Demons Beside You

“Manny, don’t you know how to steer a yacht?”

Manny was still wiping her tears. She looked at Chen Zhao with resentment. She knew that Chen Zhao was scaring her, but she’d really had a fright earlier.

“Idiot, you can’t even do these simple things.”

“If you keep yapping, I’m gonna toss you into the sea.”

“If you keep threatening me, I’ll tell the cops when we land that you tried raping me.”

“You better bribe the hospital for injury verification first.”

Manny glared at Chen Zhao and came to the steering position.

“Huh? How come you can’t turn off autopilot?” Mannie tried turning it off but failed. “Did you mess up the system? How come you can’t turn it off?”

“Pfft…seems like you aren’t any smarter than me,” Chen Zhao mocked.

The automatic screen seemed to have been disturbed. It kept flashing erratically. Chen Zhao suddenly had a bad feeling. “Manny, go to the bedroom and don’t come out.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Listen and go hide. Don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”

Manny checked Chen Zhao’s expression. Before, he’d always had an annoying smile, but he looked completely different now. His expression was now serious, like something major was about to happen.

The yacht kept cruising forward without stopping. Just then, a light on the side of the steering system lit up.

“What does this light mean?”

Manny pointed at the flashing screen. “Storm. We’re heading toward a storm.”

“F*ck.” Chen Zhao moved the rudder. “Can you make the boat stop?”

“You can only use manual operation if you turn off the autopilot.”

“Isn’t there some emergency alternative? Like if the system stops working, you can press the emergency button and turn to manual?”

“No…”

“Go put on a life vest,” Chen Zhao said, expression hard. He took his phone out, but he didn’t have a signal.

The waves were still tossing and hitting the yacht, making it start to shake.

“Ah…”

Chen Zhao turned to look. Manny’s foot hit the side because the turbulence and twisted her ankle.

“I knew that you would be trouble,” Chen Zhao gritted out, pointing at her.

Chen Zhao really wanted to leave her here to die, but she was Zola’s daughter. He had to help.

He squatted down to check Manny’s foot. It wasn’t serious and was just a bump with light bruising. He tugged down a life vest from the side and put it on Manny.

“No matter what happens later, don’t leave my side.”

“Chen, are we going to die here?”

“No.”

“But I’m scared.”

“Scared? And you still jumped on?”

“I didn’t know.”

At that moment, the light in the horizon disappeared. The starlight was completely covered by a black shadow.

The yacht started shaking violently. Chen Zhao sat in the seat, one hand around Manny, the other flipping through a book.

“What are you looking at?” Manny asked.

“Emergency escape manual.”

“You’re reading it now?”

“It’s not like we can do anything else.”

Manny stared at him. “Can’t you make a useful suggestion?”

“Then let’s wait for death.”

Of course, a medium-sized yacht like this one was able to resist storms to a point—if nothing else happened.

The storm was approaching! There was an even darker black shadow in the storm.

The ghost ship! It finally appeared.

Manny shivered while Chen Zhao hugged her tightly.

“Manny, did you see something?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Chen Zhao shook his head.

He held the Doom Star in the other hand. It really lived up to its name. He ran into a storm as soon as he was out to sea, appearing with the ghost ship. It was unknown whether the storm was caused by the Doom Star or the ghost ship.

The ship shook violently. Chen Zhao and Manny both felt that they were tossed into the air for a bit. The next moment, the ship landed heavily in the water.

The ship was still in one piece and had no damages. This didn’t mean that they were safe, though. Instead, the true danger hadn’t arrived yet.

The ghost ship was coming straight for the yacht.

Chen Zhao hugged Manny tightly and rushed out of the cockpit, jumping into the sea. At that moment, the yacht was already distorted by the crash and toppled over.

“Blackie!” Chen Zhao yelled. Blackie had already rushed toward the ghost ship.

The wind grew stronger; the waves grew angrier…

The ghost ship started flipping over too. Countless evil spirits on the ship cried and howled. Blackie activated the bloodshed because he was on a whole other level from the evil spirits.

To Blackie, these evil spirits and even the ghost ship were just sheep. No amount of sheep posed a threat to a tiger.

However, Chen Zhao couldn’t care about Blackie’s battle against the ghost ship. He had to deal with the sea now. The waves kept hitting him and Manny. Manny choked on a few mouthfuls of seawater.

“Protect your face. Stop drinking the water.” Holding Manny with one hand, Chen Zhao blocked the waves from her with the other.

That was all he could do now. The waves were too strong and he couldn’t swim at all. No matter how strong a human was, he still couldn’t go up against nature.

“Chen, I’m scared. Are we going to die?” Manny was sobbing because she was genuinely afraid.

It was her first time in a life-or-death situation. Even an adult would panic and feel helpless, let alone a girl.

“No.”

…

Fali was unsettled the entire night. She couldn’t fall asleep.

Rain poured down outside, making her even more unsettled. She picked up her phone to call Chen Zhao, but it kept saying that he wasn’t in the service zone.

Just then, she suddenly received a notification.

Last night, a strong air current appeared in the southwest of the coast. Wind power reached level ten with huge waves. Due to the bad weather, signal has also been disrupted. Marine operators should not head out onto the sea within 24 hours to avoid danger.

Seeing this, Fali’s expression changed. She started panicking, not knowing what to do.

“Sienna, something happened to Chen.”

“What?” Sienna had been deep in sleep. Hearing Fali’s voice, she was still in a daze.

“Chen brought the Doom Star to sea and ran into a storm.”

Sienna woke up immediately. “How is he now?”

“I don’t know. The call won’t go through.”