I died ninety-nine times on a luxury cruise ship. Every single time, the ship struck the rocks and sank at exactly midnight. And every single time, I failed to find the traitor responsible for the disaster. Ninety-nine loops. Trapped in a cycle with no way out, my body worn to nothing and my mind on the edge of breaking. When the hundredth loop began, I gave up. I stopped fighting. All I wanted was to spend my last few hours holding my brand-new wife in my arms. But the moment I pulled her close, my hands found something hidden beneath her elegant evening gown — something ice-cold, hard, and already inflated. A miniature life vest. Suffocation. My lungs felt like they were being stabbed by hundreds of red-hot needles all at once. The freezing seawater was alive — coiling through my nose and mouth, forcing its way down my throat like serpents. I thrashed wildly, arms and legs flailing in the pitch-black deep, grasping at nothing but empty water. My consciousness began to slip. The world around me dissolved into a vast, endless blue. Then — silence. Dead silence. … “Haah—!” I jolted upright in bed, gasping, my entire body soaked through with cold sweat. The soft velvet blanket slid off my shoulders. No salt, no brine — just the faint, calming scent of premium agarwood incense drifting through the air. No crashing waves — just the low, steady hum of the cruise ship’s engines. I wasn’t dead. I was back. I turned my head and stared at the priceless Patek Philippe custom clock sitting on the nightstand. The second hand ticked steadily. 8:00 PM. This was the hundredth time I had woken up at this exact hour, in this exact bed. “Eleanor, did you have a nightmare?” The bathroom door swung open softly. Victoria stepped out in a cloud of warm steam. She wore a silky wine-red robe, her damp hair falling loosely over her bare shoulders, her breathtaking face full of concern. Just the sight of her made my racing heart begin to slow. For the past ninety-nine loops, I’d run around this ship like a madman. I’d tried warning the captain. I’d tried forcing the ship off course. I’d even tried blowing up the engine room to stop it entirely. None of it worked. No matter what I did, the moment midnight hit, that deafening crack would tear through the hull. Water would rush in. The ship would capsize. And everyone would go down screaming. I was exhausted. Too tired to even lift a finger. If fate couldn’t be changed, then I wasn’t going to spend my last four hours fighting it. I just wanted to be with the woman I loved most — and go quietly. “It’s nothing. Just a bad dream.” I managed a tired smile, threw back the covers, and walked straight toward her. I opened my arms and pulled her close. Her body was soft, carrying the clean scent of her body wash — a smell I had never stopped loving. I wanted to bury my face in the curve of her neck and breathe in this last moment of warmth. But the second I tightened my arms around her, my hand caught on something at her back. Beneath the soft silk of her robe — something hard. Something that had no business being there. It was… After ninety-nine times fighting to survive in the water, I recognized the feel of it instantly. A compact, body-hugging, military-grade inflatable life vest！ And it was already partially inflated — primed and ready to deploy. It was 8:00 PM. Four full hours before the ship would hit the rocks. Outside, the sea was perfectly calm. The sky was full of stars. So why was my brand-new wife wearing a hidden life vest under her robe?
“Ow, Eleanor — you’re holding me too tight.” Victoria pulled back with a soft pout, trying to wriggle free from my arms. I forced down the icy dread spreading through my chest and slowly let go. “Sorry. The nightmare felt too real. I’m still not quite myself.” I stepped back half a pace and kept my voice easy, my eyes catching the brief flicker of unease in hers. Ninety-nine brushes with death had sharpened my instincts. She was nervous. “Let me pour you something to take the edge off.” She turned and walked quickly toward the bar in the corner of the room. Watching her go, my mind shifted into overdrive. The ship striking the reef. A situation with no way out. A wife who had already fastened her life jacket. None of this was a coincidence. Could it be — the one who caused this ship to go down wasn’t some stranger hiding in the shadows. It was the woman who shared my bed. How could that be possible?！ We’d been together three years. She stood by me through the darkest days of Vance Group. She was gentle, warm, and endlessly understanding — the only light in my life. But what I felt on her back when I held her was real. If you want to keep up the act, I’ll play along. I wanted to see what she was truly hiding underneath that soft, loving face. “Vicky, I want that bottle of ’82 Lafite. It’s at the bottom of my suitcase.” I sank onto the sofa, my voice lazy and unbothered. “Of course. I’ll go grab it.” She set down her glass and disappeared into the walk-in closet. The moment she crouched down and started digging through the suitcase, I shot to my feet and crossed the room to her vanity table. My eyes went straight to her Hermès makeup bag — the one that never left her side. I unzipped it. Lipstick, foundation, perfume… everything looked perfectly normal. But I didn’t stop. I pressed my fingers firmly along the bottom edge of the bag. Click. A faint, sharp snap. The bottom of the bag swung open, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside, lying completely still, was a black satellite phone. No brand markings. No logo. I drew a slow breath, picked it up, and pressed the power button. The screen lit up. No lock screen — it went straight to the home screen. One message. Received ten minutes ago. Sender: [Hound] “Bottom explosive device is armed. Timer set: 23:59. Target asset transfer protocol is active. Put your life jacket on and wait for extraction.” It hit me like a bomb going off inside my skull. Explosive device！ Asset transfer！ Target！ There was no reef. This ship was deliberately blown up. And I — I was the “target.” All ninety-nine times I nearly drowned. All ninety-nine times I clawed at the edge of madness and despair. Every single one of them had been a carefully planned murder. A savage rage at being betrayed by the person I loved most slammed into a bone-deep grief, and together they swallowed me whole. I gripped the satellite phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Eleanor, I’ve got the wine—” Victoria stepped out of the closet, red wine in hand. Her words died in her throat. She saw what I was holding. The warmth drained from her face in an instant. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints. The air in the room dropped to absolute zero.
“What is this?” I held up the satellite phone, my voice so calm it even scared me. Victoria stood frozen, her body trembling slightly. But within two seconds, the panic on her face disappeared — replaced by a chilling composure I had never seen from her before. “Since you’ve already seen it, I won’t bother pretending.” She casually tossed the priceless bottle of wine onto the carpet. The red liquid spread across the fibers like blood. “Eleanor Vance, you’re a sharp businessman. But you’re too sentimental — and that is your fatal flaw.” She walked to the sofa and sat down, elegantly lighting a slim cigarette. “Who put you up to this?” I gritted my teeth and stepped toward her. “You don’t need to know that. All you need to know is that by the end of tonight, everything in Vance Group will change hands.” She blew a slow smoke ring, her eyes full of mockery. “You think you can kill me on this ship?” I laughed coldly. Over the course of ninety-nine loops, I had honed my skills to the level of a trained assassin. Taking down one woman? Three seconds, tops. “Kill you? No, no, no — why would I want to get my own hands dirty?” Victoria laughed so hard she nearly doubled over. “You’re going to ‘accidentally’ die in a shipwreck, right in front of the entire ship — the tragic CEO who never saw it coming.” Just then, the doorbell rang. Ding-dong. “Eleanor, it’s the Captain. Your dinner reservation is ready.” The voice from outside the door was deep and steady — the voice of this cruise ship’s captain. In previous loops, I had begged him for help countless times. He always brushed me off with the same dismissive, by-the-book indifference. I walked over and yanked the door open. The Captain stood outside in a crisp white uniform, wearing his professional smile. Behind him, two waiters pushed a service cart. “Eleanor, this is the French baked lobster you specially requested—” “Shut up.” I cut him off cold, my eyes fixed on his face like a blade. “Captain, I remember very clearly — at the welcome dinner on the first night of this voyage, you told me personally that you have a severe shellfish allergy. You said even the smell gives you hives.” I pointed at the enormous red lobster on the cart and said, word by word: “So tell me — why are you the one personally delivering this to my cabin?” The smile on the Captain’s face froze. Fine beads of cold sweat instantly broke out across his forehead. “I… I…” He stumbled over his words, his eyes darting uncontrollably toward Victoria on the sofa. “Because he’s not the real Captain!” I slammed my foot into the service cart and sent it crashing to the floor. Scalding broth splattered all over both waiters. “You’re all in on this together!” It finally made sense. Why no matter how many warnings I gave, the crew never reacted. Why the ship had drifted so far off course without a single person finding it strange. Because everyone on this ship — from the captain down to the waiters — was a player in this murder plot. Clap. Clap. Clap. Victoria sat on the sofa and applauded slowly. “Brilliant. Truly brilliant, Eleanor. You’re even sharper than I gave you credit for.” She stood up and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. “But even now that you’ve figured it all out — what does it change? Do you really think you can escape?” Her words had barely left her lips when the two waiters — still grimacing from the scalding broth — suddenly reached inside their jackets and pulled out silenced pistols. The barrels pointed straight at my head.
“Kneel.” The fake captain tore off his mask of civility, his face twisting with rage as he screamed at me. I stared down the two dark gun barrels and didn’t move. My mind was running at full speed — calculating distances, angles. “I said, kneel!” He stepped forward and raised his radio, swinging it down toward my head. Now！ I ducked sharply, dodging the blow, and launched myself forward. I grabbed the wrist holding the radio and twisted hard. Crack. The sound of bone snapping was sharp and clean. “AHHH—!” The fake captain let out a blood-curdling shriek. I swung his massive body in front of me, using him as a human shield. Phff. Phff. Two muffled shots. Both bullets hit the fake captain square in the chest. Blood bloomed instantly across his white uniform. In the split second the two hitmen hesitated, I shoved his body aside, rolled into a tactical dive, and snatched a dinner knife off the floor. It left my hand like a flash of lightning. The blade buried itself in the left hitman’s throat. He clutched at his neck as blood poured between his fingers, then dropped straight down. The hitman on the right went pale. He barely started to swing his gun around before I was already on him — a vicious knee strike connecting hard with his jaw. Thud. He flew off his feet and slammed into the wall, out cold. Five seconds. Start to finish. This was muscle memory forged across ninety-nine deaths — beaten into me through countless beatings and killings. I was breathing hard. I picked up the handgun from the floor, turned around, and pointed it straight at Victoria. She stood completely still, staring at the blood and bodies scattered across the floor. Not a trace of fear on her face. Instead, she smiled — a strange, unsettling smile, like someone who already knew exactly how this would end. “Nice moves, Eleanor.” She even stepped forward, pressing her forehead directly against the barrel. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Kill me.” Her eyes were full of challenge. “You think I won’t?” I kept my finger on the trigger. Rage burned in my chest. “Oh, you would.” Victoria’s lips curved into a mocking smile. “But if you kill me, you won’t make it out either.” A mocking smirk tugged at the corner of Victoria’s mouth. “Eleanor — doesn’t it seem strange to you? Why do you always wake up again at eight o’clock every time you die?” My pupils snapped tight. She… how did she know about the loop? I had never told a single person. “Did you actually think this was God giving you a second chance?” Victoria laughed — loud, raw, and cruel. “Don’t be naive. There is no such thing as a time loop.” “Everything you’ve been experiencing — this ship, this ocean, me — all of it is fake！” She threw her arms wide, like she was unveiling a masterpiece. “Welcome to the Abyss System, Eleanor.” “It’s a virtual reality interrogation chamber hardwired directly into your brain.” “You’re not at sea at all. Right now, you’re lying in a stasis pod in Vance Group’s underground lab, with electrodes planted all over your skull.” The words hit me like a wrecking ball. Virtual reality？ Neural interrogation？ The room spun around me. “That’s… that’s not possible…” My voice came out barely above a whisper. The gun trembled in my hands. “Why not?” Victoria pressed closer. “You’re holding the highest-level master access codes for Vance Group. We’re talking about wealth large enough to buy a small country.” “But your willpower is too strong. Standard truth serums and physical interrogation don’t work on you.” “So they built this system.” “To put you through the most hopeless deaths imaginable, over and over, in a virtual world. Grinding down your mental defenses one loop at a time.” “Until you break completely — and hand over the codes.” She pointed to the clock on the wall. “The ship sinking at midnight is the system’s forced restart protocol. Every restart causes irreversible damage to your brain.” “Ninety-nine times, Eleanor. Your neural pathways are stretched to the breaking point — like a rubber band about to snap.” “This is the last loop. If you don’t hand over the codes, your brain will flatline at midnight tonight. And in the real world, you will be a vegetable. Forever.”
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