Faced with a sea of fire, should they jump or not?
"The current situation is," Qin Ci's voice was hoarse from the intense heat, "fire is visible in all directions, and our safe zone is slowly shrinking."
Zhu Haowen looked around; there wasn't much to take, except for the music box, which seemed to have untapped value. "Shall we take this?"
Qin Ci listened to Zhu Haowen's nonchalant words, but knew in his heart that this was a life-or-death decision.
"Let's go." Qin Ci also took the remaining shellfish, dried fish, and other items with him; perhaps these things would come in handy.
The two men slowly walked towards the edge of the cliff. The heatwave below rose higher and higher, its greedy tongues of fire attempting to lick them up.
"Let's open this box first," Zhu Haowen said, because he wasn't sure if he would have the strength and willpower to open it after jumping.
As the box opened, the entire world emitted a sound like a raging torrent. Combined with the scene before them, it created a very contradictory illusion, as if the roaring waves were emanating from an endless sea of fire.
On the opposite side of the sea of fire, the figure of the fire monkey still flickered.
The fire monkey seemed to understand their intentions, and surprisingly, it spread its arms and jumped into the sea of fire first, as if to set an example for them.
Zhu Haowen and Qin Ci exchanged a glance, both knowing that their decision wasn't based on trust in the fire monkey—but rather, there was truly no way out.
Accompanied by the roar of the massive waves, the burning sensation on their skin felt like being cut by knives, real and cruel.
"Hiss hiss hiss..."
The most terrifying sound in life is probably hearing your own skin being burned.
The most terrifying smell in life is probably smelling the aroma of your own flesh.
In the midst of excruciating pain, Zhu Haowen even inappropriately thought of several made-up words: torrential fire, utter annihilation, barbecue for self-entertainment...
But these unrealistic thoughts quickly vanished, because he was essentially dead.
He didn't know how many lifetimes or tribulations had passed.
Consciousness gradually returned, like an earthworm awakening on the day of the Awakening of Insects, its body reviving from stiffness, slowly emerging from the soil.
Zhu Haowen struggled to open one eye, only to see the overwhelming flames. He tried to open his other eye, but it seemed shrouded in something, obscuring his vision.
The burning sensation in his body had disappeared, leaving only exhaustion.
"Haowen, you're awake?" Qin Ci's voice came, instantly bringing a sense of relief.
Zhu Haowen didn't want Qin Ci to help him. He gritted his teeth, opened his eyes, and pushed aside what was obscuring his right eye—it seemed to be a large piece of cloth.
The sound of waves rose and fell. Zhu Haowen took a deep breath, confirming he wasn't in the sea. He reached out and touched it; the box was still there, now open and lying beside him, emitting a wild and playful roar, like a capricious companion.
Zhu Haowen sat up and realized that he and Qin Ci seemed to be on a "boat," covered with many sheets of cloth.
Zhu Haowen looked around, and when he saw clearly, even with his usual expressionless face, he couldn't help but be startled.
The two were situated in a space between water and fire. The sky above remained a sea of fire, but it was a great distance away, transforming the flames into a fiery cloud-like spectacle.
They were on water, the waves like a vast ocean, but the waterway was narrow, resembling a strangely turbulent lake or a rushing river.
The firelight from the "sky" reflected in the water, giving the surface and waves shimmering orange, red, and golden hues—a truly unpredictable and turbulent scene.
Zhu Haowen remained silent for a long time, clearing his hoarse throat before asking the least important question: "Why is there so much cloth on the boat?"
"It's the monk's robe," Qin Ci said.
Zhu Haowen was slightly surprised, looking at the boat again. At the bow, he saw a bald monk's head. The bald man slowly turned his head, revealing a monkey-like face, and grinned at the two of them.
It was unbelievable; the monkey's body floated on the water, resembling a giant turtle.
Zhu Haowen nodded to it in thanks.
It turned out the two of them had been sitting on the back of this sea monk the whole time.
"Where are we going?" Zhu Haowen asked.
"I don't know, the sea monk doesn't speak human language." Qin Ci had tried several times, but the sea monk hadn't responded and seemed unable to understand Qin Ci's questions.
The sea monk's task seemed to be simply to lead the two into the world beneath the sea of fire.
Only then did Zhu Haowen suddenly realize the most crucial question: "What time is it?"
"A little past three," Qin Ci replied, "I was just woken up by that chime."
Zhu Haowen had already taken out his phone; the screen showed: 3:21:00.
Zhu Haowen, who woke up 20 minutes later than Qin Ci, looked at the strangely shaped fish that occasionally leaped out of the water and asked, "What happened just now? Were we on the water the whole time?"
"I woke up here. It was relatively peaceful the whole way, except that a group of small sea creatures wanted to share this boat with us, but there were too many of them," Qin Ci said with a slightly unnatural expression, "and they were all eaten by the sea monks."
"..."
Zhu Haowen looked down at the "side of the boat" and saw that the water was sometimes clear and sometimes dark. Occasionally, schools of fish would dart by, their backs seemingly blooming with large purple electric flowers; occasionally, large fish would leap high out of the water, their fins like amber sugar paintings, crystal clear and sculpted into the shape of a fish, as if the fins were its totem.
Both of them were shocked by the strange sight before them. There was a grand landscape between fire and water, and within it, countless small landscapes of strange creatures.
"I can't believe there's a world of water inside the fire," Qin Ci said, gazing at the reflection of the "fire clouds" on the water's surface. "I really don't know which contains which."
Zhu Haowen had also pondered this question, but it was clearly too broad a topic to tackle. "Old Qin, where do you think that fragment might be hidden?"
Qin Ci looked at the vast world of fire and water and sighed softly. "This world is too big, and we can't communicate with our teammates, so we can't know what the rules are in the other branch worlds. Are they like the paintings we entered before? I think even these smaller branch worlds are harder to analyze."
Qin Ci was right. Before, they only entered a painting, which contained the artist's spiritual power. Often, just understanding the artist's spiritual world could solve some problems.
But this painting was composed of 28 wooden board fragments. Not to mention what kind of New Year's painting each fragment came from, each group didn't even know which fragment of the painting they were in was. How could they search for it?
"I think the most distinctive feature of this painting, 'Harmony,' is its numerous branches. The painting itself is composed of 28 fragments of wooden planks, and it was completed by two different artists," Zhu Haowen began, trying to find clues by summarizing patterns. "Also, the pyramid the NPC drew for us, divided into seven layers arranged in a very regular pattern, is itself a kind of branching structure."
Qin Ci pondered Zhu Haowen's words carefully: "You mean these branches are a characteristic of this world? Not only does the greater world have branches, but our smaller world also has branches? Just like the 'Pure Land' we experienced before?"
"I just feel that, based on the various phenomena we've encountered since arriving in this world, it doesn't seem like a progressively unfolding, interconnected puzzle." As Zhu Haowen said this, he suddenly felt the "ship" tremble and quickly steadied itself, wondering what problem the sea monk had encountered in the water.
"Haowen, did you hear anything?" Qin Ci listened intently.
Zhu Haowen first closed the open wooden box, and the very realistic sound of crashing waves instantly stopped; the water surface was now perfectly calm.
A distant roar echoed, sounding somewhat distorted due to its faintness and distance.
"I can't quite make out the sound," Qin Ci frowned, listening intently for a while. "It seems incredibly far away, yet incredibly close, as close as a mosquito's buzz."
"That's clearly the roar of a lion and the howl of a tiger," Zhu Haowen corrected.
Qin Ci also felt his earlier analogy about the words was inappropriate: "Anyway, the sound is strange… You just said lions roaring and tigers howling, but this is all seawater, how can there be land beasts?"
Zhu Haowen pointed at the sea monk and said, "If there are monkeys here, why can't there be lions and tigers?"
At this moment, the sea monk began to swim faster, but the surface of the water formed a whirlpool, making it impossible for him to move forward.
From the trembling of the entire "boat," the two could sense the sea monk's panic.
Qin Ci patted the sea monk's back, hoping to calm him down.
Suddenly, the sea monk turned its head, its bald head rotating 180 degrees to the back, its black eyes staring at Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen.
The two were unsure what the sea monk was up to, and could only slowly approach their companions to form a united front.
"The oxen are startled," the sea monk suddenly spoke.
Its words naturally surprised the two, but they couldn't dwell on their surprise at the moment. Zhu Haowen asked, "Where are the oxen? In the water? Why are they startled?"
In Zhu Haowen's understanding, "oxen" were probably similar to cattle and horses on land, startled by anything frightening.
The sea monk looked terrified, its monkey face scrunched up: "The oxen herd is startled! I have to run for my life!"
Both understood that the sea monk's "running for my life" definitely didn't include the two people on its back.
"You're small, you can hide," the sea monk said.
"Where do we hide?" Zhu Haowen asked urgently.
"You can hide in the water, in the crevices of the rocks, in the coral branches."
"We're not sea creatures, we can't stay underwater for long!" Qin Ci was also anxious.
The sea monk seemed to be thinking, and suddenly stretched out a "hand," which was actually transformed from an ugly "turtle foot," holding a strange fish, which it seemed to have just scooped up from the water.
Before Qin Ci could react, he felt as if he had been slapped hard across the face by the sea monk's giant hand.
Obviously, Zhu Haowen had also been hit, and his face was now completely gloomy.
"That's good, you can dive now," the sea monk said.
Qin Ci only felt something different about his cheek, and when he touched it, he found that it was opening and closing, producing strange fish gills.
Zhu Haowen, barely suppressing the "rudeness" he'd just endured from the sea monk, asked, "After we escape the herd of cattle, where will we meet up? Where are we going next? What's your purpose in leading us here?"
"I don't know," the sea monk innocently waved his "hands" back and forth. "I don't even know if I'll escape alive. If you manage to get out of danger, go find the Dragon Girl." "
Who is the Dragon Girl? Where do we find her?"
"I don't know, but she's always mending clothes. Find a woman mending clothes, and she'll be the Dragon Girl." The sea monk seemed a little nervous as he said this.
Suddenly, a deafening roar came from afar.
"It's too late, I'm leaving!" The sea monk's massive body thrashed wildly, throwing the two men into the water.