“Mmph!”
Sang Ning pulled the sweet potato out of the fire, split it open with his hands, and honey-like syrup oozed out from the middle, the sweet smell almost irresistible, drawing him to take a lick despite the heat, wincing and pulling his tongue back.
His face scrunched up, but he couldn’t help taking another bite anyway, blowing on it between mouthfuls, swallowing it down with little grunts.
Finally having something that could count as a proper carb-rich meal, Sang Ning’s eyes lit up, his amber gaze glinting brightly in the firelight.
He broke off both ends of the sweet potato, carefully peeling away the skin with his nails, just that one bite was enough to make him look thoroughly happy.
Warming his hands over the fire as he roasted, dressed in the loose folk clothing, he looked every bit the simple, handsome young mountain lad, as serene and lovely as the valley itself.
Sitting by the fire roasting sweet potatoes, his pale face took on an added warmth in the firelight.
A shame that the only one appreciating the sight was one greedy, love-struck monster.
On a sudden impulse, Sang Ning offered the sweet potato end he’d broken off to the great jellyfish beside him.
Domesticated jellyfish usually ate brine shrimp, wild ones probably fed on plankton.
But Physalia, a giant jellyfish that could leave the water and drift through the air, was probably quite different, at the very least, Sang Ning hadn’t seen it eat anything at all these past few days.
His eyes filled with anticipation, gazing at Physalia hopefully.
Physalia hovered silently for a moment, then, just as Sang Ning’s expectant gaze started to waver, suddenly snatched the sweet potato tip away.
Watching Physalia eat was always an interesting sight, because of its own semi-transparent body, whatever it swallowed could be seen directly, watched as it was digested, slowly dissolving into nothing.
Sang Ning’s expression turned strange.
He thought back to when Physalia had embraced him before, probably much the same as this, like the sweet potato being digested now, completely enveloped by Physalia.
The sweet potato would be digested in Physalia’s stomach, so then… would he…
“…Do you eat people, Ya Ya?” Sang Ning asked in a small voice.
He wasn’t sure what had come over him, blurting the question out so bluntly.
Physalia obviously wasn’t going to answer him, if it had suddenly spoken in human words, Sang Ning would surely have panicked completely, like the man in the old fable who claimed to love dragons but fled in terror the moment a real one appeared [1]Lord Ye’s love of dragons (yè gōng hào lóng, 葉公好龍) Idiom, a fable about a man who covered his home in dragon carvings and claimed to adore dragons, only to faint from terror when a … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3194087_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3194087_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Beside the quiet fire, Sang Ning could hear only the crackle of the flames, he gave a faint smile, seeming to find his own question rather silly.
He chuckled to himself for a while, then lowered his head to bite into the sweet potato.
He never noticed the tentacle coiled around his wrist shifting slightly, revealing a snow-white eyeball that blinked playfully when he wasn’t looking.
【Wife, feed wife, eat and have babies/heart/heart】
…
“Search the broken houses for food, gather firewood, dry the bedding…”
Sang Ning made his plans for the next day, drawing a simple calendar on the wall with charcoal, marking off a number each time a day and night passed.
Keeping up the basic habits of modern life, Sang Ning wrapped himself in the sun-dried blanket and leaned against Physalia.
He stretched out his long legs, watching from a distance as the blanket completely covered him, his feet, hidden beneath it, wiggling playfully.
His eyes curved. “Got a blanket to sleep under tonight, tomorrow’s bound to be even better.”
As for when someone might come to rescue him—
Sang Ning pulled the blanket up over his head and thought, once the flood fully receded, things would surely improve, right?
For now, the flood still blocked the valley’s entrance, Sang Ning didn’t dare cross it, having no tools to do so, and could only hope rescuers would arrive.
But would anyone really come?
Sang Ning thought of the monsters deep in the mountains, lowering his eyes, quietly clutching the blanket tighter.
As if sensing the shift in his mood, the soft bell unfurled further, drawing Sang Ning even deeper inside.
The faint water-color flowed slowly, sensitive feeling-cells pressing against his exposed skin, his cerebral cortex overstimulated until a soothing calm began to seep through him.
Sang Ning’s very own jellyfish night-light, slowly loading up its sleep-inducing function.
Sang Ning yawned, curling up in the great monster’s embrace, his thoughts gradually settling into peace and quiet, until only the faint sound of his breathing remained.
“Hff, hff~”
On the fifth day of his survival, another tally mark was drawn, stroke by stroke.
Sang Ning put on fresh clothes and folded up the blanket.
The fire he’d built in the room the day before had burned out by now, leaving only a pile of ash, which he diligently cleaned up.
The mattress, having been dried by the fire for two days, felt mostly dry to the touch now. Unable to move it outside to air properly, but not entirely at ease either, Sang Ning built a few more fires to dry it for another day.
He changed into clean clothes, and the moment he pulled the curtains open, his expression froze.
Red light flooded through the window, sun and moon sharing the same sky.
The moon hung high above, Sang Ning had barely looked at it for three seconds before his vision was suddenly blocked by faint blue tentacles. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, but the disorienting glare still lingered.
The red moon and red sun hung together in the sky at once, the world once again cloaked in a fiery, hopeless darkness.
Humans hid inside buildings, not daring to face the ominous sun and moon, while the monsters all leapt out at once, reveling recklessly beneath the red moon’s light.
Their bodies grew swifter and more powerful under the moonlight, their limbs enlarging further, their blood-red slit pupils taking on an even more savage cast.
An inexplicable restlessness stirred them into agitation, drawn by the scent of flesh and blood.
High on the mountain slopes, monster after monster panted heavily, their crimson eyes all fixed in one direction.
—Fixed on the human by the window.
Physalia was unusually active today.
While Sang Ning went out to fetch water, he nearly tripped over its tentacle, only to be caught by another tentacle coiling around his waist and lifted upright, barely saving the water in his hands.
It was being awfully clingy.
Although the weather was strange, Sang Ning still couldn’t afford to rest.
He pulled along the string of plastic baskets he’d tied together the night before, one hand holding the floating giant jellyfish, and headed out the door again.
The baskets trailed along the ground like little train cars, rattling forward.
Along the way, Sang Ning picked through collapsed houses for wood, many of them were building frames, snapped and pinned beneath rocks. He sorted through suitable pieces, dragging them along, working up a full sweat.
Suddenly, an idea struck him, and he tried hanging the rope over Physalia’s body instead.
The giant jellyfish, floating in the air and occasionally blown off course by the wind, now had a string of “train cars” hung off it, dragging heavy timber along.
The sight was thoroughly absurd, looking rather like some kind of exploitation of labor.
Poor, innocent jellyfish, forced to work even in human hands.
Sang Ning burst out laughing, bent double, and, still trying to hold back his giggles, removed the load from it.
“Alright, alright, no more exploiting Ya Ya.”
Physalia, understanding, obligingly coiled itself around the rope instead, dragging the whole string of baskets loaded with timber, which Sang Ning himself found heavy just pulling, while it floated through the air, seemingly unaffected at all.
“So impressive.”
Sang Ning led it along like flying a kite, his expression growing more relaxed by the minute.
Along the way, he picked through more debris, gathering half a basket of sweet potatoes and corn near the edge of the flood.
The valley had plenty of terraced rice paddies, and further down the mountain lay a stretch of cornfield, unharvested when Sang Ning had first arrived, its rows once neatly lined up at the base of the hill.
Wading through the water that hadn’t yet fully receded, he gazed out at it, the cornstalks, entirely flattened, had sunk beneath the water, making it impossible to tell if any ears remained.
Suddenly, Sang Ning’s eyes caught movement in the water, something rising and falling, splashing tiny ripples.
“There’s fish!” Sang Ning called out.
An idea flashed through his mind at once: drain the water and catch fish!
Of course, he had no way to actually do that.
Without thinking it through, Sang Ning shook the tentacle off his wrist and waded straight toward where the fish had appeared.
He took a few quick steps forward, the floodwater rising to his waist, when he suddenly realized how reckless this was and turned to head back.
At that very moment, a massive fish leapt suddenly out of the water behind him, its enormous shadow passing directly over Sang Ning’s head.
Sang Ning froze, mouth open, as water sprayed down over his head.
Under the red light, the “fish’s” eyes glowed a bloody crimson, its body covered in spines, its jaws splitting open to reveal a forked, snake-like tongue as the fish, nearly the size of a person, plunged back into the water.
A dark shape circled around Sang Ning, his face twisted with fear as he spun frantically one way and then another.
The fish turned with him, its slick body brushing against his legs, sending a wave of goosebumps up his skin.
“Ya Ya!” Sang Ning cried out, looking desperately toward the shore.
Physalia’s form had vanished from the shoreline, his face went pale, panic overtaking him entirely.
For a moment, it felt like being back in his childhood, locked in that storeroom, pounding frantically at the door and shouting, with no one ever answering.
No different, really.
Human strength was utterly powerless against monsters. Sang Ning’s hands trembled as he searched desperately for anything he could use to fight back.
The giant fish, seeming to have already sized him up, swished its shadowy tail and shot toward him at incredible speed.
At that very moment, a flash of faint blue cut through the water.
A massive jellyfish burst out of the water, slamming into the monstrous fish, its bell unfurling in the air, its sprawling tentacles suddenly transforming into blades, striking sharply at the water’s surface.
The fish twisted and thrashed, sending up a towering spray of water, fleeing rapidly under the relentless pursuit.
“Splash—”
The soft tentacles, turned to blades, struck the monstrous fish squarely.
The fish shook its head and struggled, a tentacle slicing from its skull down to its tail, the agony sent it into instinctive convulsions, and as blood spread through the water, the gutted body of the fish surfaced.
Sang Ning collapsed into the water, utterly drained.
Soaked through, he stiffly lifted his neck, turning his eyes upward, staring blankly at the monster hovering above him like a descended god.
The monster’s body glowed faintly blue, retaining the purest, cleanest water-color even beneath the red moon, its slow-flowing water patterns freezing for a moment before resuming their gentle motion.
Unhurried, yet utterly ruthless when it struck.
“…Ya Ya.” Sang Ning’s voice trembled, his smile more wretched than a sob.
Having survived the ordeal, he laughed and cried at once, tears spilling from his eyes in a steady stream. He wiped at them clumsily, smearing his eyes a raw red, stinging painfully.
Sang Ning forced a grin, his heart pounding wildly, his mind blank.
But clearly, the giant jellyfish, sensing this, drew its bell inward and slowly approached him.
He closed his eyes and, laughing through his tears, said, “You dragged my firewood into the water too.”
【!!!】
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