The male supporting character was actually myself.

Purple cabbage becomes more fragrant the more you chew it;

There were also carrots and cabbage dipped in salad dressing; she wanted to lick the entire glass bowl clean!

"Burp!" After finishing the last piece of delicate pastry and dipping the last drop of soup, Li Xiaoqian let out a happy burp, nestled in the soft and comfortable bed, her whole body radiating satisfaction from the inside out.

Looking out the porthole at the blue sky, white clouds, and the vast sea, she missed her parents, friends, colleagues, and the dozen or so adorable babies in her class. Where were they all?

Will my parents also drift alone on the sea as they get older?

Will they be able to get enough to eat?

What should be done about those children...?

Numerous unsolvable problems followed, making her injured and weakened mind even more confused.

I don't know when, but she curled up in bed and fell asleep.

Mandy tiptoed in, covered her with the blanket, and then took the empty plate out.

Upstairs in the living room, the ship girls sat or stood in a circle, discussing things as enthusiastically as they used to on the warship.

"The only material we're lacking right now is crystal cores, which are essential for upgrading the ship. We need to find a way to do it as soon as possible!"

"The way this world works is very strange, and we can't let our guard down. Especially with all the tools, we can't move an inch without them. It's completely different from when we used force to solve problems in the past."

"There's nothing that force can't solve; if it doesn't work, it's because we don't have enough firepower!"

Amy glanced at the belligerent Nightshade and smiled helplessly, "You've been so irritable ever since you couldn't summon the warship. Calm down, we need to help the captain develop as quickly as possible."

Getting angry or sulking won't help!

"Don't worry, it's all my problem right now." Jiang Chen rubbed his fingers thoughtfully and said, "There will definitely be a lot of people who want to upgrade their yachts later, so crystal cores won't be too scarce."

However, in the sea area we are currently in, the production of crystal nuclei is very limited.

Christine quickly replied, "Then let's go to a higher level of sea!"

Anyway, everyone's just limited in energy and unable to summon, but the yacht's attack power isn't strong right now, although its protective shield is very powerful. We should probably try jumping levels.

"The problem is that we don't have a complete map of the sea area, so we don't know which way to sail to reach the next sea area."

"Ah, this..."

……

While the numerous ship girls and Jiang Chen were discussing countermeasures, Jiang Yuan was happily looking at the additional item pages in the raft survival system.

The newly unlocked page contains an item called "Three Burrows for a Cunning Rabbit".

This item is consumable and can be used three times.

Survival on a raft is fraught with danger and uncertainty. In the event of a crisis, items are automatically consumed, and the raft and its occupants are randomly teleported to a safer area.

[Remaining attempts: Two.]

"Although I don't know what kind of crisis I encountered, I was teleported away as soon as I successfully looted, which is so convenient!" He clicked on the raft survival page with his left hand and browsed around casually, while his right hand stroked a pure white, fluffy little sea otter that could whimper.

This is the epic pet he got from signing in!

It can be used for treasure hunting, as well as to help salvage supplies and hunt small fish.

They only need to eat a few small fish every day to survive; they're incredibly easy to keep alive!

The only problem is that you have to manually increase loyalty.

Currently, on the pet page unlocked in Raft Survival, it shows that the sea otter named "Xiao Bao" has a loyalty of only 5% and may defect at any time.

So Jiang Yuan doesn't dare to let it out now. Every day he rubs its fur, plays with it for a while, feeds it some good food, and tries his best to increase its loyalty.

You have to brush it at least 20% before you dare to let it go into the water to help with the work, otherwise it will get angry and run away and you won't have anywhere to find it.

"Xiao Bao, have you ever seen a mermaid?" Jiang Yuan said to himself while grooming the dog. "There should be mermaids in the sea, right? Aren't they very beautiful?"

"If only I could marry someone like in the movies, with a supermodel's figure and an angelic face!"

The sea otter, lacking loyalty, tilted its head, ignored him, and covered its eyes with its paws, lying motionless on the deck.

Jiang Yuan wasn't very interested in small, furry animals.

He didn't like cats or dogs. Although this pure white sea otter was cute, it still seemed ungrateful after being with him for several days, which made him somewhat displeased.

He sighed inwardly, "This sign-in system is really something, giving away pets instead."

Wouldn't it be great if you could just sign in and get a mermaid as your wife?

I hope this month's big gift package will include a beautiful mermaid. Having plenty of food and drink, and a beautiful woman by my side—that would be truly wonderful!

Chapter Twenty-One: The Plague God in Disguise

As night fell, and most people had just finished dinner and were preparing to chat and stock up on food, a long post suddenly went viral in the chat channel.

A girl named Li Xiaoqian, with a refreshing short haircut, gave a detailed account of her experience being attacked by Jiang Yuan.

The special markings drew everyone's attention, indicating that Jiang Yuan's ship had a special camouflage that made it difficult to spot even when it was nearby without careful observation!

This news once again caused an uproar in the chat channel.

Some people questioned it, some were afraid, and many more were discussing how to avoid encountering this plague.

"Ha, yet another clown jumping out to throw mud. Who are you?"

Is it developing well?

Is it on the leaderboard?

You keep saying that Jiang Yuan, the great god, swallowed your ship, but how much is your ship worth?

Why would Jiang Yuan, the great god, go to such lengths to attack you over a tiny, broken boat?

Do you really think these experts have that much free time?

"Was this someone who wrote novels before time travel? The story is alright, but the process is too unrealistic."

Crossbows are such expensive weapons! How powerful must you be to warrant a master using a crossbow to deal with you?

"A single crossbow bolt is probably worth more than you plus a wrecked ship!"

"If you want to smear Jiang Yuan, don't use such a low-level excuse."

"Holy crap, did sharks eat the brains of those guys up there?"

"Ignore them, Jiang Yuan's brainwashed fans are a bunch of idiots!"

"Jiang Yuan wouldn't dare to come out at this time. If he really hadn't done anything wrong, he should just openly release the nautical log!"

"Exactly, that girl posted screenshots of her logbook and photos of the crossbow. If he really had nothing to hide, why wouldn't he dare to respond?"

"What are we going to do? The plague god's ship is even harder to guard against because it's disguised!"

"I can't even sleep peacefully now. Who knows if Jiang Yuan might be wandering around like a ghost!"

"It's a bit better during the day, at least you can see someone die and understand why. But if it happens while you're sleeping at night, you're doomed..."

……

While the chat channel was filled with panic and various insults, Jiang Yuan stared at the screen with a gloomy expression.

"Damn it!" He slammed his fist on the floor and cursed through gritted teeth, "How could she possibly be alive? It's impossible!"

Recalling today's "hunting" process, I realized that my crossbow bolt most likely missed its mark and did not hit the heart when the opponent panicked and jumped into the sea.

However, when he saw the two unopened wooden crates, he started opening the crates to retrieve the treasure while also taking over the ship, only to find her "corpse" floating far away, being pushed further and further by the waves.

I figured he was probably dead, and I didn't want to waste gas chasing after him to find out what was going on.

Since there was no way to survive on the vast ocean, they stopped paying attention and quickly teleported to other sea areas by the "Three Burrows of a Cunning Rabbit" technique after swallowing the ship. Who would have thought that the woman was still alive!

"These flies are so annoying." Jiang Yuan looked at the survivors "denouncing" him in the chat channel, angrily put away the screen, and snorted coldly: "A bunch of trash, do you even know what survival is?"

If you don't fight, grab, steal, or kill, how can you call that surviving?

An idiot who's never been on the battlefield, incompetent yet unwilling to be a lamb to the slaughter—there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Are you right?

"Little Bao?"

He reached out to stroke the baby sea otter's soft fur, but the round little creature rolled over to the side and wouldn't let him touch it at all.

Jiang Yuan glared at it with displeasure, thinking to himself that if this guy didn't have the skill of finding treasure, he would have skinned and eaten it long ago, given its unruly nature!

Let's try for a few more days. If this guy is still unresponsive to both soft and hard tactics, then we might as well kill and eat him before he defectes.

Feeling the cold, menacing gaze behind her, the pure white little sea otter looked at the iron chain tied to her leg, curled up pitifully, licking her little paws, and was still thinking about how to escape.

"Host, the script is updated!" It was almost bedtime, and the little white cat hopped over and handed the script to its host, who was about to go wash up.

Jiang Chen took the script into the bathroom and carefully looked through it.

This time, the protagonist messed up himself, and the plot clearly tried very hard to salvage the situation.

However, he obtained the treasure map a little late, and in addition, he stole the crisis-resolving item "Three Burrows for a Cunning Rabbit" from Li Xiaoqian's box. The randomly teleported sea area was relatively barren, which delayed his overall development speed by a few days.

Once this buffer period is over, the protagonist will smoothly rise to become the overlord of the ocean.

"What a pity, we couldn't have taken advantage of his illness to kill him." Jiang Chen put the script away and sighed.

The little white cat drooped its head and rubbed its ears with its fluffy little paws. "It's all because of the protagonist's so-called sign-in system. It gives away freebies too often every day."

If we need something today, we'll send it tomorrow. We don't even have a moment to lay a trap.

"Host, what should we do?"

"While the protagonist is wasting these few days, let's hurry up and find crystal core mines. If we can quickly upgrade the yacht, the ship girls will have more room to use their abilities, and our chances of winning will be greater."

The fluffy ball licked its fur and said helplessly, "We're both white, but I wish I had the treasure-hunting ability like the protagonist, that sea otter."

"Treasure-hunting sea otter?" Jiang Chen took out the script and flipped through it again.

Aside from a brief mention when you received a pure white sea otter as a daily reward, there was no further news about this adorable pet in the later storyline.

"That's strange. Did the protagonist not raise his pet's loyalty enough?" The little white cat tilted its head, looking confused. "It wasn't mentioned in the story. Where did the protagonist's treasure-hunting pet go? He can't have skinned and eaten it, can he?"

Jiang Chen frowned slightly, "Such an adorable little pet, the protagonist wouldn't be so heartless, would he?"

"Many people don't like furry pets; but many others like lizards, snakes, spiders, and the like. Besides being a top-tier soldier, are there any other character traits in the protagonist that suggest he's cold-blooded?"