Freedom!
The Nightmare Old Demon's eyes were filled with disbelief. He glanced at Xie Xie, who was kneeling in the shadow of a withered tree, his pupils still unfocused but the tips of his ears slowly turning red, and then turned back to look at Yun Jingheng.
The light in his eyes grew stronger, like the flame of an oil lamp with an overstretched wick, leaping from the size of a bean into a small, bright cluster.
"Your idea just now,"
He said, speaking twice as fast as before, like a geared machine finally lubricated and starting to run at full speed, "I need to think about this carefully. On the basis of Yuanen Yehui's death in front of him, how do I make her come back to life?"
"This twist is already the most classic reversal in a Nightmare structure, but your brilliance lies in 'what she took after coming back from the dead'—you gave her that thing."
"The leap from tragedy to absurdity has no transition; it's a direct fall, causing his mind to explode on two levels simultaneously—"
He spoke faster and faster, gesturing with his hands above his knees, his thumb and forefinger pinched together to form a shape, as if measuring the distance of something. "One is the enormous, overwhelming shock of 'she came back to life,' the other is the kind of, you know, collapse of one's worldview that comes from 'she charged at us with that thing.'"
"In that instant, he would simultaneously face the joy of resurrection and the fear of being hunted by humiliating weapons; these two extreme emotions collided in his mind—"
He stopped abruptly, took a deep breath, his chest heaving and then collapsing, before turning his head and asking Yun Jingheng with utmost seriousness, as if consulting a colleague, "Do you think it's appropriate for me to arrange this for him tonight?"
Yun Jingheng sat upright on the wooden stake, the morning light shining on his face, and the faint, almost invisible smile at the corner of his mouth finally appeared.
"I think," he said, his voice calm and even, "It might be too late tonight. What time is it? It's not even noon yet, there's still plenty of time."
The Nightmare Old Demon paused for a moment, then burst into laughter.
That laugh was louder than any before, bursting from the depths of his lungs, causing the few remaining leaves on the withered tree to rustle and fall to the ground.
He laughed so hard he almost fell over, one hand on his knee, the other pointing haphazardly in Yun Jingheng's direction, failing to get it right even after two attempts.
"You—" He laughed so hard he could hardly breathe, his eyes welling up with tears, "A kindred spirit! A kindred spirit—! You are the one most suitable to be the Nightmare Old Demon."
Yun Jingheng stood up with a smile, patted the sawdust and dust off his trousers, slung the waterproof cloth bag over his shoulder again, and swayed it against his back to steady it.
He glanced down at Xie Xie, who was still trembling, then at Nightmare Old Demon, who was laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight, before walking towards the path by the sea.
After walking a dozen steps, he heard the Nightmare Old Demon's broken, intermittent voice behind him, as if he'd been laughing so hard he almost choked, "... Yun Jingheng! When you come back—we'll talk again—we'll talk more deeply—I've got it—"
The wind blew in from the sea, scattering most of his voice, but the remaining half still clearly reached Yun Jingheng's ears.
He didn't turn around, but waved his right hand with his back to the withered tree.
He walked along the path towards the sea, the morning light bathing his back, framing the outline of his waterproof bag and the clean, sharp lines on his shoulder with a bright edge.
He walked along the path for about two miles, and after turning past the row of dead ironwood trees, he slowed down.
The terrain ahead changed from shrubs to scattered gravel, and further ahead was a relatively flat, gentle slope with a few crooked, short trees growing on it.
The trees were not tall, and the thickest trunks were no more than the thickness of an adult's thigh, but the wood was sturdy, covered with a layer of grayish-brown, cracked bark, and the roots were firmly embedded in the soil, which was a mixture of gravel and sand.
Yun Jingheng stopped in front of the largest tree, took the waterproof bag off his shoulder and placed it at his feet, and pulled out the sharpened clam shell blade from the bag.
The blade gleamed faintly in the morning light. He crouched down, measured the angle at a point about a foot and a half above the ground on the tree trunk, and then struck.
The sound of a clam shell cutting into tree bark is muffled, with a fine "hissing" sound like fibers being torn apart.
His movements were slow, but each cut landed on the same line. After repeating the shallow cut more than a dozen times, it gradually deepened into a narrow groove.
Wood shavings tumbled down from both sides of the blade, some landing on his boots, others falling into the cracks in the gravel.
He tried different angles, cutting around the tree trunk, and finally pried the clam shell horizontally at the deepest part of the cut.
The tree trunk emitted a dull, ripping sound as if its fibers were being torn apart, and then the entire tree slowly tilted to the side, its crown sweeping across the pebbles on the ground and raising a small cloud of dust.
The dull thud of the tree trunk hitting the ground carried far in the morning light, startling a small flock of white seabirds perched on distant rocks. The birds flapped their wings and took flight.
He spent more than half an hour splitting the trunk of the tree in half, removing the excess branches, smoothing and polishing the cross-section of one half of the trunk with a piece of clam shell, and then chiseling shallow grooves at both ends.
Then he took out the thin rope made of the bundle of grass stems from his bag, picked up a few dry, thick branches from the surrounding area, tied them horizontally to both ends of the tree trunk, wrapped the rope around the groove three times, tightened it, and tied a knot.
Thus, a dugout canoe, so simple it couldn't be simpler, was formed. It was less than three feet wide and less than ten feet long, and the wood still had the freshly split, damp texture, emitting a faint, astringent smell of plant sap.
He hoisted the raft onto his shoulder and walked along the pebble beach toward the sea.
The weight of the raft pressed down on his shoulder blades, neither too light nor too heavy. He carried it across the last stretch of reef and onto the shallow bay that he had been visiting for two days and knew so well he could navigate it with his eyes closed.
The tide had not completely receded, and the water surface shimmered with soft, pale golden ripples in the morning light. The ripples were fine and even, like a thin silk layer ruffled by the wind spread between the rocks.
He pushed the raft into the water.
The wooden surface made a dull "thump" when it touched the water, the raft rocked slightly, and then floated on the surface. It didn't draft deep, and the rough wooden bottom was faintly visible beneath the water.
He took off his boots and trousers, rolled up the cuffs, and stepped barefoot into the water. The water was a little warmer than yesterday, but the chill still crept up his ankles.
He pushed the raft a few feet further out, then lay down on it, his palms against the wet wooden surface, and kicked his legs a couple of times in the shallow water, and the raft drifted away.
He lay on the raft and paddled forward.
Without oars, he used his palms to paddle, gradually becoming more skilled as his palms cut into the water. Each stroke carried away more water than the last, and the raft gradually sped up.
Behind me, Devil Island shrank smaller and smaller in the gradually opening sea. The outlines of the low houses, the silhouettes of the withered trees, and the edges of the purplish-black mist all blurred into a dark blue-green color as the distance stretched.
He rowed for a long time.
The sun rose from the eastern horizon to a position slightly in front of us, and the light spread down from above, turning the entire sea surface into shimmering, fragmented silver.
The shadow of Devil Island had shrunk into a thin, dark line behind us, close to the sea level, like a faint distant mountain drawn with a brush at the horizon.
Then his palm suddenly felt warm.
The heat surged up from a place deep within his body that hadn't been touched for a long time, like a well that had been blocked for a whole month, and suddenly a hand reached down and lifted the lid blocking the well.
The heat spread outward from his dantian, went up along the meridians, expanded his lungs a little when it passed through his chest cavity, and dispelled the hoarseness in his throat when it passed through his throat, and finally spread to the extremities.
Soul Power.
The Soul Power within him, which had been suppressed by the power of Devil Island for so long, came back to life the moment he left the area covered by that water.
Yun Jingheng lay on the raft, stunned for a moment.
Then he laughed, but this time the laugh was different from the one he had suppressed under the withered tree. This laugh burst forth directly from his chest, accompanied by a soft shout that he could barely contain. The sound rushed out of his throat, bounced a few times on the sea, and scattered into the wind.
He released his grip on the raft, pressed his palms down, and channeled his Soul Power into his palms, creating a thin cushion on the wooden surface. His body used that force to rise from the raft.
He rose up.
Seawater dripped from his wet trousers, droplets falling from his ankles and splashing back into the sea, creating small, fine ripples.
His feet left the raft, first an inch, then two inches, and then his whole body was suspended in mid-air, about three feet above the water.
The sea breeze passed beneath him, causing his clothes to flutter and rustle.
He stopped there, looked down at his feet dangling in mid-air, his toes curling slightly in the sea breeze before relaxing again.
Then he looked up at the sky.
The sky was clean and clear, without a trace of purplish-black mist.
Blue spread from overhead to all around, a uniform and dense blue, like a polished, deep blue jade inverted between heaven and earth.
A few wisps of very pale white clouds lay low in the eastern sky, their edges gleaming softly in the sunlight, like thin gauze that had been washed but not yet completely dried.
He took a deep breath.
This time, the air filled his entire lungs, stretching every alveolus from bottom to top. The clean sea breeze rushed in through his trachea, washing away the remaining dark particles deep within his lungs, worn away by the trials.
When he pulled out the pin, his breath condensed into a very faint wisp of white mist in the sea breeze, which dissipated after a couple of breaths.
Then he suddenly leaped upwards.
Soul Power surged from the soles of his feet, propelling his body upwards by more than ten feet. The sea beneath his feet rapidly shrank, transforming into a flat surface shimmering like shattered gold, bathed in sunlight.
The wind whistled past his ears, blowing all the stray hairs from his forehead back. He spread his arms wide, like a bird finally released from its leash, stretching out in a graceful arc between the blue sky and the sea.
He did a half somersault in the air.
As his body spun, sunlight swept across his eyelids from different angles, cutting his vision into frames filled with alternating golden and blue light.
The spin stopped, and he hovered face down in mid-air, his gaze passing through the thin layer of air beneath his feet, which was swaying slightly in the sea breeze, as he looked down at the sea surface.
The seawater is clear.
After leaving the waters of Devil Island, the sea revealed a transparency he had almost forgotten. The outlines of reefs and underwater sand were clearly visible beneath the surface, and the color gradually transitioned from light blue near the shore to deep blue in the open sea. The line of color gradation in the middle looked like the edge of a folded piece of silk in the sunlight.
"Freedom! Ah! So refreshing!"