The six members of Lab 705—aside from Han Qin, who held a shotgun, and the middle-aged woman wearing glasses—were all getting on in years.
They were still in the same spot as before.
Seeing Qi Shanshan, Li Weiyi, and Gao Huan returning from the direction of the nine-story deckhouse, Director Yang hurried over to meet them, speaking apologetically: "Thank goodness! It's so good to see you back. I forgot to mention earlier that there are unfathomable dangers toward the stern. Whatever you do, don't let your curiosity get the better of you and wander over there."
"This is very likely a burial ship!"
"The classical garden at the stern might not be the ship master's living quarters; it could very well be the ship master's tomb."
He could "forget" something like that?
Li Weiyi and Gao Huan lost whatever goodwill they had left for Director Yang, offering only perfunctory pleasantries in response.
In front of Director Yang, however, Qi Shanshan put on a completely different face. Smiling warmly, she said, "Thank you for the warning, Director! Even if these two boys had the mind to, they wouldn't have the guts. Just looking at the rows of stone figurines over by the nine-story deckhouse is enough to give anyone the creeps. Ah, but didn't everyone already take the imperishable items from those skeletal humans? Director, what are you all still studying here?"
Director Yang replied, "We're investigating the cause of their deaths! What's more, I don't believe the most important treasures on them were those imperishable items at all—it's this armor and these weapons. Unfortunately, they're far too heavy. No one can lift them."
"I suppose they must have been the heavenly soldiers and generals of legend," Qi Shanshan said. "Armor and weapons like these are divine armaments. How could mere mortals like us hope to use them?"
Li Weiyi looked toward the ten-foot-long ancient spear lying on the deck. Pitch-black as ink, its shaft was mottled with rust, yet its spearhead remained razor-sharp, gleaming with a chilling glint.
If not for the presence of so many watchful eyes, he truly would have liked to pick it up to test just what level of strength he had reached after cultivating something extraordinary.
He should be able to lift it.
After Qi Shanshan finished exchanging pleasantries with Director Yang, the three of them headed back toward the medical tent near the bow.
Li Weiyi could not resist asking, "Dr. Qi, what were those imperishable items you mentioned just now?"
Her hands tucked in her pockets, Qi Shanshan walked on without looking back: "They're just accessories, clothing, and the like found on those skeletal humans—things like a dragon-patterned thumb ring, a three-headed serpent bracelet, a cross pendant, a scripture belt, silver-thread gloves, and so on. Since they haven't decayed after thousands of years, they're obviously no ordinary objects."
"The moment those skeletal humans were discovered, everyone scrambled to strip them clean. Ever since, everyone has kept their finds tightly hidden away. Nobody knows how many good things each person is holding onto."
"What I just mentioned are only the ones talked about the most over the past few days, items that many people saw with their own eyes."
"Supposedly, when Xie Tianshu slipped off the dragon-patterned thumb ring, the faint sound of a dragon's roar resonated—it was quite extraordinary. Others say that after Kong Fan got the pair of silver-thread gloves, the strength in his arms increased dramatically, enough to lift three or four hundred jin."
Li Weiyi asked, "Kong Fan? Head Chef Kong? With a build like his, he can lift three or four hundred jin?"
Qi Shanshan nodded slightly, envy flickering in her lovely eyes as she let out a soft sigh. "Now you know why everyone is so desperate to find the Buddha relic, and why they're targeting you so relentlessly, don't you? No matter how good these treasures are, they pale in comparison to the Buddha relic."
*Slap!*
Gao Huan slapped his thigh with an "Aiya!" of regret. "What on earth did I miss out on? So many treasures that lasted thousands of years without decaying, and I didn't snag a single one! Li-zi, we really shouldn't have gotten injured!"
Unruffled, Li Weiyi said, "An ordinary man is blameless, but harboring a jade brings guilt. Whether it's a blessing or a curse, who can say?"
...
The Ghost Bear Emperor was still alive and could stage a comeback at any moment.
Aboard the Bronze Ship, human nature had deteriorated. The people worried over the impending shortages of food and water while simultaneously coveting one another's treasures, causing tensions to grow ever sharper.
On top of that, many believed Li Weiyi had swallowed the Buddha relic, eyeing him like hungry predators.
This was their fifth day since crashing onto the Bronze Ship!
With each passing day, the likelihood of conflict and danger would increase by another fraction.
Driven by survival, greed, jealousy, and desire, many were bound to be secretly gathering strength and scheming. Just walking outside for a single circuit, Li Weiyi could distinctly sense the atmosphere of danger.
All it lacked was a single spark to ignite everything.
While keeping his guard up with absolute vigilance, Li Weiyi channeled the scalding current, devoting all his effort to nourishing the injury in his left arm.
Two days later.
The seventh day since they had crashed onto the Bronze Ship.
At nine in the morning, cries of astonishment broke out outside the medical tent, followed by a clamor of noise and the sound of running footsteps everywhere.
"It's dawn! The gloom-clouds are gradually dispersing!"
"Wonderful! Are we about to reach land?"
...
Everyone inside the medical tent was jolted awake.
Li Weiyi felt an immense surge of pleasant surprise as well. Tidying himself up slightly, he swiftly got out of bed and made his way to the deck.
The area outside was already packed with people.
Sure enough, the thick, pitch-black gloom-clouds in the sky had thinned out, drifting like gossamer, faintly revealing the starlight above.
"The sea! I see seawater!"
A young expedition member leaned over the bulwark, pointing below the ship and cheering wildly.
When the crowd gathered round, they indeed saw the sea surface over a hundred meters below, waves rolling layer upon layer. Yet because the gloom-clouds had not fully dissipated, they could only make out a blurry glimpse.
Even that was enough to stir their hearts.
It was like a blind person regaining sight, or an eternal night greeting the dawn, bringing boundless hope and anticipation.
"What is that? A steep mountain rising out of the sea?"
Someone rushed to the very front of the bow, pointing into the distance.
"It's not a mountain peak. It looks like a stone pillar... or rather, a stone stele! There's writing carved on it!"
"Good heavens! How could such a towering square-column stele stand in the middle of the sea? Just the portion protruding above the water must be over two thousand meters high!"
"How is that any different from a stone mountain peak?"
...
Li Weiyi walked toward the bow along with the crowd.
The gloom-clouds overhead were on the verge of dispersing completely.
The ocean was pitch-black and brooding.
Dozens of kilometers ahead of the Bronze Ship, the stele rose straight up like a mighty mountain, a divine peak piercing into the vault of heaven. Even from so far away, its overwhelming presence was palpable.
Upon the boundless expanse of the vast ocean, it appeared intensely solitary and abrupt, yet precisely because of that, all the more grand and magnificent.
Carved into it were four vigorous, bizarre characters, cut deeply into the stone as if gouged by a heavenly blade, remarkably distinct.
"What bizarre writing! Why does it look like some kind of symbol?"
"Is this even still Earth? No one on Earth has ever heard of any sea with a stone peak pillar stele like this standing in it!"
Many people had clung to illusions, believing that once the gloom-clouds dispersed, they would see a familiar sea, and from there return to their homeland, their families, and their campuses.
With their illusions shattered...
Some expedition members who missed their loved ones desperately began to weep hoarsely.
Standing on the outer edge of the crowd, Cai Yutong looked up at the completely cleared sky and said, "Don't you think the starry sky is a bit too low? And... it doesn't look like the Milky Way, not like the sky of stars we know."
No sooner had her words fallen than something bizarre occurred.
*Whoosh!*
From the starry sky fell billions of light orbs, descending like dense rain, fluttering down across the boundless sea.
Those nearby could be seen clearly—they appeared to be... humanoid.
Stunned by the sudden turn of events and unable to comprehend it, everyone felt their hair stand on end in sheer horror.
The starry sky was raining human figures!
"Come look, quick! What's in the sea?" Gao Huan waved frantically, calling out to everyone.
Now that the gloom-clouds had completely dispersed, the surface of the sea could finally be seen clearly.
In the vast, inky-black ocean lay a terrifying spectacle: densely packed figures were swimming within the waters.
Not only right before their eyes, but into the far distance as well.
Countless beyond measure.
Their bodies were translucent, radiating a faint luminescence. Men and women, young and old, though elderly figures made up the majority. Some floated on the surface, while others drifted beneath the depths.
These were not people of flesh and blood; they were more like the souls of the dead.
The vast majority of these dead souls had vacant eyes and drifted muddle-headed. Yet some were exceptionally active, darting through the sea to hunt and prey upon others.
"Jie-jie!"
"Roar!"
One of them, an old man with disheveled hair and a withered face, sensed the gaze of the many onlookers aboard the ship. Tossing his head back, he unleashed a fierce, ear-piercing shriek, leaped out of the water, and vaulted toward the deck over a hundred meters above!
When had the crowd ever witnessed such a monstrous sight?
In sheer terror, they fell back one after another.
Some were so terrified their legs turned to jelly and they couldn't move, ending up shoved and trampled.
*Chi!*
Just as the ferocious soul reached within ten feet of the deck, an ethereal trace pattern materialized out of thin air, shredding him to pieces before he detonated into a cluster of luminous motes.
It was as if a fracture like cracked glass had appeared in the fabric of space.
Appearing abruptly, vanishing just as suddenly.
The other ferocious souls that had been itching to strike showed looks of terror, letting out eerie shrieks as they fled far from the Bronze Ship.
"An unknown power is protecting the Bronze Ship—they can't board it!" Li Weiyi urged everyone to remain calm, helping two elderly professors who had been trampled back to their feet alongside Cai Yutong.
After the ferocious soul blew apart into luminous motes and scattered into the sea, it immediately triggered a feeding frenzy among the previously dazed souls, who scrambled desperately to devour the remnants, churning up splashes of water.
Not everyone could keep their composure. In that moment, panic gripped the crowd, and many were shaken to their core.
Unfamiliar, bizarre, terrifying—just what kind of world was this?
The joy from the gloom-clouds dispersing had vanished without a trace.
Director Yang could not help but look up to the sky and let out a long sigh:
"In the boundless dark sea drift the souls of untold billions;
Beneath a sky of crowded stars sails a ship wrapped in age-old mystery.
Where lies the end? Where may we make landfall?"
Someone pinched their arm hard, and feeling the sharp pain, finally confirmed that the scene before their eyes was real.
"We are no longer in the Arctic. We aren't even on Earth anymore. We've arrived in the mythical netherworld of Diyu—or perhaps the Ghost Wilderness." Xie Tianshu's eyes held not the slightest trace of disappointment or grief; instead, they gleamed with excitement.
His gaze locked with several people in the crowd. He felt the time was ripe. There was no longer any need for restraint—they could make their move!
...
The sea of souls was boundless, with neither destination nor resting place in sight.
Li Weiyi's emotions were in turmoil. "Is this where the souls of Earth's dead return? But there are tens of billions—even trillions—of spirits in this sea. How could Earth have produced so many dead?"
"In the vast cosmos and endless sea of stars, perhaps the dead of every world return here," someone speculated, staring up at the starry sky overhead.
Whether in science or religion, most firmly believed that Earth was by no means the only planet with life in the universe.
The stars in the sky were densely packed, appearing dazzling and magnificent amid the shower of soul-orbs.
Yet they hung remarkably close to the sea, without the unreachable distance of deep outer space.
They did not seem like stars, but rather "gates of light," "soul passages," or "astral wormholes."
For the dense shower of soul-orbs flew out from these very "stars," cascading down onto the dark, brooding sea and transforming into human souls—all of it plainly visible to the naked eye.
It was precisely this that led someone to make the bold speculation: "The dead of the cosmos all return here."
Chapter 11