Chapter 240: The Nameless Person

Yellow sand obscures the sky, making it impossible to see.

A figure travels through the wind and sand.

The Nameless Person is covered in a coarse hemp cloak, as if made from a burlap sack; the wind makes the cloak flap loudly, sand embeds itself into his hair, and he has not had a drop of water for several days. In this desert, even a Six-Stage Martial Artist would have cracked lips and enter a state of severe dehydration.

He dares not use a Resistance Technique or Spiritual Energy Shield to block the wind and sand.

Because the continuous use of Resistance Techniques or shield-type Spells would cause a consumption of Spirit Power far exceeding that of offensive Spells, which is disadvantageous for sudden situations. It is also because this place has always been an area under the actual control of Lanya, and has been for a long time.

Therefore, not only can he not use a Resistance Technique, he must also use special means to hide his own Spirit Power, heat, and signs of life.

The Nameless Person dares not open his mouth, for if he did, yellow sand would pour in; he dares not lift his head, for if he did, yellow sand would drill into his eyes; he dares not let his mind wander, for if he did, his willpower would become unsteady and his resolve would waver. He has no choice but to keep his head down, hunch his back, cover his mouth with cloth, and walk forward step by step.

His pace is slow but firm.

Not far ahead is Shanan City, the second largest city in Duqin, where the salvation he seeks can be found.

But suddenly—

The wind and sand before his eyes seem to have stopped.

The sound of the wind no longer howls, the sand no longer dances; the world is like a television that has lost its signal, and the sudden silence makes one feel tinnitus.

The Nameless Person cannot help but lift his head.

He sees that amidst the sky full of yellow sand, there is a blank space. This area seems isolated from the surrounding environment; the yellow sand flows around it, and the sound of the wind cannot enter. He only vaguely senses an illusory, flickering figure reflected in the sky, looking down at him like a god.

"Have you decided?"

It is an indifferent and heartless voice.

"Who are you?"

The Nameless Person licks his cracked lips and becomes vigilant, but in the face of such an existence, he cannot summon much of a desire to resist.

"Have you decided?"

"Decided what?"

"How to save yourself."

"Who exactly are you? Why come to ask me? What do you want to do?"

"Do you want to see your future?"

"Future... are you a Secret Sect Practitioner?" The Nameless Person tilts his head back, able to discern that this figure is also a woman, but that is all. "But you are not the Secret Sect senior who guided me!"

After the Nameless Person finishes speaking, he receives no response from the other party; instead, he feels the world spin and turn, and the world becomes chaotic.

In this chaos, he sees his own future, from the near to the far.

"Brother Nameless, congratulations on your rebirth."

"Hey you! Come fight! Oh right, what was your name again? Forget it, let's just call you Nameless, come fight, come fight!"

"Nineteen horizontal lines and nineteen vertical lines, forming three hundred—I admit you are a Go genius. Come, Qingqing, you come and educate him."

"You've already promoted to High-Tier? How the hell are you so fast? Are you cheating?"

"I am going to promote to Eighth Stage..."

"Amitabha, Cao Ci has already gone mad, but he remains the strongest Ninth Stage of this era. To stop him, we must borrow power..."

"This humble monk will be the dealer; bet on who promotes to Ninth Stage first!"

"As expected of you!"

"Brother Nameless, is this real?"

"You too... no great fault..."

"I was meant to be a nameless person; to have known you all for so many years is a great fortune, truly a great fortune..."

Suddenly, too many things were "seen" in his mind; it seemed like only fragmented pieces, yet also like his entire future life, from the moment he left Shanan City until the grand finale of his life, filled with a large number of images related to Qingcai Keke, Grandma Always Says, and other group members.

The Nameless Person is unable to speak for a moment, nor can he piece together any effective thoughts, just standing there stunned.

He remains stunned for who knows how long.

In any case, when he comes to, his eyes are already blurred.

Yet he wears a smile:

"So that's how it is."

The figure in the sky still gazes down at him from above, her eyes devoid of any emotion, only her voice coming through, the tone also incomparably cold: "It seems you have indeed made your choice... Since that is the case, I will arrange another life for you."

"What kind of life?"

"Do you still have room to choose?"

"..." The Nameless Person lowers his head, water droplets falling onto the sand, but he lifts his head again, his expression calm. "What do I need to do?"

"Do as you think."

"Wha—"

The sound of the wind in his ears suddenly becomes clamorous, rustling loudly; dust and sand pour into his throat and smear his moist eyes, making him unable to help but cough, hunching his waist to rub his eyes and spitting out the sand in his mouth.

The sky has long since returned to normal.

One hundred and sixty kilometers...

Chen Shu lies on the bed, frowning in thought.

The sea area where the Frigate sank is close to Nanzhou Island. After the Dragon Whale took them away, it would not be too far from Nanzhou Island. Calculating carefully, it is very possible that this place is anywhere from over a hundred to several hundred kilometers from Nanzhou Island; the specific difference depends on the swimming direction of the Dragon Whale.

Assuming that over there is Nanzhou Island—

This booming sound could be various countries testing Zhan Lue Wu Qi.

That Thunderstorm Cloud shrouding the entire southeastern sky is the isolation Formation, isolating the power of the Zhan Lue Wu Qi and its various effects on the surrounding sea area.

Does that seem barely plausible?

It is just that the frequency is a bit too high.

Chen Shu opened his eyes.

The Rune in the room emitted an extremely faint light, like a nightlight, dimly illuminating the room's layout.

On a stone desk sat a diary, closed casually with a pen tucked inside; beside it rested a simple, archaic Long Sword, and the clothes worn during the day were tossed carelessly on the head of the bed; other than that, there was nothing else in the room.

Such a simple life was actually quite good.

Chen Shu closed his eyes.

The days that followed were spent just like this.

Every day, Chen Shu was busy exploring the island and improving their quality of life, sometimes studying Spell Principles, while at night he would cultivate together with Qingqing.

The exploration of the island still yielded little.

The sea area outside remained empty.

The exotic beasts that had gone far away had still not returned.

After many improvements, Chen Shu's traps and trapping strategies were gradually starting to yield results; of course, the main reason was that this island was rich in resources, to the extent that even if one possessed no skills, one would not starve to death on the beach.

The two reduced the proportion of seafood in their three daily meals, turning instead to various meats, eggs, wild vegetables, fungi, and fruits, making their diet quite rich.

This was all thanks to the harvest from Chen Shu's exploration of the island.

While there were no major harvests, there were still plenty of small ones.

Besides the common rabbits and pheasants, Chen Shu also discovered wild cattle on the island, and had also caught deer and muntjac to eat—emergency survival, after all. The meat of these wild animals was all tastier than wild boar, but none compared to the Sword Pig, because the taste of wild animals was still heavier, whereas the Sword Pig had absolutely no gamey smell.

Creatures like the Sword Pig, which possessed exotic beast bloodlines but were not exotic beasts themselves, most likely existed for the purpose of being food.

The temperature on the island did not turn cold again, maintaining the feel of late spring in Yujing, a bit hotter than winter in Bai City, only getting colder on cloudy and rainy days.

The two's menu gradually stabilized—

For fish, they mainly ate grouper and black sea bream, and sometimes ate a little sea eel when they found it, eating it every two or three days.

For shell-less mollusks, they generally only ate small octopuses and small squids; Qingqing said the big ones didn't taste good.

For shellfish, they only ate abalone and oysters; they didn't eat scallops or clams because Chen Shu found them too troublesome to prepare and clean, and Ning Qing didn't want to spit out shells while eating. As for sea snails, Chen Shu hadn't mastered the technique for eating them, so he simply didn't eat them.

They weren't very picky about shrimp and crab.

Occasionally they ate sea anemones, jellyfish, and sea vegetables, usually as side dishes for their meals, mostly depending on their mood and the weather; if they had them, they ate them, if not, they didn't.

For land meat, they only ate wild rabbit, Sword Pig, and a type of large pheasant unique to this place; they also only ate the eggs laid by this pheasant, which tasted the same as chicken eggs, had a better texture than most other bird eggs, and were large enough.

There were also several types of wild vegetables and fungi they ate often.

The fruits they ate most often were coconuts, plantains, and cherry tomatoes; for the rest, it depended on luck—if they happened upon them, they would pick some to bring back. Chen Shu had already tasted most of the fruits on the island that looked edible, and he knew by heart what tasted good and what was edible.

He felt they could live here for a long time.

The twelfth lunar month passed quickly.

The twelfth lunar month was clearly coming to an end.

Chen Shu had even finished making Cured Meat, Sausage, Wax Ribs, smoked chicken, and spiced beef.

At the same time, he gradually realized two things—

First, it was likely very difficult for any more ships to accidentally enter this sea area unless a storm broke out at sea. Second, the Spirit Sect had no intention of coming to find him; otherwise, since this place was not far from the site where the ship sank, they should have found their way here by now.

Originally, in his thinking, if he and Qingqing were to leave this island, it would most likely be through these two ways.

As for other possibilities, the probabilities were all too low.

The fact that the Spirit Sect hadn't come looking for him was very surprising to him; it wasn't that he was narcissistic or thought he was that important, but rather that the various information he had gathered supported him in making such a judgment—although he hadn't joined the Spirit Sect long ago and his qualifications weren't old enough, the Spirit Sect valued him highly and wouldn't leave him to fend for himself; if not for that, they wouldn't have sent him a communicator on the night before he left Yujing.

The sinking of a Frigate was not enough to kill an Intermediate Cultivator, and in the absence of a clear death, the Spirit Sect should have come to look for him regardless.

The Spirit Sect was not the Secret Sect.

Then there were only two possibilities—

First, the Spirit Sect had received a warning from a Secret Sect Practitioner, and second, this place was truly special, even more special than a Zhan Lue Wu Qi test range.

The twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.

Chen Shu sat on the beach, burying both his legs in the sand; Qingqing, beside him, was unusually dressed in a white dress, sitting on a dark reef, and Chen Shu could touch the hem of her dress with a slight reach.

"Mr. Chen, be a little happier." Qingqing's voice drifted from above, "After all, we should be vacationing in the Aoxila Qundao right now."

"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, I'm thinking about what we're eating tomorrow."

"..."

Ning Qing glanced at him indifferently; even in this place, she was still a Secret Sect Practitioner, but she didn't expose him, only saying: "The pictures I prepared for Xiaoxiao are of Chinese food, but she might not necessarily do as I arranged."

"What will she post?"

"Don't know, she'll probably ruin my image." Ning Qing didn't really care about these things either, and was too lazy to think about them.

"I just gave this island a name!"

"?"

"Maldives!"

"What does that mean?"

"Not telling you, guess for yourself."

"..."

Ning Qing turned her head, looking down at his expression.

Although she couldn't connect to the Plane mechanism here, she knew that this was an answer that couldn't be found in the World Will or the Plane Memory. However, touching the Plane mechanism and peeking into the underlying rules was only one of the abilities of the Secret Sect; without these, the Secret Sect was still the Secret Sect.

Chen Shu, however, didn't look at her, but looked into the distance: "I won't be home tomorrow, what do you think they will eat?"

"Don't know."

"Guess."

"They'll probably go out to eat."

"Probably..."

Chen Shu could not help but grin; it was rare to hear Qingqing use that word.

It seemed the weakening effect here on her was truly not insignificant.

Ning Qing caught a glimpse of his expression, but she did not care at all, merely lifting her head to gaze toward the distant horizon.

Today she sat here without practicing the Taixin Dao, and Chen Shu, while staying on this beach, was not solely focused on foraging for seafood; as the New Year approached, the two of them were simply sitting here enjoying the beach and the sunshine, enjoying the caress of the sea breeze and the meaningless consumption of time.

The ocean was vast and boundless, and the sunlight was as warm as spring.