Chapter 115: Escape
After that sigh.
The entire world fell into absolute silence, with impact sounds, wind sounds, cries of alarm… everything disappeared.
Everything in this world had frozen in place, looking from afar like a massive photo, emanating an indescribable visual impact.
The massive steel cruise ship poked its head out from the thick fog, its weathered hull covered in mottled rust spots.
Under the brilliant yellow light, a few isolated figures stood before the giant wheel, like ants to an elephant, the contrast between the extremely small and the enormous making their figures appear exceptionally frail.
Zooming in, the wood chips that flew up after the floor was crushed, and the flames that burst from the shattered white paper lantern were all so clear.
Xu Zheng’s body was already airborne due to inertia, and the fierce ghost beneath him also had its limbs off the ground, about to crash head-on into the cruise ship.
At this moment, his face showed panic and shock, his eyes wide open, as if he had already foreseen his ending.
Evidently, if time advanced just one more instant, even with Zhang Qian’s obstruction, they could hardly escape the misfortune of being captured by the ghost ship.
But Xu Zheng halted mid-air in this eerie pose, neither falling nor moving forward.
Including Zhang Qian standing nearby, who now resembled a lifelike wax figure, frozen in that dragging action, deprived of the ability to move.
“I didn’t expect to still have to use this ability…”
Yue Linhai shook his head somewhat helplessly and pulled back the half-foot that had already stepped into empty air.
“Being able to save a life isn’t bad at all.”
If he hadn’t paused time, he would already have fallen into the ghost ship, and escaping then wouldn’t have been so simple.
Compared to bearing the unknown danger inside the ghost ship, Yue Linhai preferred to pay the known price.
He just didn’t know how severe the backlash would be—probably not fatal, right?
At least he hadn’t felt any obvious influence yet.
Yue Linhai couldn’t help but suspect whether this ability’s side effect was as severe as the old house owner had said.
“Was the old man just bluffing? The ghost ship is terrifying, yet it hasn’t affected me. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have panicked so much from the start.”
Confirming the current situation, Yue Linhai’s mood gradually relaxed.
In this world, he was the absolute master; even if just for an instant, it was enough for him to do many things.
Yue Linhai didn’t even know the limit of this stillness, because neither he nor the old house owner had ever reached that limit.
If he wanted, he could perhaps live forever in a still world.
However, Yue Linhai certainly wouldn’t do that, because such a world would be too boring, with no communication possible, and it could even drive him insane.
Casually swatting away the flying wood chips around him, Yue Linhai didn’t look at Zhang Qian on the edge of life and death; instead, he straightened his clothes.
His expression was very focused, as if straightening clothes was an extremely important matter, completely ignoring the ferocious broken ship nearby.
From collar to hem, from shoulder to cuffs, until there wasn’t a single wrinkle left, Yue Linhai nodded in satisfaction.
“I originally thought I only inherited the old man’s strength, but even this habit infected me—quite strange.”
However, in the face of such a massive inheritance, this bit of side effect seemed insignificant.
Wiping his glasses until they shone, Yue Linhai then turned his attention to the two men’s situation.
“Good luck. If you crashed into the ghost ship, I wouldn’t have had any way to help.”
After appreciating their predicament for a while, Yue Linhai grabbed Zhang Qian with one hand, pulling him along with Xu Zheng away from the ghost ship and sending them to the relatively intact road behind.
The next instant, time abruptly resumed flowing.
“Boom—”
The massive roar shook one’s ears, an orange-yellow light beam piercing the thick fog, inexorably enveloping downward.
But in the blank area blasted open by the white light, Zhang Qian and the others’ figures were nowhere to be seen, only a few badly damaged wooden boards teetering on the brink.
When the erroneous time normalized, this space could no longer restrain them; in an instant, they escaped through the back door left by the old house owner.
……
The scene before his eyes suddenly changed; the ghost ship, close at hand, vanished, replaced by a somewhat antique red-lacquered wooden house.
Not only that, Zhang Qian felt a stuffiness in his chest, his whole body suspended in mid-air, as if he had been knocked flying by someone.
However, the force wasn’t enough to injure him, so after reacting, he quickly adjusted his posture and landed steadily on the ground.
Somewhat soft, it seemed to be ground.
“Damn…”
Glancing sideways, Xu Zheng, released by Zhang Qian, lacked such skill; after a cry of alarm, he rolled into a messy grass patch along with the fierce ghost.
However, the colors around had returned to normal, clearly indicating they had survived and left that sea area.
“Thanks.” Zhang Qian cupped his hands toward Yue Linhai.
Leaving definitely wouldn’t have been that easy; if he wasn’t mistaken, Yue Linhai must have intervened.
But Yue Linhai had no time to bother with him.
With a casual wave, he pulled out a thick book from somewhere, flipped to a page, and buried his head in studying it.
Zhang Qian curiously walked up to him, craned his neck to look, and found that what Yue Linhai held wasn’t some profound heavenly book, but just a somewhat peculiar photo album.
The photo album was very old, its pages long yellowed by time’s corrosion, and the photos inside had a strong sense of age, all uniform black and white photos.
On the page Yue Linhai had opened, there was prominently pasted a landscape photograph.
Under dense dark clouds, a thick fog from somewhere enveloped the sea surface.
A massive ship navigated the surging sea surface, its orange-yellow searchlight piercing the thick fog straight at the photo, as if trying to influence the outside world through the photo.
Zhang Qian naturally wouldn’t find this scene unfamiliar, since he had nearly met his end there just moments ago.
Just a single photo wasn’t anything extraordinary.
But a photo that Yue Linhai cared about so much definitely wasn’t ordinary; perhaps this photo was the true appearance of that world.
To turn the entire ocean and a supernatural entity like the ghost ship into a photo—what terrifying strength must the old house owner have?
Moreover, judging by the photo album’s thickness, the number of pasted photos inside probably exceeded three digits.
After a moment of silence.
Yue Linhai’s tense body suddenly relaxed.
At the same time, within the black and white photo, the corridor that snaked along like a serpent suddenly halted.
The lanterns on it exploded one after another; in no time, they burned up completely like firecrackers.
Losing the white light’s protection, the corridor instantly disintegrated, most wooden boards directly detaching and vanishing into the ocean depths amid a series of splashing sounds.
