Chapter 565

You’re awake.

You slept soundly.

In last night’s dream, you seemed to have dreamed of something important.

But now, no matter how hard you try, you can’t remember it.

You think that’s normal. People always forget what happens in their dreams.

You stretch and get to your feet.

This is your third day on this sea.

You crawl out of the shack and step onto the now-stable raft.

The sea wind blows straight into your face. Squinting against the light, you look toward the horizon.

The surface of the sea glitters in the sunlight, bits of debris floating across it. It stretches as far as the eye can see, unchanged from the previous two days.

Your stomach growls.

Are you hungry? You have no food.

But you aren’t worried in the slightest.

Because you’re absolutely certain that whenever you get hungry, a wooden crate will drift across the sea to you.

Just like now.

You spot a square wooden crate slowly drifting over from the distance, half-submerged as it rises and falls with the waves.

You grab your iron hook and expertly swing it out.

Got it.

You drag the crate onto the raft and open it…

Inside are two bottles of water, a warm rice ball wrapped in wax paper, and a note.

[Little Qiqi, today is your third day here! Liguang made the rice ball herself. Eat it while it’s still warm. You have to stay alive, or Liguang will cry, okay~]

It’s written in her handwriting.

You put the note away, pick up the rice ball, and take a huge bite.

The rice is filled with shredded fish and seaweed, exactly the flavor you like.

Delicious.

It’s so good that you wolf it down in just a few bites, nearly choking yourself.

You clear your throat. Now that you’ve eaten and drunk your fill, it’s time to get down to business.

So you decide—

[1. Continue expanding your offshore platform. You want to make it bigger, sturdier, and more like a home.]

[2. You can’t live off handouts forever. Yesterday, you saw several fish swimming around the raft, so you’re going to make a fishing rod and begin your grand fishing expedition.]

[3. Do nothing. The sea breeze is pleasant, and the sunlight isn’t too strong. You decide to lie on the deck and space out for the entire day. You’ll live off free meals to the very end.]

[4. This is all an illusion. You decide to jump into the sea and commit suicide. Maybe then you can go back and see your yandere girlfriend.]

You choose 1.

You want to build the two-story seaside cottage you’ve imagined as quickly as possible.

You grab your iron hook and fling it at the planks and leaves floating on the surface of the sea.

Your aim is better than yesterday. Every throw hits its mark.

By noon, your raft is once again a full circle wider than it was yesterday. Standing on it, you feel much more secure.

Satisfied, you clap your hands and sit cross-legged on the newly laid planks.

The sea breeze blows into your face as you gaze at the endless blue in every direction. Suddenly, you feel that this kind of life isn’t as bad as you had imagined.

At least it’s far better than those eighty-two days.

There’s wind, sunlight, and seawater.

There’s no ceiling, no chains, and no face forever smiling down at you.

And yet, you actually find yourself missing that face a little.

You think you must be asking for trouble again. You shake your head and drive the dangerous thought away.

Then you decide—

[1. Start a fire and cook. There’s a little battered pot in the wooden bucket you hauled in earlier, so you decide to make yourself something hot.]

[2. Keep hooking planks. You have a vague feeling that the wind at sea is about to pick up, so you need to reinforce the raft while the weather is still good.]

[3. Your hallucinations are getting too serious. You decide to jump into the sea and commit suicide. Maybe then you can go back and see your yandere girlfriend.]

You choose 2.

The sea wind is indeed getting stronger.

By evening, thick clouds have piled up along the horizon. Wave after wave pushes against your raft.

You braid vines into thick ropes and use them to bind the planks and logs tightly together.

Night begins to fall.

Once you’ve tied down the final vine, you straighten up and look out across the sea.

You see a wooden crate drifting toward you through the churning waves.

You immediately grab your iron hook!

You haul the crate aboard and open it…

Inside are two bottles of water, a bowl of hot soup in a sealed container, and a note.

[Little Qiqi, it’s going to rain tonight. After you finish the soup, remember to hide inside the shack. Don’t sit outside staring at the stars!]

[Also, Liguang cooked the porridge extra thick. Finish it, warm yourself up, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a brand-new day!]

You drink it.

The soup is made from fish bones. It’s rich and savory.

The warmth spreads all the way to your stomach, and your hands and feet, stiff from the sea wind, slowly come back to life.

You set down the empty bowl and crawl into your little shelter, cobbled together from leaves and planks.

Raindrops begin to patter against the leaf roof, their steady rhythm lulling you to sleep.

You turn over and drift off.

……

The next day comes, another busy day.

Toward evening, you look at the raft, which is nearly finished expanding, wipe the sweat from your brow, and decide—

[1. Continue expanding the raft. You want to build your offshore mansion as soon as possible.]

[2. Living off free meals is wrong. Try making a simple fishing rod yourself. The sea is calm right now, so you might even catch something.]

[3. If you can live off free meals, why work hard? You’re going to lie on the raft and bask in the sun.]

[4. It’s all an illusion. You decide to jump into the sea and commit suicide. Maybe then you can go back and see your yandere girlfriend.]

You choose 2.

This time, you don’t choose to keep building.

After drifting on the sea for several days, you’re beginning to feel a little short on entertainment.

You find several sturdy vines and a slender plank, then use the hooked part of your iron hook to make a simple fishing hook.

You have no bait, so you pick out a few strands of shiny seaweed from the torn fishing net you hauled in yesterday and wind them around the hook as a substitute.

You stand at the edge of the raft and cast the line.

Fishing requires patience. You sit and wait for a while, but the line doesn’t move at all.

You yawn and let your mind wander.

Plop.

Suddenly, you hear a very soft sound.

You look down.

A small fish about the size of your palm is lying on the newly laid planks, its tail flapping as it struggles.

You freeze.

…Where did that fish come from?

You look up at your fishing rod. The line is still hanging peacefully in the water, and the hook still has seaweed wrapped around it.

This fish clearly wasn’t caught. It actually jumped out of the sea by itself.

You stare at the fish, and the fish stares back at you.

Its gill covers open and close, and its black eyes are round and glossy.

You hesitate.

A fish that delivers itself straight to your door is too good to waste. But something about it feels strange.

You decide—

[1. Put the fish back in the sea. Any fish stupid enough to jump aboard by itself must be harmful to your intelligence if you eat it.]

[2. Keep the fish and roast it. A fish that falls from the sky is wasted if you don’t eat it.]

[3. Fish can jump aboard by themselves? This is definitely a hallucination. You decide to jump into the sea and commit suicide. Maybe then you can go back and see your yandere girlfriend.]

You choose 2.

You may be a little slow, but you’re not stupid.

You lift the fish by the tail. It continues thrashing desperately in your hand.

You clumsily gut and clean it, then build a small fire and set the fish over the flames to roast.

The fish is tiny, and the cooked meat amounts to only a few bites, but you eat with great satisfaction because this was a fish you caught with your own hands—

Er… found with your own hands.

After finishing it, you toss the bones into the sea and watch as they slowly sink beneath the surface.

The evening clouds are reflected in the orange-red sea.

You space out for a while, then return to your little shack.

Maybe it was because you had already eaten. There was no wooden crate tonight.

You didn’t find any new note, either.

You lay in your shack, listening to the sound of the waves, and suddenly felt a little lonely.

It was only yesterday that you’d been grateful there wasn’t some crazy woman chattering incessantly in your ear. Now, though, you found yourself missing her voice.

You really were hopeless.

You rolled over, buried your face in the leaves, and closed your eyes.

Sleep.

You still had to keep going tomorrow.

…

…

Your days began to fall into a routine.

Every morning, you would wake up, stretch, and watch the sea for a while.

Then you would spend the whole morning securing planks, expanding the platform, and fishing.

Your raft grew larger with each passing day, and your “home at sea” was beginning to take shape.

You even used wooden planks to build a simple shack. It was square, with a door and a window.

Outside, you tied up a crossbar and hung a row of seashells from it.

Whenever the sea breeze blew, the shells clinked and chimed like wind chimes.

You stood with your hands on your hips, admiring your handiwork, and grinned for quite a while.

You felt like a true survival expert at sea!

But deep down, you knew that you were able to live so well largely because…

Of those wooden crates that drifted in at the same time every day.

Each crate contained two bottles of water, a meal personally prepared by Liguang, and a note.

The notes covered all sorts of things.

Sometimes, they were about the weather:

【Little Qiqi, the wind and waves will be a little stronger today, so remember to reinforce your shack. Liguang wouldn’t want Little Qiqi to wake up soaking wet tomorrow morning.】

Sometimes, they were about food:

【Little Qiqi, I added some seaweed to today’s fish soup. Does it taste better than yesterday’s? Liguang tried so many different methods to make the seaweed less fishy!】

Sometimes, they were nothing more than idle chatter:

【Little Qiqi, Liguang cut an extra piece of meat while cooking today, but accidentally burned it. Liguang will be more careful next time~】

As you read them…

You couldn’t help smiling.

Oh, well.

If that made you pathetic, then so be it.

…

One morning, you were lying on the deck, tying planks together, when you looked up and saw a dark gray dorsal fin cutting through the water.

Sharks had begun to appear in the sea.

You immediately snatched up your spear and prepared for a fight.

But the shark merely circled you a few times before swimming away.

You stood there for a moment, then lowered the spear.

You were a little surprised. Didn’t sharks bite wood?

But then you suddenly felt that the thought was ridiculous.

Sharks weren’t termites. Why would they bite wood?

How had you come up with such a strange idea?

After that, the sharks began appearing more and more frequently.

Sometimes there was only one. Sometimes three or four came together. But they merely circled your raft and never attacked.

They swam nearby as if they were patrolling the area.

At first, you were tense whenever they appeared. Then you grew accustomed to them. Now, you simply ignored them.

You had even learned to fish leisurely beneath the sharks’ watchful eyes.

Lately, you had become completely addicted to fishing.

Using your homemade fishing rod and the seaweed bait recommended in Liguang’s notes, you managed to catch quite a few fish every time you cast your line.

Most of them were small fish, though occasionally you landed something large.

The biggest was a grouper nearly a meter long. It had taken an enormous amount of effort to haul it up.

By now, you had become a proper fishing enthusiast. You had even started recording your catches in a notebook.

【Caught three small fish today in total. One of them was a pretty little silverfish. If those sharks hadn’t shown up again, I definitely could have caught more!】

【Caught a grouper today. It was huge!】

【Didn’t catch anything today. The sea wind was too strong, and I could barely hold on to the rod. Still, the fish steak Liguang sent was delicious, but…】

【…Why won’t she come see me?】

You crossed out the last sentence.

But you also realized that you were finding it harder and harder to ignore the matter.

You had begun looking forward to the wooden crate that arrived at mealtimes more and more.

Even though there wasn’t another person in sight, even though all you could see in every direction was sea and sky, you knew…

Someone was preparing food for you.

Someone was writing those notes for you.

You kept all the notes, tucking them inside an old magazine you had found in a wooden barrel. Every so often, you would take them out and read through them.

You would curse yourself for being so useless, for being so easily swept off your feet by a few words from someone else.

But the next time a wooden crate drifted over, you would still open it as eagerly as ever.

There was nothing you could do. You had gotten used to it.

The feeling was a contradiction.

You were “imprisoned” at sea, yet you felt safe.

You had nothing at all, yet you felt strangely fulfilled.

…

…

But sometimes—only sometimes—loneliness would rise like the tide.

On the evening of the twenty-seventh day, you opened the wooden crate as usual. Inside were two bottles of water, a steaming roast fish, and a note.

【This roast fish turned out perfectly! Little Qiqi, make sure to eat it while it’s hot!】

As you ate the roast fish, you suddenly wondered…

Why was she the only one who could send you notes?

You ought to do something.

And so, you decided—

【1. Shout at the sky and yell out everything you want to say to Liguang!】

【2. Write a note, put it in the wooden crate, and push it into the sea as a reply.】

【3. Never mind. Isn’t the way things are just fine?】

【4. Your hallucinations have taken root too deeply. You decide to throw yourself into the sea and end your life. Perhaps you can return and see your obsessive girlfriend.】

You chose 2.

You could write something, too.

Then you could put it in the wooden crate and send it back out to sea.

Maybe she would see it.

You searched through the shack and found a small piece of cardboard that had been soaked by seawater. Then you sharpened a charred stick to use as a piece of charcoal.

On the cardboard, you wrote:

【I caught a really huge fish today. It was so big it nearly dragged me into the sea. Liguang, did you see it?】

When you had finished, you placed the cardboard in the wooden crate and pushed the crate into the sea.

The crate drifted slowly away with the waves.

You stood at the edge of the raft, staring at it until it became a tiny black speck, then finally vanished where the sea met the sky.

You had no idea whether this method would work, or whether Liguang would ever see it.

You only felt that…

You had to do something.