Chapter 20

Seeing Qi Shanshan did not stand up straight again until she had completely bandaged Li Youyi's wrist. While putting away the scissors, she said, "I ate her!"

Qin Ke, standing behind her, was startled.

Because recently, she had often heard expedition members say that food would soon run out, and perhaps a terrifying incident of cannibalism would occur in the future.

Seeing Qi Shanshan turned around, looked at Li Youyi who was sitting there watching her calmly, and said irritably, "You only know how to care about your Senior Cai; I'm getting jealous! Rest assured, she is very safe."

Of course, she knew that Li Youyi hadn't asked casually.

He was testing her.

So she answered very seriously and added, "You all, not one of you has any insight. A few days ago, I discovered that Xie Tianshu and Kong Fan were in frequent contact with others. This morning, after the Nether Mist dispersed, you were all there studying ancient texts, while those two were sneaking into the kitchen tent."

"I didn't dare to follow them, nor could I be sure what they were going to do, but I knew it definitely wasn't right. To be on the safe side, I could only pull Yutong away to hide first."

"It's best if nothing happens, but if something does, we can at least hide."

Li Youyi did not find any flaws in Seeing Qi Shanshan's eyes or expression, and her answer was watertight. He hurriedly stood up and laughed, "Don't answer so seriously; it feels like an interrogation."

"Aren't you interrogating me?"

Seeing Qi Shanshan looked a bit angry and walked out of the medical tent.

Li Youyi followed, wanting to apologize; after all, when he first fell onto the bronze ship, she had saved half his life. In the previous clash with Laboratory 705, if she hadn't thrown the cross pendant to help, it would have been hard to say who would have won between him and Han Qin.

Seeing Qi Shanshan suddenly turned around and bumped straight into Li Youyi, who was catching up. She let out a soft "Ouch," frowned, patted his chest, and said, "Why are you walking so fast? You bumped into me and it hurts!"

"I still have something to tell you. Your senior brother's injuries are very serious. His arm and kneecap are shattered, and his blood vessels and nerves are also severely damaged. Given the current medical conditions on the ship... you need to be mentally prepared. Even if he survives, I'm afraid he'll be bedridden for the rest of his life."

With the warmth of her body in his arms and the fact that she didn't seem to want to leave, Li Youyi felt no mood for it at all. He hurriedly returned to the medical tent, mobilized the scorching Qi from the center of his right foot to his palm, and wanted to try injecting it into his senior brother's wounds.

But as soon as his hand pressed down, he stopped.

The scorching Qi could only flow through the silver meridians; his senior brother had no meridians, and once injected, it would likely cause secondary damage.

It would be like a palm strike hitting his senior brother.

"Senior brother has also studied the Jade Void Breathing Method. As long as he wakes up and continues to practice according to the breathing method, perhaps he can cultivate that mysterious scorching Qi himself. But..."

"With his legs broken like this, can the scorching Qi still be born from the center of his feet?"

Li Youyi felt a tightness in his chest, as if a thousand-jin boulder were pressing down on it. In an instant, many thoughts surfaced in his mind. This even included feeding his senior brother the black dragon's blood, which might heal his injuries.

But thinking of Xie Tianshu's monster-like appearance, he truly had no way to make a decision for his senior brother.

At this moment.

Outside the medical tent, from the direction of the bow, a woman's faint singing drifted over from afar.

"A great river with wide waves,"

"The wind blows the fragrance of rice flowers on both banks,"

"My home is on the bank,"

"Accustomed to the boatman's chant,"

"Accustomed to the white sails on the boat..."

Who is singing?

Just as Li Youyi and Seeing Qi Shanshan were both bewildered.

Qin Ke thought of something: "It's Liu Ying! We looked for her earlier but couldn't find her, and we all thought she had hidden in the Nether Mist graveyard..."

"Not good."

Li Youyi and Seeing Qi Shanshan, one after the other, immediately rushed out of the medical tent.

Liu Ying was wrapped in a filthy blanket, sitting on the gunwale of the bow, her legs dangling in the air.

Her face, legs, and the shoulders and arms exposed outside the blanket were all covered in bruises and scars.

Her eyes were filled with hollow despair, a memory of her home, parents, and that once stable and law-abiding environment. Her cheeks were covered in tear tracks, and the sea wind blew her long hair up, making her sobbing song even more hoarse and low. Finally, she almost recited the lyrics: "Everywhere... there is... peaceful sunshine..."

Rapid footsteps sounded behind her.

Without a trace of reluctance, she jumped down.

Li Youyi saw her jump down with his own eyes; he was only a dozen steps away, but the gunwale was already empty.

Seeing Qi Shanshan and Qin Ke chased after them, panting.

Qin Ke rushed to the gunwale but didn't dare to look down; she could guess that Liu Ying must be being devoured by the wandering souls in the seawater. Her tears fell uncontrollably like rain.

Seeing Qi Shanshan walked over to comfort her: "After what happened, how could she live? It's okay, don't be afraid. With Youyi here, such things will absolutely never happen on the ship again; he will protect us."

Li Youyi felt heavy-hearted and indignant. Holding his long sword, he walked toward the graveyard filled with Nether Mist without saying a word.

Passing by the dying Chen Hong, he no longer had the thought of letting his senior brother take revenge personally; he threw a punch, piercing his chest. Then, he picked him up and threw him into the sea, as if throwing away a piece of trash.

Can they still be considered human?

They are worse than trash.

Except for Xie Jin, the other four who had escaped were all caught in the graveyard.

Some had buried themselves in the grave soil, leaving only their noses and mouths exposed.

But their breathing and heartbeats were still there; as long as the distance was close enough, it couldn't escape Li Youyi's hearing.

Upon learning that Liu Ying had jumped into the sea, Gao Huan and those students of Professor Xu beat the two security team members who had bullied Liu Ying half to death. Finally, in a surge of public indignation, they pushed them into the Soul Sea.

Vaguely, Li Youyi heard the camel bells in the graveyard again. He immediately practiced the Jade Void Breathing Method to restore his consciousness to clarity and felt deep doubt in his heart.

As for the other two, they naturally didn't escape a sound beating either.

But they weren't thrown into the Soul Sea.

Someone suggested they could be used for experiments.

After Xie Tianshu's dragon-like mutation, although his appearance was strange and frightening, he had gained solid extraordinary power. Who knows, he might be able to live for a hundred or even several hundred years like the demons in legends.

Compared to extraordinary power and longevity, what did sacrificing a normal human appearance matter?

The strong never have appearance anxiety.

Li Youyi did not object; he held the same view as Zhao Meng.

Once a person bares their fangs, they are no longer human!

This isn't about the dragon slayer becoming a dragon, but rather that one cannot have the slightest pity or soft-heartedness toward enemies. They won't appreciate it; they will only hide their resentment in their hearts and wait until you are weak to leave you without a place to be buried.

Besides, Li Youyi also wanted to determine the possibility of saving his senior brother through experiments with the black dragon's corpse blood.

Too many things had happened in one day.

After dealing with everyone's bodies, either throwing them into the sea or burying them, everyone was exhausted.

At the beginning.

Everyone couldn't sleep at all, so they lit a bonfire and gathered together, fearing that a similar riot would happen again.

Moreover, Xie Jin could never be found, like a thorn in their side that hadn't been pulled out, making it hard for them to feel at ease.

But by the second half of the night, they were ultimately too sleepy, and except for the two responsible for keeping watch, everyone else slept right there by the bonfire.

Li Youyi came alone to the other end of the bronze ship and walked under the black dragon's corpse.

Wearing the dragon-pattern thumb ring on his left thumb, he stroked the dragon blood that had congealed into purple-red ice crystals at the severed part of the corpse. In an instant, the cold air froze a layer of white frost on his finger.

The dragon-pattern thumb ring indeed reacted, and the dragon scale patterns on it lit up slightly.

After Xie Tianshu's dragon-like mutation, the first sentence he said was: "This severed arm of mine, thanks to you, neither the black dragon's corpse blood nor the dragon-pattern thumb ring could make it grow back."

At that time, Li Youyi guessed that he must have obtained the help of the dragon-pattern thumb ring to mutate into a demon.

In the afternoon, when using those two expedition members for experiments, it confirmed his guess.

The first one didn't wear the dragon-pattern thumb ring and drank the dragon blood; his skin burst open very quickly.

Finally, he died from excessive blood loss.

The second one wore the dragon-pattern thumb ring and drank the dragon blood, successfully surviving. He then used the blood in his body to soak the thumb ring, and before long, he began to undergo dragon-like mutation.

Of course, no one dared to let him succeed in turning into a demon; when he was about to succeed, they immediately took off the dragon-pattern thumb ring.

The mutation was interrupted, and he died even more miserably than the first experimenter.

His flesh and blood almost all exploded.

"No matter what, this is a way to save my senior brother."

Li Youyi whispered.

The Nether Mist was eerie.

The graveyard of steles before his eyes, under the illumination of the light from the Jin Wu corpse in the distance, revealed a sense of eeriness amidst the silence.

A familiar scent of perfume drifted over with the wind.

Li Youyi's current sense of smell, although not as exaggerated as the Ghost Bear Emperor's, was far beyond that of an ordinary person.

He knew who had come!

Waiting here meant waiting for her.

Li Youyi hid silently behind the massive black dragon corpse. Gradually, light footsteps sounded, and a tall figure passed the black dragon corpse and walked quickly toward the nine-story ship building.

Li Youyi stepped out of the shadows and looked over.

That familiar, graceful back had already walked into the passage between the ship building and the gunwale, heading toward the stern.

In the zhang-wide ship building passage, there were many stone figurines with different expressions, and the Nether Mist was pervasive, adding to the horror. But Seeing Qi Shanshan was not afraid at all, moving through it freely.

On the first floor of the ship building, all the cabin doors were cast from bronze, over a zhang high, and one didn't know how heavy they were; they simply couldn't be pushed open by human strength.

Halfway through the passage.

The Nether Mist gradually dissipated.

Replacing it was an ethereal, immortal radiance like smoke and gauze.

This bronze ship, which looked like a ghost ship for the dead, seemed to have become different, as if it had transformed into an immortal's jade palace and boat.

The stern and the bow were two completely different worlds.

(There is one more chapter, promised to book friends in the book review section.)

(End of this chapter)