Chapter 214: The Mysterious Ship
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
"Boom! Crackle!" A bolt of lightning struck down, and the sound of wooden floorboards being torn apart by the lightning rang out.
Almost at the same instant, eight men rushed out from the cabin. Only Mo Wuji and the young girl did not move. While the girl did not walk anywhere, she stood up, an indication that her cultivation wasn’t very high.
The reason that Mo Wuji did not move was because he had already swept the exterior with his spiritual will, and confirmed that the lightning broke the deck of the ship. However, only a small crack formed, which would not cause the ship to sink immediately. It would be able to hold out for a little longer. In his heart, Mo Wuji couldn’t help but sigh. Encountering a ship was such a rare occurrence, but it seemed as though he could not stay on this ship for much longer.
Seeing that Mo Wuji remained stationary, the girl hesitated for a moment before sitting down once again. Even though she had lowered her head quickly after sneaking a peek at Mo Wuji, none of her actions escaped his observation. The young girl’s face had many bumps and craters on it, which did not seem like the result of disfigurement, so she probably was born this way.
The eight men that ran out returned as quickly as they left. They had analysed the situation outside, and although the deck had cracked open, the ship would be able to hold on for now.
Through their actions so far, Mo Wuji could feel the strength that they possessed. The monk and blacked faced man were at least above Transcending Mortality Stage Level 6, and the two men and one woman who were drinking were all in Transcending Mortality Stage too. As for the couple sitting by the door, the man should have just advanced into Transcending Mortality Stage, while the woman was likely still in Spirit Building Stage.
The only person that Mo Wuji could not evaluate was the elder that with the young girl. His cultivation level was a little unusual.
"Brother, why didn’t you go out to take a look just now?" As Mo Wuji did not make a move since he came in, and did not even go out to check on the ship even after the near capsize situation, the woman sitting by the door asked cautiously.
"Yanyan…" When her husband heard that she questioned Mo Wuji, a stranger, in such a manner, he softly called out to her, and tugged at her hand.
Mo Wuji did not really put this matter at heart, as he had a rather good impression of this woman. While this woman had said that the few mortal sailors were not worth saving, her recent question reflected that she was a kind person deep down. On the other hand, the man was a little too uptight and cautious, seemingly a little cowardly too.
Who knew what were a couple doing out here either? The sea was lacking in spiritual energy, and definitely would not have anything good in it.
"My friend, I’m very sorry, my wife doesn’t know how things are run around here." The man apologised to Mo Wuji.
With a smile, Mo Wuji replied, "It’s nothing much. I’m just quite slow, so by the time I was ready to go up, all of you had came back in already."
"Ha ha! Your words make it seem as though as we all fear death. But you’re right, regardless whether we go out to take a look or not, the ship will have to roll when it has to roll. So there’s no use in seeing what’s going on outside." The black faced man laughed as he agreed with what Mo Wuji said.
However, Mo Wuji’s spiritual will had detected that the waves had broken a hole in the hull of the ship, which meant that it would only last another few minutes in the water.
The rather impatient Mo Wuji stood up, pat his hands and said, "I just heard the sound of something hitting the ship. I’ll go take a look." Before this, when everyone went out while Mo Wuji didn’t, the ship was still in decent shape, but now that even Mo Wuji had stood up to go take a look, the rest of the passengers began to suspect if something big had happened.
The girl named Yanyan stood up too, "Brother Xuan, let’s go take a look too."
Although the man was wary, but he dared not take his chances for such a thing. Once the woman spoke, he immediately shot up, and walked to the outer deck with her.
When both of them saw that the hull had cracked open and seawater was slowly seeping in, they were stunned momentarily. Regardless cultivator or mortal, in the endless ocean, as long as one could not navigate their way through, one would die sooner or later.
"Brother Xuan, what do we do now?" Yanyan’s face turned extremely pale.
At this moment, footsteps could be heard from behind, as the rest of the passengers in the cabin came out. Their expressions completely changed once they saw that the ship was about to sink into the ocean.
"Everyone look, there’s a ship approaching…" A shout of surprise made everyone excited.
The first one to spot the ship was the woman who was part of the trio drinking alcohol in the cabin, and she pointed in the distance energetically.
"There’s really a ship…" Everyone present was able to clearly see the silhouette of a ship sailing towards them.
Mo Wuji also saw the ship, which was over 10 times larger than the one they were on. It was practically a giant.
The ship was at least hundreds of meters long, and almost a hundred meters wide. Even though there was still a significant distance between them and the other ship, Mo Wuji could still clearly see the spacious and clean deck. There were no rubbish or cracks. Only traces of rainwater were on it. But what puzzled Mo Wuji was that he did not see a single person on the ship either.
In the raging storm, both ships slowly approached one another.
"Bang! Crack!" Another gigantic wave smashed onto their ship once again, causing it to completely break apart. The ship’s hull listed, and sea water started gushing in wildly.
One by one everyone onboard the sinking vessel leapt tens of meters to reach the giant ship. However, Mo Wuji did not make a move, as he suddenly realised that the situation was rather weird. It was like someone delivered pillows just as they were about to doze off, and the pillows fell right beneath their heads.
The giant ship was the pillows, and just as their ship was about to sink, this new ship emerged out of nowhere. On top of that, the direction that the new ship was travelling in was impeccable.
"Quickly board the ship, that ship is about to sink." Yanyan frantically shouted as she saw that Mo Wuji remained stationary.
Mo Wuji knew that no matter how mysterious it was, he had to board the giant ship. By then, the giant ship had already closed in on the sinking ship Mo Wuji was on, and with a small jump, he was aboard the giant vessel.
The moment he reached the giant ship, his spiritual will instantly enveloped every corner of it, and soon Mo Wuji was shocked to realise that not only were there no one on the outer deck, it was the same inside. Most of the ship’s cabins were empty, and there were many food supplies in the kitchen.
Where did the people on the ship go?
The propulsion and steering equipment was quickly located by Mo Wuji, and to his surprise, the ship used an array disk controlled sail. Array disks were very simplistic and could not even be considered as a basic array, so he could take over the ship with ease.
While Mo Wuji was inspecting the large ship, the other nine people were doing the same. The weird situation on board had been discovered by everyone, and the nine of them stood on the outer deck and did not enter the ship, just like what Mo Wuji was doing.
"Is there anyone here? Our ship was wrecked at sea, and we would like to seek refuge on your ship for a while." It was still the middle aged man that stepped up to speak, and he bowed respectfully at the ship while shouting out loud.
He projected his voice at full force with his elemental energy, so no matter how large the ship was, it should have reached every corner of it. But after the man finished his sentence, a shroud of silence descended on the ship once again, and not a sound could be heard.
Mo Wuji knew that there would definitely be no reply, as there was no one in the ship at all. An empty ship which was this clean and tidy, even with food inside. This made Mo Wuji get the heebie jeebies.
"My fellow friends, we’ve gathered here because of trouble at sea, so I feel that we should be cooperating to tide through these difficult times. I’ll introduce myself first, I’m Jiang Xiapeng, and these two are Meng Zhi and Qi Susu." The middle aged man immediately turned around to greet everyone respectfully after realising that no one would reply to his shouting.
Hearing Jiang Xiapeng say such a thing, Mo Wuji knew that everyone was like him, and had boarded the ship unexpectedly. It seemed like no one knew each other before going aboard the ship.
The monk reported a buddhist name, before saying, "Everyone can call me Old Monk Na Xiao. Old Na likes laughing the most, and also likes to joke around. While this is nothing significant, when everyone is tired, I can at least say a few jokes."
The whole group was dumbfounded, as this was the first time that the monk had spoken up till now, so how exactly did he show any interest in laughter and jokes? Perhaps these sentences of his were also a joke in itself.
Following him, the black faced man spoke in a forthright manner, "I’m Pu Qian, a rogue cultivator. Just now what brother Jiang said was right. In times like this, everyone should band together. I don’t have any conspiracies or schemes, but I do have some strength that I can contribute."
"I am Qi Wenxuan, and this is my wife Zhuang Yan. As long as there’s something that we can help with, we’ll definitely not shy away from it." The young man frantically reported.
After the young man finished speaking, the elder bowed respectfully and said in a raspy voice, "Old man Qiao is a useless person. I barely escaped with my life, but as long as brother Jiang has a task for me, I will not fall behind on it."
"My friend, please tell us your name, so that we may refer to you easily." Seeing that this old man did not volunteer his name, Jiang Xiapeng asked again.
"Just call me old Qiao Gouzi. My granddaughter is Cu Tanzi, which is probably much easier to remember." With a smile, the old man replied.
Qiao Gouzi and Cu Tanzi, Mo Wuji thought to himself, indeed they have walked far and saw much. Those two names were really easy to remember.
As Jiang Xiapeng’s gaze fell on him, Mo Wuji bowed respectfully, "I am a rogue cultivator. Call me Mo Wuji."
Xia Jiangpeng slightly frowned, as Mo Wuji did not make his position known, which made him a little unhappy. Even though it seemed like Mo Wuji had a low level of cultivation, but he somehow felt that Mo Wuji was not someone to mess with. So while Mo Wuji did not present himself well, he did not have much to say.
"My friends, the situation on board this ship is extremely weird, and there’s not even a single person inside right now. My suggestion is that everyone searches this whole ship from top to bottom, then we’ll make a conclusion from there." After obtaining everyone’s initial recognition, Jiang Xiapeng spoke his mind.
His idea garnered the support of the whole group, hence although Mo Wuji did not want to do such a meaningless act, he could only agree since everyone had already done so.
There were many cabins in the ship, and most of them appeared clean and spacious after entering them.
As everyone inspected the ship, Mo Wuji always stood at the back, because he had already checked through all these places with his spiritual will earlier.
An hour later, everyone arrived at the kitchen. Before entering, Mo Wuji had swept through the entire kitchen with his spiritual will, and everything seemed normal, with stuff like firewood, rice, oil and salt being present. He believed that everyone else would have the same sentiments as him after seeing these things, but from behind he observed the woman named Cu Tanzi frowning. She even took a few steps back intentionally.