Chapter 1153: Chapter 152: Cruise Ship
Yin City, a certain floor in an urban building, milk tea shop.
"What do you guys want to drink?"
Li Ang, dressed in casual clothes, stood behind the counter of the milk tea shop, skillfully pried open the counter and searched for cups inside.
Wang Congshan, wearing a blue dress, stood in front of the counter and thought for a moment, "Red bean milk pudding, please."
"I’ll have the mango sago, then,"
Chaichai, sitting by the window seat in the milk tea shop and playing with her phone, drawled without lifting her head, "double mango base."
"Ok."
Li Ang picked up the cup filled with red beans, flamboyantly spun it like a bartender, and followed the employee handbook’s illustrated instructions to operate the machine and make the milk tea.
At this moment, the milk tea shop, which should have been bustling with people, was empty except for the three of them.
Not even a single person could be seen on the street outside the store.
This was because Li Ang was coming,
To prevent any unexpected occurrences (mainly to protect ordinary people in the urban building), the Special Affairs Bureau had activated the [Idle Retreat] spell in this area an hour before Li Ang’s arrival, clearing the district.
On his first visit to the urban building, he managed to achieve a street-clearing effect,
Li Ang was not disappointed by the emptiness around him and hummed a self-composed tune with pleasure, quickly making two cups of milk tea and handing them to Wang Congshan.
Then he casually made himself a cup of jasmine green tea, took his milk tea, sat by the window, and slowly inserted the straw, chatting idly with Wang Congshan.
"So, you’ve obtained the third land card now?"
"Yes."
Wang Congshan nodded, "Miss Liu and Miss Mule and I completed a team cooperative script task together,
The script was set in a steampunk-style reality of the early 20th century.
The three of us were sent to a large, well-equipped luxury passenger ship, similar to the Titanic,
With 2,200 crew members and passengers onboard, and over a hundred humanoid mechanical guards powered by steam.
Our mission was to find and kill the alien creatures capable of disguising themselves as human beings on the passenger ship.
The number of these alien creatures initially started with just one, but over time, it would attack, corrode, and replace humans.
The replaced humans had no abnormalities in appearance, everything seemed normal in their behavior,
But inside their bodies, the alien creature would proliferate and split,
Once the splitting was complete, the alien creature would control the human body to hunt for the next target,
Through physical contact,
Such as shaking hands, hugging, and kissing,
parasitizing another’s body silently for expansion."
She inserted a straw into her milk tea lid and said casually, "The system requires us to protect as many ordinary people as possible.
The more survivors there are, the better the rewards.
If the number of survivors is less than 300, the mission fails."
"Oh?"
Li Ang sipped his milk tea, "It sounds quite interesting from the description.
Was your power suppressed?"
"No."
Wang Congshan shook her head, "But how should I say this...
The tech tree of that script world was bizarre,
The ship merely used ordinary steam turbines, with a top speed of only 23 knots,
Yet the Steam Gear Robots they manufactured possessed ridiculously high combat power.
They were invulnerable, indestructible, and unaffected by any psychic interference skills,
They only obeyed their master’s commands—each Steam Gear Robot came with a paired whistle upon leaving the factory, and users could issue commands by blowing the whistle.
Since the shape of the whistle was designed based on the customers’ mouth shapes when ordering the robots,
Even if others picked up the whistle, they couldn’t command the steam mechanical guards.
Also, like the Titanic, the ship was a world-renowned trans-ocean luxury cruise with many high-profile dignitaries on board..."
"Oh, oh."
Li Ang immediately thought of the task’s challenge, "Let me guess, many crew members on the ship had corresponding whistles to command the steam mechanical guards,
The distinguished guests on board also had their steam mechanical guards.
At first, these people wouldn’t listen to strangers, even if players warned them about the presence of alien monsters on the ship, they wouldn’t believe it, instead, they might have their steam mechanical guards attack the suspicious-looking otherworldly travelers.
Meanwhile, the alien creatures could expand silently in the shadows,
Or parasitize those with command over the steam mechanical guards, controlling the guards to deal with players.
Or seize the opportunity to stir up trouble, accusing players of being enemy spies, or something like that.
Even though players have superhuman power that can destroy the ship,
The goal remains to save as many ordinary people as possible."
"Exactly."
Wang Congshan nodded, "As soon as we were sent there, the alien creatures started to expand secretly.
One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight.
If left unchecked, in about five hours, everyone on board would have been parasitized and replaced—
If the alien creatures didn’t choose to hide after gaining a numerical advantage and exposed themselves directly,
Taking advantage of their numbers and strength,
If they violently parasitized, time might be even shorter."
"Hmm..."
Li Ang thought for a moment, "So what did you guys do?"
"Slurp,"
Wang Congshan sipped her milk tea and said casually, "Time waits for no one,
We spread out throughout the cruise, searching for alien creatures.
Miss Mule noticed someone frequently making contact with others at the cruise ball,
Following the clues, she caught an alien creature parasitizing a certain playboy nobleman,
Performed a dissection in front of everyone, proving the existence of alien creatures.
We then claimed we were professionals at dealing with alien creatures and took over the ship’s command,
Having the captain use the ship’s PA system to gather everyone in the ballroom, standing separately.
Then Liu Wu Dai’s Crystal Demon, along with the ship’s crew and steam mechanical guards, went to find those who hadn’t heard the broadcast and were sleeping in their cabins.
Once everyone was in position, we began the identification process."
"Identification?"
Li Ang asked casually, "Aren’t those alien creatures very hard to distinguish?
With so many people, it’s impossible to screen one by one, right?"
"Yes, exactly."
Wang Congshan nodded, "Alien creatures possess a certain wisdom and psychic inductive ability.
When concealed, they prefer to parasitize through physical contact,
But when discovered by humans, they would try every means to hide and stop parasitizing.
In such a state, only by directly killing the host can the alien creature inside be exposed."
"Oh?"
Li Ang smacked his lips, "Even the skill tools on players can’t directly screen them out...
"So, did you use a method other than killing the host?"
"Yes."
Wang Congshan nodded and said, "Mainly, it was thanks to Miss Liu.
She discovered that ordinary people parasitized by alien creatures didn’t actually lose their free will,
but were instead trapped in their own bodies, like patients with locked-in syndrome, losing control of their bodies, and could only watch helplessly as the alien creatures manipulated their actions.
In most cases, the hosts are powerless against this,
even if the alien creatures, using their body, parasite their parents, lovers, or children right before their eyes.
Except in one situation,
NTR."
"Uh, what?"
Li Ang was taken aback.
"You heard right, it’s about being a cuckold, NTR."
Mentioning this, Wang Congshan’s expression turned awkwardly subtle, "Ahem, through observation, we found out that,
although the alien creatures have various extraordinary traits, they’re unexpectedly simple-minded,
with the essence of their lives being to reproduce, to carry on their lineage, to pass on their genetic information as much as possible.
Humans are like this, and so are the alien creatures.
They parasitize humans, cats, dogs, and mice just to spread and propagate.
To better achieve this, they have psychic inductive capabilities and some intelligence,
making the host appear more eloquent, charismatic, and approachable,
thus giving the host more opportunities for close contact with others.
When we players came into the open,
all the alien creatures chose to lay low, trying not to reveal themselves,
but this biological trait of active and passive control, giving reproductive advantages to the hosts, can still be utilized by us."
Wang Congshan paused, awkwardly saying, "We separated all the passengers, having them stand apart without any contact.
Then we identified all couples, partners, and lovers,
getting them to simulate kissing with others—without physical contact.
In such cases,
if one person in the couple or partner is parasitized, then the original owner who can’t control their body will undoubtedly feel deeply resentful inside.
This resentment confuses the alien creatures too—their aim is to reproduce and spread, but being cuckolded in front of everyone clearly violates that purpose.
Therefore, when they see their partner pretend to kiss a stranger, the host will involuntarily rush forward to break them up and stop this shameful NTR behavior,
allowing us players to intervene and subdue them."
"So that’s a tactic."
Li Ang clicked his tongue in wonder.
"Ahem,"
Wang Congshan blushed, embarrassed to admit that she came up with this shameless method, "since that ship is a luxurious cruise liner traveling across oceans,
it has many couples or passengers with lovers onboard.
Using this method, we quickly screened out about four-sevenths of the passengers,
and for the rest, we held a mass wedding."
"Huh?"
"We entrusted the priest to urgently marry the remaining people."
Wang Congshan said, "In that script world, human society has a rather simple view, considering marriage as sacred.
When they see their legally recognized wife/husband,
flirting with a stranger,
it greatly annoys and angers them, triggering the alien creature’s hidden flaws.
With this method, we quickly screened all the passengers,
identified and isolated all the alien creatures.
To maximize the task’s score,
Miss Mule even invented a method to directly extract alien creatures while preserving the host’s life.
In the end, there were less than twenty casualties in the entire task,
and dozens of steam-powered mechs—some alien creatures who had control over them, seeing their exposure, whistled in defiance, trying to resist,
but were defeated by players and other ordinary people with steam mechs.
Ultimately, we three earned an S+ task score,
and I got my third black terrain card."
Wang Congshan snapped her fingers, summoning a card black as ink from the void.
"It truly is... the victory of the cuckold."
Li Ang commented, giving Wang Congshan a thumbs up.
Wang Congshan was getting better at thinking outside the box and acting without much restraint.
"Not too bad, not too bad."
Wang Congshan casually dismissed the card, happily finishing her milk tea.
"Ah, my phone’s about to die."
Chaichai let out a long breath, removed her earphones, and looked up from the phone screen, "Can I borrow your power bank?
By the way, what were you two talking about just now?"
"Nothing, just a script task."
Li Ang took out a power bank from the sodium ring and handed it over,
Chaichai plugged the power bank into her phone, turning the speaker on,
"Do young people nowadays expect low house prices, work availability everywhere, and zero life pressure? No way, right?"
"In comparison, American youth buy their own houses very early. Try going to other countries and see how old you’ll be before you pay off your mortgage."
"I don’t want to be a prickly person who mocks others’ success, laughs at others’ failures, cannot tolerate those living better than him, and looks down on those living worse..."
Chaichai’s phone played in a rather sarcastic tone,
Li Ang leaned over and saw two young-looking American middle school kids on the screen, "What’s this?"
"An American documentary about their skyscrapers."
Chaichai explained, "They’re also planning to build city skyscrapers, but I heard their environment isn’t as good as ours, and housing pressure has increased significantly."
"Oh, that."
Li Ang recalled that the American city skyscraper plan wasn’t actually later than the Special Affairs Bureau,
in fact, it was Prometheus Laboratory Company that first invented the new high-strength building materials, but multiple obstacles have delayed it from being promoted in New York, Washington, and other big cities.
Recently, as cities like Yin City and Tokyo began constructing city skyscrapers sequentially,
along with the civilizational warfare pressure brought by the Star Realm,
American cities also started advancing their city skyscraper plans, forming Superhuman Construction Teams to work overtime building skyscrapers.
However, their construction projects differ slightly from city skyscrapers elsewhere,
as they are co-contracted by multiple private enterprises,
the best and safest villa areas only available to the wealthy, capable of affording the high costs,
while remote, relatively unsafe civilian areas are provided for the less wealthy middle class.
Due to the public welfare nature of the skyscrapers themselves, a portion of the public can stay there, but they must enter a draw.
