It was unclear how much time had passed when Xu Lin slowly regained consciousness. Although his mind was still clouded, the excruciating agony in his body twisted his face in a grimace as a violent wave of pain swept through him from head to toe. He frowned deeply, filled with doubt. According to his past understanding, after an impact of such magnitude, he should have been unconscious for a very long time. Why, then, did the medicinal effects of the Immortal Pill seem to have failed this time? Yet if it had not worked, how was it that he had woken up at all? What had become of everyone else? And where on earth was he right now? Countless questions intertwined and tangled in his mind like a messy ball of yarn. Each question seemed like a thread pointing in a different direction while inadvertently tangling with the others, making it impossible to sort his thoughts, which were still in complete disarray.
Xu Lin forced himself to calm down, trying to sort through the chaotic mess, but the harder he tried, the more tangled and random the questions became. His brain raced, yet the pain constantly disrupted his thinking. Fortunately, this chaotic state did not last too long. After a few minutes, Xu Lin gradually regained a modicum of reason.
He began to sense his surroundings. Pitch blackness surrounded him on all sides, with seawater tightly enveloping him; the icy touch made him shudder involuntarily. He felt the world spinning, his body being pulled by countless invisible hands as if it could be torn to pieces at any moment. Xu Lin tried hard to open his eyes, but in the endless darkness, he could not even be sure whether his eyes were actually open or not. Before him lay only despairing darkness, without a single glimmer of light, as if the world had forgotten him in this dark corner.
He tried to recall everything that had happened before, but his memories too felt shattered and battered by the waves. He only remembered the fierce pounding of the surf, whose immense force felt as though it would destroy everything in its path. There were also the screams of the others, filled with terror and despair, enough to make one's hair stand on end. After that, his consciousness seemed to plunge into an endless abyss, and he knew nothing more.
Yet now, he realized that he was still alive, and his situation was extremely perilous. He knew he had to escape this dangerous environment as quickly as possible. He began swimming upward with all his might toward the surface, every stroke of his arms demanding a tremendous expenditure of energy. His lungs felt as though they were about to explode, desperately craving a breath of air. In the dark seawater, he was like a lonely, trapped beast, struggling to find a glimmer of hope for survival.
Finally, when he was on the verge of reaching his limit, Xu Lin broke through the water's surface, gasping for mouthfuls of fresh air. In that instant, air felt like the most precious thing in the world. He breathed in deeply and rapidly, as if he wanted to suck all the surrounding air into his lungs to be satisfied. When he had breathed enough air and his body began to acclimate, he turned his head to slowly survey his surroundings, and the sight that met his eyes filled his heart with a sudden surge of desolation.
As far as the eye could see, fragments of ship hulls drifted across the surface of the sea, large and small, in complete disarray. The bodies—or rather, the corpses—of the others also floated upon the water, a tragic tableau that struck a blow to his heart. Those hull fragments flickered with a faint glow in the lingering rays of the setting sun, as if whispering of past glory and present tragedy. The crew members floated either face up, face down, or with only parts of their bodies visible above the water. Some wore peaceful expressions, as if merely fast asleep; others had distorted features, as though they had suffered immense agony. Xu Lin knew these people had left this world forever. Yet he was unwilling to believe that this was reality. The Xu Family members who had accompanied him, those youths of both sexes, and the numerous crew members—had they really just perished in this storm? A wave of weakness washed over Xu Lin as his body drifted in the sea, a sense of sorrow spreading endlessly within his heart.
Grief could not resurrect the dead; the most crucial task now was to figure out a way to survive. Xu Lin raised his head to observe the surrounding conditions. Judging by the current weather and the state of the crew members' bodies soaked in the seawater, he deduced that not much time had passed—perhaps only a few hours—because the storm had not yet passed. The sky remained blanketed in dark clouds, and lightning like silver whips lashed at the clouds, its light tearing across the firmament. The howling wind still raged like a roaring beast, shouting furiously at the sea. Fortunately, near his location, no towering waves were in sight, granting him a momentary reprieve. A sudden, bizarre thought popped into Xu Lin's mind—a thought he found hard to believe himself. In such a short span of time, could there still be survivors? The notion flashed through his mind.
Xu Lin acted on impulse, wanting to shout out loudly in the hope of getting some response that would give him the courage to persevere. But before he could utter a sound, the movement strained his muscles, and he suddenly felt pain radiating from all parts of his body. Immersed in his painful thoughts just moments before, he had unconsciously forgotten his physical injuries, and only now did he remember to check his body—to trace the root of the pain and figure out why the Immortal Pill had failed.
Floating on the surface, Xu Lin twisted his body with difficulty, trying to make out the wounds that caused him such acute pain. Because it was already near dusk and the sky remained overcast with dark clouds, only faint light lingered on the sea to reveal his condition. It turned out that several splinters of ship timber had pierced deep into his flesh. His heart tightened, and he knew he could not act rashly under such circumstances. Yet Xu Lin did not panic. He decided to pick the smallest-looking wood fragment first, took a deep breath, and yanked it out viciously.
In that instant, submerged in the freezing water, the pain struck him like a sharp blade piercing his body, causing Xu Lin to bare his teeth and grimace. The howling wind seemed to mock his cowardice as it blew past his head. He gritted his teeth and held back any cry, knowing he could not afford to waste precious stamina on screaming at a time like this. Just as Xu Lin had anticipated, the Immortal Pill did not disappoint: the wound slowly healed. Only then did Xu Lin let out a sigh of relief. Then, repeating the process, he slowly pulled out all the other wooden splinters embedded in his body. After a short while, those wounds once again faded into faint white scars, and his body was restored, though his stamina had been heavily depleted. Feeling somewhat weak, he began searching for something that could help him recover his strength.
After a brief moment of observation, he noticed a relatively large hull fragment not far ahead. It appeared to be a section of the keel planking—no wonder it had suffered so little damage despite weathering such a massive storm. Its surface area was large enough to carry him, and it looked sturdy enough to support his weight. A glimmer of hope stirred in Xu Lin's heart; this might be his chance to conserve his strength. He swam vigorously toward the fragment, the icy water sliding past both sides of his body. He swam past other debris and past the corpses of others; he had no time to mourn them now, only casting hurried glances as he swam onward. Finally, he climbed onto the fragment and collapsed heavily onto the wooden board. Having left the freezing water behind, Xu Lin seemed to see hope at last—but would the ocean truly grant him that hope?