Chapter 189: Sailfish
A few hours later, a strange vibration came from beneath the hull.
X had already been frightened once before, so this time it couldn’t even be bothered to lift its eyelids. Instead, Shukui let out a low growl from its throat.
Wu Heng was sleeping deeply, showing no sign of waking. Xie Chongyi stuffed X into his arms and quietly left the room.
In the cabin outside, Sang Qing was supporting the exhausted Li Qin as they came in. When he saw Xie Chongyi, he said, “Quick, we need to get out of here—wake that one up too!”
Xie Chongyi couldn’t see what was happening outside. “The typhoon hasn’t passed yet?”
“It’s not the typhoon.” Sang Qing set Li Qin down on a chair and pressed a cup of hot water into her hands. “It’s sandworms—they’ve crawled out from underground.”
“You outsiders probably don’t know what sandworms are—they’re sea centipedes. We used to treat them as snacks, but now each and every one of them…” Sang Qing clearly didn’t have time to explain further and left the cabin before finishing his sentence.
Xie Chongyi stood there for a few seconds, his gaze falling on the nearly extinguished brazier and Li Qin’s purplish face. He walked over, bent down, picked up two pieces of dry firewood, and tossed them into the brazier. Then he pulled a blanket off the wall and covered Li Qin’s legs. It wasn’t even worth mentioning as an effort for him—he had only thought of his mother. When disaster struck, she had always stood in front of everyone just like this.
“Thank you.” Before Li Qin could finish speaking, the young man had already circled behind her to the door and pulled it open. The slender, unusually lean greyhound followed closely behind him.
Before stepping out into the storm, Xie Chongyi didn’t forget to rummage through the pile of debris at his feet and pull out an old, rusted umbrella, which he opened over his head.
He walked out, the umbrella slightly tilted upward.
Beneath the weakening electric net, the boats at the dock were crawling with enormous sea centipedes. Aside from their countless long legs and razor-sharp mandibles, their bodies gleamed with a visibly hard, yellow-green metallic sheen.
They were pouring out in a steady stream from the damp caverns underground.
The number of sea centipedes on their ship was relatively smaller, because Yao Donghai—like a giant—was standing on the deck, swinging two large axes in his hands, hacking left and right. His clothes had been torn to shreds by bites, and his skin was covered in blood.
Sang Qing also joined the fight. All of his tentacles shot out at once, each one extending several meters, strangling the creatures far faster—and with much less effort—than his uncle.
The ground was littered with severed limbs of sea centipedes, still writhing desperately.
Then a centipede head slid along with the rainwater to Xie Chongyi’s feet. Beneath its blood-red eyes, its mandibles were about to snap shut, aiming straight for the human’s ankle.
Shukui, like a massive beast, stomped down. The centipede’s head instantly burst into pulp beneath its sharp claws. It darted past Xie Chongyi, a white blur flashing across the deck—fragments of sea centipedes scattering everywhere. One could hear the carnage, but not see the dog itself.
Sang Qing, being half-animal himself, could tell that the one who had suddenly jumped in to help was the dog belonging to those two boys—but it was more than ten times larger than before. With a single bite, it could grab seven or eight sea centipedes at once and tear them apart, sending limbs flying through the air. And the sea centipedes couldn’t even pierce its skin!
Holding his umbrella, Xie Chongyi walked to the railing. Yao Donghai’s daughter was moving toward the other ships—countless sea centipedes would soon crush them all into ruins.
The boy tightened his grip on the umbrella handle. The rainwater on its surface burst apart into fine mist—and in the next instant, every sea centipede within sight froze mid-motion.
“Bang.”
“Bang, bang.”
…
All the mutated sea centipedes exploded one after another, like fireworks bursting open. Flesh and armored shells flew everywhere, and the horrifying gnawing sounds vanished in an instant.
Faced with this scene, Sang Qing couldn’t help but gape.
And before he even had the chance to voice his awe, the electric net overhead—holding back the typhoon—ran out of energy.
Yao Yue reacted the fastest. She raised her hand, and a massive curtain of water rose where she stood, enough to shield the entire dock, blocking the raging waves. Then she lifted her foot and ran toward the others.
Li Qin was already completely exhausted, and Yao Yue wasn’t far from overusing her abilities either. She climbed onto the ship, shot Xie Chongyi a grateful look, then hurried into the cabin to check on Li Qin’s condition. Yao Donghai and Sang Qing followed closely behind.
Sang Qing forgot to return to a fully human form and squeezed into the cabin with several tentacles still attached, leaving a slick trail of mucus on Xie Chongyi’s sleeve as he passed.
Xie Chongyi clicked his tongue, his disgust written plainly across his face.
Shukui returned to his side, panting as it crouched down, its body likewise smeared with the fluids of sea centipedes.
With a flick of his hand, the water curtain Yao Yue had just raised collapsed instantly.
The wind and waves surged forward at once, but just as they neared the dock, they were firmly blocked by an invisible wall of air. The entire dock now looked like a massive transparent crystal sphere fixed in the middle of the raging sea.
Shukui lowered its head to look at the human beside it, its face full of admiration—until a thin black line appeared along the side of his face, and a dark liquid, like blood, seeped out from the split.
Shukui closed its mouth, its expression turning serious.
The boy touched the wound with his fingers, wiped away the liquid, brought it to his lips, and extended his tongue to lick it.
Gazing at the surging ocean beyond the towering waves, he spoke slowly, as if talking to himself—or perhaps to soothe Shukui’s unease:
“If I must face death in the near future, then I should turn that death into a gift for him.”
With its limited intelligence, Shukui couldn’t understand Xie Chongyi’s words. It could only rely on an animal’s innate instincts, sensing the sudden surge—and then sudden easing—of the aura of death emanating from him. So it felt afraid one moment and relieved the next. It only knew that the scent of death had nearly vanished, but didn’t realize that Death itself had never stopped approaching.
—
After the typhoon passed, the entire Changzhou base was left in ruins. The nearby dock, however, suffered less damage than the interior of the base.
When Wu Heng woke up, the small room was filled with the aroma of food drifting in from outside—just the smell alone carried a sense of steaming warmth.
The boy turned his head drowsily, only to have his eyes pricked by a burst of golden light from outside the window. A few strands of his hair reached out ahead of him to take a look, the ones closest to the small window already dyed gold by the sunlight.
For plants, each spring is a season of growth. Wu Heng realized that even though his body was still lying in bed, unmoving, he could already see the scene outside through the “perspective” of his hair. The sun had risen—half of it above the horizon—spilling molten gold across the sea.
The rainy season might be ending.
Wu Heng sat up at once. X rolled from his arms down onto his legs, chirping in dissatisfaction, but Wu Heng had already mercilessly left the bed.
Ignoring the three people busy cooking in the cabin, Wu Heng paused for only half a second beside a pot of food that was just about ready to eat, then followed the aroma out to the deck, where he found Xie Chongyi basking in the sun.
Xie Chongyi was reclining in a lounge chair that looked like it might fall apart at any moment, sunlight draped over his entire body. Hearing footsteps, he opened his eyes—there was a brief flash of red before they returned to normal.
Tilting his head back, he smiled at the person behind him. “Finally awake. Come on, let’s go tide-pooling.”
“Tide-pooling?” Wu Heng’s mind was still hazy.
“Yesterday’s typhoon probably washed a lot of small creatures ashore.”
Before Wu Heng could respond, Sang Qing walked out of the cabin. “Eat something first. We were all exhausted last night—you should be well-rested by now, right?” The last part was directed at Wu Heng.
Wu Heng ignored him and instead looked around the ship. After adjusting to the long-absent sunlight, fragments of some kind of insect corpses stretching endlessly into the distance finally came into view. He narrowed his eyes, quickly understanding, and turned to look at Xie Chongyi.
Before Wu Heng could meet his gaze, Xie Chongyi lowered the finger he had been holding upright by his lips.
Sang Qing had already gotten the signal and added, “We really have your boyfriend to thank for last night—he brought your dog out and helped us deal with those sea centipedes. Your dog is seriously impressive!”
The young man had the kind of honest, straightforward face that didn’t seem capable of lying.
Wu Heng was half-convinced, half-skeptical. “He didn’t help?”
“He didn’t,” Sang Qing said. “He’s an ability user too? What’s his power?”
“Nothing special.”
…
Breakfast today was made by Yao Donghai—steamed fish cakes, swimming crabs, and a huge pot of boiled seafood. There were at least four or five kinds of shellfish alone.
The fish cakes had cornmeal mixed in. Wu Heng didn’t like them—after one bite, he put the rest into Xie Chongyi’s bowl. He spat out what was in his mouth and dropped it in front of X. X picked it up, lowered its head, then tossed it disdainfully at Shukui’s feet.
“Crabs used to be big, but nothing like this. These ones are massive—just two fill up the whole pot. You could scoop out two bowls of roe from them. Come on, eat more!” After last night, Yao Donghai had become even more enthusiastic than before.
Wu Heng scooped up crab roe with a spoon and stuffed it into his mouth in big bites.
Beside him was a large plate piled with shrimp and crab meat that Xie Chongyi had already peeled for him.
Seeing his appetite, Sang Qing was just as stunned today as he had been yesterday. “Have you always eaten this much? Where do you even get enough food normally?” In the apocalypse, one of the biggest problems was food—it was humanity’s lifeline.
“Getting food isn’t hard,” Xie Chongyi answered for him after swallowing a mouthful of fish cake.
Li Qin said, “The sun’s out. This typhoon at least brought us a bit of luck. Hopefully the weather stays normal—not too hot.”
Sang Qing and Yao Yue nodded vigorously.
After breakfast, Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi politely declined Sang Qing’s offer to accompany them. Taking the dog and the bird, they got off the ship and headed toward the shore, where the waves had already calmed.
Like Wu Heng, both the dog and the bird were visiting the seaside for the first time. The coast today was completely different from last night’s cold and violent chaos—though still damp, it was unusually warm. Even the sand beneath their feet felt as if it had been soaked in warm water.
Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi each wore a pair of knee-high boots, trudging step by step across the beach that had been soaked in seawater all night. Shukui enlarged itself two or three times over so that moving wouldn’t be so strenuous. As for X, it remained perched atop the dog’s head, clearly unwilling to touch the ground.
Crawling across the damp surface of the beach, the only things Wu Heng could recognize were the colorful shells and conchs of varying sizes. Even the smallest were as big as a fist, while the larger ones were downright terrifying—big enough to swallow an entire human whole. And despite having grown several times larger than before, they were still densely packed across the shore.
Wu Heng let go of Xie Chongyi’s hand and walked over to a pearly-white shell. Using his vines, he pried it open. Several vines slithered inside like green snakes, and in no time, the shell had been completely drained, leaving behind only a small pool of water.
The vines seemed even more excited than Wu Heng himself. Although humans ranked first on its “menu,” that didn’t mean it couldn’t appreciate other living creatures. After the first taste, it no longer needed instructions—spreading itself across the beach, it began devouring everything in its path like a sweeping autumn wind scattering fallen leaves.
Wu Heng happily let it do as it pleased. He directly moved an entire stretch of beach and a pool of seawater into his spatial storage. A shallow yet wide pit instantly appeared along the shore, but the removed seawater was quickly replenished. For him, this place was both a hoarder’s paradise and a gourmet’s heaven.
Just as Wu Heng was about to extend his vines into the sea for a massive haul, Xie Chongyi stopped him in time. “Deathlands is also along the coast. There’ll be an entire stretch of sea there for you.”
Wu Heng thought that made sense—this way, he could save a lot of energy.
Xie Chongyi watched him thoughtfully. There were still a few grains of sand on his face, his hair seemed a bit shorter than before, and the flower on his head looked slightly wilted. Yet overall, he appeared much more spirited, with a healthier flush returning to his complexion.
‘Do poppies bear fruit?’ Xie Chongyi suddenly wondered.
“Look at this.” He pulled Wu Heng down into a crouch and lifted up a crimson creature with his fingers.
It was about the size of a cat, covered in raised bumps. At the front of its head was a flute-shaped protrusion, and its tail tapered from thick to thin, curling at the end.
“Seahorse,” Wu Heng said—he’d seen it on TV before. “It’s very pretty… just dead.”
Xie Chongyi tossed it aside, but his body suddenly tilted.
The sand beneath their feet began to shift. Realizing what was happening, he grabbed Wu Heng and leapt away. Not far off, Shukui ran into the same situation—it tumbled on the ground before scrambling back toward them.
Sand and seawater churned and splashed everywhere. Beneath the yellow-brown beach, patches of gleaming black armor slowly emerged. A pair of crimson eyes appeared more than ten meters away, and in front of them stretched a sword-like snout nearly ten meters long. The humans had merely been standing beside its abdomen—its full body must have been fifty to sixty meters long, with part of it still submerged in the sea.
“Sailfish,” Xie Chongyi said, pulling Wu Heng back step by step. “It wants to return to the ocean.”
To Xie Chongyi, something this large was unnecessary—whether for eating or keeping. There was no need to kill it either; the vast ocean could easily accommodate such a creature.
But clearly, his boyfriend didn’t share the same opinion.
Wu Heng’s eyes lit up with excitement. “I’ve never eaten this before.”
