Chapter 6

The Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish had originally lost one fish eye, having a bean-sized hole.

But, when Li Youyi took it out from his collar again, the hole disappeared, and the two fish eyes were actually both there.

One fish eye emitted cyan light, one fish eye released red clouds, both brilliant and bright, as if condensed from the stars in the sky.

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh!"

The cyan light and red clouds intertwined like light gauze.

If one looked from a distance.

One would find that the two-colored clouds condensed into a Taiji millstone with a diameter of tens of kilometers on the endless ice field, rotating slowly.

"It really is the fish eye lost by the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish, it really is, it really is..."

Zhao Meng had long suspected it, but when the miracle happened before his eyes, his heart was still shaken, and he knelt down to worship piously and reverently.

Li Youyi looked up to observe the cyan light and red clouds, his pupils reflected in color, and said incredibly: "In these two kinds of light, there seem to be profound Dao texts and Buddhist scriptures flying; senior brother, do you see them?"

Zhao Meng didn't see any Dao texts or Buddhist scriptures, but was horrified to find that the ice surface around him and Li Youyi was cracking and sinking, and the two were falling rapidly toward the Arctic Ocean thousands of meters deep.

It was earlier that Nine Infants had shattered the ice cover here.

As it fled, the ice cover collapsed.

Seawater submerged Li Youyi and Zhao Meng's heads in an instant, pulling them toward the cold and suffocating deep-sea abyss.

In the distance, the deformed and shattered research vessel was also slowly sinking underwater while overturning.

"Whoosh-la!"

Clearly sinking into the seawater, Li Youyi was surprised to find that the surrounding waters were all cyan light and red clouds, as bright as divine lamps shining forever. Even more eerily, the sound of canvas bulging in the wind rang in his ears, and he clearly heard the low wooden sound of the mast shaking.

Suddenly.

A surging and powerful invisible field force acted on Li Youyi.

Moreover, it frantically pulled everything around, Zhao Meng, the bear-like creature, seawater, ice cover, and the research vessel sinking in the distance, all were swept by the field force.

"Whoosh—"

From his arms to his torso, Li Youyi's entire body shrank rapidly in circles...

That feeling was like falling from a high altitude, like weightlessness.

But it was a hundred times more uncomfortable than weightlessness.

The Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish hanging around his neck floated slowly to a position level with his eyes, mysterious and full of unpredictability.

Li Youyi, soaked in the cold seawater, entered a quiet and mysterious strange state, his vision far exceeding usual.

He clearly saw that on the light-red fish eye newly obtained by the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish, mountain and river-like patterns appeared, as if a planet were presented before his eyes. Such a picture, he had only seen when observing the moon with an astronomical telescope in high school.

Even more heart-shaking was.

A rice-grain-sized bronze ship flew out from the light-red planet, setting sail under the shroud of fairy light and nether mist.

"Whoosh!"

Li Youyi's body shrank violently again, weightlessness and dizziness coming.

Vision recovered again.

The originally rice-grain-sized bronze ship became palm-sized, right before his eyes.

"Whoosh!"

Weightlessness and dizziness came again.

The bronze ship turned into the size of a fishing boat, and some strange scenes on the ship, such as mast canvas, phoenix corpses and python skeletons, and tombstone forests, were imprinted into his mind like works of art carefully carved by skilled craftsmen.

Where did the bronze ship come from?

Why was it constantly getting bigger?

No...

It wasn't the bronze ship getting bigger, it was he himself constantly becoming microscopic in circles.

Li Youyi didn't know how to describe his mood at this moment, unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, science and myth. Could it be... this was a hallucination produced at the moment of near-death after falling into the seawater?

The satellites above the Arctic Ocean were recording a segment of abnormal footage that could shock the world.

Centered on the *Long Ji* research vessel, the seawater and ice cover within a radius of tens of kilometers were pulled and swallowed by a strange force, disappearing into nothingness rapidly.

Including the shattered research vessel, and the giant beast Nine Infants that had fled more than ten kilometers away, all were pulled in.

They didn't really disappear out of thin air.

Instead, influenced by the bronze ship's field force, they fell into the microscopic world.

The numbness, coldness, and suffocation soaked in the seawater seemed to last for several days, and seemed to pass in only an instant. With a *bang*, Li Youyi fell heavily onto unknown ground.

The continuous weightlessness and dizziness, plus excessive blood loss, plus this heavy fall, even though Li Youyi's physical fitness far exceeded ordinary people, he was still dizzy and his vision was dark.

Fortunately, during the fall, the air showed obvious buffering.

And the ground was not hard.

"What soft soil, what place is this?"

Li Youyi fell face up, smashing a human-shaped pit nearly a foot deep, his whole body in so much pain that he couldn't move, and naturally didn't know he had fallen onto a gray-white grave mound seven or eight meters high.

The bronze ship was ancient and magnificent, not like an object of the human world, like a divine mountain lying on its side.

Masts rose like divine wooden pillars.

And the cloud-like canvas was hidden in the nether clouds and mist, fully spread in the wind, very atmospheric and magnificent.

On the deck, it was vast and strange, actually standing with tombstones weighing tens of thousands of jin, and patches of towering grave mounds, countless, a sense of desolation and loneliness.

Li Youyi fell on one of the grave mounds.

The mound soil was gray-white, like bone ash, and like lime, but the stickiness was very strong, which was the characteristic of soil.

His back, the back of his head, and his left arm torn by the bear-like creature were all incomparably painful, his whole body sour and weak, not wanting to move even his eyelids.

"No... I'm still alive."

When Li Youyi produced this consciousness, his eyes opened suddenly. Just see, the sky here was low and full of dense nether clouds, and his heart felt unbelievable.

Clearly falling into the Arctic Ocean, how did he survive?

He remembered that at the moment of death, he had many hallucinations, seeing cyan light and red clouds, seeing the Dao Ancestor Taiji Fish's fish eye turn into a planet, and also seeing a bronze ship setting sail...

Just as his thoughts reached this point, Li Youyi saw the *Long Ji* research vessel falling from the dark nether clouds above, the huge hull rolling, constantly dropping some fragments and human figures, accompanied by screams and wails.

The speed of the fall was getting slower and slower; it was the fairy light and nether mist wrapping the bronze ship that dissolved the research vessel's gravity.

"Rum-rum!"

The research vessel fell not far away, and the sound of metal deformation and breaking rang out.

The entire bronze ship trembled because of it, and it also shook Li Youyi's heart.

Li Youyi's scalp went numb, his heart filled with absurdity and tension, trying hard to support his body, but failed.

The high-pitched cry of a baby echoed through the world, clanging and harsh.

Nine Infants' body, more than two hundred meters long, fell from the thick nether clouds above, covered in scales, the torso like a giant ox, and all nine heads were crying and wailing.

What made Li Youyi feel icy all over was that he was exactly below the trajectory of Nine Infants' fall.

If this smashed down, even with the buffering of unknown mysterious power, he would definitely be smashed to pieces.

Nine Infants, in the fall, saw the bronze ship below, and its eyes changed from fear to joy, its cry changing from wailing to laughter, as if waiting for this day for countless years.

"Whoosh!"

A golden giant claw, even more huge than Nine Infants' body, suddenly broke through the thick nether clouds and caught it.

The claw was like refined gold, with a strong metallic feel and power, incomparably sharp, easily piercing Nine Infants' body.

Behind the nether clouds, a terrifyingly huge shadow appeared, releasing a vast aura that swallowed the sky and devoured the earth, like a giant beast capable of roaming the universe. But when it saw the bronze ship below, it was fearful, flapped its wings and left, disappearing into the endless dim chaos.

"This... what place is this? Am I really still alive?"

Li Youyi, in shock and confusion, gradually lost consciousness.

Blood constantly seeped from the wound on his arm, mixing with the gray-white grave soil.

Extremely contrary to common sense, these bloodstains actually flowed along the grave soil, accelerating toward the grave.

"Youyi! Youyi..."

Zhao Meng shouted anxiously in the grave forest with thick nether mist, running and searching, and finally found Li Youyi on top of the grave mound shortly after, holding him out of the human-shaped pit.

There were no bloodstains in the pit, only Li Youyi's face was as pale as paper.

After Zhao Meng carried Li Youyi away.

On the tombstone in front of this grave mound, a wind chime made of white bone material swayed in the wind, making a crisp and pleasant sound, adding infinite interest to the terrifying and silent dark night.

Li Youyi had a dream for several years, his exhausted consciousness like a few wisps of wandering silk, gradually returning.

The sound of waves rang in his ears, and there was a cool breeze blowing on his face.

He opened his eyes slowly.

His vision changed from blurry to clear.

"Finally awake, thought you wouldn't make it!"

Qi Shanshan smiled slightly, her voice filled with a bit of surprise, and then walked out the door.

Although Li Youyi only saw a graceful white back, he knew that was Dr. Qi, who had set out with the team.

"He's awake, but still very weak..."

Dr. Qi's voice came from outside the door, not knowing who she was telling what, not very clear.

Li Youyi observed the surrounding environment; the hospital bed he was lying on should have been dismantled from the research vessel. The room he was in was built from fragments of the research vessel, like a spacious iron shed, with many abandoned scraps on the ground that hadn't been cleaned up in time.

The blood bag hung on a wooden pole.

The needle was in his right arm, and he was receiving a blood transfusion.

Inside the iron shed, six other people were lying, some with broken legs, some paralyzed, some unconscious.

Through the simple shed door, one could see the bronze ship's rail wall a few meters away. The rust on the rail wall was very thick, having both an ancient charm and a sense of desolation abandoned for thousands of years.

He could hear the rhythmic sound of waves in his ears and could perceive the slight vibration of the waves hitting the ship's hull.

The wind was blowing into the room from outside the door, jumping over the bronze rail wall.

"Those things I experienced before weren't hallucinations, were they all real?" Li Youyi whispered.

"Of course they're real. We should have fallen into a completely unknown sea world, um... very likely in the microscopic view," Cai Yutong said, her cold voice arriving before she did.

She and Dr. Qi Shanshan, who was wearing a white doctor's uniform, walked in together; both women were tall and outstanding.

Li Youyi's heart startled: "Microscopic view? What does that mean?"

"I don't understand either; it's all what those leaders said. Buddha's Sarira, microscope, bronze ship—they seem to have known some inside information for a long time."

Cai Yutong was still that cold-looking self, placing her finger on Li Youyi's forehead, nodding with satisfaction: "It's good that the fever has gone down; it wasn't in vain that I drew my blood for three days to transfuse you."

Qi Shanshan tore down her platform directly, chanting and joking: "Oh my, you're starting to claim credit? When transfusing blood, I knew you, this vegetable, had ulterior motives."

Qi Shanshan and Cai Yutong were roommates in their undergraduate studies, both being heaven-favored girls of great style in the chemistry department. If the relationship was good, they were as close as best friends.

If the relationship wasn't good, they were also secretly competing.

Later, one took a medical postgraduate degree, and one continued to delve into the chemistry major; there was no competition, and the relationship became even closer.

This Arctic research trip was Qi Shanshan learning the news from Cai Yutong, and then "ordering" her as a best friend to recommend herself to the leaders.

She was very pragmatic and also very good at seizing the opportunity to strive for progress.

(End of chapter)