Chapter 119.1: Advancing
A gift?
Cheng Qisheng had a feeling that this so-called “gift” was the reason Duxi had been proactively reaching out to her and trying so hard to curry favor with her all this time.
Intelligent life forms always had their own logic for doing things.
She wasn’t a nuclear crystal, after all. She couldn’t possibly be loved by everyone.
Duxi might not necessarily be able to defeat Blue Sea, but there was no reason for him to give away so much valuable information for free.
If he was going to such lengths to win her favor, then he definitely wanted something in return.
The only question was what exactly Duxi wanted.
But since he hadn’t revealed it yet, Cheng Qisheng wasn’t in any hurry.
Just based on the fact that Duxi had told her about the “black hole,” as long as he had no ill intentions, she could continue maintaining a peaceful relationship with him.
Whatever came her way, she’d deal with it as it came.
For now, the great Blue Sea Creator God only wanted to hurry up and round up all her scattered Blue Sea residents.
…
Yao Dangkong felt like she was going to die.
This was the thirty-ninth time she’d felt that way.
Towering waves rose like an enormous city wall, churning violently as they swept Yao Dangkong up into the air. Her head spun, and the seawater covering her body caused waves of stinging pain. In the next instant, she was about to be swallowed by that towering black sea.
—Whoosh!!
A grappling hook shot out in front of the massive wave, accurately catching Yao Dangkong around the waist.
Zhong Yin yanked hard, forcibly pulling her back.
—Bang!
Yao Dangkong crashed heavily onto the wooden planks and coughed up a mouthful of seawater. Her entire body was throbbing with pain.
Fortunately, it was raining.
And, luckily, the rainwater wasn’t poisonous.
The torrential downpour washed over her body, reducing the stinging pain caused by the seawater by a considerable amount.
She struggled to open her eyes through the heavy rain and saw Zhong Yin sitting steadily on the wooden planks amid the violently surging waves, constantly shifting her posture to maintain her balance as the boards drifted with the current.
Even under such difficult conditions, Zhong Yin was carrying a large bag on her back, filled with the crystals she had accumulated.
As for Yao Dangkong, one of Zhong Yin’s legs was pressing her against the wooden planks, keeping her from falling into the sea amid the violent rocking.
This was the forty-ninth time Zhong Yin had saved her.
After the local Yao Dangkong told the Blue Sea people about the Inkshadow, she had actually planned to quietly sail away after witnessing how brutally the Blue Sea people dealt with the sea monsters.
But Blue Sea’s Zhong Yin had already decided that the two of them were friends.
So, when Yao Dangkong tried to sneak away in the middle of the night, she saw Zhong Yin standing on her own ship, grinning at her.
“You want to sail somewhere else too? So do I! Let’s go together!”
Yao Dangkong at the time: “……”
And somehow, the two of them ended up sailing together.
Although she’d initially been voluntarily dragged along by Zhong Yin, Yao Dangkong had to admit that Zhong Yin really was a great friend.
They watched sunrises and sunsets together, competed at fishing, hunted sea monsters, and during fierce storms, they would lash their two ships together and sleep in the same room. Whenever they encountered a small swarm of sea monsters at night, they took turns standing watch.
After getting to know Zhong Yin, Yao Dangkong even slept more soundly than before.
Zhong Yin was a believer, though. She had to pray to her god before every meal and before going to sleep. Whenever she saw a sea monster, she would put on an expression that practically screamed, “Ohhh, this is a gift from God!” before fearlessly charging straight at it.
If she could beat it, she’d get caught up in a prolonged battle, while Yao Dangkong provided support from the sidelines. Over time, the two became increasingly well-coordinated.
If they couldn’t beat it, Zhong Yin would immediately hop back onto the ship and shout at the top of her lungs:
“Can’t handle it! We’re running!”
Yep.
That was Zhong Yin’s battle strategy.
See a sea monster? Charge.
Can beat it? Fight.
Can’t beat it? Turn around and run.
Yao Dangkong’s once-quiet life—where she had always believed that “hidden dangers and suffering lurked beneath the surface of an otherwise ordinary existence”—had transformed into something like having a firecracker constantly going off behind her, forcing her to run forward with sparks flying everywhere.
Countless days and nights, Yao Dangkong and Zhong Yin had raced across the open sea in their ships, with all kinds of sea monsters chasing after them.
The most dangerous time, Yao Dangkong’s ship had already been bitten away by a sea monster until more than half of it was gone. Zhong Yin had managed to use her grappling hook to forcibly pull her away from the monster’s jaws.
Then, despite being injured herself, the powerful woman had patted her chest and reassured her:
“It’s okay, Dangkong. Your ship may be gone, but mine is still here, isn’t it?”
She had laughed heartily despite her injuries and declared:
“From now on, this is our ship.”
But now, Zhong Yin’s ship was gone too.
It had been smashed to pieces beneath the waves. The dried sea-monster meat and dried fish they had stored, along with all sorts of strange little things they’d dredged up from the sea, had once again been swallowed by the ocean.
Yao Dangkong had been swallowed along with them at the time.
But Zhong Yin had pulled her back out.
Just like she was doing now.
“Cough, cough…”
Amid the wind and rain, Yao Dangkong’s coughing was barely audible. She struggled to open her eyes, staring at the constantly shifting, towering waves around them and the lightning that occasionally flashed across the horizon.
She had seen this scene far too many times over the past few days.
There were many storm zones across Green Billow Star’s oceans. In the past, they only needed to make it through one and they would be fine. But recently, for some unknown reason, even after they made it through one storm zone and entered a new stretch of ocean, that area would quickly whip itself into another storm.
They had managed to survive several such encounters without incident before.
But tonight was different.
Tonight’s winds and waves were extraordinarily violent, and the two of them hadn’t eaten anything for two days.
If this continued, they would both die.
“Forget it.”
Yao Dangkong lay sprawled across the wooden plank, feeling her friend’s strong leg pressing firmly against her back. She desperately shouted:
“Stop saving me! You’re only wasting your energy doing this!”
Pain and torment.
Yao Dangkong could feel herself growing weaker and weaker.
“Stop worrying about me! Without me dragging you down, you might actually be able to make it through this storm zone!”
Zhong Yin simply pretended she hadn’t heard her.
One leg pinned Yao Dangkong down, while the other controlled the balance of the wooden plank. She held a makeshift paddle in each hand and stubbornly paddled toward a certain direction through the raging wind and waves.
In reality, the two paddles weren’t doing much at all. Most of their forward movement came from the waves pushing them along.
They would move forward for a stretch, only to be shoved backward again.
After struggling for ages, they would still end up right where they started.
“I said forget it!!”
Yao Dangkong looked at Zhong Yin, drenched from head to toe and laboring desperately with the paddles. Tears slipped down her cheeks, blending with the rainwater.
At that moment, she was desperate and terrified.
Yet within that desperation and fear was also a trace of happiness.
Throughout the long apocalypse she had endured alone, she had unexpectedly found someone who, right before her death, was willing to protect her and never abandon her.
And precisely because of that, Yao Dangkong felt that her mind had never been as clear as it was now.
If this continued, they would both die.
Zhong Yin had an incredibly strong sense of balance. Without Yao Dangkong, she could probably continue maintaining her balance amid these enormous waves, avoiding direct impacts from the wave crests and keeping herself from being dragged underwater.
But with Yao Dangkong weighing her down, Zhong Yin had to control her balance while simultaneously diverting her energy and strength to rescue her whenever necessary.
Yao Dangkong could see that Zhong Yin was already exhausted.
To be honest, even after being rescued time and time again, Yao Dangkong was still afraid of death.
But at this moment, her feelings and gratitude toward Zhong Yin had reached their peak.
She thought that she was willing to die.
“My life was saved by you in the first place. If I die now, it won’t be your fault. I…”
“Ah!”
Yao Dangkong had been trying to push herself upright while speaking, only for Zhong Yin to suddenly press down hard with her leg, forcing her flat against the wooden planks again.
Yao Dangkong: “……”
Both of them had been going without food for two whole days and nights, enduring the wind and rain together, so how was Zhong Yin still so strong?
Zhong Yin turned back and shouted:
“Hang on a little longer! Someone’s coming to rescue us soon!!”
Yao Dangkong looked at the raging storm, the sky pitch-black, and the dark sea churning with enormous waves in every direction.
You mean we’ve been struggling in this storm zone for two days and two nights without contacting anyone, but someone’s actually coming to rescue us?
Yao Dangkong was truly desperate now.
Had even Zhong Yin, who had seemed relatively healthy all this time, finally started losing her mind?
She immediately stopped resisting and gave up on trying to get herself killed.
After all, if Zhong Yin’s thinking had already become confused, then this wasn’t about the waves anymore.
Her sacrifice wouldn’t accomplish anything. What if, after she died, Zhong Yin started hallucinating and mistook the ocean in front of them for land, then simply stepped right into it?
Yao Dangkong spread her arms and legs as wide as she could, gripping the edges of the wooden plank to stabilize herself.
“You don’t have to worry about me! I’ll hold onto the plank myself!”
Zhong Yin looked at her. After confirming that Yao Dangkong had a firm grip on the plank, she withdrew one leg and continued steering through the wind and waves, paddling desperately toward the front.
“Almost there, almost there! We’re almost there!”
She shouted excitedly as she paddled, her face filled with exhilaration.
Every now and then, she would suddenly perk up for no apparent reason and shout:
“Praise be to my god!!”
—She had completely lost it.
Yao Dangkong’s heart sank.
She desperately shifted herself across the plank and crawled over, grabbing Zhong Yin’s wrist with one hand to keep her from jumping into the sea.
Zhong Yin glanced back at the hand holding her wrist, assuming that Yao Dangkong was simply afraid.
“Hahahahaha! Don’t be scared!! We’ll be rescued soon!”
