Chapter 177 The Nameless Corpse (2)
The ship cut through the slightly viscous waves, making a splashing sound.
All around is water, and the whole world is swallowed up by this boundless dark blue, easily giving one the illusion of sailing in eternity.
They sailed away from the new land without a sound and had been sailing on the sea for four days.
During those four days, Rennagi spent most of her time in the cockpit studying ocean currents and the reefs marked on the map.
Xiao Jiang knew nothing about geography, but the wind's power was undisputed to be the overlord on the sea. Even the most advanced ships had to yield to the wind. The Pinheid patrol ships that could be seen at first lost their way after the storm.
Upon entering the waters near Pingyi, where there was no wind or waves, Rennagi came out and stared intently in that direction from the deck.
These past few days, they've been eating dry rations. Xiao Jiang rummaged through the ship's trunks looking for fruit, finally finding a shriveled apple. He sat on the deck and started eating it, saying, "What's Pingyi like? I've never been on a mission there."
Rennagi turned around and said, "I haven't been back to Pingyi for a long time. The last time I saw it was during the school's supernatural practice, but that wasn't real... Actually, my deepest memory of Pingyi is the day my parents took me away smuggled out of the country."
Earlier, it was deliberately obscured, as if to avoid the pain.
Xiao Jiang said "Oh," and then asked, "You went through so much trouble to escape, why do you want to come back?"
Rennagi asked curiously, "Don't you want to?"
He was perceptive and had already discerned from her demeanor that she was not a Pinhín.
Xiao Jiang said, "I want to, but not quite."
She longed for her home, but her thoughts couldn't transcend the desire to explore the wider world. The impoverished and backward place couldn't evoke much homesickness in her, so her longing remained just that—a longing.
“I guess I’m pretty much the same.” Rennagi lowered her head. “Sometimes I hate this place, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’s not that I miss it, it’s just that I miss my mom and dad.”
They chatted casually for a bit, and Shu Ningmiao stood in the shadows of the cabin looking out to sea.
Shu Ningmiao had been quiet since boarding the ship. The closer they got to Pingyi, the more vigilant she became. Shu Changyan was just as focused, observing any unusual fluctuations on the sea.
She was well aware that the seemingly calm seas around Pingyi were actually fraught with danger.
On the fifth day, before dawn, a thick fog rose over the sea.
The fog came suddenly and thickly, engulfing the ships almost instantly.
With visibility plummeting, Rennagi had to reduce the boat's speed to a minimum, struggling to navigate through the milky chaos.
"This fog...something's not right." Shu Changyan's voice came from the cockpit, sounding somewhat muffled through the thick fog.
Shu Ningmiao also stood up and walked to the bow of the ship. The thick fog blocked out the view and seemed to block out the sound as well. The world became unusually quiet, with only the low rumble of the ship's engine and the soft sound of the sea lapping against the hull remaining.
She closed her eyes and used Pandora to probe into the thick fog. The fog was like a chaotic energy field, interfering with and blocking her senses. In this chaos, she vaguely caught a fragmented emotion, full of pain and despair.
These emotions floated in the air like ghosts, causing her to frown and withdraw her hand.
Shu Changyan walked to her side, wrapped his fingers around her hand, and passed on the warmth: "This fog looks familiar."
Shu Ningmiao looked up: "Have you been to Pingyi before?"
“I came here once, when you were still in preparatory school.”
Shu Changyan lowered his gaze, as if recalling something: "Pingyi is very stable inside, and the pollutants are not very dangerous. But when I came here last time, I encountered a pollutant that had never been recorded before. It didn't feel like a typical pollutant. If I had to describe it, it was more like this fog."
A flash of inspiration struck Shu Ningmiao, and she had never reacted so quickly before. Perhaps it was because she had never forgotten the humanoid monster she had encountered during her supernatural ability practice: "...Was it a pure white humanoid contaminant?"
"yes."
Shu Changyan and she looked at each other, and a subtle premonition arose in their hearts at the same time.
She guessed that the data recorded in the simulation equipment at the time was Shu Changyan's: "You didn't kill it?"
According to Pinhes's simple classification system, this contaminant is probably at level T1, but Shu Changyan's assessment is far above T0, so dealing with it should not be a problem.
“No.” Shu Changyan carefully chose his words, his brows furrowing slightly. “That’s what I find strange about it. When I saw it, it felt very familiar.”
"We're almost there."
Rennagi's voice rang out again, and they both turned around, "Hiryou... is just behind this fog."
As soon as he finished speaking, the thick fog ahead seemed to thin out a little. Xiao Jiang used the wind to clear the fog for a moment, and the vague outline appeared in the fog. As the ship slowly approached, it gradually became clearer.
The seawater turned a translucent red. There were no lights or smoke on the shore, and not even a trace of life could be felt. There was only deathly silence, an absolute silence that devoured everything.
The ship eventually came to a stop at a place that could barely be called a shore.
Rennagi turned off the engine and was the first to step off the boat, her feet sinking into the damp black soil, making a slight rattling sound.
He gazed at the vast ruins before him, his face devoid of any joy at returning to his homeland, only a deep, bone-deep weariness.
Xiao Jiang jumped down and patted him on the shoulder: "What special delicacies does Pingyi have? I want to try them."
“Yes,” Rennagi said. “The contaminant.”
"Are you kidding me?" Xiao Jiang made a disgusted face.
"I'm not kidding. Some seafood in Pingyi is very popular after being contaminated, and the price is several times that of normal seafood." Rennagi felt that her knowledge in some areas was terribly lacking, almost like a wild person who had never been online.
"How can people eat anything?" Xiao Jiang was utterly bewildered. "They can even eat pollutants?"
Shu Ningmiao came downstairs and heard her clamoring to eat Pingyi's local specialties: "Want to go eat some?"
Renna glanced at the two people who were taking their time getting off the ship. Shu Ningmiao was alright, but Shu Changyan's face was on the wanted list worldwide, and he was carrying a gleaming heavy sword on his back: "You two can't enter the city like this. By the way, do you have passports?"
No one answered; the four of them couldn't even come up with a single valid document.
"Is there no one outside the city?" Shu Ningmiao skipped over this question and asked him, "Let's grab something to eat outside first."
The ship was old and lacked a kitchen or other separate areas. They had been at sea for several days, eating fast food and various compressed foods every day. Shu Ningmiao didn't want to eat these anymore, and her throat was starting to hurt.
“That depends on luck.” Rennagi gently rubbed her face. “When I was a child, there were some skilled fishermen who lived outside the city. They made a living by fishing and dealt with the pollutants themselves. If you could meet them, you could buy from them.”
Upon setting foot on the land of Pingyi, one can immediately feel the intense heat rising from the ground; the temperature here is at least ten degrees higher than at sea.
Shu Ningmiao went around behind Shu Changyan, took off her coat and covered the sword behind him with it, tying a bow to cover it: "Let's go forward and see."
Xiao Jiang was torn between two conflicting thoughts: whether or not to eat the contaminated creature. But once they had made their decision, she immediately said, "I'll just eat the bread!"
Shu Ningmiao: "That would require the fishermen to have bread at home."
Perhaps by sheer luck, the group walked along the desolate coastline for about half an hour, and behind a patch of black earth ruins, they actually spotted a few wisps of thin smoke.
Upon closer inspection, a low house built of stones and old boat planks stands on the shore. Fishing nets are drying outside the house, and the house is dimly lit. Only a gray-haired fisherman sits inside, watching over a pot that is cooking some mushy food that is hard to make out.
The air was filled with the smell of fish and the pungent odor of firewood.
Rennagi went up and exchanged a few words with a slightly stumbling accent.
The fisherman raised his cloudy eyes, sized up the group of visitors whose demeanor was so out of place in Pingyi, nodded slowly, and opened his mouth in perfect Pinhín: "Come in."
Rennagi and the others looked at each other in bewilderment.
The house looked even smaller inside than outside. The fishermen ladled the contents of the pot out, which had no redeeming qualities other than being steaming hot.
Xiao Jiang stared for a while and said, "Actually, I'm not that hungry."
The fisherman glanced at it and seemed to find it hard to swallow, so he brought over a plate of fish meat that was fried until golden brown and unrecognizable.
The fish here are indeed strangely mutated. They smell so good after being lightly fried or grilled. Aren't they just waiting to be eaten? Xiao Jiang, who claimed to only eat bread, picked up a piece of meat under the temptation of the aroma, and eventually finished the bowl of porridge in front of her.
Rennagi sat down with her, but didn't touch the food. She just stared at the bowl with a somewhat dazed look in her eyes.
Xiao Jiang ate quickly. The others waited for her to finish eating and were just about to get up when a quarrel broke out outside the shed.
"I said no! Get out of here!" came a rough, hoarse male voice.
"Please, please! You clearly have it!" came a slightly younger voice, trembling with sobs.
Shu Ningmiao put down her bowl and walked out with Shu Changyan. They saw the fisherman shoving a thin young man holding a child. The child's face was black, his breathing was weak, and his eyes and nose were filled with black blood.
"You're a nuisance! Get lost!"
The fisherman cursed in Pingyi dialect, which she couldn't understand, and raised his hand to hit her. But when he saw the two men walking up to him, he felt a little scared and asked, "What are you looking at?"
Shu Ningmiao glanced past him, then at the young man and child who had fallen to the ground, before looking away: "How much?"
Rennagi followed, taking out a pre-exchanged banknote with about 100 cin. Even if you were to eat imported seafood from Pingyi at a high-end restaurant in Pinne, this price would be more than enough.
However, the fisherman suddenly reached out his withered hand and pressed it against his wrist.
“Not enough.” The fisherman’s voice was hoarse, but his cloudy eyes suddenly became as sharp as hooks: “I want 1000 cin.”
That's a tenfold increase! People in Pingyi might not even earn 1000 cin a month!
Rennagi's expression changed, and she immediately argued in Pingyi dialect: "Didn't you just say it would be 100 cin?"
"I meant 100 cin per fish." The old fisherman pointed to his pot of porridge, his tone vague: "This pot used ten fish."
Clearly, they had encountered someone trying to rip them off. Arguing in such a place was pointless; there was no one around, and it was practically a one-off deal.
The old fisherman's house was filled with various harpoons and spears. He must have been quite capable to survive in an environment filled with pollutants, and he didn't take the young men seriously.
Shu Ningmiao held down Xiao Jiang, who was about to lash out, while Shu Changyan leaned to the side with his arms crossed, simply watching the old man quietly.
Seeing that they didn't move, and knowing that the little boy speaking the local dialect was clearly not in a position to make decisions, the fisherman frowned fiercely: "You don't have any money to pay, do you?"
They can certainly afford 1000 cin, but why would they?
Shu Ningmiao asked curiously, "If you can't produce it, what do you want?"
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