Hei Qin felt a heavy drowsiness wash over his entire body, as if he were being squeezed between tides. Under his clothes, his skin felt the roughness of sand.
Splash… splash…
His ears picked up the sound of water crashing against the shore.
His eyes slightly twitched before slowly opening.
They reflected the moody clouds and the occasional blue lightning flashing behind the grey sky.
"Cough, cough…"
He tried to stand up, but his legs gave out, causing him to fall back to the ground.
He slowly stabilized his breathing and looked around at his surroundings, which had a very moody and dark atmosphere.
And a dark sea.
He was on a seashore.
"Where am I? I was just in the cave. How did I end up here?"
Hei Qin felt strength returning to his legs, so he decided to explore this unknown place.
"Is this the sea? Why is it so dark? And the clouds are also weird."
He looked behind him to see a small green mound with a single tree standing on it. It looked completely normal.
Hei Qin climbed the small mound, but he didn't go near the normal-looking tree. He sensed something amiss about it.
His eyes wandered past the tree to see a series of other trees further away. They looked tiny from a distance.
"A forest?"
He wanted to explore it. However, his legs wouldn't budge. His survival instinct told him not to go near that forest; there was a countless horror hidden behind that silence.
After a few seconds…
Hei Qin saw a tiny figure slowly become visible in the dark sea.
"A boat?"
A small boat slowly drifted towards the shore. However, the boat wasn't the only thing moving toward the land.
There was also a figure walking on top of the sea. As the distance between them shrunk, the picture began to clear for Hei Qin.
The figure looked more like a human corpse than a living human. Its left hand was nothing but bare bone, and its long black hair completely covered its face.
It was wearing very old and torn-up clothes. It was the one pulling the small boat with the help of a rope tied to it.
Meanwhile, Hei Qin screamed in his heart.
'What the hell is that? A human corpse? A zombie?'
The corpse slowly reached the seashore and wandered around for a moment, as if it were searching for something. After that, its eyes landed on a stone.
It gave up on the rope and quickly ran toward the stone, picked it up, and hurried back to the side of the boat.
And then, it broke its own left arm—the one that was nothing but bare bone—as if it were a tree branch. It bit down on the stone with its cracked teeth.
With the help of its right hand and the stone gripped between its teeth, it hammered its left arm into the ground.
And it tied the boat's rope to its left arm so the boat wouldn't drift back out to sea.
It was a little comical to witness, but the one watching this farce was in no mood to laugh. Instead, Hei Qin felt increasingly uneasy. He wanted to run, or at least hide behind the tree, but his entire body remained frozen.
However, the corpse didn't have the time to look at Hei Qin; it was entirely consumed by its own business.
The corpse seemed like a dutiful worker—responsible and meticulous in its job.
Finally, it finished its task and slowly walked toward the normal-looking tree. The corpse didn't do anything to Hei Qin, nor did it approach him. I
It didn't even bother to glance in his direction. Yet, strangely enough, Hei Qin felt absolutely certain that the corpse knew he was there.
Hei Qin could only watch helplessly as the creature stood right before the tree.
The tree looked normal, at least from Hei Qin's distance, but when he looked closer, it was anything but normal.
The tree's bark was carved with a single sentence that covered almost the entire trunk. Yet, there was still some empty space left to write.
'There is something written on the tree.' Hei Qin squinted to see clearly. 'Life… Life is retribution!'
Life is retribution!
That was the sentence carved into the wood.
Using the stone, the corpse began carving the exact same sentence that already covered the tree.
'Is this corpse the one who has been writing this sentence? What is the meaning of this?'
He had done nothing but ask himself questions ever since waking up in this place.
Suddenly, the corpse stopped writing, and a slight smile crept onto its putrid face. Its head snapped around toward him, as if something in its neck had cracked.
When the corpse's eyes met Hei Qin's, a violent chill ran through his entire body.
The corpse spoke, its voice uniquely raspy and broken. "Did you do your job? Or did you come here to pay your interest?"
The corpse began to laugh madly. "Haha…"
Suddenly, Hei Qin's breath caught in his throat before he blacked out once again.
The corpse instantly stopped its laughter.
"He is gone."
***
In the cave…
Ye An had already moved Hei Qin from the deepest part of the cavern. Hei Qin was currently lying on a bed, resting peacefully.
Meanwhile, Ye An was in deep contemplation over what had just happened to the young man.
"Why did he suddenly faint? Was it because of that hole's influence? If I had known, I wouldn't have shown it to him. But then again, if I hadn't, how could I have known it would have this sort of effect on him?"
Ye An noticed a slight twitching in Hei Qin's face. His expression immediately turned curious.
"Hmm, he's finally waking up. I can't wait to find out what happened to him. Haha!"
Hei Qin's eyelids fluttered open slowly. The very first thing he saw was Ye An's smiling face. Before he could even fully regain consciousness, Ye An bombarded him with a series of rapid-fire questions, shaking him relentlessly.
"Hey! Quickly tell me what happened to you! Did you see something? I can't wait to hear the details. Quickly, quickly, tell me!"
Hei Qin's eyes began to twitch, and he roared madly, "Hey! Stop it! What the hell are you going to do if I faint again?!"
Ye An quickly composed himself and cleared his throat. "Ahem, sorry. I just got a little too excited."