Zhang Ming

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Before the crash

Zhang Ming worked as a programmer at a company offering decent pay and benefits. He won a ten-day Hawaii vacation at its annual party, but his flight lost its satellite signal, strayed off course, and ran out of fuel before attempting an emergency landing on an island 1.

He had attended an ordinary university after passing the college entrance examination. His family included his parents and a younger sister still in high school; he also remembered a high-school romance that lasted one semester 4 15 25.

Crash and early survival

Zhang Ming awoke beside the wrecked aircraft and found no other survivors. A radio operator told him that his reported position should have been open ocean and that worldwide disasters were preventing prompt rescue. He salvaged food, water, and luggage before moving supplies above the rising tide 1.

On his first night, an enormous black creature tore open the aircraft and ate the passengers’ bodies. It also flattened his radio, destroying his immediate connection to humanity. Zhang Ming hid among giant coconuts and resolved to kill it once he became strong enough 6 7.

Passenger luggage supplied rice, hams, tools, a tent, and another radio. Disturbed by inheriting the victims’ possessions, he buried clothing beneath a marked coconut as a memorial to Flight DS898 8 10.

Establishing an island home

His first crab hunt nearly ended in disaster when the creature snapped his metal pipe and sliced his jeans. A leg broken off during the encounter became his first substantial island meal—and the food that revealed his ability to gain attribute points by eating mutated creatures 14 15 17.

He subsequently developed coconut traps and used Strength Burst to kill a giant crab. Over his first month, he accumulated preserved food, constructed a sheet-metal shelter from aircraft wreckage, and fenced the camp with pointed crab legs. With rescue still absent, he set himself the goal of becoming strong enough to cross the Pacific and return home 22 23 29.

Ruins and stronger prey

Exploration of the mangroves exposed the gap between his strength and the island’s predators: he watched a Golden Electric Eel electrocute and consume a giant red toad. Later, a ruined valley’s supernatural fungi nearly overwhelmed his mind. He escaped by biting his arm and recovered at camp through attribute redistribution, the radio broadcast, and the turtles’ company 37 40.

Toxin Resistance allowed him to pursue dangerous mushroom-based growth, while stolen bird eggs supplied further attributes and Extraordinary Vision. By day ninety-one, these sources were yielding less. He completed a Faraday Cage and departed for the mangroves to challenge the eel rather than continue waiting for rescue 43 45 47 50.

Appearance

• Early island condition: Develops prominent dark circles after his sleepless first night 7.
• By day ninety-one: Has long, tangled hair and a full beard. To preserve his good clothes, he goes bare-chested and covers himself with a leaf, resembling a wild man 50.

Personality

Zhang Ming relies on irreverent humor, profanity, and exaggerated self-titles to cope with fear. His panel repeatedly exposes the difference between his confident declarations and his actual distress; cursing heaven, however, genuinely improves his mental state. Gratitude also cuts through his joking manner: finding lifesaving food moves him to tears, and he creates a memorial for the passengers whose supplies sustain him 7 8 10 12.

He is cautious about practical risks despite fantasizing about overwhelming future power. He tests unfamiliar meat with heightened Perception, refuses to chase a fleeing giant turtle he might not be able to defeat, and favors traps because an injury without help could be fatal 17 21 22.

Isolation becomes his most persistent burden after securing food and shelter. Raising Spirit restores courage but cannot eliminate loneliness. He increasingly talks to the turtles, reminisces about ordinary life, and ultimately seeks a difficult victory partly to break the psychological monotony of survival 25 29 34 41 50.

Abilities & Skills

Attribute Panel and Attribute Conversion

His innate power displays Physique, Perception, Spirit or mental strength, Lifespan, and total attributes, and allows points to be redistributed among them 1 4.

• Condition tracking: Current values can fall below their maximums because of hunger, fatigue, or emotional distress 4 12.
• Specialized configurations: Raises Physique for heavy lifting, Perception for danger detection, and Spirit to recover from psychological attacks 4 17 40 42.
• Conversion speed: Initially estimates roughly ten seconds per point; redistribution is not instantaneous 4.
• Lifespan trade-off: Shortens his theoretical lifespan to strengthen other attributes. The displayed limit does not protect him from accidental death 4 12.
• Balance requirement: Excessive Physique with inadequate Perception risks poor coordination 18.
• Innate compatibility: Can operate alongside an acquired ability without requiring the same conscious concentration 47.

Food-Based Growth and Ability Acquisition

Eating mutated organisms can increase his attributes and sometimes reveal an ability associated with the organism 17 20 43 47.

• Growth sources: Giant crabs, barnacles, mutated plants, bird eggs, and parasitic mushrooms provide benefits 17 32 41 45 46.
• Distinctive advantage: A broadcast reports that repeated mutant-meat consumption generally offers people no obvious benefits beyond nutrition; Zhang Ming continues extracting attribute points 31.
• Diminishing returns: A single food source cannot sustain unlimited growth. Crab meat, eggs, and mushrooms eventually become less effective 31 50.
• No guaranteed ability: Crab meals after his initial acquisition give points without another power; several mutated plants likewise provide attributes only 23 43.
• Activation costs: Newly discovered abilities require attribute-point expenditure before use 18 43 47.

Strength Burst

A crab-derived ability that briefly amplifies voluntarily controlled muscles. Its listed range is 50%–5,000%, depending on aptitude; Zhang Ming initially achieves the minimum increase 18 20.

• Applications: Stronger punches, jumps, pursuit, and crushing attacks against giant crabs 20 23.
• Muscle control: Can affect arms, wrists, fingers, legs, and even eyelids 20.
• Limit: Consumes substantial stamina; approximately five consecutive early bursts cause muscle pain 20.

Toxin Resistance

A barnacle-derived ability that eliminates some toxic agents within his body. Acquiring it reveals a vision of barnacles surviving by purifying toxins from a colossal deep-sea creature’s waste 43.

• Application: Expels tiny parasitic mushrooms from his lungs 43 45.
• Growth strategy: Makes deliberate spore exposure usable as an attribute source 45.
• Limit: Does not make exposure harmless; the fungal ordeals still reduce his lifespan 43 45.

Extraordinary Vision

A seagull-derived ability that enhances dynamic vision and allows him to see ultraviolet and infrared light 47.

• Activation cost: 12 attribute points when first acquired 47.
• Concentration limit: Cannot consciously maintain it alongside Strength Burst or Toxin Resistance; switching between acquired abilities initially takes about one second 47.
• Related powers: Leaves additional vision abilities inactive because his existing Extraordinary Vision is sufficient 50.

Survival, Crafting, and Hunting

His early combat experience is negligible—he had never even killed a chicken before becoming stranded—but repeated hunting develops his practical skills 21 31.

• Water and fire: Builds dew collectors and starts a fire by drilling wood 13 15.
• Cooking and preservation: Repurposes aircraft metal as cookware, processes giant crabs, and stores crab and coconut products 15 23 29.
• Trap construction: Places 150–200-kilogram coconuts atop a boulder to drop onto pursuing crabs 22.
• Borrowing the Tiger’s Might: Exploits local creatures’ fear of parasitic mushrooms to raid bird nests 45 47.
• Technical preparation: Builds a Faraday Cage and prepares insulation, traps, and venom for the Golden Electric Eel hunt 50.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Salvaged metal pipe — Initial hunting weapon; a crab snaps the aluminum-alloy pipe during his first attack 13 14.
• Crab-leg spears — Pointed crab legs attached to metal pipes with rope braided from a blue dress; later carries a basket of spears for the eel hunt 21 50.
• Radio — A replacement found in passenger luggage brings Li Xianfeng’s broadcasts, survival advice, and indirect responses to his beach messages 10 24 40.
• Cooking vessels — Uses a rice cooker’s inner pot and an aircraft stainless-steel meal drawer 8 15.
• Shelter and defenses — Begins with a salvaged tent, then builds a sheet-metal hut and a fence of pointed crab legs 10 29.
• Mushroom jar — Carries frightening parasitic mushrooms while approaching a seabird nest 45.
• Faraday Cage and insulating outfit — Homemade equipment prepared against the eel’s electrical attacks; the iron cage weighs over three hundred jin 50.
• Scavenged watch — Its date display keeps him from losing track of the calendar 50.

Relationships

• Parents and younger sister — His family remains a major reason to return home. He asks the airport operator to notify his parents that he survived and later worries about his sister’s examinations 1 4 29.
• Li Xianfeng — Broadcasts news and tailored survival information while coordinating investigations and rescue efforts. His voice helps Zhang Ming recover after the fungal valley encounter 24 26 34 40.
• Little White Turtle — His cleverest turtle companion. Helps communicate the need for barnacle removal, sorts poisonous plants, and occasionally watches his engineering work; it understands expressions and gestures rather than human speech 32 41 43 50.
• Sea turtles — Become regular visitors, sharing scraps and listening to the radio. Their companionship eases his loneliness, while barnacle removal supplies him with food; he tries to establish an exchange of meals and services for marine food 31 32 40 42 43.
• Professor Peter Greer — An Earth-side observer who studies his survival and growth, recognizes his increasing strength, and discusses the importance of keeping him alive 10 34 49.
• High-school girlfriend — His first remembered romance. Their brief relationship returns to mind while he waits for his first crab meal to cook 15.

Story Role

• Observed survivor: Mirage No. 16 broadcasts his activities to Earth without his initial knowledge. The footage can be delayed by hours and does not show nighttime activity 4 7.
• Great Xia’s public symbol: Viewers treat his survival as a national contest, while officials fear that his death would undermine public confidence and invite hostile propaganda 12 14.
• Link to national fortune: Broadcasts warn that trapped survivors’ deaths can damage their nations’ fortunes, adding pressure beyond his personal survival 18 25.
• Indirect communicator: Experiments establish that requests written on the beach can receive radio responses, although he does not know the full extent of Earth’s observation 26 40.
• Case study in supernatural growth: Experts compare his early difficulty fighting crabs with his later ease, using his progress to consider how supernatural users might strengthen themselves 36 49.

Notable Quotes

“A strong enough body is the foundation of survival.” 4

“Whoever you were, brother or sister, I owe you in this life. I'll repay you in the next.” 10

“Eating their meat doesn't just give me attribute points. It can give me their superpowers too!” 20

“I have to rely on myself! I'm already on the verge of going crazy. I need a victory. I need something to stimulate my mind!” 50