Over the next two days, Li Weiyi stayed in bed, looking sickly and languid.
In truth, he was utterly immersed in exploring the supernatural realm. The silver trace veins in his body increased to thirteen, which meant he now had thirteen pathways for circulating qi.
Despite repeated attempts after that, he found no way to form another silver trace vein.
Fortunately, the thirteen veins were already enough to form a basic framework through his body. Using them as conduits for the scalding current, he nourished his flesh, blood, sinews, and bones. In just two short days, Li Weiyi underwent a complete metamorphosis. His hearing grew keen and his vision sharp; his five senses were razor-sharp, and his physical functions had reached an unfathomable level.
An inexhaustible strength seemed to surge within him, as if he could kill a bull with a single punch.
The recovery of his injured left arm was astonishingly fast. The wound had begun to heal and form scabs, allowing him to perform simple lifts and grips. As long as he didn't exert too much force, there was no pain.
Such healing speed completely defied reason and logic.
Li Weiyi estimated that under the nourishment of the scalding current, he would be fully recovered in another two or three days.
If not for the need to hide his strength to avoid suspicion that he had actually swallowed the Buddha relic, he would have loved to step outside immediately and test his current physical condition. He suspected his speed and power would shock even himself.
Over the past two days, however, he had grown hungry very quickly. His appetite was ravenous, and no matter how much he ate, he never felt full.
This was in sharp contrast to Professor Xu in the adjacent bed, who had no appetite at all. As a result, most of the meals brought to Professor Xu by his students ended up in Li Weiyi's stomach.
"Since I can't open any more silver trace veins, I'll pause my supernatural exploration for now. Time to go out and see what's actually happening on this Bronze Ship... and look for something to eat while I'm at it."
Over the past two days, he had only heard people talk about how "the Bronze Ship is unimaginably massive, and you can easily get lost in the mist," "the graveyard of steles is eerie, and strange noises echo there from time to time," and "the Golden Crow's corpse is as huge as a mountain, its brilliance lighting up the dark and its heat warding off the bitter cold"—and so on. But in his mind, he had no real concept of it all.
With his injuries nearly healed and supernatural power at his side, Li Weiyi felt his confidence swell, no longer plagued by the confusion and anxiety of two days ago.
A person's confidence springs either from sufficient capital, superior strength, or solid backing; it is never a castle in the air that appears the moment someone offers a word of encouragement.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Not wanting to draw unwanted attention by appearing too unusual, Li Weiyi acted like a normal patient, pretending to struggle as he sat up and slowly searched for the floor with his feet.
"Little Brother Li, why are you getting out of bed? Need a hand?"
Gao Huan wasn't too badly injured. His sprained neck had already recovered, though his broken right arm was still bound with splints and wrapped in gauze. He happened to be getting up to relieve himself as well.
Li Weiyi walked out of the medical tent together with Gao Huan.
When he saw the scene on the bronze deck outside, even though he had prepared himself mentally, Li Weiyi was still profoundly shaken. A chill shot straight up his spine to the crown of his head.
Before him lay a landscape straight out of the underworld—everywhere were tombstones, burial mounds, ghost banners, and prayer flags, shrouded in billowing nether mist that severely limited visibility. Overhead hung pitch-black gloom-clouds, clinging so close to the deck they seemed to press down on everyone's heads, instilling a heavy, suffocating dread.
Earlier, they had said visibility was limited to three or four rows of mounds, and stepping into the graveyard was like entering a labyrinth.
Having had his eyes nourished by the scalding current, Li Weiyi could see much farther.
Seven or eight rows of mounds were fully within his view, and within a hundred meters, the mist couldn't obscure his sight.
Even so, the deck alone was five hundred meters wide, carrying that mysterious, unfathomable depth of "hidden deep within the mountain, lost amid the clouds," inspiring awe and reverence.
The sole source of light was the corpse of the Golden Crow mentioned by so many expedition members. Up close, it was said to be breathtakingly shocking—though dead for countless ages, its feathers still radiated scorching heat and brilliant light.
From this far across the nether mist, however, Li Weiyi could only see a vast expanse of dark red radiance.
It looked like a dark red mountain, its outline and details impossible to discern.
"At first, there wasn't nearly this much mist on the Bronze Ship. It was only after we hoisted the sails and got underway that the nether mist grew thicker and thicker."
"I heard a lot of weird things happened. Someone in the graveyard ran into a ghostly camel caravan, with bells chiming *clang-clang*, until the caravan walked right into a tombstone draped with a ghost banner and vanished."
"Others say that while walking through the graveyard, they heard the clanking of iron chains and the shrill sound of claws scratching against metal from deep underground. There must be some unknown horror sealed inside this ship. We just don't know how to get in—can't find an entrance anywhere."
"We definitely fell into the legendary Netherworld. Remember that monstrous beast, the Jiuying, that overturned our research ship? It was snatched away by a golden talon. Let me tell you, that had to be the divine claw of a Kunpeng."
"How big is a Kunpeng? 'Its breadth spans who knows how many thousands of li.' Zhuangzi saw it with his own eyes when he wandered the Netherworld in his dreams."
"The Netherworld is terrifying and vast. It invaded Earth back during the Xia and Shang dynasties. Back then, the gods of Earth thought they were monsters from the Northern Sea. No matter how hard you rack your brain, who could've guessed the Netherworld was hidden inside the microscopic realm?"
...
After relieving himself, Gao Huan pulled Li Weiyi along, spouting a hodgepodge of myths, legends, and his own wild conjectures. Whenever Li Weiyi asked where he had learned all this, Gao Huan cited obscure book titles Li Weiyi had never heard of.
They headed to the kitchen tent, scrounged up some food, and filled their bellies.
As the two passed by a cluster of low, fresh mounds, Gao Huan sighed wistfully. "When we set out, there were a hundred and seventeen of us aboard the Longji. Only eighty-two survived, and more than a dozen of them were crippled by severe injuries."
Three medical tents had been erected on the deck.
The one housing Li Weiyi and Gao Huan stood near the ship's railing, just one of the three.
"Being alive might not be a blessing," Li Weiyi said. His mood grew heavy at the thought of the near future, when conflicts would inevitably erupt over the shortage of food and water, dragging everyone toward ruin step by step.
The microscopic world was bound to be different from Earth. Without land to make landfall, they wouldn't last long on their current provisions.
Li Weiyi had heard that expedition members had tied an iron bucket to a rope, intending to draw water from the dark, invisible sea below. They had lowered it over a hundred meters before reaching the surface.
Yet they were met with a tremendous, monstrous force that nearly dragged the crew members down. Every attempt ended the same way.
They could hear the sound of crashing waves, but could draw no water.
Unknown dangers lurked within the sea.
"You're absolutely right!"
Gao Huan looked around, then lowered his voice. "I heard that to solve the food and water problem, the higher-ups decided to run tests and experiments on the blood from the corpses of the Golden Crow and the Black Flood Dragon. Dr. Cai handled it personally and produced test results yesterday, though no one knows yet if it's safe to drink straight."
"I also heard Xie Tianshu proposed testing it on the critically injured. If it works, they might recover. If it fails, it saves a lot of grain and water."
"The higher-ups rejected the proposal unanimously. But if you ask me, they'll implement it sooner or later. Once the food and water run low and conditions worsen, they'll hypocritically ask the critically injured for their consent. In reality, those injured won't have any choice at all."
"Once they're done with the critically injured, it'll be our turn—the old, weak, sick, and disabled. It's a dog-eat-dog world everywhere, with the hierarchy spelled out plain as day."
Li Weiyi said, "Perhaps there's another way."
Intrigued, Gao Huan asked, "What way?"
Li Weiyi pointed toward the tall mounds ahead.
There, Cai Yutong was leading more than a dozen expedition members in digging up the grayish-white soil from the mounds, spreading it across the deck near the ship's railing into three plots, each roughly a third of an acre.
Beside the plots were several bags of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and various vegetable seeds.
Several buckets of corpse blood from the Black Flood Dragon and the Golden Crow stood ready nearby.
Gao Huan burst into laughter. "Dr. Cai really knows what she's doing! Right, test it on plants first! Besides, the research ship still has a decent supply of fresh water. We can totally grow some vegetables and melons to be self-sufficient."
Hearing the laughter, Cai Yutong looked toward them, then walked over with a cold, stern face. "Who authorized you to leave the medical tent? The wind on deck is freezing—your body is weak, can you handle it? The moment you feel slightly better, you start messing around?"
"She's talking about you," Li Weiyi murmured.
Gao Huan was taken aback. Meeting Cai Yutong's glare, he stammered, "I... I'm not that weak. I wasn't messing around, just stepped out to take a..."
"Not talking to you."
Stepping up to within a pace or two, Cai Yutong unleashed another volley of scolding and warnings, looking as if she wished she could drag Li Weiyi back to the medical tent with her eyes alone.
This senior sister did have an overbearing personality.
Yet she had given him blood and looked after him; in her presence, Li Weiyi simply couldn't bring himself to show any temper.
After letting her finish her lecture, Li Weiyi said in as gentle a tone as possible, "Senior, you've seemed a bit emotionally strained lately. If you're under pressure or need help with anything, make sure to let me know right away. Perhaps I can help."
Li Weiyi suspected that Cai Yutong was so irritable largely because the leaders were putting too much pressure on her. Perhaps someone was already pressuring her to experiment on living people.
Gao Huan clearly misunderstood, quickly chiming in, "Drink plenty of hot water and stay warm."
By the time Cai Yutong caught on, the two had already slipped away at a brisk pace.
"Terrifying! Little Brother Li, take my advice: no matter how pretty she is or how great her figure, never get involved with a woman with a doctorate," Gao Huan said, lingering fear in his voice.
Li Weiyi smiled. "You've got the wrong idea entirely. We're just alumni. We only met a few days ago."
"Alumni? Would a mere alumna care about you like that? She's spoken more words to you than to everyone else combined, and she even fed you fish soup! I have a whole bunch of classmates on this ship—did any of them bring me fish soup? Let alone feed me!" Gao Huan argued.
"She's cold on the outside but warm on the inside. That's just how she is."
Li Weiyi looked toward the mountain-like patch of dark red radiance in the distant mist, unable to suppress his curiosity. "I want to go see the corpses of the Black Flood Dragon and the Golden Crow."
His mind drifted back to the fantastical scenes he had witnessed on the Bronze Ship as his body shrank while plunging into the Arctic Ocean.
At its clearest, the Bronze Ship had appeared right before his eyes, looking the size of a fishing boat.
He had distinctly seen two forces enveloping the ship: celestial radiance and nether mist. The celestial radiance was concentrated toward the stern, where a cluster of distinctive, magnificent ancient structures stood, resembling palaces inhabited by immortals.
What was truly there?
"Let's go together! I haven't seen them with my own eyes either. Those are two legendary divine beasts! How do you think they died? And why do they still emit light and heat after death?"
"It's completely mind-boggling. This ship definitely comes from some magnificent, desolate primordial world—or maybe it's carrying us right toward it."
Gao Huan was visibly excited. Walking alongside Li Weiyi toward the dark red light at the stern, he added, "Actually, with your special relationship with Dr. Cai, you ought to quietly dig for the real scoop. If the blood of the Golden Crow and Black Flood Dragon is truly drinkable, the two of us should down a few cups first! That wouldn't be any different from taking immortal elixirs, right? Who knows, our arms might be completely healed by tomorrow."
Li Weiyi said, "There really isn't anything special between me and Senior! Besides, if their blood could be consumed directly, why would she lead people to reclaim land and plant crops?"
Gao Huan had his own theories: "With women, you can't listen to what they say, and you can't just watch what they do. You have to make her fall head over heels in love with you; only then will she lose her head and tell you the truth. Who can prove Dr. Cai didn't secretly drink some herself, only to turn around and tell everyone that the Golden Crow blood isn't drinkable and the Black Flood Dragon blood is unsafe?"
"Weiyi, my brother, I'm a few years older than you, and I know the true nature of women all too well. On normal days, they smile and joke with you, acting all close and friendly like old classmates. But the moment you're lying injured in bed, you don't even get a drop of fish soup."
Li Weiyi felt Gao Huan was far too hung up on that fish soup. He said, "Actually... regarding the fish soup, you weren't injured that badly, so you could've gone to the kitchen tent yourself. Our classmates have their hands full, so it's natural they couldn't attend to you."
Gao 'Fish Soup' thought it over carefully and reluctantly accepted Li Weiyi's explanation.
Chapter 9