Monster Rumors

"Sorry. I didn't expect something like this to happen." When the curly-haired young man heard Mo Qiong mention the shipwreck, he apologized.

Mo Qiong waved his hand, indicating that he didn't mind.

Then, everyone entered the cabin together and locked the hatch.

The wind howled outside, while the cabin was fairly warm.

Mo Qiong first carefully sized up the eight people. They were all young—four men and four women.

Looking at the lavish interior and the large amount of wine and other drinks, he could tell that they had probably been having a party when they hit him.

That wasn't unreasonable. What else would they take a yacht out for if not to have fun? Many sailors who worked in shipping found sailing at sea incredibly boring, so they spent all day looking for entertainment.

"You can go to the bedroom and change. We have plenty of fresh water, and you can take a shower too," the curly-haired young man said. He seemed to be the owner of the boat.

Mo Qiong nodded. He quickly took a shower and changed clothes. The clothes had also been provided by the curly-haired man.

When he came out, the curly-haired man brought him a cup of coffee in the lounge.

"I originally wanted to make some hot soup, but it's shaking too much," the curly-haired man said.

At that moment, the yacht was in the middle of a storm, rocking violently. They could only use the coffee machine to make some hot coffee.

Mo Qiong wanted something hot to drink as well, so he didn't stand on ceremony.

After chatting with them for a while, Mo Qiong gained a rough understanding of the group.

They loved sailing and extreme sports and considered themselves adventurers, but they had no formal jobs. Their documents were all in order, but they weren't particularly experienced. They could roughly be described as wealthy second-generation heirs who liked taking trips out to sea.

"How did you end up sailing here alone?" one of the young men asked.

"Drifted here," Mo Qiong said.

Generally speaking, nobody would pilot a small boat like his more than fifty nautical miles from the coast.

Would there be enough fuel for the return trip? If an unpredictable storm came along, how large a wave could such a small boat withstand?

All sorts of issues made it impossible for a boat like Mo Qiong's to appear on the High Seas.

So if Mo Qiong claimed that he had come out for fun, it would be utter nonsense.

Now that they heard Mo Qiong say he had drifted here, everyone immediately believed him. They assumed his boat had suffered some kind of malfunction or run out of fuel, and that, being too far from the coast, it had drifted farther and farther away until the current carried it all the way to the High Seas.

"Wow, that's incredibly dangerous! When you saw our boat, why didn't you call for help?" the young man exclaimed.

"I was asleep at the time. I only woke up when you hit me," Mo Qiong said.

When they heard Mo Qiong mention the collision, everyone felt a little awkward.

They hadn't expected to be so unlucky. They had been having fun and let their guard down.

But right afterward, they felt that Mo Qiong was far too carefree.

"You drifted more than a thousand kilometers from the coast and still managed to sleep?" a beautiful woman asked in astonishment.

Mo Qiong smiled. "The emergency radio was broken, and so was the engine. I could only drift with the current. I ate when I was hungry, drank when I was thirsty, and slept when I was tired."

Everyone thought that made sense. Since there was nothing he could do, he could only leave it to fate. What else could he do besides sleep? Staying awake wouldn't help.

But although that reasoning made sense, not everyone could sleep well in such circumstances.

Alone and helpless at sea, drifting along until the fresh water ran out and the food was gone, all that remained would be waiting for death.

Faced with such a desperate situation, ordinary people would have long since despaired and wanted to die. They would eat poorly, sleep badly, and wear themselves down until they suffered from Mental Fatigue.

Seeing how good Mo Qiong's mood still was, everyone was struck by his optimism.

"Haha, us hitting your boat must have been heaven guiding us to come help you," the curly-haired man said with a laugh.

"Ah... yeah..." Mo Qiong gave a helpless, bitter smile. His newly purchased boat...

"Although we hit your boat, it's good that you're fine. You can ride our boat back. Once we return, I can even compensate you with another boat," the curly-haired man said.

Mo Qiong felt helpless at that.

His current location was on the High Seas east of Wan Province. Farther south lay the Philippine Sea, and Large Pearl was in the coastal waters of that region, near the Philippines.

He couldn't exactly ask these people to take him across a national border. The coastal waters there belonged to the Philippines.

Nor would these people ever agree to simply abandon him in this vast ocean.

After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Where were you originally headed?"

"We didn't have a specific destination. We came out to look for a sea monster," the curly-haired man said.

"A sea monster?" Mo Qiong stared at them strangely.

The curly-haired man was about to continue when another young man snorted. "All right, Zhang He. We just came out to have fun. Why are you going on about sea monsters?"

Mo Qiong smiled. Judging by their appearance, he could tell that they were simply a group of friends who had taken a yacht out for fun. They had no particular purpose, and calling it a sea-monster hunt was merely an excuse to seek some excitement.

However, that meant he couldn't hitch a ride with them. He could only return with them first.

Unexpectedly, the curly-haired Zhang He said, "What do you mean, 'going on about it'? You didn't actually believe me?"

The young man curled his lip. "Bro, you believe in a one-thousand-meter sea monster? You're seriously delusional."

"Pfft!" Mo Qiong nearly choked on his coffee.

"One thousand meters?" The corner of Mo Qiong's mouth twitched. That was far too exaggerated. The largest creature in the world was the blue whale, which could reach thirty-three meters in length. Perhaps there were even larger creatures in unexplored parts of the deep sea. But what did a one-thousand-meter creature even mean? Could it swallow a blue whale whole as an appetizer?

Zhang He hurriedly said, "It really exists, brother. You don't know? I have a sailor friend in America who saw it with his own eyes. It was discovered in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Everyone in the sailing community has heard about it."

"Lippi, you mean? Didn't he already clarify everything? He dreamed it up. Don't listen to him, brother. That friend of his publicly apologized too, saying he had spread the rumor," the young man said with a laugh.

Zhang He's expression darkened. "That's not what he told me at first. He looked terrified, not like he was lying to me. And the photos he took were examined by experts in the community from the very beginning. They hadn't been edited."

"The person you mentioned clarified it too. He said he and Lippi had teamed up to spread the rumor. The media had the photos examined as well, and they were all fakes. They'd only edited pictures of Leviathan," the young man said.

Zhang He said helplessly, "Don't you people have any ambition? You believed me before, didn't you? Lippi and the others aren't the kind of people who would spread rumors like that."

Although he spoke with great seriousness, his friends all laughed.

They only pretended to believe him because they wanted this trip out to sea to be more interesting. That didn't mean they truly believed him.

Zhang He was the only one who actually believed in the sensational story.

Mo Qiong rubbed his Adam's apple. "There are too many unexplored places on Earth. As for sea monsters, it's better to believe they exist. After all, it's perfectly normal that some enormous deep-sea creatures haven't been discovered yet."

He offered Zhang He some reassurance, but then changed tack. "However, one thousand meters is truly too exaggerated. That's definitely far-fetched. If a creature were really that large, humanity would have discovered it long ago."

Zhang He scratched his head, not knowing how to refute him.

His friends said, "See? This brother understands. If you said one hundred meters, that would show some ambition, and we might believe it. But one thousand meters? That's completely unscientific! This world has to follow the laws of science."

Mo Qiong froze. Their words had struck a chord in him.

Did this world really follow the laws of science? Or rather, what was the definition of science?

"Um, Zhang He, what did the giant thing you mentioned look like? Do you have a photo?" Mo Qiong asked.

Zhang He immediately stood up and picked up his tablet, searching through it. "I do, but this is a copy, not the original photo. I don't know whether the original was edited."

Mo Qiong looked at the photo. Amid the raging waves, a massive silhouette emerged from the dark sea. Its outline resembled a whale, but the shape of its mouth was more like that of a carnivore. It did indeed look very much like Leviathan.

Its size was truly absurd. Although it was very far away, part of its body was in the sea while another part pierced into the clouds. Its length was at least one thousand meters.

"Do you believe me?" Zhang He asked.

"Hmm..." Mo Qiong gave no clear answer.

"All right, all right. You expect him to believe you just from looking at a photo? The wind and waves seem to have calmed down a little. Let's eat some late-night snacks and go to sleep." His friends couldn't take it anymore.

Zhang He was helpless. Amid everyone's laughter, they took out some food and placed it on the table.

Mo Qiong ate two bites of bread. Suddenly, he had an idea. He pinched off a little bread crumb and tossed it away.

The bread crumb drifted outward, then suddenly turned and flew in a certain direction.

Bang!

Mo Qiong was startled. He slapped down hard, pinning the bread crumb to the floor.

The sudden, excessive movement nearly sent him tumbling from his chair.

His unexpected slap on the table made a loud noise, and everyone looked at him in confusion.

Mo Qiong looked at Zhang He. "I believe you."

"What? You believe that too? Brother, are you a Chuunibyou as well?" everyone said.

P.S. Sorry. The protagonist will not go looking for this thing.