Sang Ning looked up and around, his long-neglected stomach could no longer bear the hunger, growling loudly.
Not caring how dirty it was, Sang Ning picked up the chestnut, wiped it on his clothes, and bit the outer shell open with his teeth.
Raw chestnuts were crisp and sweet, with a faintly cool, refreshing taste, chewed raw, the sweet fragrance spread across his tongue.
Sang Ning couldn’t help but show a flicker of pleasure, swallowing against his parched throat, and searched around eagerly for more.
At this time of year, chestnuts ripen and fall from the trees, splitting open their little durian-like husks to reveal the plump nut inside.
Now they lay scattered beneath a half-toppled chestnut tree, round and golden like tiny ingots, plump and inviting.
Sang Ning hurried to gather them, like a squirrel hoarding for winter, picking with his hands, stuffing his mouth, eating as he collected an armful.
The mountain’s resources weren’t scarce at all, and Sang Ning, rarely this pleased, busied himself shelling the chestnuts from their husks and gathering them together.
He held up the front of his shirt, exposing his lean waist, and piled the chestnuts inside it, a little mound forming in no time.
While he was at it, he also picked a few fruits that had been pecked by birds, purple and red, pretty to look at, clearly juicy.
Sang Ning couldn’t help staring at them longingly, but in the end settled for gazing rather than eating, and sat beneath the tree gnawing chestnuts instead.
An autumn wind blew past, and Sang Ning shivered, his clothes, still damp, had dried only halfway in the sun, and the cold wind made him feel a chill for no clear reason.
Suddenly something soft settled onto his back, a soft bell descending from above his head, gently covering his body.
He leaned back against it, resting against the great jellyfish, stroking the tentacles that had fallen over him, the corners of his mouth curving upward.
“Physalia.”
The name of the Portuguese man o’ war suddenly surfaced in Sang Ning’s mind, a beautiful, elongated siphonophore with a pale blue, translucent float shaped like a monk’s hood, from which it takes its name.
It drifts through the water, often blown ashore or carried along by ocean waves, carrying potent venom throughout its body.
The “jellyfish” didn’t actually resemble a Portuguese man o’ war much, but it was just as beautiful.
Beautiful, and dangerous.
“Physalia, Physalia…” Sang Ning murmured the name softly, and the idea struck him again.
He still didn’t know what to call the “jellyfish.”
“Physalia.”
The “jellyfish” probably had no idea what he was saying, but Sang Ning turned to look at the calm, quiet creature beside him, curving his lips, his warm amber eyes like rippling autumn water, glimmering with a gentle warmth.
“Physalia.” Sang Ning called softly, corners of his mouth lifting, his whole face full of delight.
“I’ll call you Physalia from now on.”
He tried to hug the strange “jellyfish”, though the gesture wasn’t quite accurate against its soft body, it was more like Sang Ning being swallowed into its form, sinking uncontrollably into its yielding, watery mass.
【Ohh, wife】
【Wife gave me a name, so happy so happy so happy so happy so happy so happy】
【Want to…/heart/heart】
The tentacles covered in sensitive feeling-cells draped over Sang Ning, and he felt no pain at all.
He held Physalia in that brief embrace for a while.
Humans were social creatures, but Sang Ning had never much cared for noisy crowds, and his celebrity status had subjected him to no small amount of overwhelming, fanatical attention.
He was probably what people online called an introvert.
Sang Ning felt a sense of peace from Physalia.
“Alright! I can’t just sit around waiting to die.”
Sang Ning pulled himself out of that brief moment of comfort, patting his own face, trying to rally his spirits.
“No telling how far the flood will recede, at the very least I need to keep heading downhill. I’ve got chestnuts to eat, and water…”
Sang Ning had no one to rely on here, and the flood had receded only a little further, it seemed like there was water everywhere.
“If only I could make a fire.” Boiled and settled water would be safe to drink, wouldn’t it?
Sang Ning thought of flint, in his limited knowledge, he should look for it in places with plenty of rocks.
“Find flint to make fire, get down the mountain for help… following the river down should get me there.” Sang Ning murmured to himself.
In any case, he wasn’t dead yet.
Sang Ning picked a few large leaves, folded them, and used grass stems to wrap up the leftover chestnuts like a package of herbal medicine.
He set the bundle on top of Physalia’s head.
The soft, water-blue jellyfish floated in the air, its bell now abruptly topped with a bright green mound, Sang Ning couldn’t help but laugh, his eyes curving with mirth.
“So cute, Ya Ya.”
Sang Ning patted the great jellyfish’s head, or maybe its stomach?
Sang Ning had decided, entirely of his own accord, to consider the jellyfish’s bell its “head.”
—Even though that was where its digestive organs actually were.
If you turned the jellyfish over, at the ends of its tentacles was also where its reproductive opening lay.
Sang Ning mused idly over his scattered knowledge of jellyfish, taking hold of one of Physalia’s tentacles.
Physalia’s tentacles looked like thin, gauzy veils, the tips of the drifting tentacles shaped somewhat like a fish’s head, pinched gently, the “expression” changed to something like “>O<".
Very…
Cute.
He held Physalia's tentacle and walked carefully along the water's edge.
Physalia soaked in the water, drifting slowly forward at the tug of his hand.
Its tentacles swayed beneath the surface, turning where Sang Ning couldn't see, blinking their transparent eyes open page by page.
Those eyes blinked one after another, fixed on Sang Ning's bare calves.
His skin was flawless and pale, without a single trace of hair, faint blue veins winding along his ankle bones, the lines of muscle tightening attractively as he walked.
Searching for flint to make fire, Sang Ning kept bending down every so often to pick up clumped stones from the ground, with each bend, his back arched, exposing his fragile, unguarded spine to the monster's watching eyes.
A tentacle coiled around Sang Ning's ankle, he simply, carefully, peeled it away.
He never noticed the eye blinking against his own palm.
After a day and a night of receding, the flood had dropped by about two-thirds, revealing traces where modern society met traditional farmland.
It was a shame everything had been battered to pieces by the flood.
Maybe he still hadn't reached the village yet?
Sang Ning, treating each find like a treasure, gathered up a scrap of cloth without any complaint, a few flattened plastic water bottles, half a porcelain bowl…
He was delighted to find a small backpack lying on the ground, old and caked with mud.
He picked it up and shook it, knocking loose a layer of dried mud, its original color nearly impossible to make out.
"Well, well. At least it still works."
Sang Ning wasn't picky, he already felt rather satisfied.
He filled a plastic bottle with water and waited quietly for it to settle.
Looking at the murky, half-dirty water inside, he swallowed hard, expecting his throat to feel parched, dry to the point of hoarseness.
He'd gone nearly two days and a night without drinking water.
But strangely, he didn't feel thirsty at all.
"Maybe this is the power of life itself?"
He couldn't actually swim, yet he'd been rescued from the water several times over, aside from Physalia, perhaps his own stubborn will to live had something to do with it too.
He should be able to survive a few more days.
Sang Ning felt a little cheered up again.
He rallied himself once more, deciding to head into the woods to gather dry wood and try starting a fire with flint.
As he moved, the tentacle coiled around his wrist pulled, dragging the great jellyfish Physalia up onto the shore, and the bundle of chestnuts spilled and scattered across the ground.
"…Ah!" Sang Ning rushed to gather them up, fumbling to pile the chestnuts back together.
"Sorry." Sang Ning apologized to Physalia, pulling the tentacle off his hand.
"I need to go collect some wood for a fire, I won't go far, you just stay here."
He tried to push Physalia back into the water.
Jellyfish were weak, harmless, and light, but strangely, Sang Ning felt resistance as he tried to push it, the tentacle he'd pulled away simply settled back onto his wrist.
His skin twitched involuntarily, Sang Ning rubbed his hand, an inexplicable unease making his eyelid twitch.
The "jellyfish" drifted forward a little.
Sang Ning fell mutely silent, and didn't try to push it back into the water again.
The wood he'd gathered from the shore didn't seem dry enough, and maybe the rocks he'd chosen weren't right either.
He struck the rocks together for a long while without producing a single spark, and finally tried the old method of friction-fire, working his back sore, but got nothing out of it.
His soft, delicate palms burned with pain. Sang Ning spread his hands, wondering if he'd simply picked bad wood, and rose unsteadily, holding his aching back, turning to go find new wood.
Physalia, tentacle still resting on his hand, drifted forward, brushing a tentacle across the pile of kindling he'd built.
"Fzzt—"
A tiny spark flared to life.
"Fire!" Sang Ning came back cradling new firewood, staring, stunned, at the flickering light before him.
The flame was small, slowly consuming the wood, sending up wisps of damp black smoke.
Sang Ning quickly fed in the new wood he'd found, swapping in drier fuel, the smoke thinned considerably, the flame leaping up, its warmth spreading through the young man's features.
His brow relaxed, his eyes bright and clear, as if scattered stars had fallen into them, warmth rippling through his gaze with each flicker.
As long as humans had fire, they had hope.
Sang Ning carefully heated the settled, clear water in half a porcelain bowl, sitting by the fire listening to the crackle of roasting chestnuts, the plump, pretty nuts piled beside him like a small hill.
For a moment, he felt as content as if he were guarding a treasure.
Night fell.
The alarmed black crows circled the sky, the ominous bats had long since taken flight.
The silver full moon hung high above, its edges tinged with a striking hue, red clouds slowly veiled the silver moon, and stars rarely broke through the cloud cover.
"Awooo—"
A malicious wolf howl roused the pack, a pair of blood-red eyes snapped open in the darkness, sniffing out the scent of flesh and blood, following human footprints straight toward their brief shelter.
Slaughter, bloodshed…
A crisis belonging to the forest and the high mountains, ready to erupt at any moment in the quiet night.
And meanwhile.
Sang Ning was curled up in the little hollow he'd carved out for himself, his back against the uneven, jutting roots of a tree.
He nestled inside it, and looking up, saw not the flushed red clouds, but a beautiful, blazing fire, its clean crackle of burning wood warm and peaceful.
Sang Ning leaned against the soft giant jellyfish, reaching out toward the dancing flame, sighing with feeling, "So comfortable."
He felt like he might survive another day after all!
He burrowed further into the pile of jellyfish, its soft bell wrapping around him, swallowing his mouth, nose, ears, inch by inch…
【Love love love love love love love】
【Protect wife, cuddle close with wife~】
…