A Night of Desperation-Chapter 278: Questions Two

Humans are fragile?

Yu Hong keenly grasped the key point. Does this mean that even those who practice cultivation here are still fragile?

“Can’t Daoist Skills and Arrays strengthen the body?” He asked calmly, without showing any change in expression.

“They can, but the best way to strengthen the human body is written in the Fighting Skill schools. The so-called Daoist Skills, Arrays, and so on, are merely our methods of using our own bodies in combination with external objects to exert targeted power to restrain resentful marks. This is about utilizing, not training and strengthening oneself,” explained Old Yang.

“So you’re saying, to learn Daoist Skills, one must also learn Fighting Skills?” Yu Hong said.

“Of course. In the martial arts of fighting schools, there are many methods to cultivate and refine Essence Qi, and studying well will enable one to use them,” Old Yang nodded.

“Then… after learning Daoist Skills and Arrays, can one defeat a powerful martial artist?” Yu Hong clearly felt he’d touched on a crucial point.

As soon as these words came out, Old Yang looked at him as if he were looking at a fool.

“Nonsense!”

“What?” Yu Hong blinked.

“Of course, you can’t beat them.” Old Yang said exasperatedly, “A person’s energy is limited, if half of their spirit and time are spent on training fighting abilities, to confront a martial artist who has wholeheartedly trained their fighting abilities is simply suicide.”

“…..” Now Yu Hong understood what Old Yang meant by Daoist Skills.

The three made their way back to the seaside where their yacht was anchored.

What they saw, however, were Song Siyu and the others with disappointed expressions.

“What happened?” Wei Chengjun stepped forward and asked first;he’d been listening to Yu Hong discussing all sorts of chaotic matters along the way, completely uninterested.

“The people on the yacht are just not answering their phones!” Gao Wen’s hair was soaked with sweat, sticking to his forehead.

“We were just about to swim over to the boat to check.”

“I advise you not to do that.” Old Yang looked at the yacht from a distance, sniffed the sea breeze, and calculated with his fingers, his expression turning serious. “There’s no one on the boat anymore.”

No one??

Everyone looked intently at the yacht, and indeed, after watching for a good while, they did not see anyone moving about on it.

“Ah Biao, and Aliang and the others are all… on the boat, right?” Gao Wen’s complexion turned pale.

Old Yang shook his head without speaking and turned to walk towards the island.

The rest of the group also felt something was not quite right.

If they couldn’t return to the yacht, wouldn’t they be stuck on the island?

“Don’t panic;according to the investigation before we came here, there will be a coast guard boat patrolling this sea area tomorrow. Then we can call for help,” assured Song Siyu in a solemn voice.

Hearing about the coast guard boat, everyone calmed down. Gao Wen still wanted to swim to the boat, but Old Yang persuaded him against it.

The group returned to their previous quarters. With the yacht having issues, Song Siyu also felt something was off and was in no mood to continue filming videos.

The four of them got together and searched for Qi Siyan again, but still failed to see anyone, and then it was confirmed that Qi Siyan had indeed disappeared.

Nighttime came.

Yu Hong walked out of the room where he was resting and looked at the sky outside.

‘The second day… This is my first time staying on a place sent by the Black Ship for two days…’

Inexplicably, he felt the Black Ship mark in his mind emitting a faint sense of restlessness.

As if the Black Ship itself had simple instincts.

He turned his head and saw Gao Wen and Old Yang whispering and discussing something.

Before long, the two began to wrap red thread, winding it around the house they were living in.

And Old Yang had found a brush from somewhere, dipped it in an inky unknown ink, and drew a huge circular pattern on the ground around the house. He added various complex-looking text and symbols within the pattern.

Yu Hong saw that Song Siyu and the others were looking weirdly at the ongoing work from inside the house, not helping.

Eventually, Old Yang surrounded the entire house with the red thread, hanging it mid-air to form a barrier that would block anyone going in or out.

“Tonight, I need to verify the safety and stability elsewhere;you all stay here. Remember, starting from midnight, nobody should leave the area defined by this red thread circle. This thread circle is to hide your presence. Once someone goes out and is discovered, this thread circle will lose its function. Remember, remember!” Old Yang admonished.

“Rest assured, Old Yang! We will definitely follow the rules! For this assistance, I will give you two million after we get out!” Gao Wen nodded seriously.

Old Yang tugged at the corner of his mouth but did not refuse. Although he was a Taoist expert, even experts need money.

Yu Hong, standing not far away, understood that money must be of no small help to someone like Old Yang.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken the initiative for Gao Wen’s request and spent so much time and effort.

With that thought, he turned his gaze once again towards the island.

He hadn’t found the source that was eroding the Black Ship, yet he had already spent nearly two days here.

This was also a test.

Without saying a word, he quietly watched as Old Yang left, leaving the others cooped up in the house, sealed by the array.

Using the excuse of resting, he too found a room to enter and was also given an extra spare tent.

Lying in the yellow tent, Yu Hong waited in silence.

It was a strange occurrence to come to this small island, meet this group of living people, join them bizarrely, and even come into contact with a unique and larger world.

This gave him a somewhat unreal feeling.

But beyond the unreality was more excitement.

Awaiting the passage of time.

As the sky grew darker, the sound of the waves outside gradually weakened.

Yu Hong lay in the tent, waiting for midnight to come.

At this moment, the Black Ship mark in his mind had already begun to flash continuously, emitting an unstable and mysterious aura.

‘As expected… my premonition was right…’ he lifted his hand and saw his arm starting to flicker, slowly becoming transparent.

‘The Black Ship possesses the ability to search for lands of vitality, but this capability is limited. It’s possible that it can’t stay long in the outer world, and now it seems that it can’t stay for more than two days.’

Yu Hong quietly sat cross-legged, waiting for changes to occur around him.

Soon, after a few minutes.

His vision suddenly went dark.

When the light returned, he found himself sitting on the deck of the Black Ship, as if he had been seated there from the beginning.

The surrounding was the sound of sea water lashing against the hull, a dense black mist like a solid wall, enveloping the Black Ship tightly.

‘Forced to return?? Or, have I actually never left from the start?’ Yu Hong pondered this question.

He felt it was the former.

Standing up, he walked to the ship’s side and saw Huangsong Island gradually receding, disappearing into the black mist.

With the creaking sound of the deck beneath him, he watched the island gradually vanish, drifting away.

‘A whole new world? Or… merely a fleeting, accidental adventure?’

He was uncertain.

Before long, the ocean surrounding the Black Ship had turned into the Black River, and as the fog ahead cleared, the wooden pier of Black Wind Camp came into view.

Thump.

The hull bumped against the wooden piles of the pier and came to a halt.

At that moment, an invisible breath spread from the wooden pier, climbing up as if infusing something into the Black Ship.

Yu Hong surmised that it was likely recharging the ship’s power.

He jumped off the boat, and the three Dragon Lizards followed, bringing their haul with them.

After making a round trip, Yu Hong returned to the front of the camp and glanced at the detector: -100.412.

One hundred degrees below zero…

He looked at the Dragon Lizards, which were clearly starting to slow down, and knew that this temperature was close to the limit they could stand.

This meant that the Dragon Lizards couldn’t freely venture out too far from the camp. Otherwise, if the temperature dropped further, they would all be frozen solid in the outside world.

After eating and drinking water back in the cave, Yu Hong simply sat down cross-legged at the camp to cultivate, while also waiting for the situation with the Black Ship.

The Black Ship seemed to be performing a charging action, docked at the wooden pier without moving, allowing the mysterious energy to keep spreading and climbing over it, with no response for a good while.

‘There’s a problem — if I get rid of the source of influence on Huangsong Island, will I still be able to get there next time?’ Yu Hong thought about this issue.

Among the falling white snowflakes, he weighed the potential consequences of his various decisions.

The Taiyuan True Method kept absorbing the Cosmic Divine Light, and the Thunderbolt Leg Technique continuously absorbed Red Value Radiation, transforming it into Inner Qi. Each clearly distinct from the other.

Eventually, Inner Qi merged with the Cosmic Divine Light to form a unique blue light Inner Qi inside Yu Hong’s body.

Time slowly passed, and the energy recharge of the Black Ship was still not complete.

‘I hope that by the time I finish recharging here, those people over there can hold on.’

‘Besides, to prevent the Black Ship from heading to its next destination after dealing with the source there, I can’t entirely eliminate the source on Huangsong Island;I must leave some roots so that I can continue to reach that place later on…’

Yu Hong made his decision.

*

*

*

Huangsong Island.

At night, the sea breeze howled, dark clouds hung heavy, and thunder rumbled.

In a two-story abandoned shop by the seaside.

Gao Wensong, Song Siyu, and the others each returned to their rooms and rested in tents.

Rumble…

The thunder outside rolled continuously.

Zhao Sisi turned on a small charging night light inside her tent, its warm yellow light illuminating the small space.

She took off her jacket, pants, had a drink of water, and prepared to crawl into her sleeping bag to rest.

Suddenly, she felt her left wrist.

“Wait! Where is my bracelet?”

Zhao Sisi was startled. She had saved up to buy a gold bracelet not long ago, and it had been on her way back;now, it had disappeared.

“Could it have been dropped near Siyu’s place?” She quickly got up and unzipped the tent.

Outside was a dirty and dusty bedroom shrouded in cobwebs.

On the wall hung a cracked picture of a couple — a pretty, cute girl with twin ponytails holding a bespectacled chubby boy about ten years old.

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The girl had a sunny, cheerful smile, while the little chubby boy appeared shy and adorable;reaching an arm out wanting to wrap it around the girl’s shoulder, but due to being shorter, it only reached her back instead.

The stark contrast between the tall and the short made the picture particularly memorable.

‘This house… could it really be that mentally ill chubby boy’s home?’ Zhao Sisi furrowed her brows but didn’t think too much about it. She glanced outside the window, where the dark street and sea breeze were causing the weeds to sway and tilt.

These weeds, sprouting from the crevices between the cobblestones, were visible everywhere at the moment, rustling softly as the wind stirred them.

And just as she looked outside, in a spot below the window she couldn’t see.

A chubby boy with dirt all over his clothes squatted by the wall, head lowered, fiddling with something in his hands.

The height at which the chubby boy sat was just below the windowsill, and without sticking his head out, he would be completely invisible.

Facing the wall, the exposed skin of his neck and the side of his face had a chalky, deathly pallor.