Chapter 734 - 90: Little Doggy
In the conference room below deck.
William fumbled with the map on the table and turned to Su Changxing, asking: "Are we still staying here? If we leave to go to the Southern Empire, I’m afraid we’ll have to detour a very long way."
Su Changxing pondered and said: "No rush, let’s stay here a bit longer."
Kasmin sat nearby, looking troubled, but she hadn’t disclosed the massacre to William and the others.
This would only add to the worries.
William nodded and asked: "What’s the situation now in Mai Lun East City? I assume many people are protesting the massacre."
Su Changxing shook his head and replied: "Not really, it seems some people don’t yet know about it."
William appeared puzzled: "Don’t know? How’s that possible?"
Su Changxing vaguely replied: "The situation is also complicated, not as we expected before. Eric somehow completely blocked the news..."
"I’m going to rest for a while first, those navy guys from East Port probably won’t come here, but you should still keep an eye out."
William patted his chest, assuring: "Don’t worry, Liu Luola, with me around, I won’t let those navies discover us."
"And we’ve been here for so long now without seeing any other ships. I assume the surrounding sea areas are all closed off."
Su Changxing got up, left, and walking down the stairs, noticed Xiaobai quietly following him, "Is there something wrong?"
Xiaobai received a response, excitedly ran over and rubbed against his shoes, displaying great affection.
Su Changxing petted Xiaobai’s head, somewhat helplessly said: "You act like we’ve known each other before, you’re quite smart though, knowing who to flatter."
Don’t be fooled by Xiaobai’s foolish appearance in front of him, in fact, it has quite a temper, often bullying other ghosts on the ship, acting all dominant, and occasionally teases the crew on the ship.
"Woof Woof!" Xiaobai barked twice enthusiastically.
"Really known each other?"
"Woof Woof!"
Su Changxing understood the meaning, rubbed his chin: "You say you know me, that’s impossible, lying will turn you into a puppy."
"Woof Woof~" Xiaobai barked twice again with the same meaning as before.
Can a dog lie?
Su Changxing thought it might be possible, this is not an ordinary dog, but a ghost dog whose age isn’t known.
But Xiaobai should have no reason to deceive him.
He is the master of this Ghost Ship and also Xiaobai’s master, there’s no benefit in cheating him.
"Woof Woof!" Xiaobai barked twice again.
Of course, Su Changxing couldn’t understand all its meanings, he could only grasp the general sense, yes or no, understanding through the changes in emotions.
He stood up and continued to walk towards the room, with Xiaobai following behind.
After walking a few steps, he stopped again, turned to look at Xiaobai, and thoughtfully said: "Wait, are you sure what you saw was me, not someone who looks similar?"
"Woof Woof!"
This is strange, he was certain he’s never met Xiaobai, but judging from Xiaobai’s behavior, it doesn’t seem to be a lie.
Could Xiaobai have seen Liu Luola before?
Su Changxing closed his eyes, feeling like he was overlooking something, something in his subconscious was misleading him, affecting his thoughts.
It’s like a deep abyss, existing in his mind, he almost has no ability to bridge it by himself.
Su Changxing opened the wooden door to the room, just as he was about to enter, Xiaobai tugged at his pants leg, pulling him back.
"What’s wrong? Is something up?"
"Woof Woof!"
Xiaobai humanely signaled Su Changxing to follow it.
"Alright then, lead the way, let’s see what you’ve got intended. You’d better have a reason, little pup."
Su Changxing followed Xiaobai down the stairs, reaching the bottom level, which can be considered a warehouse, storing some food and water.
Xiaobai led Su Changxing to the corner of the lower cabin, stopped, and pointed its paw at a wooden board on the ground, snorting twice.
"Is there something under the wooden board?"
Su Changxing noticed the wooden board was loose, seemingly it had been pried open before and then placed back.
He squatted down, extended his hand, and pulled up the board along with the nails; beneath it, there was indeed something, a vague carving that seemed to be aged for countless years.
Su Changxing froze, recognizing it was a Divine Text, identical to the one on the Rat Man sculpture, which was a circular emblem.
There was the moon, thick fog, within the fog a cloaked figure, whose appearance was unclear, holding a scythe in one hand and a fuzzy handgun in the other.
A mouse curled up at the edge of the figure’s shoes, its tail lifted by a little pup.
The pup looked exactly like Xiaobai, or it was carved according to Xiaobai’s appearance.
"What is this?"
Su Changxing’s eyes widened, his pupils trembling continuously, instinctively feeling that the target of this Divine Glyph pointed at him, and the figure within the glyph was also him.
"But why would this thing, and who carved it, was it a former owner of the Horror Ghost Ship?"
"Why would they know me, and why would they know this Divine Glyph and carve it here."
"Why does Xiaobai appear in this glyph, is it related to me?"
He carefully extracted the wooden board engraved with the glyph, cautiously examined it.
This was indeed the Divine Glyph, impossible to memorize, seen once to be forgotten.
But he couldn’t determine the authenticity of this glyph nor whether it was indeed aimed at him.
Then, he noticed an astonishing fact, the complexity of this glyph far exceeded that of Karis’s.
Su Changxing’s breathing gradually became erratic, when faced with incomprehensible things, he would think, over and over, as the mind rushed, consuming a lot of energy.
"Even if this Divine Glyph was aimed at me, I couldn’t memorize it, let alone carve it elsewhere."
He found a new dilemma arose, even if this illiterate had a name for himself, then what?
If he can’t write his own name, it’s useless.
At this point, he noticed a pop-up message from the Discount Store, vibrating continuously.
[Discovered True Name Divine Glyph for engraving]
[Estimated cost of 1 billion Points]
[Engraving in progress]
[Engraving in progress]
[Engraving in progress]
...
Su Changxing was dumbfounded, without agreeing, the Discount Store began to act on its own, as if someone helped him agree.
"1 billion, 1 billion."
He showed a pained expression, he only had a total of 1.3 billion, all stolen from others, but no matter what, they were his hard-earned Points.
He didn’t even understand what this engraving was, and 1 billion was gone.
Soon, he saw the Divine Glyph engraved on the wooden board slowly disappearing.
About 10 or more minutes passed.
[Engraving completed]
The Divine Glyph entirely disappeared from the wooden board, replaced with the True Name Divine Glyph option in the Discount Store.
Clicked open.
The glyph displayed on the phone was clearer and more complete.
He seemed to understand where the 1 billion Points went, to complete the missing parts of the glyph on the board.
After the glyph was complete, he found it even harder to discern, many things appeared blurred, more abstract.
At this point, Su Changxing noticed an image of the True Name Glyph appeared out of nowhere in his mind, aware of the overall look but unable to break it down, or understand it.
The patterns became increasingly chaotic, eventually turning into crowded, abstract lines before his eyes.
Strangely, however, he couldn’t comprehend it but could present the entire image in his consciousness.
Could not sketch it out piece by piece, could only replicate the whole image at once.
Theoretically, it was impossible for him to carve out the appearance of this glyph in reality.
Su Changxing snapped back to reality, discovered Xiaobai had already vanished, probably ran up to the deck to play.
He returned to the room through the stairs, seated himself on the hard wooden bed, and pondered over the matter of the True Name Divine Glyph.
This glyph was genuine, and indeed pointed at him, meaning he could entirely erase Karis’s True Name Glyph from the Rat Man sculpture and carve his own.
But what concerned him more was why this glyph appeared on the ship.
"Did this person anticipate I’d acquire the Horror Ghost Ship, and therefore carved the glyph onto the ship beforehand, so they might be linked to the owners of the Discount Store?"
Su Changxing patted his forehead, exhaled, and lay down on the bed, clearing his mind.
Without crucial information, some things are simply beyond thought, even a thousand or hundred times of thinking won’t reveal them.