Chapter 58

The salty sea air left the deck damp, and the biting wind hammered the hull. Icicles hung from the houseboat's eaves, and a thin layer of ice had formed on the windows, the outer doors, and the deck.

Especially on mornings like this—bitterly cold outside, while inside, the lingering warmth of the blanket and one's breath made it the perfect time to sleep in.

But the rolling waves kept the boat swaying, so Lin Tu had woken early. Even Xiao Huang was awake, the little dog who usually loved his walks now lying listless in his bed, having grown tired of the unchanging ocean after all these days.

Three full weeks at sea had left both human and dog weary.

Fortunately, a few discoveries kept Lin Tu entertained.

She put on thick clothes, heated a glass of milk, and spent ten minutes frying a few egg pancakes. As she ate, she cleared the ice from the deck and the railings.

By the time she finished cleaning, breakfast was nearly done. Lin Tu crouched by the ladder leading down from the boat, aimed her pollution detector at the seawater, and a string of text and numbers immediately appeared on its screen.

"Pollution level is down to zero..." Lin Tu took a photo for reference and jotted down the numbers, quickly calculating a conclusion: "From south to north, pollution levels decline along a gentle curve. After passing that stretch of pack ice, the pollution dropped sharply, until this sea area completely cleared."

To make sure the detector wasn't malfunctioning, Lin Tu also measured the pollution of the seawater in the tank where she kept her leeches—still alarmingly high.

Thinking about it, three weeks ago when she'd first left Xihai City, she'd still encountered giant leeches, but now they were increasingly rare, and even black thread worms were seldom seen. Did that mean these creatures survived specifically on the pollution in the seawater?

She filled a bucket with zero-pollution water, grabbed a leech that had grown to the size of a crucian carp, and tossed it into the clean water to observe.

Originally, Lin Tu had raised these leeches to earn extra points and to see how big one had to be to qualify as a C-class mutant monster. Using them for a different purpose now didn't bother her.

While waiting, Lin Tu sat at the stern and cast a line, letting the baited hook bob in the mid-to-upper water layers as the boat moved along.

This was a method of fishing while underway—unlike sitting still in one spot with the hook sinking to the bottom for bottom-dwelling fish, this "drift fishing" targeted pelagic fish that followed the boat. But it wasn't as easy to catch anything that way.

Still, perhaps it was beginner's luck. A few days ago, when Lin Tu had casually cast a line out of boredom, she'd actually caught a tuna. That had ignited a burning passion for fishing.

This was perhaps another way to pass the time on the long journey.

"Buzz~" Lin Tu's phone vibrated.

[From Anju: You have killed a juvenile C-class mutant monster ×1 in the C-class world "Sunken Land";]

Lin Tu set down her fishing line and went to check the bucket. Sure enough, it was dead.

She didn't toss the leech's corpse into the sea, but threw it into the tank with the other leeches instead. Sure enough, as soon as these leeches caught the scent of fresh blood and flesh, they devoured it greedily, not caring that it was one of their own kind.

Lin Tu wanted to observe a little longer, but the butler, who was keeping an eye on everything on the boat, shouted, "A fish is on the line!"

Lin Tu turned and saw the fishing line moving. She dashed over excitedly, grabbed the line, and with a swift, powerful yank, hauled the entire fish up into the air.

It was a cod, over twenty centimeters long, probably having swum down from the Arctic. Its belly was thick with fat. It was clearly dumbfounded when first pulled out of the water, only starting to flop and struggle once it was flying through the air.

"Woohoo!" Lin Tu let out a delighted cheer. She gripped the line tightly, dragged the fish onto the deck, and pressed it down firmly, already running through more than ten cooking methods in her head.

She turned and noticed the intelligent butler mimicking a look of joy on its screen. Lin Tu said regretfully, "Too bad you can't eat. Because tonight, I'm planning to have a barbecue."

After testing the cod's pollution level, Lin Tu began processing the fish—removing the innards and scales, washing it clean, and then getting ready to fillet it. She had no experience filleting fish, but she had watched others do it. Slowly, she cut from under the neck down to the backbone, then edged forward, slicing off the entire fillet. It turned out reasonably well.

Next came slicing the fish into thin pieces—that was much easier. Lin Tu quickly cut the fillet into thin slices and tossed them into a basin to wash. Then she added the holy trinity of ginger, scallion, and cooking wine to remove the fishy smell, followed by salt, MSG, garlic, pepper, peanut oil, cumin powder, and thirteen-spice seasoning. After mixing everything evenly, she added some starch to give the fish slices a light coating.

Finally, it was time to skewer the fish slices.

Lin Tu lit the charcoal and placed it in the grill, the warm coals dispelling the chill from the deck. A small pot was already set on the grill rack to cook the fish innards for Xiao Huang. Humming a tune, Lin Tu skewered the fish slices, and when she had a large basinful, she also picked some fresh cabbage and chives, skewered them as well, and placed them in the basin.

Nights came quickly in the north. By the time Lin Tu placed the first oil-brushed skewer over the charcoal, the smoke from the oil dripping onto the coals was already hazy under the lights in the darkness.

Lin Tu sat in a chair, lazily flipping the fish slices, while Xiao Huang ate the cooled fish innards at her feet.

Before they'd parted, Yu Liu had asked Lin Tu whether she'd feel afraid or lonely, crossing half the globe alone, sailing through dangerous seas for two whole months.

Lin Tu thought no. She'd never felt the calm, free joy of this kind of life before, and now that she had, she didn't want to return to the cage of her old life. If she went back, she imagined her boss, whom she'd found hanging at his front door, would be the more frightened one. For that, she would rather live in this broken, disaster-ridden world—at least here she had a home, not a rental apartment near the office.

Life continued like this for two weeks. During that time, Lin Tu crossed the maritime border, encountered a sea fog once, and a stretch of pack ice once. Fortunately, with the Anju Butler's navigation, everything passed without incident.

Unfortunately, her fuel was nearly exhausted after a few near-misses getting lost and several bouts of high winds and waves. Lin Tu urgently needed to hurry to the nearest offshore fueling station to replenish.

Worse still, she'd gotten lost again on the way to the fueling station—or more precisely, she'd hit a thunderstorm.

Out on the open sea, the distance between sky and water compressed until it was suffocating. Within the thick cloud layers, massive, vicious bolts of lightning suddenly cracked, illuminating the entire sea and Lin Tu's boat in an instant as a deafening boom jolted her from the edge of sleep.

Xiao Huang whimpered. Lin Tu felt the boat rocking harder and harder from the waves. She quickly grabbed the safety harness for the dog's limbs, crouched on the floor, and struggled to strap Xiao Huang in, securing it to its bed.

Rain poured down in sheets, thunderclaps followed one after another, and lightning pierced through the curtains, bathing the room in an eerie white light.

The boat nearly tipped over at a forty-five-degree angle. Lin Tu's hands gripped the leg of the bed bolted to the floor, her knuckles whitening.

She struggled to her feet in the violently rocking boat, fought to keep her balance, then staggered to the cabinet on the other side and pulled out a life jacket. As she put it on, her racing heart finally slowed a little.

"My house won't conduct electricity, right!" Lin Tu asked nervously.

"Of course not," the butler's trembling voice came through. "But the problem now is that we can't determine our direction!"

The pounding of wind and waves slowed the boat down, and the direction was nearly impossible to control. Smart as the butler was, it wasn't smart enough to measure wind and wave strength remotely and turn the rudder to keep the boat on a normal course. That meant they couldn't maintain their previous heading.

"That's fine," Lin Tu calmed down. "We wait."

Thunderstorms never lasted long. As long as she seized the moment when the wind and waves calmed, she could quickly sail out of this area and get back on track.

She looked toward the deck. Through the glass of the door, she could clearly see the entire boat diving like a submarine, the deck plunging completely underwater, until the next wave came and pushed the boat back up again.

It was hard to say she wasn't nervous. Even veteran sailors would be afraid in a situation like this.

Lin Tu crawled to the windows and the two doors, making sure they were all sealed shut. The fuel strapped to the rack was running low, but luckily she'd stocked up plenty in Nacuo City, and with careful use, it would be enough to reach the next station. She'd also stored plenty of oxygen tanks for her diving suit, so even if the boat completely capsized, she'd dare to go out in the water and do some salvage work.

Her supplies were more than ample. With that thought, Lin Tu calmed down again.

She switched on the radio and tuned through the frequencies, trying to pick up relevant information.

"—crackle—red alert—zzz—be alert for high winds and thunderstorms—"

The powerful magnetic field from the lightning interfered with the radio signals, making the broadcast intermittent. Especially the instant a bolt struck, a loud static burst would explode from the speaker. Lin Tu nearly thought the device was about to break.

Fortunately, it held on. When she tuned to a certain high frequency, a piercing cry suddenly erupted from the speaker—

"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Coordinates... longitude 91.52° east... latitude 5—static—" Then it looped the same message again.

Mayday, like SOS, was a distress signal. But SOS was mostly used in Morse code rather than over radio.

The original French "m'aider," because of its easily recognizable sound, was well suited to noisy radio transmissions, and thus became the highest-level distress call in aviation and maritime contexts. Its English pronunciation was the word "Mayday."

Lin Tu sat up straight. She stayed on that frequency and listened through the repeated message several times before making out the exact coordinates. Behind the woman's voice were violent waves and thunder. Lin Tu pulled out her phone and looked at a certain task in the [Anju] app.

She was somewhat off course, but her current position was at longitude 91.50° east, latitude 58.97° north. Calculating it out, the woman in distress was only a little over three kilometers away.

If the sea were calm, Lin Tu might have considered going to help, but right now she could barely take care of herself. The most she could do was offer a silent prayer for the woman in her heart.

Lin Tu tied a rope around her waist and secured herself to the bed leg, so she wouldn't be flung about by a sudden giant wave and hit her head on something, dying on the boat with no one knowing.

Before securing herself, she grabbed a carton of milk and placed it by her leg, taking sips from time to time to keep up her strength. The boat was rocking so violently right now that Lin Tu didn't dare eat anything, afraid she might choke.

She kept adjusting the radio frequency, trying to pick up something useful.

Tuning back and forth, she found no useful information, but she did keep hearing that woman's distress call. Curiously, Lin Tu realized she was getting closer and closer.

That made sense, she figured. The current waves were pushing southwest. Lin Tu's houseboat, because it was burning fuel to move forward, hadn't been pushed too far by the waves. But the person calling for help had probably capsized or jumped ship, and like a piece of driftwood, was easily carried thousands of miles by the current.

If she was lucky, Lin Tu might even pass right by her.

Lin Tu took another sip of milk. With something in her stomach, she felt she had a bit more strength.

But that strength was for her own survival. Lin Tu would never risk helping others while she couldn't even take care of herself.

If she could ensure her own safety, Lin Tu thought, maybe she could throw out a life ring...

Just as she was thinking this, another loud explosion sounded from not far away.

This explosion was different from thunder—it was so violent that Lin Tu's entire boat lurched. When the boat tilted nearly ninety degrees, half the window was submerged. Lin Tu clearly saw the entire sea surface turn orange-red, and even the water droplets on the glass were stained red.

"What happened?"

Lin Tu grabbed the bed leg and stood up as the boat righted itself. She saw clearly that about a kilometer to the southwest, a raging fire was burning on the sea surface.

The dark water rolled and bubbled, and bright orange-yellow flames blazed within it, like the eighteenth level of hell opening its gates to the world. The fire ring was most intense at the center, spanning a few dozen meters, forming a terrifying oval of burning sea that was still spreading outward.

Smoke rose in tendrils, and that fire ring, like the eye of a demon, seemed to lock eyes with Lin Tu, making her heartbeat quicken involuntarily.

"Quick! Full throttle!" Lin Tu knew exactly why her heart was pounding.

Because her boat was still being carried by the waves, drifting toward the fire ring to the southwest. And that terrifying ring of fire was expanding its reach by the second. If she did nothing, she would soon be swallowed up along with her little house. After all, the house was waterproof, but definitely not fireproof!

The butler also realized the gravity of the situation and immediately pushed the engine to maximum.

Out on the vast sea, a fiery eye had opened, and a tiny boat was struggling with all its might to escape its grasp.

Lin Tu immediately started putting on her diving suit. Once the little boat failed to escape, she would have to make other plans. She was incredibly grateful she had stocked up so many supplies—not just a diving suit, but also a life raft, life rings, safety vest, and a waterproof bag that could hold water, compressed biscuits, a compass, a watch, a lighter, matches, and other basic survival gear, plus all her special item vouchers.

While she worked, she went through her special items. [Emergency Ambulance] would let her dash forward three meters, but only while carrying a person. [Angry Corn] and [Diamond Coating] all seemed useless here.

As for [Zombie Nightmare]... Lin Tu could almost recite its description by heart. It summoned a creature to attack a target; when there was no fear in the heart, it would summon Nora... If she truly fell into a crisis, she could try it as a last resort.

The boat slowly crept northeast, but its speed was nowhere near the rate at which the fire ring was expanding. The boat was like a targeted prey, unable to escape.

Lin Tu knew this couldn't go on. She had to give everything to break free.

"If you knew the exact direction of the waves, the wavelength, the wave period, and such data, could you turn the rudder to ride the waves out of this predicament?" The butler had said this before, and now Lin Tu asked again to confirm.

The butler immediately replied, "Yes." As the most precise electronic device, as long as data was fed in, it could instantly calculate the optimal solution.

"Keep going forward at full throttle," Lin Tu told the butler. Then she took out the [Physical Boost Coffee Voucher] and drank it. She packed everything she could carry into the Single-Use Backpack, and resolutely, the moment the boat righted itself, threw open the houseboat door and stepped onto the deck.

A wave surged into the cabin, but Lin Tu had no time to worry about that now.

She clung tightly to the railing, barely avoiding being thrown into the sea.

After drinking the coffee voucher, Lin Tu clearly felt her strength surge. She knew the voucher wouldn't last long, so she glanced at the fiery eye not far away and, using the remaining strength, grabbed the railing with one hand to keep herself anchored to the deck while pulling out the life raft with the other.

The life raft was already tied to a rope. Lin Tu tied the other end to the deck railing, then with a gentle toss, dropped the raft onto the sea.

"Time's running out..." Lin Tu murmured. She hadn't realized until stepping out of the house how fast the fire was spreading. The boat was already much closer to the inferno than she'd thought.

Working against the clock, Lin Tu quickly tied a rope around herself. This rope had a carabiner that hooked onto the rope connecting the railing to the life raft, allowing her to move freely.

Lin Tu gripped the railing as the deck pitched violently up and down. In the dark water, the eerie orange-yellow firelight made her lose track of whether she was facing north or south, east or west, whether she was above the water or beneath it.

Her fear was higher than it had ever been, but she had no choice. She had to jump into the water—only then could the instruments on her diving suit measure the basic data.

Just before jumping, something occurred to her. She took out the dreamcatcher, and a mysterious force immediately seized all the thoughts in her head. In the midst of her overwhelming terror, only one thought dominated her mind—let her survive—she didn't have time to see what the dreamcatcher produced. On the next wave, a five-meter-tall swell, she went under.

Lin Tu turned on her diving flashlight, held onto the rope, and pulled herself to the life raft. She gripped its edge tightly and activated the instruments on her suit.

Data began collecting. Lin Tu had to hold onto the raft with all her strength to avoid being swept away. Even the life raft was repeatedly plunged underwater by the waves.

Thirty seconds... one minute... one minute thirty seconds... two minutes. Lin Tu's heart was squeezed to an almost unbelievable degree.

The data kept changing until, at around eight minutes and forty-something seconds, it finally settled on a relatively stable number. Lin Tu felt a pang of despair, because by her rough calculations, within ten minutes or even less, the boat would be dragged into the fire ring.

Still, she moved as fast as she could, climbed into the life raft, and tied herself to it, not caring whether the raft was flipped or upright, in the water or on top of it. She pulled out her phone in its waterproof case, quickly snapped a photo, and sent it to the butler.

Then, utterly spent, Lin Tu lay back in the life raft, letting the giant waves toss her about. Whether she lived or died was now in fate's hands.

"Hey!" A shout came from afar, quickly swallowed by the waves.

"Hey! Help!" Another shout. Lin Tu nearly thought she was too exhausted and hallucinating. Then the person yelled, "Mayday!" The familiar voice made Lin Tu grip the raft and sit up.

Several hundred meters to the northeast, a woman was clinging to a rescue board, rising and sinking with the waves, being carried straight toward the fiery eye.

Against the firelight, she was paddling frantically with one arm while raising the other high, waving at Lin Tu as widely as she could.

It was clear that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape her desperate situation—just like Lin Tu.

Ten minutes had passed. Lin Tu felt the water splashing beneath her turning orange-red. She might already be in the fire sea. She didn't feel the heat of the water, probably because of the diving suit. She might soon be consumed by the flames.

That woman still wanted to come over? To die together? Lin Tu shook her head with a faint smile. She estimated the distance and, with a life ring tied to a rope, dove into the water. Kicking her legs, she surged forward, pulling the rope between herself and the raft to its fullest length. Then, struggling to find the surface, she seized the moment when a wave lifted her up and tossed the life ring toward the woman.

The rope on the life ring was very long—several hundred meters would be more than enough. As long as the woman could grab it, she might be able to get to the raft.

But after getting on the raft? Lin Tu had never thought she would die, but when truly faced with death, she found she wasn't afraid. She turned around, about to climb back onto the raft, when she suddenly noticed a cluster of flames beneath the boat.

Oddly, she noticed that apart from that cluster of flames under the boat, the water everywhere else was normal—

Had the fire gone out on its own? Soon Lin Tu realized how naive that thought was, because she saw underwater that the flames not far away were burning even more fiercely. It's just that the boat was getting farther and farther from the fiery eye.

Her phone buzzed. Lin Tu opened it—sure enough, it was the butler with good news. It had successfully turned the rudder, steering the boat northeast, away from the fiery eye.

But Lin Tu felt something was off. She was way too far from the fiery eye. Even with a timely rudder turn, she shouldn't have been this far.

Lin Tu pulled the rope and swam back slowly. After climbing onto the life raft, she pulled herself back to the boat with the rope.

She didn't go inside right away. Gripping the railing on the side facing the fiery eye, she looked down. Sure enough, she saw a familiar face.

Nora still looked like a little girl, except her eyes were like two blazing infernos, just like the sea of fire Lin Tu had feared. She was holding up the boat, swimming slowly forward, pulling it away from the inferno. It was clear she was struggling greatly, because the flames in her eyes were gradually fading.

"Big sister, this is the source of my power—your fear," Nora noticed Lin Tu and looked up, as if to comfort her. "You don't have to be afraid now. This time, I'm here to help you."

Then she felt the boat had been pulled a certain distance away. She turned around and realized she had completed her mission. The sea of fire in her eyes was about to vanish. With a look of both regret and relief, she gave Lin Tu one last glance. Before Lin Tu could say a word, she waved—

"Big sister still has a wish, so I have to hurry. See you next time, big sister."

With that, she dove into the water. Lin Tu watched helplessly as that cluster of fire swam toward the spot where she had thrown the life ring, then carried that person back toward the life raft.

The light grew dimmer and dimmer, until the moment she delivered the person completely back to the raft, the light was gone entirely.

Lin Tu looked down—no sign of her, only an unconscious woman lying on the life raft.

Lin Tu quickly went into the water and, with great effort, hauled the woman back.

"Are you still there?" She waved her hand into the water. "I'm sorry! I do know English! Thank you this time!"

.

The boat set off again on its intended course, leaving the sea of fire behind. As Lin Tu had expected, the thunderstorm ended two hours later, and the weather returned to calm.

With an extra person aboard, Lin Tu simply set up a camping cot, stripped the wet clothes off the unconscious woman, strapped her to the bed, and covered her with a thick quilt.

Having stayed up for most of the night, Lin Tu was utterly exhausted. She closed her eyes and fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, Lin Tu was awakened by Xiao Huang's whimpers and the butler's calls. The dog, strapped in all night, needed to relieve itself, and the butler, having no hands or feet, could only rely on her—hence the commotion.

Lin Tu rubbed her eyes, and the events of last night immediately flooded back into her mind. She'd had plenty of near-death experiences, but she'd never been this terrified. The fear humans feel when facing natural disasters is something no instinct can eliminate.

She unstrapped Xiao Huang and decided to make herself something warm for breakfast to settle her stomach.

Since there was still an unconscious person in the house, Lin Tu made two portions in case she woke up hungry. Clearly, her foresight was well within the bounds of possibility.

In a basin, Lin Tu added a certain amount of flour, water, milk, sugar, salt, and most importantly, yeast and corn oil. She kneaded the dough until smooth, then set it aside to rest.

Next, she grabbed one of the cod she'd caught yesterday. The farther north she went, especially in such cold regions, the more cod there were in the sea—and the bigger they got. Some were a meter long, lined up like footballs, round and simple-minded. The moment a hook went down, they'd bite.

Lin Tu was already getting tired of eating cod lately. Even when she cooked it and tossed it to Xiao Huang, the dog wouldn't touch it. Fortunately, cod wasn't the main course today.

Lin Tu washed some rice, added frozen peas and carrot cubes, and set a pot of congee to simmer. Then she simply cut off a piece of the deboned fish, quickly sliced it into thin pieces, and mixed it with ginger to set aside. She would sprinkle the fish slices in once the congee was done cooking, making a fish porridge.

Yesterday, Lin Tu had gotten lucky and caught a cod full of roe. She'd set the roe aside. Although cod roe was the perfect ingredient for making raw mentaiko, Lin Tu wasn't skilled in that craft, so she didn't attempt it rashly.

She washed the roe clean and tore it into small pieces, then added a few eggs, two spoonfuls of flour, salt, MSG, pepper, and other seasonings. After mixing evenly, she added some chopped lettuce. She heated oil in a flat pan and fried the mixture in two batches into two beautiful roe omelets.

The steaming, fragrant aroma of eggs woke the still-sleeping woman. She realized she had been rescued, but was now strapped to a chair. The bizarre memories from last night left her silent for a moment, watching Lin Tu warily from behind.

Once the omelets were done, the dough had rested sufficiently. The techniques of cooking were all similar. Though she had never made this before, Lin Tu skillfully followed what she'd once seen: pressing the dough flat, cutting it into thin strips, then stacking two strips together. Finally, using a chopstick pressed down the middle and pinching the ends, she bonded the two strips tightly together.

After washing the wok, she poured in half a wok of oil and heated it until it began to bubble slightly. Then she picked up one strip of dough, gently stretched it, and slid it into the oil.

Watching Lin Tu's nimble hands working over the cutting board, the dough, and the oil, the woman's eyes grew brighter and brighter. Finally, bursting with excitement, she couldn't help asking—

"Are you making youtiao?"

Lin Tu turned around. Seeing she was awake, she gave a soft "Mm." Without pausing to untie her, Lin Tu swiftly flipped the dough sticks with her chopsticks, lifted the perfectly fried golden ones out of the oil, and set them on a strainer to drain.

The woman didn't care at all about being tied up anymore. Her eyes gleamed at the golden fried dough strips on the strainer, tears almost forming at the corners of her mouth.

"I haven't had youtiao in four or five years," she exclaimed emotionally. What made her eyes brim with tears? It was homesickness—being far from home in a foreign land, eating nothing but salads and dry bread every day, and suddenly seeing hometown food! The woman sighed again. "I really want to eat youtiao."

"You can eat as much as you like in a bit."

Lin Tu's words made the woman even more excited. She waited patiently. When Lin Tu had fished out all the youtiao and piled them into a bowl, she indeed waited for Lin Tu to untie her.

She eagerly helped herself to a bowl of congee, scooping it up with a spoon. In the fragrant porridge floated soft, bright peas and carrot cubes, along with a rich fish flavor. The woman knew it was cod. She'd been out at sea for years and had never thought cod could smell this good. This was the proper way to eat cod!

The woman set two bowls of congee down on the table. She had just sat down when an egg pancake was placed in front of her.

The two sat across from each other, but both were starving, so neither spoke. They devoured the food in their bowls at lightning speed. Only then did they pat their stomachs and face each other, at a loss for words.

The woman was now certain that Lin Tu was an excellent cook, bore a Chinese face, spoke Mandarin, and was definitely not a bad person!

Even if she'd appeared here inexplicably, even after all the bizarre events last night, there had to be a reason.

"I almost forgot to introduce myself. I'm Tang Mei, from Nacuo City." Tang Mei hesitated for a moment, deciding not to beat around the bush with Lin Tu. She raised her hand in greeting.

Her palm was broad and covered in thick calluses. Lin Tu felt the roughness against her own palm and was certain this was a woman who spent years at sea.

"I'm a worker for the United Sea Republic. While out on a work assignment, I struck a reef, got swept off course, and then hit the thunderstorm. Fortunately, you saved me. Thank you so much!"

Her words confirmed Lin Tu's guess. Lin Tu shook her hand, indicating it was nothing.

"May I ask... sorry, due to the nature of my work," Tang Mei said apologetically, "First, why are you out in international waters? Second, I'm grateful you saved me, but... do you know what that supernatural phenomenon last night was? I'd been adrift at sea for two hours and collapsed from exhaustion, but I vaguely saw a ball of fire flying toward me."

She also noticed that the supplies on Lin Tu's boat were extraordinarily plentiful. Calling this a boat was underselling it—it was more like a refuge, a home that could keep a person alive for a full three months in the apocalypse!

But Tang Mei didn't press on those matters. She had, to a certain degree, come to trust Lin Tu. If she weren't carrying an important mission right now, she wouldn't want to pry into the secrets of a good person.

"First, I'm heading to Noah's Ark for refuge," Lin Tu said. She noticed Tang Mei's pupils constrict sharply at this, but she remained expressionless and continued, "And last night, it was me who saw you hadn't grabbed the life ring, so I swam over to save you. You might have seen things wrong. After all, you said yourself you were exhausted, and the flames on the sea were huge—maybe the water reflected light."

Tang Mei nodded thoughtfully, accepting Lin Tu's explanation. She sighed. "There's no volcano where the fire started last night, but I remember there's a natural gas pipeline there. It must have been an underwater gas leak that caught fire because of the thunderstorm. With a sea of fire like that, if I'd been pulled in by the waves, I definitely wouldn't have made it back. Thank you so much for saving me."

Lin Tu shook her head, signaling it was nothing. In fact, it was Tang Mei's words that let her know the real cause of last night's fire.

The two fell silent again, clearly both wary of the "Noah's Ark" that had just been mentioned.

"What are you going to Noah's Ark for?" Finally, Tang Mei couldn't hold back. She'd always been a straightforward person, so she asked directly. For some reason, she felt Lin Tu would tell her the truth. And sure enough, Lin Tu did.

"To take refuge. The south is flooded now, and there are also giant leeches in the water."

"Giant leeches?" Tang Mei was puzzled, but didn't dwell on it. She warned, "Noah's Ark isn't a good place."

Lin Tu sized her up casually for a moment. "I know. But I'm just going there for refuge."

Since that cult-like prophecy had surfaced, Lin Tu had vaguely sensed that it was no virtuous place. But her task was to enter Noah's Ark—what did that have to do with whether it was a good place or not?

As for the woman in front of her, the things she said gave Lin Tu some other ideas.

"I also have some information," Lin Tu said. "About Noah's Ark's crimes."

Tang Mei shot up from her seat. "What?"

"First, I want to know—what's your purpose?"

"Noah's Ark, of course! It sounds bizarre, but all these disasters originated from that cursed place!" Tang Mei said angrily. "I'm on my way back to my country! Part of the United Sea Republic has turned traitor, but my leader stands firm with the all-humanity republicans. We're going to expose Noah's Ark's conspiracy. We'll do everything we can to help everyone survive, and we'll make them pay!"

Lin Tu nodded, then silently turned and pulled open the curtain.

On the door behind the curtain, a dense array of evidence documents was plastered.

"If what you're saying is true, I think these materials would be better in your hands," Lin Tu said, pointing at the documents. "Noah's Ark predicted all these disasters. And the giant leeches were created by them too."

Back in the sunken plaza on Sa City's streets, in that western branch of Noah's Ark, Lin Tu had gathered a great deal of information. The most common type was about extracting genes from nuclear-polluted mutant creatures to modify lifeforms.

Perhaps to bury these materials, after the disaster struck, all the branch employees, under orders from headquarters, had fanatically offered themselves to the black thread worms, helping them grow into leeches.

That was one of the reasons why there were so many giant leeches in that sunken plaza.

Someone had created them.