan had never experienced before.
Every night, he would relive that battle in his mind.
Uncontrollably, he would picture the round, chubby face of that more-than-ten-meter-long sea monster that looked like it would be absolutely delicious; the thick, healthy shell on its back, like a sea turtle’s; its long, sharp claws; and those forelimbs that looked like they would make a wonderful stew…
The more Zhu Feifan thought about it, the hungrier he became, until he was practically delirious with hunger. For some reason, that green blood became especially vivid in his mind.
Cheng Qisheng had just issued a divine oracle summoning the nearest residents to come to their rescue. When she looked down, she saw the kid staring blankly ahead, clearly on the verge of passing out from hunger.
The great Blue Sea Creator God: “…”
She hurriedly bestowed a blessing on him.
Normally, blessings were useful. But for some reason, after Cheng Qisheng bestowed her blessing this time, Zhu Feifan visibly became even more dazed.
Ma Yuetian was startled and quickly caught him.
“What happened? What happened?”
Zhu Feifan struggled to squeeze out a word.
“Dizzy…”
“From hunger?” Ma Yuetian asked incredulously. “You’ve only been hungry for three days and you’re already done for? How about—how about you take a couple bites of that sea monster hide? If you get poisoned and start hallucinating, I’ll drag you back to the temple and get a priest!”
“N-no…” Zhu Feifan’s speech was already beginning to slur. “I-it’s… dizzy… from bl-blood…”
“I-I… got… dizzy from blood… Our God blessed me… Thank you, Great God.”
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
As expected of an Old Eighth. Even though he could barely articulate the other words because of his slurred speech, he had still insisted on pronouncing the four words “Thank you, Great God” loud and clear.
Ma Yuetian instinctively looked around in every direction, holding Zhu Feifan as she fell into confusion.
First of all:
“Thank you, Great God!”
Then: “You’re dizzy from blood? Where’s there any blood here? We haven’t even seen a living thing in three days!”
Zhu Feifan looked like he was about to cry. “I… imagined that sea monster’s blood… It smells so good… ‘slurp’.”
Ma Yuetian: “…”
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
The great Blue Sea Creator God decided to urge the residents coming to their rescue to hurry up as much as possible.
This was the first time she had ever seen an Old Eighth get so hungry that he went stupid.
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