Chapter 3: Shipwreck

It sounded like a mix between a tiger and a lion. It was a sound that Zuo Qingcang had never heard before.

But judging by the intensity of the sound, he felt that the creature making it must be extremely dangerous. Zuo Qingcang came onto the deck and looked at the sea around him. At some point, the nearby sea had become completely covered by endless fog. He could no longer see the other ships of the Great Qi fleet.

In this sudden fog, the beast’s roar suddenly disappeared. The fog was silent except for the sound of rolling waves. He could only see the dark shadows formed by the ships. The entire sea looked like a ghost realm.

In this silence, Zuo Qingcang’s eyebrows suddenly twitched, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. Because when he looked down at the deck beneath his feet, he discovered a dark human shadow appearing right below him.

Judging by the shadow’s position, the other person was standing less than a meter behind him.

‘Who could be here?’

‘I checked the entire ship; there should be no living people left.’

‘Could it be those pirates?’

Zuo Qingcang turned around sharply. The first thing he saw was a pale human face extremely close to his. The face’s eyes were open unusually wide, with wounds tearing open the corners. The mouth was slightly upturned, as if smiling mockingly. The most peculiar thing was his pale skin, which was deathly white as if devoid of any blood.

On a ship full of corpses, such a strange ‘person’ suddenly appeared standing behind Zuo Qingcang. Even someone as calm as him couldn’t help but feel his heartbeat quicken in fright. But even though he was startled, years of training and experience had long turned calmness and rationality into Zuo Qingcang’s instincts.

Facing this suddenly appearing strange person, Zuo Qingcang’s instinctive reaction wasn’t to retreat but to attack proactively. The axe clenched in his right hand slammed into the other’s neck with a thud. But it felt like the axe had hit a tree, not a human body.

Zuo Qingcang tried to pull it out but found the axe stuck inside. He immediately let go and stepped back, then drew a Dagger from his waist, holding it horizontally in front of him.

Looking at the strange person with an axe embedded in his neck, Zuo Qingcang showed surprise again.

Judging by the clothing on the other person, it was actually a Great Qi soldier from the ship. But now this Great Qi soldier not only had a deathly pale face and unusually large eyes but also had an axe stuck in his neck, yet he still looked at Zuo Qingcang with a mocking expression. The whole scene felt indescribably eerie. The other’s neck still bore the fatal wound from when he had fallen earlier.

What was even more shocking came next. Unnoticed, all the corpses of the crew and soldiers on the deck had stood up. They all had the same pale faces, eyes forced wide open, and were looking at Zuo Qingcang with the same strange smiles.

Taking a deep breath, Zuo Qingcang slowly moved toward the edge of the deck. His eyes quietly watched these ‘crew members’ as if guarding against them suddenly pouncing.

He had checked every corpse here; they were absolutely dead beyond any doubt. But these dead bodies had now stood up and were all looking at him with cold smiles, making even someone as brave as Zuo Qingcang feel uneasy inside.

Neither Zuo Qingcang’s own memories nor Liu Zhicheng’s memories contained anything like this happening before. So-called Jiangshi or zombies were things only heard of in legends. But now they were appearing right before Zuo Qingcang’s eyes.

As Zuo Qingcang slowly retreated, all the pale corpses on the deck turned their heads, their eyes fixed intently on Zuo Qingcang, their gazes following his movement. When Zuo Qingcang stopped, they all stopped too, continuing to stare at him.

Facing this situation for the first time, just as Zuo Qingcang was hesitating about how to respond, the loud beast roar sounded again. A massive shadow the size of a mountain surged out from the fog. All the pale corpses remained standing stupidly, motionless.

‘Monster!’

Without seeing its full appearance, Zuo Qingcang only saw countless dark scales the size of tabletops. The next moment, the entire ship shook violently with a terrible tearing sound. The ship beneath his feet began to capsize and tear apart. After a dizzying spin, Zuo Qingcang himself fell into the sea along with those pale corpses.

Zuo Qingcang knew that in such situations, a sinking ship could create a whirlpool that would drag him underwater. He struggled to swim, trying to escape the current’s pull, but the monster beneath the sea was too powerful. With just a casual movement of its body, the waves it created rendered Zuo Qingcang’s efforts useless.

In this situation, his strength was severely depleted. After just a few minutes, Zuo Qingcang already felt exhausted.

Just then, a piece of wood struck the back of his head. Zuo Qingcang’s vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

…

Waves, sunlight. Zuo Qingcang slowly opened his eyes and spat out the sand in his mouth.

As he got up, the surrounding seagulls flew startled into the sky.

Looking at the beach before him, Zuo Qingcang slowly recalled what had happened earlier.

Liu Zhicheng, Great Qi, resurrected dead, pale corpses, and the dark, gigantic monster.

“What a chaotic world.”

Instead of getting up immediately, Zuo Qingcang lay on the ground and began checking his body to avoid causing harm with careless movements. Even at this moment, the calmness ingrained in his bones still functioned.

After examining himself, whether due to luck or Liu Zhicheng’s body being strong enough, in such a shipwreck he had not only been washed ashore but was completely unharmed.

After confirming he wasn’t injured, Zuo Qingcang slowly stood up. His clothes were already torn and ragged, so he simply took off his shirt, revealing his slender, lean upper body.

Looking around, he discovered that it wasn’t just him – there were many ship wreckages on the beach as well.

‘Did they drift here with the current?’

Although Zuo Qingcang didn’t know where he was now, according to Liu Zhicheng’s memories, their journey to the New Continent should have been only three-quarters complete. Feeling the hunger in his body, Zuo Qingcang estimated that the sea had brought him to some tropical island in the Western Sea.

The Western Sea was the ocean between the old continent where Great Qi was located and the New Continent that Liu Zhicheng had been heading to before.

‘In the worst case, this might be an uninhabited island. I need to prepare for a long stay here. First, find food and water.’

‘If it’s a tropical island like this, I can try looking. I wonder if this world has…’

Next, Zuo Qingcang walked about two hundred meters along the beach and indeed found the plant he was looking for – coconut trees. Coconuts, very common fruits in tropical regions, contain abundant water, potassium, vitamin C, and carbohydrates.

In some places, they’re called the fruit of life, and there are even records of people surviving for a month eating only coconuts. Seeing the coconut trees before him, Zuo Qingcang temporarily relaxed. This meant he didn’t need to endure his body’s exhaustion and weakness to search for food and water in more dangerous places, like the nearby shallow sea or the forest behind him.

But coconut trees are very tall. The one Zuo Qingcang selected was over twenty meters high, equivalent to an eight or nine-story building in the city.

Letting out a breath, Zuo Qingcang used the shirt he had taken off earlier, tying it into a cloth bundle. He threaded the cloth under his armpits and tied it to the coconut tree trunk. This would help him climb the coconut tree, a method used by many cultures for climbing coconut trees.

Then he was seen constantly wedging his feet into the cracks of the coconut tree. The cloth tied him to the tree trunk as he slowly climbed upward.

However, the negative effects of the shipwreck were more severe than Zuo Qingcang had imagined. Only halfway up, he already felt severely tired and weak.

But coconuts were the food he urgently needed now; otherwise, he couldn’t replenish any nutrients. He could only persist and slowly climb up. Finally reaching below the coconuts, he leaned against the tied cloth, using one hand to grab a coconut and slowly twist it off, letting it fall to the ground by itself.

Just as Zuo Qingcang began twisting off the third coconut, his gaze suddenly focused. From the coconut tree, he saw what appeared to be a person lying on a floating plank about three hundred meters out at sea.

After picking one more coconut, Zuo Qingcang began slowly descending the tree. After reaching the ground, he didn’t rush to check on the person out at sea because his current condition wasn’t good. Swimming three hundred meters in the sea was too dangerous for him. Although he really wanted to drag that person ashore to get some useful information from them.

So he first found a rock, broke open the coconuts he had picked, and began eating the coconut water and flesh inside. After eating one coconut, Zuo Qingcang sat on the ground to rest, replenishing the energy he had consumed from climbing the tree.

While resting, he kept his gaze on the shadow about three hundred meters away. Sitting on the beach obviously didn’t provide as clear a view as from the treetop. If you didn’t look carefully, you wouldn’t notice that the shadow was actually a person lying on a plank.

Zuo Qingcang squinted and looked for a while. The other person seemed to come from the same fleet as him, apparently wearing Great Qi soldier’s clothing as well.

Just as he thought this, the other’s head seemed to lift up, revealing a deathly pale face. A blood-red wound split his face in half. This dead face lifted and looked in Zuo Qingcang’s direction, then smiled with a chilling expression.

Zuo Qingcang was startled, but when he looked more carefully, he found that the other hadn’t lifted his head at all. Or rather, from this distance, he shouldn’t be able to clearly see such details of the other person.

Rubbing his temples, Zuo Qingcang wondered if he was having hallucinations from being too tired. But remembering those strange corpses on the ship, Zuo Qingcang still picked up a rock before slowly walking toward the sea.