The sun shone brightly on a clear day.
The tide receded, revealing a golden beach.
His first night on the deserted island had passed with a scare but no real harm. After eating the bodies in the cabin, the monsters had lumbered toward the very center of the island with a rumbling tread.
But Zhang Ming was in a foul mood, with two enormous dark circles under his eyes.
To prepare for the "battle" that might come, he had "accidentally" eaten quite a lot of food last night to replenish his energy.
In short, he was almost out of things to eat.
"That thing lives in the center of the island..."
When he returned to the beach, the plane wreckage had been torn to pieces. The garish scene of hell from before was completely gone.
Every last scrap of human flesh and blood had been licked clean by those unknown creatures.
The hard metal panels carried a rotten stench. Even after being washed by the tide all night, they still smelled faintly of it.
Fortunately, the smell was not poisonous, or he would have been knocked flat by it last night.
Zhang Ming went over to the radio and fiddled with it for a while.
Unfortunately, no miracle occurred.
The radio had been punched flat as a pancake.
[Mental Value -2]
After searching a little longer, he found a woman's backpack left on an overhead luggage rack in the passenger cabin.
"Please, let there be something to eat. I'm begging you."
He opened it and found a thick stack of US dollars, some cosmetics, a mirror, and a women's watch that looked rather exquisite.
He counted the money. Good lord, a full fifty thousand dollars!
That was equivalent to 350,000 yuan!
But Zhang Ming felt no joy whatsoever. Instead, everything seemed utterly pointless.
He searched and searched...
No food. None!
"Once, back at the airport, a truly sincere plate of beef fried rice sat before me. The asking price was sixty-eight yuan. I hesitated, thought it was too expensive, and turned it down."
"Now, even fifty thousand dollars can't buy me a single hair off a cow."
Zhang Ming sniffled, then suddenly realized he had attained enlightenment. He was twenty-four this year, an age when he should have been enjoying the dazzling world.
But after the terrifying baptism of life and death, he had finally seen through worldly attachments, grasped the truth of human nature, and reached true unity with heaven, journeying to the far shore of the stars.
Whatever setbacks lay ahead, however many hardships awaited him, he could face them calmly.
So, from now on, please call me [Buddha·Old Zhang].
I'm going to live happily on this island, eating coconuts!
[Mental Value -2]
The change on his status panel mercilessly exposed "Buddha·Old Zhang's" true thoughts. He was having a mental breakdown.
The "Buddha's" dignity seemed to have been pinned beneath the status panel's foot and viciously trampled.
And so Buddha·Old Zhang began frantically soothing himself. "When heaven is about to entrust a man with a great task, it first torments his spirit, exhausts his muscles and bones, and starves his body..."
[Mental Value -1]
What was going on?
"Fuck you, heaven! Fuck this goddamn universe!"
[Mental Value +2]
Zhang Ming had attained enlightenment.
As it turned out, he was the Victorious Fighting Buddha who beat up the Jade Emperor.
After all, the Victorious Fighting Buddha was still a Buddha.
Earth.
A new mirage had appeared!
Countless enthusiasts of the supernatural had stayed up all night and finally caught the newly posted videos as soon as they went online.
The mirages appeared at random locations around the globe. They did not show live footage and were often delayed by several hours.
These enthusiasts had numbered the feeds from 1 to 16 according to the number of people shown. Naturally, the luxury cruise ship carrying three thousand passengers drew more attention and was called Mirage No. 1.
As for the lone survivor on the deserted island, his feed was called Mirage No. 16.
Some twisted individuals brimming with malice gloated. "Look, that plane wreckage belongs to the airline, and those suitcases belong to the dead. Can he take them? No, he can't! Taking something without asking is theft. His character is truly disappointing."
A whole crowd who had bypassed the internet firewall rushed over to argue with them. Whatever else he might be, this stranded survivor was a young man from Great Xia. Who were these malicious people to slander him? Even if his prospects looked grim, did they really have to be so happy about it?
"!uoy htiw gnorw si lleh eht tahW ?siht neve gnillort er'uoY"
"The famous Australian writer 'Ima Dumbass' once said, 'Once you understand them, you'll realize that nothing you do to them counts as discrimination, because their minds are cut off from the world.'"
Seeing that Zhang Ming was still alive, Li Xianfeng also breathed a small sigh of relief.
"The plane really was torn apart by monsters."
"The tide alone couldn't have damaged it this badly."
They had heard some horrifying sounds over the radio yesterday and knew things that outsiders did not.
"Zhang Ming... is in a worrying situation."
Another expert said, "As far as I know, we were the only ones who briefly established radio contact last night with Zhang Ming, the survivor in Zone 16. None of the people trapped in the other Mysterious Zones responded."
"We couldn't reach the others?"
"Correct. The Mysterious Zone in the Pacific Ocean may be different. Satellite signals can get through."
The many experts in the room carefully analyzed the footage. There were more than twenty of them in total, including renowned biologists, military experts, information scientists, and specialists from various other fields.
"The bodies inside were eaten by monsters... Just how big was that thing that came at night? If it appeared here, could we handle it?"
"I think... we could deal with it. A plane isn't a tank, after all. Its outer plating isn't particularly thick. Still, it could cause some casualties," said the military expert seated on the left. "Of course, if these things have Superpowers, that's another matter."
Li Xianfeng frowned as he listened to their discussion.
"Zhang Ming doesn't seem to be in a very good mental state. Could he... have no Superpowers at all?"
"Hard to say."
"At this point, he can only rely on himself."
After a thorough search, there really was nothing particularly good left.
Last night's tide had washed away most of the supplies. His biggest find was an aircraft medical kit secured to a luggage rack in the rear. It contained a fair amount of medicine, including antibiotics, rubbing alcohol, and first-aid supplies such as bandages.
"SR-rank supplies!" Zhang Ming's eyes lit up.
He put it away.
He also found two nylon ropes, each about five meters long. He had no idea why there were ropes on the plane.
There was no hope of repairing the broken radio.
He could only make a strategic retreat on that front.
After thinking for a while, Zhang Ming decided that a rescue team would not arrive anytime soon. He might have to live on this terrifying deserted island for some time, so he needed to build a proper shelter.
And so he hauled back two first-class seats. With these, he could sleep properly instead of lying on the ground and getting soaked with dew.
He also carried large metal panels and several broken sections of wing to the shore.
With his constitution at an impressive 51 points, moving objects weighing fifty to a hundred kilograms was effortless. Back in human society, he would already have qualified as a construction laborer.
After working for half the day, Zhang Ming realized he was hungry again.
The food shortage had become his most pressing problem.
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