Chapter 281 - 281 One hundred thirty-eight

Words : 1317 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

281: One hundred thirty-eight. Childhood period 281: One hundred thirty-eight. Childhood period A shadow silently passed by Lu Li. It seemed to be holding something, silently approached the ship’s side, and threw it into the sea. A shadow silently passed by Lu Li. It headed toward the cabin, passed through the Captain’s Cabin door, and disappeared behind it. A shadow silently passed by Lu Li. It leaned against the wooden boards next to the cabin, stole a moment of laziness, and was called away by another shadow. Two shadows gathered a few meters away from Lu Li on the deck, stood motionlessly for a while, then left one after another. They methodically repeated their actions from when they were alive, on a sailboat covered in dark substance in the deep, gloomy sea. They moved around mysteriously and maintained a mysterious silence. Lu Li blended in, maintaining his “sailor” identity and “deck cleaning” work without any shadows bothering him. This situation lasted for an hour, while Lu Li just stood in front of the cabin, continuously repeating the action of dragging the mop, occasionally stopping to rest against the wooden boards by the cabin. Although he didn’t need to rest, maintaining his sailor identity was important. Two hours until dawn. After another dozen minutes, Lu Li, observing the deck with peripheral vision, noticed another shadow heading in this direction... or rather, heading towards him. Unlike the approach of other shadows, this one seemed to be targeting Lu Li. After pretending to move back and forth a few times, Lu Li confirmed this. This shadow was approaching him. Lu Li was not yet ready to deal with them. After hesitating briefly, Lu Li maintained his bending posture to drag the deck, facing the shadow, retreating back to the cabin. The sound of the surrounding waves changed to coming from in front of him, and the fishy sea breeze poured into the cabin as Lu Li retreated into it. The approaching shadow halted in front of the cabin without entering. It eerily stood there for a while, then turned and left. Its target was indeed him. Watching the shadow leave, the pretending-to-sweep Lu Li straightened up, frowning as he looked. Looking at and contacting them won’t reduce the Sanity Value, and looking at and contacting them won’t warp one’s thoughts either. Other than looking like shadows, they seemed to pose no danger — but it was precisely this that made the situation eerily unsettling. The enemy is most dangerous when their unknown aspects remain. Lu Li was able to face these strange shadows calmly because he had figured out their logic. The shadows had this logic too, but now this logic was changing. Hopefully, it was just an anomaly. Lu Li thought, and walked towards the deck again, bending down near it, pretending to sweep the floor again. He could no longer find the shadow that had approached him just now, except for the captain with a recognizable captain’s hat and a crew member missing an arm; most of them looked the same. Even if he noted their distinctive features, Lu Li could only differentiate a few of them. Peace returned, but only for a dozen minutes, when another shadow approached Lu Li — and it was not the one that had come before. Just like before, Lu Li retreated back into the cabin. With peripheral vision, he watched the shadow circle in front of the cabin before walking away. Was there a problem somewhere... Once could be considered a coincidence, but twice was a stretch, especially on this eerie sailboat. Thinking, he returned to the deck, and unsurprisingly, he couldn’t find that shadow anymore. A few minutes later... a third shadow approached Lu Li. Lu Li had to duck back into the cabin again, waiting for the shadow lingering outside the cabin to leave. They were coming more frequently, but Lu Li had not found the root of the problem. Perhaps it was because he stayed in one place for too long? So, after going out, Lu Li expanded the “cleaning” area, approaching the ship’s side. This was futile. Less than five minutes had passed when another shadow approached Lu Li. The intervals between the arrivals of the shadows were getting shorter and shorter as if they had sensed something. Yet, they were supposedly just maintaining a scene once common on this ship. The only relief was that they didn’t venture into the cabin. After Lu Li returned to the cabin, the shadows no longer pursued him. But for now, Lu Li could no longer go to the deck. It was foreseeable that the time would continue to decrease until a certain point was reached, and then a horrific change would occur. Lu Li would not just sit by and let that happen. He stayed temporarily in the cabin, shifting his focus from “why the shadows are approaching me” to “what are the intentions of the shadows approaching me”. Realizing he was an outsider and rushing into the cabin were two possibilities that Lu Li thought of. Unfortunately, Lu Li could not analyze any useful clues from these possibilities. The eyeballs on the vine-covered walls looked towards the corridors in various places, some resting on Lu Li without any malice. Compared to the eerie deck, this place indeed made Lu Li unconsciously relax. Lu Li silently gazed outside the cabin at the deck, where the shadows of the crew occasionally passed. This scene lasted for a while until suddenly, at one moment, the shadows on the deck outside the cabin congregated from all directions. Lu Li frowned and moved closer to the edge of the cabin. Not far on the deck, the shadows reformed into three rows, with a space in the second position of the first row. The captain’s shadow stood alone in front of all the shadows. Everything was as Lu Li had first seen it. Lu Li thought of something, and he stepped out of the cabin, turned around the deck, and went up to the Captain’s Cabin. Directly pushing open the pried door, Lu Li wiped the black substance covering the last “Black Tide” from the clock’s glass, revealing the current time: 3:55. It had been two hours since the last “Black Tide.” According to the strange actions of the shadows and the time intervals... The next “Black Tide” was imminent. Lu Li faced a choice. Hide in the cabin or stand in the line. He had to choose one action between these two. No matter how one looked at it, hiding in the cabin was the safest option, where no one would harm Lu Li, and he had even gained quite a few favorable impressions from the strange shadows— but Lu Li felt uneasy. He felt something less than wonderful would happen if he went back to the cabin and hid there from the “Black Tide.” Lu Li had no premonitions and never relied on premonitions. Such emotions typically did not surface, and if they did, they were quickly suppressed by strong emotional control. But that was before, things had changed now. Science was no longer the only possibility, and logic had become optional. In such circumstances, trusting a premonition became a very rational act. First, he approached the lineup and if there was a problem, he would flee to the cabin as fast as possible. Lu Li thought and left the Captain’s Cabin heading back to the deck. The lineup maintained an eerie silence, and Lu Li approached it from the back, mentally calculating the approximate time until the “Black Tide” arrived. Moving from the back to the side, the shadows did not react to Lu Li’s arrival. But at that moment, Lu Li suddenly stopped in his tracks. His position had been taken by a shadow. Or rather, the previously vacant position now hosted an extra shadow.

Chapter 281 - 281 One hundred thirty-eight

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