What Happened Next

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Violent explosions rocked the whaling ship again. Flames surged upward, and its last mast finally came crashing down.

It was as though that had been a signal. A huge wave struck, and the ship's tilt suddenly steepened. Like the arm of a dying man reaching for the sky, the entire hull leaned at nearly seventy degrees.

Black smoke and white mist billowed from where the ship met the water, like a billowing cuff. Another explosion rang out, and the whaling ship abruptly began to sink at terrifying speed!

A visible whirlpool began to form!

"We have to go, or the whirlpool will drag us in!" On one of the lifeboats, a brown-haired pirate wiped rain from his forehead and shouted, "We can't wait any longer!"

"No! We have to keep waiting!" roared a pirate missing one ear. "Lord Xia Lun isn't aboard yet!"

"He's not coming! The ship's already sinking!" the brown-haired pirate shouted back. "Stop being crazy. Think straight! The other lifeboats have gone. If we don't leave now, we'll fall behind!"

With that, he seized an oar and bent to row, heedless of anyone else.

Click!

The one-eared pirate yanked out a flintlock pistol and jammed it against the brown-haired pirate's forehead.

"Put the damned oar down. You're not running!"

"Priest, he's lost his mind!" The brown-haired pirate's eyes widened. Fat raindrops ran from his bangs into them. "Hurry! Save me!"

In the middle of the lifeboat, the priest knelt clutching his Holy Emblem, praying in anguish.

"It's all my fault... All my fault... I got everyone killed..."

"Stop praying and make a decision!" the brown-haired pirate cried, his voice trembling. "Shit, I can see the whirlpool! It's too late now!"

Boom!

Lightning tore across the sky, its deathly pale flash illuminating the doctor's face.

The doctor still wore his broken glasses and the same ingratiating, harmless smile. But his eyes seemed much more alert now.

"One more minute." The doctor took out his pocket watch and gently pressed its button. "Xia Lun might still make it aboard."

Before he had even finished speaking, the whole boat shuddered!

A shriveled hand shot out of the surging waves and clamped onto the railing. Then a figure so gaunt he looked like a dried corpse hauled himself aboard!

It was Xia Lun!

Thud!

All four people in the boat stared in astonishment at Xia Lun's sudden arrival.

"Thanks for waiting for me. Cough... Get moving." Xia Lun rolled over with difficulty. The swim seemed to have drained every last bit of his strength. "There are no other survivors. I'm the last one. Go!"

"Xia Lun!" The priest dropped his Holy Emblem and sprang to his feet. "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

"Lord Xia Lun!" The one-eared pirate dropped to his knees, his voice catching with tears. "I knew you'd be all right."

"Save it. If we don't move, the whirlpool will pull us in. Row, and let me rest a moment..." Xia Lun cut him off. "Oh, and do we have any food? Get me some, quick."

The one-eared pirate hurriedly searched a sack, then reverently placed a piece of hard bread in Xia Lun's hand.

"The whirlpool won't take us," the doctor said with a smile, adjusting his glasses. "After all, every good deed must be rewarded."

Xia Lun stuffed the bread into his mouth and chewed rapidly. After only a few bites, he swallowed it whole.

"Doctor, thank you for Symptom Reading." Xia Lun grabbed a piece of dried salted fish and put it in his mouth, then let out a long breath. "It really... saved my life."

"The honor was mine." Smiling, the doctor picked up an oar and began rowing hard alongside the others.

Soon, the lifeboat slipped through a narrow path between towering waves and treacherous currents. It escaped the storm zone unscathed, though only just.

A day later, the lifeboat reached the sandy shore on the western side of Perilous Earth Island.

By the time gentle waves carried it onto the beach, everyone was utterly exhausted.

"We survived... We survived!" The brown-haired pirate wept with joy. He dropped to his knees on the sand, slapped himself as if he'd gone mad, then burst into loud sobs. "We really survived!"

Warm, gentle sunlight shone on the survivors' faces. Its dry warmth seeped into their skin, driving the fear and weariness from their bones.

For a moment, they felt dazed. All the horrors aboard the whaling ship seemed like nothing more than an unreal nightmare, fading away as the dampness dried from their bodies.

They were safe at last!

"Lord Xia Lun, what do we do next?" The one-eared pirate patted his cheeks, wiping the smile from his face, then asked with reverence.

Xia Lun did not answer at once. Eyes closed, he listened carefully to the waves washing over the beach and the cries of seabirds before finally speaking.

"Two choices. We can meet up with the others first, or dig up the so-called 'treasure.' According to the monster, it's somewhere nearby."

"The others should be at the Red Hook Tavern in Sen'er Harbor." The priest glanced at Xia Lun cautiously, then said in a low voice, "That's our base on Perilous Earth Island."

"Forget the tavern. Let's dig for the treasure first. If we find it, the few of us will be rich." The brown-haired pirate wiped away his tears. "If we don't find anything, there'll still be time to join the others."

Xia Lun looked at the doctor, who slowly pushed his glasses up.

"I say we dig," the doctor said with a smile. "None of us is well off right now. We could use some starting capital."

"Let's do that," Xia Lun said quietly.

So the five of them took their tools to the cliffs and began digging furiously.

But by evening, they still had not found the supposed treasure.

Only a few minutes remained before Xia Lun completed the Scenario objective of surviving six days.

"You think the monster made up the treasure to trick us?" the priest asked suspiciously as he ate bread in the last light of sunset. "Is there really any treasure?"

"Of course there is," the doctor said with a smile. "Keep digging. We might find it any moment."

Before he finished speaking, his shovel struck something solid. Clang.

"See? Found it."

Everyone crowded around in surprise. After a bout of hammering, they broke open a rusted iron chest, revealing a heap of dazzling gold coins and gems of every color...

"Heh, heh, heh." The doctor nodded with a smile. "What did I tell you—"

Xia Lun stepped forward and scooped up a handful of gold coins. At that very moment, his mission timer ran out.

Countless lines of golden text flashed before his eyes. Before he could look closely, two lines of Cobalt Blue text appeared over them.

[Scenario objective: Survive 6 days (6/6)]

[You will leave the current scene]

The next instant, Xia Lun's vision went black, and the familiar cold swept over him again.

"Are you all right?!" Just before he left the scenario completely, he heard the priest's worried, tense voice. He tried to answer, but before a sound escaped his lips, it dissolved into the boundless cold darkness.

Then Xia Lun's consciousness left that place entirely.

"What happened to Lord Xia Lun?" the brown-haired pirate asked uneasily. "Why did he suddenly stop moving?"

As he spoke, he gently patted Xia Lun's shoulder.

The moment he touched him, Xia Lun's entire body gave a watery rush. His muscles dissolved into pale beads of sweat, his skin filled with foaming water, and his bones let out a mournful sigh before releasing the briny smell of seawater.

In less than half a breath, Xia Lun became a puddle of bubbles and spray. The gold coins between his fingers fell into it with a clink.

"Ah?!" The brown-haired pirate stumbled back two steps and fell onto his backside.

The one-eared pirate stared, stunned. "Lord Xia Lun died?!"

Even the doctor's mouth fell open in shock. He scratched his graying temple, bewildered.

"How... How is that possible?" The doctor took off his glasses, unable to believe it. "He... He just died?"

"No, you're wrong," the priest said suddenly, his voice grave. "The amount of treasure in the chest has changed. Nearly a fifth of it is gone."

The brown-haired pirate shakily got to his feet and went to the chest. Looking closely, he saw that a substantial portion of its treasure really had vanished.

"Lord Xia Lun was sent by the Undying Sacred Flame to save us," the priest declared with certainty. "He didn't die. He simply returned to report on his mission. By taking that treasure, he was telling us to divide what remains equally and use it wisely."

"Is... Is that right?" The doctor scratched his head without thinking. "He turned into sea spray, not sparks..."

"That doesn't matter," the priest said, his voice growing firmer and more devout. At that moment, he seemed to have received a divine revelation. "Everything has its meaning. It makes sense precisely because it's absurd."

And so the others accepted the priest's explanation completely.

Pirates were generally greedy and ruthless, but under the spell of that mystery, none of them argued over the spoils. Like monks performing a ritual, they divided the treasure in the chest with meticulous care.

After placing a wooden marker where Xia Lun had vanished, the survivors, each with more than enough money, soon went their separate ways to pursue their own goals.

The priest turned over a new leaf. On Perilous Earth Island, a free port for pirates, he founded a church of the Undying Sacred Flame Faith, as well as an orphanage.

Thanks to his capable management and strong command of doctrine, the priest's reputation steadily grew. A few years later, the Undying Sacred Flame Church readmitted him to the clergy and appointed him bishop of the archipelago.

The Church's inquisitors objected, however. They considered the priest's teachings so unorthodox that they bordered on heresy: he openly proclaimed that the merciless Undying Sacred Flame would send Divine Envoys to help those who suffered.

But the inquisitors' accusations ultimately went nowhere. With money behind him, the priest's influence within the Church had grown too quickly for them to challenge.

Though the brown-haired pirate and the one-eared pirate argued often, the two strangely chose to work together in the end. With their share as starting capital, the former pirates made several more high-risk investments and succeeded. They were now rising stars among the merchants of Scarlet Lantern Island.

In a sense, the horrors aboard the whaling ship had greatly sharpened their resolve and judgment. Their success could not be called mere luck.

Compared with the others, the whereabouts of the doctor, who had also received a fortune, were rather strange.

"Heh, heh, heh." The doctor adjusted his new glasses and straightened the Briefcase full of medical equipment in his hand. Then he hurried up a gangplank and boarded an expedition ship.

There was no trace of his former vacant manner. On the contrary, he looked thoroughly professional and rational.

"Name?" asked the Record Keeper in charge of registration on the ship's deck.

The doctor removed his glasses and gave a rather peculiar smile.

"Call me Ishmael," he said with a smile.

(The End)