IWOL Chapter 92: Gathering to Rest

Cui Zuojing dragged Dong Zheng ashore step by step.

Water dripped from his clothes and his black hair, with some strands stuck to his temples.

He released Dong Zheng, who fell onto his back without moving. Using the Tang Sword, Cui Zuojing sliced through the thread on the stitched-heart bear’s bowtie. The soaked bear was finally free, and it fell dizzily to the ground.

“Can you save him?” Cui Zuojing pointed to the drowned Dong Zheng.

The heart-stitched bear tilted its head and blinked its small, black bean eyes to express powerlessness.

“Then I’ll do it,” Cui Zuojing muttered to himself. He pulled apart the collar of Dong Zheng’s shirt, pinched Dong Zheng’s chin, put his fingers in Dong Zheng’s mouth and pulled his tongue out, and then he hugged his upper body, lifting him so that his shoulder was pressed into Dong Zheng’s abdomen.

Now stand—

Cui Zuojing took a deep breath, held Dong Zheng’s leg against his chest and stood up with some difficulties.

The youth staggered two steps before stabilizing his figure.

So heavy.

Under the bear’s gaze, Cui Zuojing quickly began trotting with Dong Zheng on his shoulder. His shoulder pressed into Dong Zheng’s stomach, squeezing out the water inside.

Cui Zuojing turned his head to see Dong Zheng’s tongue sticking out and water flowing out of his mouth, and he almost died of laughter on the spot.

After running two laps, Cui Zuojing felt that he was nearly finished and finally put Dong Zheng back down. He checked the man’s breathing, but it was so weak that he could hardly feel it.

Drowning and exhaustion were indeed a bit hard to handle.

Cui Zuojing knelt beside him, raised his chin to open his airway, pinched open his mouth, and leaned down.

Dong Zheng’s lips were cold and his nose rubbed against the side of Cui Zuojing’s cheek. The youth blew air into his mouth, again and again, so that it seemed as if his lips were repeatedly rubbing against those two small pieces of skin.

A few seconds later, Cui Zuojing raised his head and steadily began chest compression. After half a minute, he leaned over again.

Five minutes later, Dong Zheng’s closed eyes tightened and he suddenly began to cough. Water spewed out of his nose, causing his brows to furrow, and then he resumed coughing violently.

Even though Dong Zheng had accidentally sprayed Cui Zuojing with water, he didn’t even bother wiping it off. Instead, to prevent Dong Zheng from choking on the water he was vomiting out, Cui Zuojing hurriedly pulled him up so that his upper body was leaning against his arm.

After a while, Dong Zheng slowly, sluggishly opened his eyes.

The moment he looked up, he saw Cui Zuojing’s face and stared blankly.

Cui Zuojing sighed in relief and finally felt assured enough to put Dong Zheng down. He picked up a dry twig and used it to poke the man’s face. “Look at you. I just went into the prisoner’s space for a bit, and you ended up like this. If there’s no me, what would you do?”

Before Dong Zheng could respond, he tossed aside the twig and said, “I don’t really blame you though. Brain developers are usually limited by physical fitness. If it was Fu Zhe just now, he might have drowned too. But, if he could improve his fitness, so could you, right?”

Dong Zheng opened his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse and raspy from choking on water. Even he himself felt that he sounded terrible. “I know. I’ll increase my training intensity when we return.”

Cui Zuojing was satisfied.

After a bit of time, Dong Zheng felt much better. He propped himself up, frowned slightly, and asked, “How did you…save me?”

“Artificial respiration and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.” Cui Zuojing took it as a matter of course. “Why? Do you mind?”

“No,” Dong Zheng denied. He turned his head and looked at the huge sunset floating over sea level in the distance. Away from Cui Zuojing’s sight, he pressed his lips together.

The once luxurious Gabriel II had almost completely sunk, and there was only a little spot of red burning in the distance. The sea was full of turbulent waves. Thousands of meters away, the giant squid and its tentacles were still visible despite the distance.

Human bodies continuously washed ashore.

[Main task: Survive/Destroy the demon seed]

At the same time, the image of a box appeared in their task interface.

“Demon seed?” Dong Zheng repeated in a low voice. When he told Cui Zuojing about the task, the youth asked, “Do you still have the box we found earlier?”

Dong Zheng said, “I had too many things to carry so I gave it to Allen. He should have it with him.”

They were soaked to the skin. The sun at dusk coated the sea, the beach, and the dense jungle behind them in a golden light.

They took off their clothes, wrung them damp, and put them on again. It would save them from catching a cold and unnecessarily increasing their losses.

Once done, Cui Zuojng and Dong Zheng set off to search the shore for traces of the others.

***********************

Wang Que struggled to get up.

Lin Hangzhi had slowly gotten a bit better, but Dong Linhai was still unconscious. His wounds were still bleeding, dyeing the spot of sandy beach underneath him red.

It was at high tide so the seawater gradually washed over Dong Linhai’s ankles.

Wang Que and Lin Hangzhi dragged Dong Linhai to a place where the land was completely dry. Wang Que’s hair was dripping with water, and she sat with her legs bent, her hands clasping her knees, and her body curled up into a ball.

She was so cold.

Lin Hangzhi was bare chested. He took out a waterproof bag from the pocket of his pants and gave it to Wang Que. Inside the bag were two flintstones. “I’ll find firewood.”

Five to six minutes later, Lin Hangzhi returned with an armful of branches. Using dead leaves as fillers, they lit a bonfire.

The small fire flickered, exuding light and heat. Wang Que stretched out her hands to the fire, heated her palms, and pressed them on Dong Linhai’s chest, trying to keep the teen’s body temperature warm after having lost so much blood.

After he’d finished inspecting Dong Linhai’s wounds, Lin Hangzhi loosened the vest around the teen’s arm so that it wouldn’t unnecessarily squeeze his limb too much and cause necrosis. “The stitched-heart bear is with Dong Zheng, and Victor is following Allen. We just need to find them quickly, then everything will be fine.”

Wang Que thought for a while, picked up some dead leaves, wet them with sea water, and covered the campfire with them.

Thin smoke quickly rose up and drifted into the sky.

“Let the others come to us,” Wang Que said softly.

*******************

Allen was the only person in the team who had the smoothest journey ashore. He swam all the way without encountering neither shark nor squid, so he got to shore quickly.

Afterward, he still had quite a lot of strength, and once he’d dealt with his drenched state, he looked up and saw something white flying in the sky.

He trotted a few steps in its direction, reached out his hands, and caught Victor, who’d fallen straight down.

“How did it feel to fly in the sky?”

“Wonderful.” Although Victor was tired and still hadn’t grasped the full power of a Servant of Body, he was much better now than he’d been when the first seal was unlocked.

At least he was still conscious and clear-headed.

Allen held Victor, made sure that the box Dong Zheng gave him was still on his person, and went to look for the others.

******************

Wang Que didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep.

The sounds of whispered conversations around her were faint and unclear. She couldn’t hear the contents clearly, so she ignored them and allowed herself to sink into the ocean of exhaustion.

“Look, she paints so well. She will definitely be admitted to Yangmei in the future.”

“It’d been a long time since I’ve seen a student as gifted as you.”

“Wang Que, you paint so well. Did you come up with this way of lighting and shadowing by yourself?”

“……”

The crowd was bustling with activity, squabbling and cacophonous. Their backs were to her as they looked at the painting on the wall. She held a paintbrush and a small bucket and stood behind everyone, falling into a panicked daze as she listened to their endless praises.

The girl wearing the bunny headgear walked to her, took her arm affectionately, and smiled at her. She said, “Wang Que, how did you create that kind of perspective on your painting? Teach me.”

Wang Que turned her head and looked at the girl with the bunny headgear. She was smiling at her, her two covetous eyes were like dripping blood.

The bucket in Wang Que’s hand began to shake slightly, causing a drop of water to splash on the back of her hand. She looked down in surprise, only to find that a translucent bug was slowly crawling out of the bucket. The bug was the size of a finger and felt like a slug. There were several dense tentacles gathered in a bunch on the breathing hole on it’s back, swaying gently.

She screamed in fright and threw away the bucket.

The bug and water spilled onto the floor.

Everyone turned around to look at her. Their countless pairs of eyes were full of reproachfulness, disappointment, and confusion.

Wang Que didn’t know what to do. She gripped the paintbrush tightly, as if only it could give her strength.

“—Go to hell!”

Wang Que suddenly let out a gasp, and she woke up.

“It should have a lot to do with religious legends–” Cui Zuojing was interrupted by her movements. Both he and Dong Zheng looked over at her.

“Awake?”

She didn’t know how long darkness had fallen. She was lying on the ground with Cui Zuojing’s jacket covering her. The men were sitting around the bonfire with their upper bodies bare so that the fire could quickly dry their clothes.

Everyone was here.

Lin Hangzhi reached out, touched her forehead, and said, “Fortunately, there’s no fever.”

“…What happened to me?”

“You were overworked, soaked in sea water, and had to withstand a cold wind, so you ended up fainting,” Lin Hangzhi said. “Fortunately, Allen and Uncle arrived in time so it’s nothing serious.”

Dong Linhai’s injured arm was as good as ever, and the stitched-heart bear was resting on the teen’s legs to dry itself. He was concentrating on roasting the hare in his hand.

Upon hearing that Wang Que was awake, he immediately turned his head. His eyes lit up and he smiled widely. “You’ve worked hard. After I finish roasting this, you can eat some to replenish your strength.”

“Are you cold?” Dong Zheng asked her.

Wang Que nodded. Her clothes were still wet. When she was unconscious, Lin Hangzhi said that it was best to change her out of her wet clothes, but they were all men so they couldn’t help her.

“Put on mine first.” Dong Zheng’s jacket was almost dried. He gave it to Wang Que and everyone turned their backs immediately and continued their conversation, giving her privacy to change clothes.

Holding Dong Zheng’s jacket, Wang Que couldn’t help feeling moved.

She sniffed, took off her drenched shirt as quickly as possible, and put on Dong Zheng’s.

Her underwear was also still wet and so she could only squeeze out the excess water, which only made it barely comfortable.

Afterward, she came over and sat in front of the fire with everyone. Allen took her wet clothes and placed them on a makeshift, wooden rack to dry.

The men were very comfortable being shirtless, and they inevitably ended up comparing figures. Dong Linhai, as an athlete, was naturally in very good shape. Allen looked at his abdominal muscles with envious eyes.

Allen rolled his pant legs up to his knees, revealing two hairy legs. Dong Linhai touched his leg hair and said, “You are just like a jungle!”

Allen said, “White men have more body hair. What can I say?”

Cui Zuojing went to pinch the soft roll on Lin Hangzhi’s stomach. With a face that said there was nothing to live for, Dr. Lin said, “This is already a big improvement, okay? My abdominal muscles are almost there….Before I came to the Pure White Realm, I had two rolls.”

“You can do it, brother.”

Cui Zuojing patted Dong Zheng’s abdomen with the back of his hand. Although Dong Zheng’s wasn’t as obvious as Dong Linhai’s, he clearly had abs.

The youth smiled and said, “As for you, I won’t be too demanding. Just strive to achieve what a team captain ought to have.”

Dong Zheng was silent.

Finally, he couldn’t bear it anymore and moved Cui Zuojing’s itchy hands away.

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