Out to Sea

Chen Shouyi, feeling slightly irritated, walked to a concealed rock cave and gently parted the dry grass spread over its entrance. Two well-wrapped oilpaper bundles immediately appeared inside.

The larger oilpaper bundle contained the components of the bow and a quiver of arrows.

The long, narrow oilpaper bundle contained the Alloy Sword.

He reassembled the powerful bow and tested the tension of its string. It did not feel the slightest bit slack.

He was not surprised. A martial artist's War Bow was a practical weapon to begin with, designed to adapt to all kinds of environments. Durability and ease of maintenance were the most basic requirements. It was not as delicate as a traditional bow; even after prolonged exposure to sun and rain, it suffered little damage.

Of course, its price was correspondingly steep.

A single War Bow cost as much as a car.

Carrying his weapons, he arrived at the passage entrance. Only then did he release Shell Girl.

Returning to Small Island once more, Shell Girl let out an excited cheer and flew through the air like a mad thing.

Chen Shouyi ignored her and walked to the side to begin practicing archery.

After firing a few arrows, he realized that he was not in the right state of mind. His thoughts simply would not settle.

He stopped and stood where he was, gazing blankly into the distance.

Ever since discovering this passage, Chen Shouyi had been under tremendous pressure. On one hand, he understood that the passage's existence would bring enormous hidden dangers to Dongning City. On the other hand, he did not want to give up monopolizing the passage or surrender the benefits in his hands.

Because of this, when he discovered barbarians on Small Island, his first thought had not been to avoid them for the time being, but to return and risk killing them. Even the second time, when large numbers of barbarians appeared, he had tried to resolve the matter alone.

He had nearly lost his life because of it.

Aside from making up for his own mistake and preventing more barbarians from entering Dongning City, he had also, deep down, been trying to keep the passage hidden.

Of course, he had ultimately succeeded by sheer luck. The situation that had nearly collapsed was pulled back from the brink, and he had naturally continued along the same path.

Yet today, the intruder's corpse and that photograph had finally left him flustered.

Although he could find a hundred reasons to convince himself that the man had died of his own greed and that it had nothing to do with him,

he knew in his heart that, to a certain extent, the man was the first person to suffer the consequences of his concealment of the passage.

In the end, he was only a seventeen-year-old boy. His heart had not yet grown cold.

Although his hands were already stained with blood, the death of a barbarian and the death of a human felt different.

One was a backward primitive race from another world; the other was one of his own kind.

It was like how, after the First Industrial Revolution, people who prided themselves on belonging to civilized society could slaughter Native Americans at will, yet after lowering their muskets, they could turn around and treat a stranger with courtesy and refinement.

That was because they did not consider the former to be of the same race.

Of course, it was not as if he felt overwhelming guilt. The incident had simply made him more alert.

If someone entered the passage on their own and died, that was none of his concern.

But what if a barbarian came out while he was away?

At that moment, a powerful thought suddenly surfaced in his mind:

Why not go take a look at the barbarians' island and investigate the situation there?

If there isn't much danger...

It had to be said that there was a strong streak of gambling in his character.

His gaze turned cold as he considered the risks:

"Compared with the slaughter on that rainy night, my strength is already greater now. My physical qualities are also about equal to those of an ordinary barbarian. Even without a bow and arrows, and even without launching a surprise attack, I'm confident I could easily kill one in a one-on-one fight."

In terms of hunting, Chen Shouyi naturally could not compare with barbarians who made their living by hunting. But in terms of killing people, compared with the killing arts of martial combat that countless scientists on Earth had studied over the past twenty years, barbarians who were still only using their bodies by instinct were far too inferior.

It was like how an old farmer who spent every day bent over the soil to make a living could not match the output of a university student who had studied agriculture.

An old woman who had cooked for decades could not surpass a chef fresh out of culinary school.

A technological society's efficiency in understanding knowledge was countless times greater than that of the barbarians.

He glanced at the sky. It was not yet noon here.

He did not plan to continue practicing. He called Shell Girl over and headed down the mountain.

When he reached the rocks by the sea, he untied the rope of one of the boats, then removed his trousers and waded through the seawater.

Fortunately, the tide was somewhat high today, so the dugout canoe had not run aground.

Otherwise, he really would have worried that he could not push this enormous dugout canoe.

He placed his weapons and briefcase inside, then climbed into the dugout canoe.

After several days of scorching sunlight, the foul stench inside the dugout canoe had already faded considerably.

He picked up a wooden board resembling an oar and paddled hard through the seawater.

"It moved! It moved!" Shell Girl seemed extremely excited and hurriedly shouted.

The dugout canoe slowly turned once in place.

Seeing Shell Girl cheering excitedly, Chen Shouyi snapped in embarrassment, "Stop shouting. Keep it down."

This was awkward.

How had one rowed a boat again?

He scratched his scalp and desperately recalled the scenes of people rowing that he had seen in the past.

It seemed to be one stroke on the east, one stroke on the west.

However, that method was only suitable for a small boat.

A dugout canoe four or five meters wide obviously could not be rowed that way. He would exhaust himself just running back and forth.

Fortunately, this was something he could slowly figure out.

After experimenting again and again for a full half hour, he finally managed to control the direction.

Chen Shouyi took out the Common Tongue dictionary and flipped through it for a while. He found the pronunciation of the rarely used word "island," then said to Shell Girl, "Go see where the nearest island is in the distance. There'll be a reward."

"Gems?"

Shell Girl's eyes lit up, and she hurriedly asked. When Chen Shouyi nodded, she flew up excitedly. She flew higher and higher until she was more than a hundred meters in the air, then finally descended.

Fortunately, the rope tied to her was long enough.

"Yes, very far away!"

"That direction!"

Shell Girl immediately pointed in one direction.

Chen Shouyi continued paddling.

The dugout canoe was dead heavy, and its speed was extremely slow. He estimated that it could travel only about ten kilometers per hour, merely a little faster than walking.

It was difficult to judge direction on the open sea. Before long, he had completely lost his sense of direction.

Fortunately, Shell Girl kept confirming the direction. Otherwise, without a compass, he probably would have gotten lost.

After paddling for more than two hours, he finally saw a speck of green appear on the horizon.

The patch of green gradually grew larger.

He soon discovered another dugout canoe.

"A-a giant!" Shell Girl's eyesight was sharper than his, and she shouted loudly.

That meant there were two of them. He immediately changed direction and headed toward the other dugout canoe.

The dugout canoe was the barbarians' only means of transportation on the sea. He decided to destroy this one first.

The two boats slowly drew closer.

Perhaps seeing a dugout canoe of the same style and assuming it was a companion, the barbarian aboard even stood up as if to greet him.

At that moment, the two boats were still six or seven hundred meters apart. Their vision was quite blurry, and the figure they saw was merely a tiny dot. They could not make out any details at all.

Seeing this, Chen Shouyi's thoughts stirred. He immediately removed his shirt and went bare-chested like the barbarians, preparing to confuse their vision.

He felt that his skin was too fair and clean. At close range, the difference would be obvious at a glance.

Gritting his teeth, he looked left and right. Before long, he pried out a patch of brown, hardened filth from inside the cabin, with no idea what it was. Ignoring the foul stench, he quickly smeared it over his face and body.

Shell Girl pinched her nose and sat down at a distance with a look of disgust.

Chen Shouyi thought, I hope this works.

At that moment, the other boat also changed direction, seemingly wanting to come over and communicate, and began sailing toward them.

The two boats drew closer and closer.

Five hundred meters. Three hundred meters.

He could already vaguely hear the barbarians' rough shouts.

Chen Shouyi lowered his head slightly and continued paddling without revealing anything.

At a hundred and fifty meters, the barbarian aboard the dugout canoe grew hesitant, and the speed of its paddling gradually slowed.

At a hundred meters, one of the barbarians finally let out a terrified cry.

"That's the demon!"

The two immediately turned around. Perhaps they were too panicked, for they fumbled in confusion. The dugout canoe spun round and round in place.

By then, Chen Shouyi had raised his head. He set the paddle aside, picked up the War Bow beside him, nocked an arrow, and drew the bowstring to its full extent in an instant.

His gaze was sharp, his mind utterly calm.

After the dugout canoe had continued forward for another dozen meters, he abruptly released the bowstring.

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