Chapter 169

Lin Tu had just stepped into the dormitory when she saw a boy shrieking as he tumbled from the sixth bunk, a good four meters up, and plummeted toward the floor.

Thanks to her passive [Night Walker] trait, eating a blueberry in the dark granted her thirteen seconds of [Queen of the Night] effect. Lin Tu entered a state like a translucent shadow, visible only to those extremely close.

With the Queen of the Night's boost, Lin Tu shifted to the boy's side in an instant. One hand grabbed the fabric at his belly, the other reaching for a blanket on a nearby bed to cushion him—when she suddenly realized she could set him down with no effort at all.

—Her strength seemed vastly increased, or rather, she had better control over it.

Lin Tu abandoned the blanket idea and gently set the boy on the floor. The next second, the lights flickered back on with a buzzing "zzz."

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"Xiao Hang is afraid of the dark! Probably his phobia acting up again."

"Good thing Xiao Lin caught him, otherwise he'd be in the hospital with broken bones."

"Are you okay, Xiao Lin?"

People climbed down from their bunks to check on Lin Tu and Xiao Hang. Seeing them unharmed, they went to inspect their own belongings, then poked into neighboring rooms to ask what had just happened.

However, since something similar had occurred not long ago, they quickly figured it out.

"Power outage again?"

"Are you kidding? Last time it was just a second, dark then instantly bright. This time it lasted at least ten seconds!"

"Didn't they fix the circuit last time? A blackout on a spaceship is deadly—what if the basic systems lose power!"

Amid the uproar, Lin Tu stood aside, eavesdropping, silently noting the phrase "basic systems."

The couple across from her bunk finished checking their appliances and returned with grim faces: "The fridge is dead!"

"How! Is it a light issue?" Others rushed to check, and sure enough, it was out.

Each dorm had a shared fridge, and those who had visited other rooms came back with the news that it wasn't just their fridge—the others were out too.

Worse news followed: not only the fridge, but the single charging port on each bed was dead as well. They couldn't run night lights or personal appliances; they'd have to wait for the 11:30 lights-out, plunging the entire dorm into darkness.

"Is it because part of the basic systems broke?" Lin Tu tentatively asked Xiao Hang, the boy she'd just saved.

This world's aerospace technology was more advanced; her own world had no ship capable of carrying so many on interstellar journeys, and the aerospace knowledge she'd studied had no term like "basic systems."

"How could that be? The basic systems are the ship's systems and life support. If those failed, we might not even have oxygen right now," Xiao Hang said with a laugh.

Lin Tu knew he was joking, but at those words, her heart still skipped a beat.

—Don't jinx it, man!

"It's probably the circuits not fixed yet; we're on backup power now, which can only run the basic systems, not our amenities," said the man from the couple across the way, who had once worked in the power industry and knew the ins and outs. He reassured everyone, "Don't worry too much. Worst case, the food in the fridge goes bad—anything perishable, eat it tonight."

His words relaxed the group.

Seizing the moment, Lin Tu asked about the specifics of the ship.

This vessel had departed twenty years ago and was expected to reach their new home in the coming years, ending their long wanderings. That should have been cause for joy, but the recent troubles had everyone worried.

The ship was unimaginably huge, housing hundreds of thousands of people who lived on a ring-shaped structure. The ship's main body stood perpendicular to the ring's center, connected by eight thick passageways. People could pass through these into the main body and then on to other ring buildings.

There were four such ring-shaped residential structures, stacked like a multi-layer cake around the main body from bottom to top.

The residential level was on the third tier; the others were roughly storage, production and farming, and management.

The rings revolved clockwise around the main body at varying speeds, providing enough centrifugal force to create artificial gravity in zero-G space. That was also why Lin Tu, even aboard a spaceship, felt no different than being on the ground.

The main ship, not rotating, was in zero gravity, but ordinary people needn't worry—only those with special clearance were allowed to stay there long-term.

...

Lin Tu's questions were overwhelming, but Xiao Hang, grateful for her earlier rescue, answered them one by one.

Learning that power wouldn't return that night, everyone chatted while consuming the fridge's contents, helping Xiao Hang answer Lin Tu's questions. By the end, she felt she had a general grasp of the ship's layout.

The night passed pleasantly. There was a curfew, with soldiers patrolling the corridors, and Lin Tu had no urgent need to explore, so she slept soundly.

Come morning, Lin Tu followed her dormmates to the cafeteria for breakfast, only to find the fare unexpectedly lavish: beef, salmon, shrimp... fresh coldsoaked ice lettuce... berries, plums... even caviar. And critically, everything was dirt cheap.

Lin Tu didn't have much money in her account, but it was enough for a feast.

She happily ordered a meal fit for a family of three, plus a few jars of caviar to mix with rice—she'd never eaten this luxuriously. But then she noticed everyone else's dour expressions.

"Rough, isn't it? Did the storage level lose power too?" Xiao Hang murmured to Lin Tu. "Why else would they sell so cheap, like us trying to finish the fridge last night."

"That's a shame." Lin Tu paused mid-bite: So they didn't usually eat this well?

Soon, a notification arrived on the communicator watch at her wrist. As the man had said last night, the power system was malfunctioning, and some cold storage units were being shut down, so they'd cut power to all refrigerators holding short-shelf-life ingredients.

And "worse," to save electricity, Lin Tu's assembly line job was temporarily suspended.

She wasn't worried about losing wages; others were hit or not, and there was a mix of joy and sorrow.

Lin Tu, now idle, joined Kou Lin and Liu Sheng, who were also out of work, to meet up with Yi Ying, Guan Suixing, and the rest to pool their gathered intel.

The disaster brief—"A virus has invaded your ship, turning the dead into evil demons"—pointed to a zombie-like catastrophe. The players had yet to find concrete clues, but experience told them such outbreaks spread fast. Priority was stockpiling food and finding a secure refuge.

The bulk of food hoarding fell to Yi Ying, who had connections in the cafeteria; they focused on sealed goods unlikely to be contaminated. Everyone cashed in some points and, taking advantage of the "clearance sale," stocked up.

Lin Tu, jobless, quickly mapped the area around the dorms.

Lucky for their team, they'd landed close together; otherwise, they'd be in trouble. They said this ring was so vast a runner could spend three days and nights just to circle it.

Large architecture had pros and cons—more hiding spots, but also more ground to search. With no signal for the spy computer, Lin Tu had to find supply points herself.

She toured the vicinity but, given the dense population, found no ideal bolt-hole.

The players fretted about an outbreak before they found a place, yet two days passed with no incident—though patrols had noticeably increased.

Day three, dinner.

The players sat around a table eating.

"Apparently the extra patrols are because last night someone was killed in the kids' area restroom," said Lin Tu's sole informant, Xiao Hang, in a conspiratorial whisper. "Death's no big deal—with this many people, someone dies every day. But the odd part is..."

"The kid wasn't a suicide; it was murder, and he was tortured to death. They say his tongue was ripped out, ball-pit plastic balls stuffed down his throat, tied to a swing, flesh gnawed clean off, head cut off... I can't even think about it! The boy was only six! What monster could do that!"

The players shuddered, goosebumps rising.

Lin Tu recalled the disaster brief: "The evil demons crave nothing more than taking this ship, carrying the last hope, on a bloody and terrifying carnival of madness!" and couldn't help wondering—was this connected?

After all, torturing a child to death wasn't something a sane person would do. But if it were monsters, it made perfect sense.

Yet if they were monsters, how were they hiding among humans?

Lin Tu shot the other players a meaningful glance; they understood.

After Xiao Hang left, Lin Tu said, "I'll head to the kids' area after curfew to see what I can find."

Night fell.

Taking a blueberry, Lin Tu slipped past the patrols and quickly reached the children's area. Soon, Yi Ying, Luo Yongzhi, and the others arrived safely.

The area was cordoned off, but the patrol soldiers had inexplicably vanished, so they entered without trouble.

The moment they crossed the soundproofed wall, jubilant laughter poured out.

"What are we eating today? Chalk!"

"Bad kids! Bad teachers! I'll punish you with a shock baton!"

The voices were uninhibited, the laughter piercing and sinister, making Lin Tu and the others break out in goosebumps.

Lin Tu signaled for silence, tiptoed forward a couple steps, and peered in. Soldiers and some teachers were mixed together around children and adult teachers, doing who-knows-what.

Looking closer, she saw some crouched over victims, gnawing at them; others were abusing various people in myriad ways—utter chaos.

And the people on the floor, their tongues torn out, screamed with open mouths but no sound.

"Holy shit!" Even the players found it too much to bear.

Yi Ying gripped Lin Tu's arm so hard she nearly bruised it.

"Let's go," Lin Tu decided in a hushed tone.

"Heh heh."

Just as they turned to leave, a sinister laugh came from behind.