Chapter 308: Death Seeking Life

Trapped in the raging flood, He Lingchuan's mind screamed just two words: It's over.

Wen Daolun's character analysis had proven accurate. "When you meet water, leave." He should have turned back the moment he arrived at the Handan River.

But there was no pill for regret. He could only quickly pop a turtle pearl into his mouth. This object allowed him to breathe underwater, ensuring he wouldn't drown immediately. Once in his mouth, it shrank to the size of a quail egg, posing no obstruction to his breathing.

Perhaps having escaped death countless times had made him somewhat indifferent to it. Now, his mind raced, focusing solely on how to survive this desperate situation.

A massive piece of driftwood, borne by the raging current, then slammed into the strange bird, knocking it unconscious. The bird was instantly propelled forward, leaving Dong Rui and He Lingchuan behind. Both men instinctively grabbed the tail end of the driftwood. They watched helplessly as the wild ox and the strange bird were swept away by the current, drifting further and further until they disappeared from sight.

"Thirty-four!" Dong Rui, his face streaming with water, gnashed his teeth. "My thirty-four is gone! How could I have encountered a menace like you!"

"If you hadn't… ugh!" He Lingchuan choked on a mouthful of muddy water. "If you hadn't schemed against my father and me, how would you have ended up in the water?"

That slippery Dong, relying on his winged mount, had provoked them father and son time and again, only to escape each time. Now, with the strange bird gone, He Lingchuan found no joy in it. Was he really going to die here with this strange man?

The rotten log they clung to was likely hurtling downstream at sixty or seventy kilometers per hour. To be rescued by anyone else was a mere fantasy. He quietly activated the mechanism to retract his sleeve-arrow grappling hook, hoping for another chance to fire it later. During the process, the hook snagged on branches and debris several times. It was thanks to Li Fubo's excellent craftsmanship that the device hadn't given up the ghost long ago.

He Lingchuan gripped the driftwood with one hand, his fingertips digging into the wood, while simultaneously trying to untie a rope with his free hand and keeping a vigilant eye on all sides. He was incredibly busy. In this flood, some objects drifted slowly, while others sped by. He Lingchuan’s luck held out, but Dong Rui was repeatedly struck by floating roots and rocks. His nose bled profusely, and his head buzzed from the impact. Various debris, carried by the waves, surged towards them, making them hesitate to open their eyes. The impact of a stone also knocked off Dong Rui's mask.

The two were so close they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder, clinging to the driftwood. He Lingchuan turned his head, and a gasp of "Oh-ho!" escaped him, nearly causing him to lose his grip: Dong Rui's face was horribly disfigured. His face was relatively intact above the nose, but everything below the philtrum was caved in. It looked as if the lower half of his face had been made of papier-mâché and then crushed. His cheeks were sunken, his mouth was oddly shaped, and his skin was a bruised, bluish-black. Dong Rui had barely any teeth left; He Lingchuan wondered how he managed to speak without a lisp. Furthermore, lacking support in the lower half of his face, the skin beneath his eyes also sagged slightly. In short, his face resembled a wax figure that had half-melted and then re-solidified. From a distance, it was eerie; up close, it was terrifying enough to make a child cry in the middle of the night.

He Lingchuan's surprise was clearly etched in his eyes. Ordinarily, Dong Rui would have been incandescent with rage, but now he had no time to care. He glanced behind him, his soul nearly departing his body: A vast, continuous belt of fallen logs and debris was surging up behind them, rapidly catching up!

"We're dead," He Lingchuan muttered, glancing back as well, finally resigning himself. They had been swept to the middle of the Handan River, dozens of yards from the bank, with no chance of reaching shore. There hadn't been a single exposed reef or rock along their entire path.

Dong Rui suddenly pulled out an object, thinking to himself, 'I'll give it a try. It's a long shot, but what have I got to lose?' He secretly submerged the object, then, with a feigned cry of "Oops!" as if his grip had slipped, he released the driftwood. The swift current immediately swept him away. He then began frantically rubbing the object in his hands, urging it, "Faster, faster!"

It was a transparent, soft, jelly-like substance. It resembled the stone flower He Lingchuan enjoyed eating, but also had a slug-like quality, clearly possessing tentacles... He Lingchuan didn't know how Dong Rui was manipulating it, but the thing began to swell—no, to inflate. It started as an egg-sized blob, then expanded to the size of a coconut.

"It works! It really works!" He burst into laughter, looking at He Lingchuan. "Goodbye! No, never again!" The two men were now separated by about seven meters, and Dong Rui felt relieved. Since his personal life-saving treasure worked, he would soon have the pleasure of watching that little bastard drown in the flood!

What Dong Rui didn't know was that He Lingchuan had been watching him intently. Just as Dong Rui's grin spread across his face, He Lingchuan raised a hand—With a sharp *thwip*, the sleeve-arrow, which He Lingchuan had just re-secured, fired once more. This time, no large wave interfered. Dong Rui, being at the mercy of the current with nowhere to escape, was hit squarely in the shoulder by the sleeve-arrow, which pierced straight through. A grappling line was attached to the arrow. He Lingchuan pulled hard, activating the mechanism. Dong Rui let out a terrible scream as he was forcibly yanked back! The current, coincidentally flowing in that direction, greatly assisted He Lingchuan. In mere moments, the two men were face-to-face once more.

Only this time, Dong Rui was in such agony he nearly passed out, while He Lingchuan looked at him and chuckled, "Don't worry, I'm here to save you!" He Lingchuan had seen all of Dong Rui's subtle moves. Knowing how much this fellow valued his own life, why would he suddenly lose his grip on a life-saving log? There had to be a trick! To Dong Rui, that damned smile on He Lingchuan's face was no different from a demon's. Everyone was in the water, facing imminent death, shouldn't they all be panicking individually? Why was this little bastard still staring at him?

Meanwhile, the object in his hand was not only failing to slow its expansion but was speeding up. As the two men struggled, the object had already grown from coconut-sized to the size of a millstone, impossible to hide. He Lingchuan looked down at the mysterious object and, instead of alarm, felt a surge of delight: This was Dong Rui's lifeline? If it could save Dong Rui, it could certainly save him too. At worst, he'd take it for himself and push Dong Rui off!

And then, the object inflated even more rapidly. When it finally settled into its full form, it was an ellipsoid about three meters in diameter, with one convex side, one flat side, and numerous tentacles of varying lengths dangling below. Strangely, both He Lingchuan and Dong Rui were encased within it. Because the creature was completely transparent, they could see each other clearly, their expressions plainly visible as they stared in mutual astonishment.

Wasn't this just a...

He Lingchuan glanced around. His body felt as if it were stuck in quicksand, with no solid point to push against in any direction. Both men were immobilized within the creature's jelly-like body. The more he looked, the more it became clear: Damn it, wasn't this just a giant jellyfish? This jellyfish-like creature, however, possessed an exceptionally pliable body. Countless pieces of driftwood and rocks struck it, yet it merely absorbed the impact and slid past them. And very springy too.

The jellyfish drifted downstream, quickly overtaken by the floating debris belt. He Lingchuan and Dong Rui felt as though they were riding a rubber raft, the jellyfish's thick body cushioning them from external damage. Massive clumps of brushwood drifted past them, rushing forward like a train.

He Lingchuan let out a long sigh of relief. Phew, they were saved. However, he quickly noticed Dong Rui's face across from him turning blue. Dong Rui sputtered out a few bubbles, then thrashed his arms, desperately trying to swim upwards. This fellow... was he drowning? Suffocating? But why was He Lingchuan perfectly fine?

He checked his own breathing and realized that the jellyfish's body was mostly liquid—perhaps eighty or ninety percent water, with the remainder being a viscous substance. Dong Rui, it seemed, was trapped within a sphere of water, unable to break free. It was no wonder he was suffocating! Despite his desperate struggle, Dong Rui only managed to move a short distance upwards, perhaps a meter at most, and his held breath was rapidly running out.

Dong Rui stared at He Lingchuan, his eyes wide with disbelief. Why was this kid so relaxed? Did he have some way to breathe underwater? He frantically pointed at himself, extending a hand towards He Lingchuan again and again. He was asking for help.

He Lingchuan merely smiled back, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness—or indifference. This fellow had caused them trouble countless times; otherwise, they wouldn't have fallen into the water in the first place. Now, watching him die face-to-face was truly a sight to behold.

Dong Rui realized He Lingchuan intended to let him die, so he cried out: "The jellyfish is poisonous! If you don't save me, you'll die too!"

Water transmits sound well. He shouted it twice, and He Lingchuan's smile vanished. The jellyfish was poisonous? After all, this was something Dong Rui had concocted, and He Lingchuan also knew that some jellyfish were indeed highly venomous. Better safe than sorry. He Lingchuan sighed. On second thought, there was no telling how long this jellyfish would float. He didn't want to be immersed in putrid water, nor did he want to open his eyes each time only to see a drowned corpse staring back at him. Especially a drowned corpse as ugly as this one.

Therefore, He Lingchuan still pulled out another turtle pearl, shook it at Dong Rui, then began retracting the grappling hook. This time, Dong Rui understood. Far from resisting, he frantically swam closer to He Lingchuan. The distance between them was only two or three meters initially, so with both swimming towards each other, they quickly closed the gap. Dong Rui practically snatched the turtle pearl from He Lingchuan's hand and shoved it into his mouth. He Lingchuan then watched as Dong Rui took a deep gulp of air, and his near-convulsing limbs relaxed.

Their eyes met, and an awkward silence fell between them, broken only by Dong Rui's purplish face slowly returning to a normal color. After a long moment, Dong Rui suddenly spoke: "No fighting in here. We'll settle our scores once we're out!"

The liquid inside the jellyfish was indeed flowing, seemingly exchanging with the outside world, albeit slowly. He Lingchuan retorted crossly, "Where's the antidote?"

"As long as we behave ourselves, I'll give it to you before we get out," Dong Rui said, still gasping. "It's a slow-acting poison; it won't kill anyone for two or three days." Seeing He Lingchuan's eyebrow arch, he quickly added, "I carry over a hundred different medicines. The antidote needs to be specially prepared. If you kill me now, you'll never know which one to use!"

He Lingchuan couldn't ascertain the truth of his words and could only accept them for now. Dong Rui then pointed to the sleeve-arrow embedded in his shoulder. "Can you take this out?"

Only then did He Lingchuan help him remove the arrowhead. Fortunately, the wound was small. Instead of tearing strips of cloth to bind it tightly as He Lingchuan expected, Dong Rui produced two silver, wood-ear-like objects from somewhere and directly applied them to the wound. With a single press, they adhered tightly to his skin, effectively sealing the wound from the water. Otherwise, his wound, submerged for an extended period, would be no different from a self-inflicted cut, and he would eventually bleed to death.

Dong Rui moved to retrieve a medicine bottle, which He Lingchuan, of course, wouldn't permit. Who knew what devilish concoction the fellow might seize the opportunity to pull out? He tossed Dong Rui a pill. "It's for stopping bleeding. Swallow it."