Chapter 32: Peril p1
The night sky was reflected on the surface of the sea, with a crescent moon like a hook and twinkling stars.
Even after swimming for a whole day, they still hadn’t managed to leave this vast sea. But fortunately, they had found a reef large enough to accommodate one person and one snake.
Just as they climbed onto the reef, the large snake collapsed on it with a thump.
It was panting heavily, “hoo hoo hoo.”
It was exhausted.
How could it not be tired after swimming in the sea for a whole day? Even if it was a monster, it was just a small monster that couldn’t transform. How powerful could it be? It would be strange if it wasn’t tired after swimming for so long.
Yu Chujin looked at the large snake and belatedly realized that before finding the reef to rest, it hadn’t seemed to have a single complaint.
When she praised it, it would continue to swim, on and on without stopping.
Could praise alone provide such great energy, allowing it to swim tirelessly for a whole day?
Looking at the snake lying on the reef, panting heavily, Yu Chujin shook her head and rejected this idea.
Praise was useful, but it definitely didn’t have such great energy. The reason it kept swimming forward was never praise, but because it knew that if it continued to swim forward, the two-legged creature would be happy.
If she was happy, it was willing.
Yu Chujin lowered her eyes, her nose tingling.
She felt like crying again.
The large snake was panting with exhaustion, but it didn’t forget to prick up its ears to pay attention to her condition.
Seeing her lower her head, the large snake immediately stopped resting and came over, staring at her.
Yu Chujin took a deep breath and suppressed the tingling in her nose, holding back her tears.
She forced a smile at it.
Seeing that she was smiling, the large snake was instantly relieved. With a thump, it fell back on the reef and continued to rest, breathing heavily.
“What a silly snake,” Yu Chujin said.
Hearing the keyword “silly snake,” the large snake’s ears twitched. It stopped resting and came over to nuzzle her in response.
“Rest. Don’t mind me.”
“Hiss hiss.”
“Hurry up and lie down to rest. You’re so tired. Do you have to respond to every word I say?”
“Hiss hiss.”
Yu Chujin closed her mouth and stopped talking. Because as long as she spoke, the large snake would respond no matter how tired it was. It was impossible to persuade it.
The plan to leave the deserted island was far from as smooth as she had imagined.
Yu Chujin hugged her knees, rested her head on her knees, and sighed, gazing into the distance.
It was a sea with no end in sight.
Perhaps she had chosen the wrong direction from the beginning. When she set off, she should have gone left instead of right. After swimming for a whole day, she might have actually gotten farther away from a human settlement.
Of course, it was also possible that she hadn’t swum in the wrong direction. Whether she chose left or right, it was a fifty-fifty chance of being rescued, purely a matter of luck.
She always held on to a glimmer of hope, thinking that if she just swam a little further, she might be able to see people.
She swam a little further, then a little further, and then a little further again.
The result was that she saw no people, no ships, not even another island. Instead, she had exhausted the large snake to the point where it was breathing more out than in.
Yu Chujin turned her head to look at the large snake lying beside her and patted its large head, “You’re really unlucky to have met me.”
“You were a perfectly fine snake, living happily on an island rich in resources. Now you’re being dragged around by me.”
The snake meeting her was unlucky, but her meeting the snake was lucky.
After all, without the large snake, Yu Chujin would have died long ago, unable to last for two months. She had never thought she was very capable, and she had never thought she could survive without the large snake.
What should she do now, in this awkward position?
Should she turn back and return to the deserted island? But…
What if the destination she was hoping for was just ahead? Perhaps if she just persevered a little longer?
Yu Chujin thought of the dream she had just now, and her heart felt heavy. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to hope to meet people or to pray not to.
She held her head, her temples throbbing with pain.
She was like a person standing on the edge of a cliff. Moving forward was an abyss. Retreating seemed to be a path, but in reality, it was just another kind of abyss.
She couldn’t choose, couldn’t make a decision.
“Gurgle.”
Her stomach rumbled with hunger.
The large snake pressed its ear against her stomach to listen.
Yu Chujin: “You don’t have to listen. My stomach is rumbling. I’m hungry.”
A person who had done nothing but lie on a snake’s back all day, not to mention her emotional turmoil, was now hungry.
A very troublesome human.
She took out the food from the bag. She had prepared two days’ worth of food, and it was still plentiful. Mainly because she hadn’t eaten much at all. She had only eaten once today, and only a little at that.
She took a bite of the meat jerky. It was the familiar texture, tough and hard, making her cheeks ache.
Yu Chujin spoke to the large snake as she ate, “You must be hungry too. You’ve been swimming all day, and you’ve used up a lot of energy. You don’t like this stuff of mine. Why don’t you go into the sea and catch some fish to eat?”
The large snake: “No fish, no fish.”
According to the large snake’s logic, humans could not eat fish. They were poisonous.
Yu Chujin chuckled, “What do you mean, no fish? It’s not me who’s eating, it’s you. You won’t get poisoned from eating fish.”
The large snake shook its head, “No fish, no fish. Bad fish.”
Yu Chujin offered it the meat jerky, “Fine, no fish. Then you can have some of this.”
She had thought the large snake wouldn’t eat it, but unexpectedly, its tongue rolled up the meat jerky in her hand.
She had thought the large snake would find it unpalatable and spit it out, but unexpectedly, it swallowed it.
Yu Chujin was silent for a moment. She didn’t think the large snake was so hungry that it needed to eat meat jerky.
The large snake was still comforting this troublesome two-legged creature.
It knew that Yu Chujin was in a bad mood, so it was particularly supportive when it came to eating, even though it didn’t like to eat meat jerky at all.
Yu Chujin wanted to force a smile, and even laugh a few times, to show that she was fine, that she didn’t need to be coaxed, didn’t need to be comforted.
But after trying to force her lips for a long time, she couldn’t smile.
Staying on this reef, with only the sea in all directions, smile? She wanted to cry.
“If you don’t like it, don’t force yourself to eat it. I don’t need you to comfort me.”
“Hiss hiss.”
“It’s so dark. Will it ever be light again?”
“Hiss hiss.”
“You hissing snake.”
The large snake tilted its head to the left.
Yu Chujin: “I’m talking about you, hissing snake.”
The large snake tilted its head to the right.
Yu Chujin: “Head-tilting snake.”
The large snake tilted its head left and right in turn.
However, just then, the calm sea behind them rippled.
The surface of the sea seemed to have been split open. An unknown, huge creature was approaching them.
The large snake keenly heard the movement. Its back suddenly tensed, and its pale green pupils constricted into a beam, staring intently at the ripples on the surface of the sea.
It let out a low, growl-like “hiss.” It was the primitive wildness of an animal stimulated by danger.
Yu Chujin followed the large snake’s gaze and looked at the sea.
In the dark of the night, it was not very clear.
Yu Chujin squinted her eyes and looked carefully. When she saw clearly, she stumbled, so scared that her breath stopped.
It was a blue whale!
The largest creature in the ocean, a terrifying existence twenty to thirty meters long and weighing over a hundred tons.
The large snake was huge in Yu Chujin’s eyes, but in front of the blue whale, it was too small.
So small that if the blue whale attacked them, neither the snake nor the human would have any ability to resist.
It was only at this moment, in the face of such a behemoth, that Yu Chujin truly realized how foolish a decision it was to rashly leave the deserted island.
The blue whale was getting closer and closer. The sound of the water’s movement was like a drumbeat on her nerves.
Just as Yu Chujin was panicking and didn’t know what to do, her waist was suddenly coiled by the snake’s tail. It coiled her tightly and dragged her behind it to hide.
And it faced the blue whale, which was several times its size, alone.
Yu Chujin looked down at the tail coiled around her waist, then up at the large snake blocking her way. For a moment, she forgot her fear and just stared at the large snake in front of her with a complicated expression.
The reef was hit, and a tremor ran through it.
Yu Chujin’s heart leaped into her throat.
But heaven seemed to be looking out for her. The blue whale just circled the reef once and then left.
The blue whale gradually moved away, and the sea returned to calm.
Yu Chujin was so scared that her legs went weak. If it weren’t for the tail coiled around her waist, giving her support, she would have probably sat down on the reef because of her weak legs.
The large snake’s gaze was fixed on the sea until it was sure that the danger had completely passed. Only then did it slowly relax.
After relaxing, the first thing it did was to come over and lick the two-legged creature, comforting her that it was okay.
The night on the sea was silent.
Yu Chujin looked at the large snake in front of her and was silent for a long, long time.
Perhaps an hour had passed, or perhaps only a minute. Yu Chujin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She finally made a decision.
She gritted her teeth and said, “Let’s go back. Back to the island.”
She wouldn’t bet on that “what if” anymore. She wouldn’t bet on that glimmer of hope anymore. What lay ahead was not necessarily hope; it could also be the next blue whale.
This time, she was lucky and had encountered a non-aggressive blue whale. It was hard to say what would happen next time.
If she stubbornly refused to turn back, what she would most likely get would not be a way out, but that both she and the large snake would die at sea.
She would obediently return to the deserted island. At least there, she would not encounter danger and could survive.
She was very unwilling, but what was the use of being unwilling? She couldn’t drag the large snake to its death with her.
She couldn’t bear to drag it to its death. This was a good snake. It couldn’t be killed by a black-hearted human like her.
After resting on the reef for a while, the large snake’s exhaustion had recovered.
Yu Chujin pointed in the direction they had come from, “Let’s go home.”
In the dark of the night, when the large snake heard the words “go home,” its eyes immediately sparkled, “Go home, go home!”
The large snake also wanted to go home. It had always wanted to, but it had suppressed its instinct to go home and had accompanied Yu Chujin in her reckless endeavors in the sea.
Aww, she loves the snake now