Chapter 852: Panic

Chapter 852: Panic

Inside the lower deck cabin, slaughter had begun.

Toothbrushes stabbed into one person’s neck after another, into eyes; wooden sticks struck heads and bodies.

They didn’t have proper weapons for killing, so their efficiency was extremely low.

Some could only resort to using their clothes as weapons to strangle others when entangled in close combat.

This chaotic brawl—people rolling and grappling fiercely on the floor—was soaked with the rawest bloodlust.

Those who had gone berserk were now deeply engulfed by the fear of death.

At this point, many couldn’t even tell who was enemy and who was ally.

They weren’t close to begin with, so accidental injuries among them happened frequently.

Moans and screams filled the entire lower ship cabin.

Above them, the Rockflow Group immediately sensed something was wrong.

Those horrifying screams, like hellish demons, kept echoing from below the floor.

The savage cries woke some who were still sleeping.

“What’s going on? Where’s that noise coming from?”

“Downstairs, it’s coming from down there!”

“Is... is there a fight?”

Many hurriedly pressed themselves against the floor, trying to listen.

Soon, their eyes all widened.

“They’re killing people—down there, they’re killing people!”

The Rockflow Group members trembled in fear.

Compared to those in the lower cabin, their living conditions were far better.

Food and heating supplies were relatively sufficient every day.

After such a long time, they had long lost touch with the concept of death and chaos.

Only now did they recall the terror on Rockflow Island.

Che Haicheng scrambled up from the floor and, eager to gain credit, rushed to the door first and then desperately hammered on the cabin’s main gate.

“Someone’s killing! They’re killing people downstairs!”

At this time, most crew members were still eating; only a few were patrolling.

They hadn’t discovered the disaster in the lower cabin yet.

But Che Haicheng’s shouting caught their attention.

One crew member, hearing the words “killing people,” frowned and walked over.

Through the crack in the cabin door, he raised his gun and asked, “What’s going on? Why are you yelling?”

Che Haicheng’s eyes were wide with fear as he said, “Downstairs, in the lower cabin, people are killing each other!”

At that moment, the crew member listened carefully and indeed faintly heard desperate screams from below.

His expression turned grave, and he immediately returned to the control room.

In the control room, the crew member in charge of monitoring was eating, leisurely crossing his legs while watching everything happening inside the cabin.

“A fight broke out?”

The crew member who had come over asked.

As he spoke, he leaned in to watch the surveillance footage.

Yet, no panic or fear showed on his face.

Instead, a strange smile slowly appeared. He then sat down slowly, watching alongside the other crew member.

“Who’s fighting? The stowaways and those fishermen from before?”

“Exactly. I said before, they’d fight sooner or later. Just as expected!”

“Hey, looks like the fishermen have the upper hand. Solid and impressive!”

“No wonder they’re men from Ludong. At first, I worried they’d be killed by those stowaways.”

“Heh heh heh, this is really interesting!”

“That bunch of stowaway Southeast Asians—I thought they had some strength, but turns out they’re just frogs in a well, croak croak croak!”

“Should we tell Old Tian?”

“Old Tian’s eating. We’ll call him later. Looks like this will go on for a while, no need to rush!”

Neither showed any urgency; they just sat quietly in front of the surveillance screen, enjoying the scene.

On the middle deck cabin where the Rockflow Group was, only public areas like corridors had cameras installed out of respect for Li Zongyu and the others.

But the lower cabin had been a storage area before, so every space there was monitored.

In other words, recently, everything happening there was completely under the crew’s control.

Maybe the details of their night-time plotting weren’t very clear.

But every crew member on this ship was an experienced sailor and warrior.

They could sense from subtle details that a large-scale slaughter was inevitable.

No one cared about this fight.

Because everything was within their expectations.

One could even say,

Except for the purest souls who held no reverence for the apocalypse—Zhu Yunque and Su Nuanxi—the rest had long predicted what today would bring.

On the top deck, Zhang Yi and Zhou Ke’er, wearing pajamas, leisurely enjoyed breakfast while watching shows on the big screen TV.

Zhu Yunque and Su Nuanxi, awakened by children’s noise, had already started their daily routine of calming the kids.

Old Tian and other sailors ate breakfast while chatting about trivial gossip, occasionally interrupted by a clown putting on a stand-up show.

Meanwhile, in the lower cabin, the heart-wrenching screams and shouts of fighting sent chills down anyone’s spine.

Everyone had gone mad with bloodlust.

At first, they could still tell who was human and who was a stowaway.

But as the fight dragged on, everyone was covered in blood, and with no clear marks, accidental attacks happened frequently.

Some took advantage of the chaos to sneak attack people they disliked.

A man grabbed a found bed leg and smashed it hard against his boss’s back of the head.

The boss never expected to die not at the hands of a stowaway but by his own trusted driver.

“Sorry, I’ve been with your wife for a long time.”

The driver looked coldly at the body collapsing on the ground.

Not satisfied with killing him, he didn’t forget to stab the boss’s head more than a dozen extra times until the flesh was shredded before stopping.

Others simply made mistakes. Out of fear of being found out and punished later, they decided to eliminate their companions immediately.

As time passed, many’s minds began to collapse—seeing anyone, they killed!

The Rockflow Group felt this tragedy most deeply.

Many pressed their ears to the floor, listening to the sounds below.

Some were so terrified they wrapped themselves in blankets, trembling violently.

“Please don’t let the fight reach here!”

“Haven’t the people on the ship suppressed this yet? They have guns; they should be able to stop the chaos, right?”

“But it’s been so long, and we haven’t heard any gunshots. Why haven’t the upper levels intervened?”

In Li Zongyu and Zhang Weiwei’s room lived them and some children they protected on the island—students Li Zongyu had brought on vacation to Rockflow Island.

Facing this hellish scene, Zhang Weiwei gently comforted the children, telling them to cover their ears and not listen.

She said to Li Zongyu, “They’ve been fighting for so long downstairs. I wonder how chaotic it is. Why hasn’t Captain Zhang or the others acted yet?”

At this moment, the businessman Ma Wenzheng lying on the opposite bed moved his legs toward the window, calmly putting on his sneakers.

“Maybe... this is exactly what they want.”

Author's Note