Chapter 147: Luo En: Was I… that?
"Hoo… hoo…"
Amidst heavy gasps, Luo En suddenly opened his eyes.
As his vision went from blurry to clear, what greeted him was an unfamiliar, mold-stained ceiling.
The air was a mix of cheap tobacco and a musty smell, both pungent and unsettling.
This isn't the ship! The thought instantly flashed through Luo En's mind. He jolted, sat up abruptly, and scanned his surroundings with vigilant eyes.
It was a dimly lit, cheap hotel room. A worn wooden bed, a table with a chipped corner, and a creaky chair.
The window was tightly shut, thick curtains blocking out the sunlight, letting in only a few faint rays.
"Meow~"
A familiar meow came from beside the bed. Luo En instinctively turned his head and saw his Orange Cat, Lachi, sitting primly on the chair by the bed, staring at him unblinkingly with her amber eyes.
"Thank goodness…"
Seeing Lachi, Luo En's tense nerves relaxed slightly, but the confusion in his heart deepened.
His last memory was of Tracy ambushing him from behind, a pain in his neck, and then he knew nothing.
How did he get here?
Just as his thoughts were in a muddle, the room door creaked open.
Luo En's gaze instantly sharpened. He subconsciously tried to draw his gun, but found that the Ripper, which was always with him, was nowhere to be found.
He turned his attention back, staring intently at the person in the doorway.
Danitz, carrying a plate of food, had barely entered the room when Luo En's seemingly man-eating gaze made his hair stand on end.
"Hey! What kind of expression is that?" Danitz felt uneasy under his stare, almost dropping the plate in his hand.
"Damn it! I saved you this time! You're looking at your savior with those eyes?"
"Danitz… what are you doing here?" Luo En breathed a slight sigh of relief seeing Danitz, but his gaze remained wary.
"What am I doing here?" Glancing at Luo En's distrustful look, Danitz explained, "I was on vacation. After I sent you off, I continued my vacation."
"As for why I ran into you…"
He placed the plate on the table and pointed at the Orange Cat nearby: "It was your cat. While I was out shopping, your cat found me. It led me to a dilapidated ship, and that's when I found you tied up there!"
Danitz's tone was a bit agitated, seemingly annoyed by Luo En's suspicion, but recalling Luo En's bound state, he couldn't help but ask curiously, "Seriously, Brando, who exactly did you provoke? How did you end up tied up like that?"
"I…" Luo En wanted to say something, but hesitated. To be honest, his head was a mess right now.
"My bag," he didn't answer Danitz's question, but asked in a slightly hoarse voice.
"Is my bag still here?"
"Bag?" Danitz was stunned for a moment, not yet having time to answer.
"Meow~"
Lachi, who had been quietly sitting by, suddenly let out a meow and lightly jumped off the bed.
She walked with cat-like grace to the corner of the room, then used her mouth to pick up a familiar shoulder bag, dragging it back to Luo En's bedside.
Seeing this, Danitz pointed at the shoulder bag and said, "Your cat reminded me at the time and specifically told me to bring this bag too! Oh, right, there was also a camera smashed to pieces, which I also threw into the bag."
Luo En ignored his chatter, immediately picked up the shoulder bag, a hint of tension rising in his heart.
With his back to Danitz, he unfastened the bag and carefully checked its contents: gold pounds, coins, bullets, and a Three of Diamonds playing card.
Good, the Three of Diamonds is still here—
"Phew—" Luo En let out a long sigh of relief, his tense expression suddenly relaxing a bit. He turned his head to look at Lachi, who was squatting beside him, her small head tilted up with a "praise me" expression.
"Good job." Luo En reached out and gently stroked the Orange Cat's head.
"Meow~"
"Um, Brando, can you tell me what exactly happened now?"
Danitz, unable to contain his curiosity, leaned closer again: "Didn't you say you were going back to Backlund to open a factory? How did you end up here? And why were you tied up?"
"Tied up?" Luo En's hand, stroking Lachi, paused.
"Yeah, your limbs were all tied up, and your upper body was naked—", Danitz described the scene of Luo En being tied in a 'big' shape, fixed to the bed.
"…" Hearing Danitz's words, Luo En fell silent.
He was knocked out by Tracy, and there was no third person on the ship.
He was tied to the bed in that position?
And his upper body was naked—
Doesn't that sound a bit ambiguous? I wasn't… that, was I? Although the other party was a beautiful young girl, this is too much. Thinking that his encounter didn't seem to fit the usual pattern of robbery and murder, Luo En's expression twisted slightly.
He didn't answer Danitz's question, but instead asked:
"Danitz, do you know someone named Tracy?"
"Tracy? Disease Maiden!" Danitz was first stunned, then cried out in shock, "She's the one who tied you up! Disease Maiden, right, I knew that name sounded familiar. I heard it when I was inquiring about news at sea, but I didn't look into it. Damn it." Luo En's pupils slightly dilated. Since he didn't plan to stay at sea for long and was preparing to return to Backlund, he hadn't delved deeply into some information about maritime intelligence.
"Do you know anything about her?"
Danitz shrugged and spilled all the information he knew like a stream of beans:
"She's a famous beauty at sea, usually acts alone, skilled in using curses, black fire, and frost. Those who oppose her always suddenly fall ill, with all sorts of diseases. And she's good at using seductive means to eliminate enemies. On the ship, they say she's a Sequence 5 of the Assassin Pathway."
Beauty, diseases, it matches up, it really is her— Luo En subconsciously clenched his fist.
"Some time ago, 'Admiral of Hurricanes' Qilangos unexpectedly died in Backlund, and Tracy took over her fleet, calling herself 'Admiral of Disease'."
"However—" Danitz's tone shifted, his brows furrowed, "Recently, there's been talk that she's gone missing. Even her flagship, the 'Black Death', hasn't shown up for a while. Some people are even saying she was annihilated by the Official, but I didn't expect…"
Danitz, full of gossip, turned his gaze to Luo En:
"It really was her who caught you. How did you run into her? Was Disease Maiden really as beautiful as the rumors say? What did she do to you?"
"Stop!"
Luo En interrupted Danitz's incessant chatter. To be honest, his head was a mess right now.
"Danitz, you saved me this time. I owe you one."
"I'll tell you what you want to know later—"
"But can you please leave for a bit now? I want to be alone."
"I—" Danitz still wanted to say something, but meeting Luo En's serious gaze, he nodded and got up to leave the room.
"Phew—"
"My head hurts so much—" Luo En realized his spirituality hadn't recovered yet, but he still endured the discomfort, took out a coin, and began a divination. There was one question he wanted the answer to right now.
Tracy knocked me out, but didn't kill me, and even tied me up—why the hell?
Divining about oneself yields the best results— Luo En recalled the knowledge from his mysticism course.
"I was… by Tracy. No, I can't ask it like that—it's too direct."
After a moment of thought, Luo En rephrased his question.
"I haven't been…"
He tossed the coin upwards.
The coin tumbled in the air, glinting, and finally landed with a "clink" on the back of his hand, face up.
Divination result—affirmative.
"Damn it!"