This Damned Thirst for Survival

Ge Zhu gulped and exchanged a glance with Ye Xun, “How do we blow it up? If the boat blows up, the blood eels will still survive in the water, but we won’t.”

“I may not have phrased it quite right,” Jiang Luo smiled broadly, word for word, “I mean, blow up the ship and the bloody eels, together.”

Without waiting for a reaction from the other seven, Jiang Luo said enthusiastically, “This ship is full of blood eel eggs and fry, and if any of the females escape, the consequences would be unthinkable. This boat is a nest where the males lay their eggs for the females, and you know what’s in the bilge.”

“There are dozens of fry in the belly of each victim, and if left unattended, those fry will sooner or later break out of their shells. The easiest way is for the ordinary people to escape in the lifeboats before nightfall, and for us to prepare a lifeboat for ourselves. When night falls, after killing the female blood eels we escape to the bilge, lure all the males to the bilge and lock the doors, blow up the bilge and destroy the ship completely.”

Lu Youyi’s jaw dropped, but Wen Renlian was already thinking about the possibility of blowing up the ship, “The Angonese is so large that it would take at least two hours between blowing up the bilges and the whole ship going overboard, giving us time to escape the vortex.”

“Are you really going to blow up?” Sai Liaoer drew in a cold breath, “Not waiting for the police to come?”

Jiang Luo straightened his expression, “By rights, we should wait for them to come. But,” he paused, pointed to the three hundred and twenty crew photos on the wall and asked seriously in return, “if there are three hundred and twenty males on this boat, countless fry and eggs, how many police officers do you think would have to come to catch them all without fail?”

The easiest and most powerful way to deal with blood eels is the method described by Jiang Luo.

Ge Zhu let out a bitter smile, his face rising with a faint melancholy, “Even if we wait until the police come, if we don’t destroy these fish, I’m sure some people will be deluded by its ‘longevity and youthfulness’ effect, not knowing what big mistake it will cause. There is no one who does not aspire to longevity, no one who does not aspire to be young and permanent.”

Zhuo Zhongqiu took the picture off the wall and said firmly, “Then let’s blow it up.”

Wen Renlian smiled at Jiang Luo: “Well, I also vote for the bombing of the ship.”

Kuang Zheng silently raises his hand.

Lu Youyi suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted in excitement, “Bomb! I’m not a human being if I don’t blow up! I’ve never bombed a ship this big in my life!”

“We’re not like you,” Ge Zhu joked, “we’ve never blown up a boat before.”

Jiang Luo was equally excited by this suggestion. He found a pen and paper in the room and wrote as he said, “Blood eels don’t have good eyes, so we roll on the goo and take everyone to lower the lifeboats, telling them not to wear shoes or bring anything that makes easy noise, including keys, jewellery and so on. After we gently lowered the lifeboats, they went ahead and left in the boats.”

Jiang Luo wrote on a piece of paper, “The location of the cruise ship’s lifeboats”, “Ge Zhu and I saw where the lifeboats and life jackets were stored when we had the first mate take us around the ship on the pretext that they were in the middle of the ship. We’ll wait for them to leave on the ship, then go to the galley and storage to find oil drums and gas cans, and fill the bilges with oil first, then a gas can and a fire will be enough to fry these blood eels to cinders.”

“We can use a formation to hide the gas cans first, and then draw a fire charm on them,” Lu Youyi suggested with a fist pump, “it’s safer that way.”

Jiang Luo gave a thumbs up, “Yes, yes.”

“Apart from that, there’s another important one.” Jiang Luo tells them about the female fish’s ability to control the consciousness of rich people.

“I see,” Wen Renlian said tacitly, “we’d better capture the leader of the blood eels alive? Torture exactly which rich people are under their control?”

Jiang Luo winked at him, “Yes.”

“The leader of the blood eels ……” Zhuo Zhongqiu pondered, handing them the captain’s photo at the top, “Is that the captain?”

“Most likely,” Ye Xun said lightly, “the crew are terrified of him.”

They quickly added all the details where they could, and without further delay to save time, they took the photos and walked out in search of the suspected blood eel impersonator.

Jiang Luo found some rich people who had taken female fish fry and tried them out, but they had not lost their minds yet.

Jiang Luo was surprised to see that the females had to have time to control their consciousness.

He arranged the men together so that they could be handed over to the police easily. When they returned from the round, their companions had also finished matching the photographs in their hands and thankfully they did not find any blood eels in the crowd.

This is certainly a great blessing among misfortunes.

The ordinary people hiding here suddenly saw the monster-like ugly and disgusting blood eels, and they who had been living in normal society only felt that the sky was shattered, it was like a monster that only existed in movie stories suddenly appeared in front of them, scaring some people almost did not faint.

They didn’t pass out simply because they would have been eaten by the monster if they did, and they didn’t even dare to pass out.

At this point, Jiang Luo and the others did whatever they said, not to mention making a mess. As the ordinary people rolled to the ground and fled in the slime, rich and poor alike obeyed, throwing down anything that made a sound and following them with fear and trepidation.

It was a good thing they were able to work together. Zhuo Zhongqiu, Lu Youyi and Kuang Zheng led the way, with Ge Zhu and Sai Liaoer on either side of the group and Jiang Luo and Wen Renlian and Ye Xun at the back.

The group walked out onto the veranda, barefoot and gingerly, towards the deck.

There were nearly four hundred people in a row, but the noise they made was minimal. The boat was now littered with blood eels. They tried to avoid those they could, but those they couldn’t could only be dealt with by brute force.

The location where the lifeboats were stored was clearly not very far from the bilge, but it took them half an hour to walk to the place.

The door was locked and there was an emergency button next to it. Jiang Luo opened the door and one lifeboat was neatly arranged in the room.

This row of rooms was where the life-saving items were kept, and the men carefully passed the lifeboats one by one to the railing and lowered the men boat by boat under the cover of the sound of the sea.

A lifeboat can seat about twenty people and there are enough life jackets to go around. Jiang Luo wanted to put Cheng Li and Li Sha on board, but Cheng Li insisted on following Jiang Luo. Jiang Luo stopped, looked at Li Sha and gently asked, “Is Li Sha not going now too?”

Li Sha’s eyes filled with tears of fear as she tugged at Jiang Luo’s shirt and shook her head silently.

Jiang Luo smiled, “Then stay on board.”

He told Cheng Li to take Li Sha back to the bilge while he followed his companion to the galley to get the oil and gas cans. Jiang Luo found a cigarette case and a lighter that someone had left behind in a panic, in addition to the oil can.

The lighter still had fire in it, so Jiang Luo took it with him. On the way back, Lu Youyi found a trolley, but it made a lot of noise as it rolled across the floor, so they carried it back with their bare hands so as not to attract attention.

Zhuo Zhongqiu was the strongest, and she carried two cans of gas to save everyone from having to make another trip back.

Jiang Luo’s back stiffens imperceptibly as he bends down to hold the oil drum, and then he stands up without a pale face.

Taking a step forward, Jiang Luo suddenly turns back sharply.

He always felt a prying eye.

The corridor behind him is long and empty, and Jiang Luo looks at it steadily for a few seconds before turning back with narrowed eyes.

It was slightly dark by the time the stuff was carried back to the bilge and they quickly doused the entire bilge with oil, arranging the gas tanks at the front and rear ends. Jiang Luo painted the Fu Lu himself, and when he had finished the last stroke, he breathed a sigh of relief, “There.”

Wen Renlian looked at the sky outside the door, “It’s already dark.”

Another great battle ensued.

There was no time for them to think about it, and once the group was ready, they prepared to leave the bilge.

Cheng Li and Li Sha could no longer stay in the bilge, so Jiang Luo reluctantly said, “Let them follow us, just stay away from us and keep quiet.”

Ge Zhu : “Isn’t that a bit too dangerous?”

“It’s potentially more dangerous for them not to stay with us,” Jiang Luo shook his head and patted Li Sha on the back, “who knows what else is on this boat.”

Jiang Luo had already said this, and seeing as Li Sha and Cheng Li were also reluctant to leave Jiang Luo, Ge Zhu said nothing more. They made their way to the bow deck in the darkness of the night.

Along the way, they hadn’t come across a single male fish. They were wondering when they saw that the large deck was already crawling with blood eels.

All the blood eels are gathered on the deck, and it is the female that is surrounded by them. The eels open their mouths and make a low, strange noise.

The mucus dripped from their bodies, and the huge black and red schools of strange fish were one by one, a scene even more terrifying than a snake’s nest, making the crowd’s skulls tingle, and when the sea breeze blew, the fishy smell was so strong it made people want to gag.

Ye Xun’s face was stony, “The female is at the far end.”

The males wrap the females in layer upon layer, leaving little room to get down.

Jiang Luo turned and sat down, leaning against the back of the container and pulling out a cigarette. Three hours after his initial roll, he finally came to an afterthought cigarette and the man beside him sat back after him, his face full of worry, “What’s to be done about this.”

Jiang Luo exhales a puff of smoke with enjoyment, the redness at the end of his eyes has faded, but the rhythm of his first taste of love lingers, a complex blend of subtlety and dashing good looks, creating a unique aura.

He said easily, “I have the Yin Yang Ring.”

Several people’s eyes lit up at once.

Yes, you can use the twelve secret incantations on the yin and yang ring to transform into zodiac signs to wrap around the female fish and rush to the bilge.