Chapter 551: Taking a Day Off

Out on the sea, the woman jolted, lifting her head to gaze into the distance.

In her field of vision, an island appeared on the boundless sea before her.

Yes, an island.

An island speeding toward her at a terrifying velocity.

It stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, eclipsing the entire ocean. Its sheer cliffs looked as though they had been cleaved by a giant blade, and countless white seabirds perched along the very top.

An island was not strange, nor was a moving island. But this island bore a heaven-reaching mast like a tower, rigged with a sail that blotted out the sun. Standing within the billowing canvas was a woman in a purple qipao. She cradled a pitch-black cat in her arms, and the cat was talking.

Now that was incredibly strange.

Crash—

The island churned up a wave a full hundred meters high. Just as it was about to swallow the woman and the infant in her arms, a string of fine golden runes materialized beneath her, lifting her up and tossing her onto the island.

Only when she landed did the woman finally see where she was.

It wasn't an island at all. It was a massive ship.

Masts, long sails, iron anchors hanging off the sides, tied-up life preservers—for a woman who had grown up in Haidu, a single glance was enough to reveal the true nature of this "island."

But—

The woman gazed into the distance, completely unable to see the end of the deck beneath her feet.

Could a ship really be this massive?

She suspected she had actually died in that monstrous wave, and that this was merely her life flashing before her eyes.

"Welcome aboard, ma'am."

A crew member in an undershirt approached the woman and explained the rules of the ship, dispelling most of her doubts.

This truly was a ship.

It had many rules, completely unlike the lawless Haidu. Even though the crew member was exceptionally patient, the woman couldn't remember much after his first explanation.

Fortunately, the crew member pulled a manual from his pocket and handed it to her. "This is the ship's manual. You can follow its instructions and register as a resident at the Great Cat Ship Resident Center. After that, you'll receive a free one-month housing permit. Of course, as I just mentioned, you'll need to pay Points starting next month."

"However, since you're pregnant, the rules allow us to grant you a free two-month extension for your maternity stay."

"Alright, thank you."

The woman took the manual from the crew member in a daze. Seeing him turn around to greet the next person boarding, she hastily spoke up. "Um... excuse me..."

Looking at the crew member's puzzled expression, she asked, "May I ask who the owner of this ship is? Is it Lord Zhou?"

The woman naturally assumed that a miraculous ship like this could only belong to the strongest expert of the sea region.

To her surprise, the crew member smiled and looked up at the sail hanging on the mast. "It belongs to that lord."

"That... woman?" The woman was somewhat in disbelief because the lady in the purple qipao looked much too young. But the crew member's next words left her stunned.

"No, it belongs to Lord Mao Si."

The woman stared blankly at the black cat in the lady's arms.

Aside from the woman, that was the only entity with any conceivable connection to the name "Mao Si."

The crew member had already walked away, so she couldn't ask even if she wanted to.

Just then, she saw the black cat lower its head, its jewel-like pupils locking onto her.

She couldn't help but shudder, hastily bowing her head.

In her experience, making eye contact with such a bigshot never ended well.

This was Haidu. For all she knew, her head could be lopped off the very next second and tossed into the sea.

At that thought, her body began to tremble.

Whoosh.

A gust of sea breeze swept past, followed by a hoarse, duck-like voice. "What are you doing, you idiot?"

I'm doomed. It's really happening.

The woman was already weak. Hearing that voice, she was so terrified she almost fainted on the spot.

A split second later, a furry paw reached into her arms.

The woman jolted, but she didn't dare move a muscle.

If the other party was merely interested in her body, that would actually be the best possible outcome for her.

Unexpectedly, the paw grabbed the child and snatched her right out of her embrace.

Just as she was drowning in terror and about to beg for mercy, Mao Si viciously snapped, "Can't you see this little guy has a fever? What are you doing standing around like an idiot instead of going to the service center? Do you want your daughter to end up a moron like you?"

The woman stood completely stunned. The black cat stretched out a paw, conjured an apple in its palm, and squeezed a few drops of juice into the infant's mouth.

The effect was immediate. The infant's flushed face quickly softened. Opening her mouth, she exhaled a puff of hot air, her tightly furrowed brows smoothing out as she seemed to drift into a peaceful sleep.

Thud.

Mao Si tossed the infant back into the woman's arms and turned away, cursing as he walked. "Gotta rescue fewer idiots like this in the future. They're polluting the average IQ on my ship."

"..."

The woman didn't know what to say. After staring blankly for a long time, she shakily dropped to her knees toward the direction Yan Jing had vanished, bowing repeatedly as tears streamed down her face.

"The ship hasn't been completely finished yet, Captain." The hunched Old Man looked at Yan Jing and said, "Sailing while building will drag down our progress."

"I know, Master."

Yan Jing picked up a teacup and handed it to the Old Man. "But I can't wait anymore. If everyone ends up dead, what's the point of building this ship?"

"But if we do this... the risks will be tremendous when we finally traverse space and time."

"Then speed up the progress."

"But you won't let us stop the ship."

"Then think of another way."

"We only have so many people right now."

"Then we'll find more."

Yan Jing's expression was calm. "Have everyone who boards the ship earn Points by repairing it. We can use this method to weed out the unruly ones and give them a period to adapt."

The Old Man let out a long sigh. "But recruiting people this way is too inefficient. We can only find people in Haidu, and even if we dragged the entire population of Haidu aboard, it still wouldn't be enough."

Right now, almost everyone on the ship had thrown themselves into the shipbuilding project, yet it was still insufficient—

Of course, the Old Man also knew that Yan Jing was right. Even if they stopped the ship right now, it would take at least a week to finish building it. And judging by the Great Prison's current rate of deterioration, it would only last a week at best.

By then, everyone would be dead. Finishing the ship would be entirely pointless.

"Because the time hasn't come yet."

Yan Jing remained utterly calm. "We... need to wait."

"Wait?"

"Yes, wait."

Hearing Yan Jing's words, the Old Man sighed heavily and picked up the teacup from the table.

He gazed out the window at the sea, where abyssal rifts were tearing open one after another.

He said they needed to wait...

But who exactly were they waiting for?

Countdown, day seven.

At dusk, Yan Jing tallied a number in his notebook: over two thousand people.

That was the current population on the ship.

But it still wasn't enough.

He had sent Huo Tong out that morning; she should be returning soon.

Sipping a glass of milk, he gazed out at the torrential rain beyond the window.

The rain was growing heavier. Downpours like this severely hindered the shipbuilding progress.

Could they really finish in time?

The Old Man had just come to find him again, warning that the deterioration was accelerating and their estimated timeframe had to be shortened.

Now, they might not have seven days.

A conservative estimate gave them about six days before the Great Prison collapsed entirely.

"If it doesn't work, we'll just have to abandon part of the ship."

The Old Man had made up his mind, his eyes completely bloodshot.

Although he had gone through untold hardships and poured endless blood and sweat into designing this ship, at this point, it was their only option.

Yan Jing told him to wait a little longer.

That wait lasted until late in the night.

Suddenly, specks of firelight flickered to life on the dark sea outside the window.

They were fishing boats. The orange glow illuminated the vessels brightly, like a string of fishing lanterns. On the foremost boat stood Huo Tong, holding a torch high. Her tattered red dress fluttered in the sea breeze.

She had succeeded.

Leading thousands of people from Sand Tower, she had navigated across rift after rift and safely returned to the ship.

"Good, good, excellent."

The Old Man was so excited his beard nearly flew off his face.

With these thousand extra hands, they could barely make up for the lost day.

However, when the next day arrived...

Bad news struck once again.

The situation in the Great Prison had deteriorated yet again. The torrential downpour from the sky had practically turned into a waterfall, and the dark clouds had transformed directly into an ocean of lightning. Under these conditions, not only did search and rescue operations become vastly more difficult, but their estimated time was cut short once more.

In five days at most, the Great Prison would be thoroughly annihilated.

The only saving grace was that Yan Jing had personally intervened to shield the ship from the rain, so the construction speed hadn't been impacted too severely.

The Old Man sought Yan Jing out again.

He proposed a new solution.

Starting immediately, no one else would be allowed to board. They would discard the superfluous sections of the ship and solely focus on finishing what remained. This could cut the required time down to four days.

Not only would that meet their deadline, it would even leave them a one-day buffer. After all, looking at the current state of things, the deterioration was guaranteed to continue.

But Yan Jing refused.

"Wait. We need to wait, Master."

"Almost everyone from Sand Tower, Desolate Forest, and Haidu is already here with us! Who else could possibly travel this far to reach us?"

The Old Man was truly frantic. "I want to build a peerless ship, my Lord, but this has nothing to do with that! Lives are the most important thing right now, and there are so many people on this ship!"

"Master, you have developed a heart of compassion, one that has even surpassed your pursuit of shipbuilding. You will definitely reach the Summit in the future."

"Thank you—wait, no, that has nothing to do with this! My Lord, please reconsider."

"Wait. Just wait."

That was Yan Jing's only response.

The Old Man was out of options and could only obey Yan Jing's orders.

He stood in the outer cabin, looking out over the deck. The rain was so heavy that it didn't even splash when it struck the deck; it instantly turned into flowing rivers, rippling outward as the wind shoved the water into the distance. Under the glow of the lights, the falling rain didn't even have a basic shape anymore. It fell in solid sheets, genuinely looking like a river pouring out of the sky.

Under these conditions... would anyone else really come? Who else was even left to come?

Just as he let out a deep sigh and turned around to continue supervising the work, a flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the sky. In that blinding glare, he caught sight of a speck of white on the horizon.

A true, pure white.

Even drenched by the torrential rain, those pairs of wings were still flapping with all their might.

"Everyone in the back, keep up!!!"

The wings behind Bai Yue practically blotted out the sky. Every drooping feather sheltered a child. Beneath her, other cultivators of the Sky Pathway had spread their own wings, carrying the wingless in their arms like a massive flock of migrating birds.

Bai Yue's wings acted as a shield for them, blocking all the rain and lightning strikes. Many parts of her plumage were already scorched black.

The moment she saw the ship, Bai Yue's face visibly twitched.

"Hurry!!! Come on!!!"

She roared at the top of her lungs.

Her clansmen couldn't fly very fast. To accommodate everyone's pace, she had been flying straight for two days and two nights. Over these days, she had constantly doubted whether she could hold on, doubted whether this so-called destination even existed, and doubted whether any of this was worth it.

Perhaps they should have stayed in the Sky Domain... at least they could have held out for a few more days...

Plagued by those thoughts, she had almost given up several times.

But whenever she thought of Bai Chen, she gritted her teeth and kept flying forward.

It had been a journey with no visible end, but thankfully, they had finally found an island where they could rest.

Her short hair was plastered to her face, making her look quite a bit uglier than before.

But Yan Jing saw Bai Chen's shadow in her. "So alike," he murmured softly.

"Truly excellent."

"Excuse me, can you let us board?"

Hovering in the air, Bai Yue looked down at the people on the ship.

She had already made her decision. Even if the other party refused, she would fight her way aboard.

So when she saw Wen Xu and Merkel walking out from the cabin, she nearly broke down.

Fortunately, Wen Xu offered a faint smile. "Welcome."

"Welcome to Captain Mao Si's ship."

Scenes like this played out one after another over the following days.

With four days left, an unconscious Zhou Mian was fished out of the sea.

With three days left, the forces of the Yueyin organization entered the Great Prison.

With two days left, the survivors of Elite City were brought back by Bai Yue and her people.

There was no final day of the countdown.

The collapse came far faster than expected.

When that ultimate day arrived...

The weather outside could no longer be described as merely a violent storm.

The entire sky was riddled with massive black holes, pouring down the aura of Chaos and torrential floods. Thunder roared and lightning flashed incessantly, ravaging every corner of the Great Prison. Based on simple measurements, the air temperature had plummeted to minus sixty or seventy degrees.

The water froze into ice before it could even fully fall, only for the ice to be pulverized by the next wave of fresh water. Under the relentless bombardment of the lightning, it melted back into raging rivers, propelled in all directions by the aura of Chaos to crush everything in sight.

In the end, nothing was left but the endless sea and the massive rifts tearing across its surface.

A few of the rifts had grown so vast they were impossible to avoid, slicing across half the sea region like giant maws swallowing everything whole.

Between heaven and earth, aside from Mao Si's ship enveloped in Weird Energy, there was no longer a single trace of any living creature.

Fortunately, by the time this day arrived, the ship had been perfectly completed.

Right now, the vessel was slowly passing over one of the rifts on the sea surface.

It was a trial run. Although they had tested it many times before, those had only been experiments over small rifts. This one was one of the gargantuan tears stretching across the ocean.

As the bow slowly glided over the rift, the people on board immediately felt the hull dip, and everyone held their breath.

They stayed close to their loved ones, either holding hands or locked in tight embraces. If death truly came, everyone hoped to face it like this.

Thank goodness—

The ship only dipped for a few short seconds.

Very quickly, the ship regained its original momentum. The colossal hull effortlessly coasted over the rift, rapidly crossing a chasm that was at least a thousand meters wide and who knew how many li long.

Seeing that they had safely crossed the rift...

...earth-shattering cheers erupted across the ship, drowning out the roaring thunder and the torrential rain.

Everyone hugged the people around them, leaping for joy, celebrating for their lives, celebrating their new life.

"Everywhere is the Heavenly Kingdom, Pops."

Yan Jing, in the form of Mao Si, looked at the scene before him and smiled. He walked back to his room, turned on the signal-less television, and started drinking his milk.

Pretending that this was still just an ordinary afternoon in the Heavenly Kingdom.

I am busy with experiments today, so I am taking a day off.

I may need to take a few more days off in April to attend an academic conference.

I am hereby taking a day of leave.

I hope you can understand.

We are fast approaching the final volume, and I still hope to give this book the best possible conclusion.