Chapter 98

Watching Malin En hurry upstairs to report the situation, Lin Tu extinguished the match and returned to her room, her heart heavy.

But that brief heaviness soon turned to ashes. Within minutes, the man from her surveillance feed was carried away by the military, his body unseen by anyone except her and Malin En. Following orders, the cleaners wiped the area spotless, even spraying alcohol and air freshener.

The screen, clean again, reminded Lin Tu of her empty stomach. She looked at the now-cold luosifen, reheated it, and continued watching her show while slurping the noodles. The second boil made the noodles even more flavorful, but remembering the moment she'd lost her appetite, she resolved not to watch the surveillance while eating next time—unless it was an emergency.

Disasters never cease, and neither does life. Though the plague lurked just beyond her walls, Lin Tu felt that no difficulty—plague or worldly catastrophe—could disrupt her leisurely, laid-back retirement, day after day, year after year.

After all, she'd taken most of her life to learn this truth: if you're not lying down waiting for death, are you going to stand around waiting for it?!

She wondered how Malin En was faring with the official-bamboozling lines she'd taught her. Had she gotten the message across? If possible, Lin Tu hoped the authorities would take action. She wanted the ship not to fall apart too quickly—at least to reach its destination safely, and for the people on board to see a few more days of sunlight.

Meanwhile, Malin En—

"What Miss Lin said is absolutely true!" After reporting the situation, she rushed to find her daughter and recounted everything that had just happened, then tried to repeat Lin Tu's words. "She said our ship right now is Schrödinger's ship—maybe it's made of paper, maybe not. If we don't open the box and work hard to make everyone believe the ship isn't made of paper, then even if it is, it can still keep sailing. But if we open the box and see the paper model, the whole ship will collapse in an instant."

Malin En's daughter, Mamira, was sharp. "So Miss Lin told you to lie when you report—say the ship is sturdy, that there are no infected people on board. Just mention that you saw a source of plague, but don't say anyone came into contact with it, or even say no one did. Just get the authorities to handle the plague source as soon as possible?"

"Of course!" Malin En said optimistically. "Even if they knew, they wouldn't do anything, so better they don't know! It's terrifying—Ian probably caught the plague! And he kept insisting it was just the flu, saying he'd take medicine and definitely get better. Ha! I must be crazy too, seeing how he refuses to give up—maybe he really will pull through!"

The plague had a high mortality rate, but it wasn't always fatal. What truly killed people was what accompanied it: hunger, bacterial diseases from plague rats, or plain despair and self-abandonment.

Mamira thought of Ian, smiled faintly, then sighed. "Mom, I'm not going to school anymore. That money should go straight to buying food, masks, and medicine—the more, the better. You really shouldn't put my education above stocking up supplies for yourself."

"Absolutely not!" Malin En refused immediately. She worked so hard every day, even living in a toilet cubicle, just so her daughter could one day eat with her skills instead of hard labor. "You go to school. Why do you worry about me? I've been like this for years; I'm used to it."

Mamira shook her head. "Mom, I already have enough knowledge. I just lack a diploma. But in times like these, what use is a diploma?"

Seeing Malin En fall silent, she sighed again. Her mother could be stubborn to the point of terror on this subject. "You believe knowledge is useful. So what if my knowledge says we should spend this money on supplies instead of a diploma? Let me ask you a question: there's a theory in finance called loss aversion. Suppose you have two choices: one, get one million yuan for free; two, a 50% chance of getting two million and a 50% chance of losing two million. Which would you choose, Mom?"

Malin En, trying to persuade her daughter, thought carefully and answered, "I'd take the first one—one million for free."

"Exactly. For the people on the upper decks, going all out to deal with a plague source that only we would come into contact with would likely get them nothing, and might even cost them manpower and resources," Mamira continued. "There's another capital-market concept: short-sightedness. Suppose you already have one million. Now you're making an investment. Option one: invest in real estate, and after a year you get 1.5 million. Option two: invest in manufacturing—the first two years might break even or even lose money, and only after two years might you see a profit of 1.1 million, at most 1.3 million. Which would you choose, Mom?"

Seeing the smile at the corner of her daughter's lips, Malin En felt an unease growing within her, but she still answered honestly, "The first."

"But Mom, you know that investing in real estate isn't good for ordinary people," Mamira said. "Dealing with the plague is like investing in real manufacturing—time-consuming, labor-intensive, and not necessarily rewarding."

Malin En opened her mouth, but no words came out.

"Besides, I learned something from a careless boast by a classmate," Mamira sighed. "They have a backup ship—smaller, but enough to keep their group alive for half a year. Whenever the time is right, they can abandon us and leave. To them, Mom, we've always been just tools. A diploma is just proof that I'm a higher-grade tool."

Three days passed. Lin Tu occasionally checked the surveillance, but mostly had the butler keep an eye on it. She was looking forward to Malin En's report spurring the authorities into action.

Unfortunately, she was disappointed. On the monitors, the passengers' infection levels were rising every day, and faster each day.

At 30% infection, obvious physical symptoms appeared, and the chance of falling ill increased significantly. At 60%, the body would break out in pus-filled sores and ulcers; what was worrying was that this stage could trigger a degree of mutation—just like the plague rats—developing a taste for human flesh. And at 90%... no one had reached that yet, but Lin Tu believed the system's classification of 90% infection as a monster wasn't unfounded.

She couldn't help feeling like she was born in a gu-raising ground, waiting for the king of gu to emerge. It stirred a sense of crisis, and she thought of several solutions, one being cremating the bodies. When she called the front desk to ask, she learned that in most of this world, which was near the sea, throwing bodies into the ocean was a traditional custom. Cremation was like stuffing ashes into fireworks and setting them off...

Lin Tu: Setting off fireworks for the living is better than setting them off for the dead, right?

Of course, that was just an aside. For Lin Tu, the priority was to reduce her chances of infection, leave the ship if necessary, and help others when she could while keeping herself safe. Even so, the survival crisis lingered.

Fortunately, at that moment, the metal dandelion Xiao Hei's first "child" was born—or more accurately, it was Xiao Hei's clone, sharing thoughts, senses, and more.

Lin Tu couldn't access the first deck or the Open Deck. She'd wanted Xiao Hei to scout around, but with so few of them now—only two brain cells' worth—they couldn't handle anything too complex. So, under cover of night, Lin Tu sent Xiao Hei to collect a drop of water from the reservoir to test the contamination level.

Just as she was waiting for Xiao Hei's return, Lin Tu felt a violent emotional surge from it. Though it couldn't convey what had happened, Lin Tu immediately knew something was wrong—right outside her door!

She whipped open the surveillance feed and saw a hunched figure wandering the corridor.

He wore pajamas, and the body beneath them could barely stand. His messy, damp hair swung stiffly with his movements, and strange, thick drops of liquid crawled sluggishly down his hair, his fingers, his soles, leaving viscous stains on the pale yellow carpet.

"Thud... wheeze... thud... wheeze..." He swayed side to side, bumping into the walls and letting out heavy breaths.

It was then that Lin Tu realized why his back was so curved: a pus sac on his neck, only slightly smaller than his head, was throwing off his balance and making it hard to breathe. As the man staggered toward her door, Lin Tu cursed inwardly and instinctively pulled out her phone to check his infection level.

"Hey! Keep it down! What are you doing up at this hour? Don't bother my sleep!" Just then, a door behind the man opened.

A man stuck his head out and angrily harangued him.

When the hunched man didn't respond, the man stepped out of his room. In a few strides, he reached the other man and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Brother, you..." He started to speak, but the texture under his palm felt wrong—

Like freshly washed hair, but sticky—not like pure water or shampoo. Maybe he hadn't rinsed out the conditioner?

He looked closer and realized the stuff on the man's shoulder wasn't water at all—it was pus and blood streaked through the oozing sores.

"What the hell..." The man's whole body trembled.

Lin Tu saw the infection level had reached 72%! She was about to warn him to run when the man, stimulated by the touch, snapped some hidden switch. He spun around with inhuman speed and slammed the other man to the ground.

The huge pus sac on his neck burst with a wet pop, releasing a nauseating, rotten stench that filled the entire corridor.