He drains the rest of his drink, and signals for another despite its general disgustingness.

“May I ask how you’re enjoying your cruise so far?” asks Soo-min.

“Fine. Yes. Good,” mumbles the trickster god, suddenly extraordinarily depressed. He doesn’t notice that Soo-min has swapped her seat out for the one closest to him until she’s placing a hand on his shoulder. Seokga stiffens.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, sir, to make this cruise more enjoyable, say the word.” Soo-min smiles pleasantly. “I’m in charge of guest entertainment. Maybe you’d be interested in another greenhouse soiree? We can keep your brother away this time.”

He shakes off her touch. “My brother is fantastic and would likely be an even better emperor than me,” he replies shortly, hoping the woman will leave. She doesn’t. Instead, Soo-min is staring at him. Again. Seokga clenches his jaw in irritation as she runs her eyes across his face, no doubt struck with the inane attraction Hwanin somehow managed to procure from almost every living woman. The cruise director looks almost hungry.

“I’m sorry for asking, but I’m curious. You look so…” Soo-min tilts her head, licks her lips. “Healthy. Youthful. Whole. How did you do it?”

“Pardon?” Seokga grits out.

“Your skincare routine,” Soo-min quickly clarifies. “How do you do it?”

The woman listens in annoying rapture as Seokga grudgingly formulates some bizarre ten-step skincare routine that he’s quite certain Hwanin never did. It involves various creams, ice cubes, and—mostly for Seokga’s own amusement—a specific procedure involving a raw, peeled potato and a ballpoint pen. When he’s finally concluded his bullshit skincare speech, Seokga manages to make an excuse and slink off, determined to lure the murderer away from the hungry-eyed cruise director.

Yet to his vast disappointment, the perpetrator seems to be steadfastly ignoring Hwanin’s regal parade about the ship—even when he returns to the exact spot on the I-95 where Hwanin was murdered. Only once does somebody yank him into a secluded corner, and that person is a frustrated-looking Yoo Kisa.

He’s rather excited by this turn of events, but Kisa makes no move to tug him into a fervent embrace (pity).

Instead, she sighs and shakes her head. “This isn’t working. We need to try something else.”

The rest of the day is spent futilely investigating a mystery that doesn’t seem to want to be solved. Seokga shape-shifts into the SRC Flatliner’s most common sort of guest (an elderly, sagging man who formerly worked in a bank or a business or some other boring establishment) and pokes around for hidden witnesses, stealthily and subtly probing other guests for any indication they observed any part of the murder.

“Well,” one woman slurs through sips of a frozen lemonade that is clearly spiked with some sort of alcohol, “last night I heard a big splash.”