Chapter 6: Sui Wei
Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish originally had lost one fish eye, with a hole the size of a bean.
But when Li Weiyi took it out from his collar again, the hole had disappeared, and both fish eyes were surprisingly present.
One fish eye emitted cyan glow, one fish eye released red glow, both brilliantly shining, as if condensed from stars in the sky.
“Hua!”
“Hua!”
The cyan glow and red glow intertwined like light gauze.
If standing far away and looking remotely.
One would discover that the two colors of glow, on the endless ice plain, condensed into a Tai Chi Millstone dozens of kilometers in diameter, slowly rotating.
“It really is the fish eye lost by Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish, indeed, indeed…”
Zhao Meng had long guessed, but when the miracle happened before his eyes, he was still shaken in heart and soul, kneeling down in awe and piety to kowtow.
Li Weiyi raised his head to observe the cyan glow and red glow, his pupils reflected in colors, incredulously saying: “In these two kinds of radiance, it seems profound Dao Script and Buddhist Scripture are flying, Senior Disciple Brother, did you see it?”
Zhao Meng did not see any Dao Script or Buddhist Scripture, but instead horrifiedly discovered that the ice surface around him and Li Weiyi was cracking and sinking, the two rapidly falling toward the thousands of meters deep Arctic Ocean.
It was earlier, Nine Infants had shattered the ice cover here.
Following it as it fled, the ice cover collapsed.
Seawater instantly submerged over Li Weiyi and Zhao Meng’s heads, pulling them toward the cold suffocating seabed abyss.
In the distance, the deformed and broken research vessel was also slowly sinking underwater while capsizing.
“Huala!”
Clearly sunk into seawater, Li Weiyi yet surprisingly discovered that the surrounding water area was all cyan glow and red glow, bright as if divine lamps eternally shining. Even stranger, by his ear rang the vibrating sound of sailcloth billowing in the wind, clearly hearing the low wooden sound of mast shaking.
Suddenly.
A surging and majestic invisible field power acted on Li Weiyi’s body.
And, madly pulling all surrounding things, Zhao Meng, bear-like creature, seawater, ice cover, and the distant sinking research vessel, all swept up by the field power.
“Hua—”
From arms to torso, Li Weiyi’s entire body rapidly shrank circle by circle…
That feeling, like falling from high altitude, like weightlessness.
But a hundred times more uncomfortable than weightlessness.
The Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish worn on his neck slowly floated to the level of his eyes, mysterious and full of the immeasurable.
Li Weiyi immersed in the ice-cold seawater entered a serene and wondrous bizarre state, vision far surpassing usual.
Clearly seeing, on the newly acquired light red fish eye of Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish, unexpectedly appeared patterns like mountains and rivers, as if a planet presented before his eyes. Such a scene, he had only seen in high school using a telescope to observe the moon.
Even more heart-shaking was.
A grain-of-rice-sized bronze ship flew out from the light red planet, raising sails and setting off under the cover of immortal radiance and nether mist.
“Hua!”
Li Weiyi’s body shrank fiercely once more, weightlessness and dizziness coming.
Vision restored again.
The originally grain-of-rice-sized bronze ship became palm-sized, right before his eyes.
“Hua!”
Weightlessness and dizziness came again.
The bronze ship became fishing boat sized, some bizarre scenes on the ship, like mast sailcloth, phoenix corpse python remains, grave sea stele forest, just like exquisitely carved artwork by skilled craftsmen, entered Li Weiyi’s eyes, imprinted into his mind.
Where did the bronze ship come from?
Why was it continuously enlarging?
No…
It wasn’t the bronze ship enlarging, it was himself continuously becoming tiny circle by circle.
Li Weiyi no longer knew how to describe his current mood, unable to distinguish reality and illusion, science and mythology, could it be… this was an illusion produced at the moment of falling into the seawater, on the verge of death?
Satellites above the Arctic Ocean were recording a segment of anomalous footage sufficient to shock the world.
Centered on the Long Ji Hao research vessel, seawater and ice cover in a radius of dozens of kilometers were pulled and devoured by a bizarre power, rapidly disappearing into nothingness.
Including the broken research vessel, and the giant beast Nine Infants that fled dozens of kilometers away, all pulled in.
They did not really disappear into thin air.
Rather, influenced by the field power of the bronze ship, they fell into the microscopic world.
…
……………
The numb icy cold and suffocating sensation immersed in seawater seemed to last several days, yet also like only an instant passed, with a “peng” sound, Li Weiyi heavily crashed onto unknown ground.
Consecutive weightlessness and dizziness, plus excessive blood loss, plus this heavy fall, even though Li Weiyi’s physical fitness far exceeded ordinary people, he was dizzy and disoriented, vision darkening before his eyes.
Fortunately, during the fall, air provided obvious cushioning.
And the ground was not hard.
“So soft soil, what place is this?”
Li Weiyi had fallen face up, smashing out a nearly one-foot-deep human-shaped pit, whole body in pain unable to move, naturally also unaware that he had fallen onto a seven-to-eight-meter-high grayish-white grave mound.
The bronze ship was ancient and grand, not like something from the mortal world, like a toppled divine mountain.
One after another mast, like divine wood pillars rising from the ground.
While the cloud-like sailcloth was hidden in dark clouds and nether mist, billowing fully in the wind, very majestic and imposing.
On the deck, vast and bizarre, unexpectedly stood stone tablets weighing tens of thousands of jin each, and clusters of towering grave mounds, countless, a scene of desolation and loneliness.
Li Weiyi had crashed onto one of the grave mounds.
The mound soil was grayish-white, like ashes, or like lime, but very sticky, a characteristic of soil.
Back, back of the head, and the left arm torn by the bear-like creature, all in excruciating pain, whole body limp and powerless, not even wanting to move eyelids.
“No… I’m still alive.”
When Li Weiyi generated this consciousness, his eyes suddenly opened wide. Only to see, the sky here was low, and full of dense dark clouds, immediately feeling incredulous in his heart.
Clearly fallen into the Arctic Ocean, how did he survive?
He remembered, at the moment before death, he had many hallucinations, seeing cyan glow and red glow, seeing Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish’s fish eye turn into a planet, and also seeing a bronze ship setting sail…
The thought just arrived, and Li Weiyi saw the Long Ji Hao research vessel falling from the pitch-black dark clouds above, the massive ship hull rolling, continuously dropping fragments and human figures, accompanied by screams and wails.
The falling speed becoming slower and slower, was the immortal radiance and nether mist enveloping the bronze ship resolving the research vessel’s gravity.
“Hong long!”
The research vessel crashed not far away, resounding with sounds of metal deforming and breaking.
The entire bronze ship trembled because of it, also shaking in Li Weiyi’s heart.
Li Weiyi scalp numbed, heart filled with absurdity and tension, trying hard to prop up his body, but ending in failure.
The high-pitched infant cry resounded through heaven and earth, sonorous and piercing.
In the thick dark clouds above his head, Nine Infants’ over two-hundred-meter-long body fell down, whole body covered in scales, torso like a giant ox, nine heads all shrieking in cries.
What made Li Weiyi whole body icy cold was, he was exactly right below Nine Infants’ falling trajectory.
If this smashed down, even with unknown mysterious power buffering, he would definitely be shattered to pieces.
The falling Nine Infants, upon seeing the bronze ship below, its eyes changed from terror to joy, cry from wailing to laughter, as if waiting for this day for countless years.
“Hua!”
A golden giant claw even larger than Nine Infants’ body suddenly broke through the thick dark clouds, seizing it.
The claw like golden cast, very metallic and powerful, extremely sharp, easily penetrating Nine Infants’ body.
Behind the dark clouds, appeared a terrifyingly colossal shadow, releasing a majestic aura capable of devouring heaven and earth, like a giant beast that could roam the universe. But upon clearly seeing the bronze ship below, it instead flapped wings in fear and left, disappearing into endless dim chaos.
“This… what exactly is this place? Am I really still alive?”
In shock and confusion, Li Weiyi gradually lost consciousness.
From the wound on his arm, blood continuously seeped out, mixing together with the grayish-white grave soil.
Extremely unreasonably, these blood actually trickled bit by bit along the grave soil, accelerating toward flowing into the grave.
“Weiyi! Weiyi…”
Zhao Meng anxiously shouted loudly in the nether mist thick grave forest, running while searching, soon finally discovering Li Weiyi on top of a grave mound, hugging him out from the human-shaped pit.
There was not a bit of bloodstain in the pit’s grave soil, only Li Weiyi’s face was pale as paper.
After Zhao Meng carried Li Weiyi away.
On the tombstone in front of this grave mound, a string of white bones wind chimes swayed in the wind, emitting crisp pleasant sounds, adding infinite charm to the terrifying silent dark night.
…
Li Weiyi seemed to have a long dream of several years, exhausted consciousness like a few strands of wandering silk, gradually returning.
By his ear rang the sound of waves, face brushed by clear wind.
Slowly opening his eyes.
Vision from blurry, gradually becoming clear.
“Finally awake, thought you wouldn’t make it!”
Qi Shanshan smiled slightly, voice carrying a bit of surprise, then immediately walked toward the door.
Though Li Weiyi only saw a graceful white back figure, he knew that was Doctor Qi who set out with the team.
“He’s awake, but still very weak…”
Doctor Qi’s voice came from outside the door, not knowing to whom she was recounting, couldn’t hear clearly.
Li Weiyi observed the surrounding environment, the bed beneath him should be dismantled from the research vessel. The room he was in was built from research vessel fragments, like a spacious iron shed, ground still had many discarded scraps not yet cleaned up.
Blood bag hung on a wooden pole.
Needle in his right arm, transfusing blood.
Inside the iron shed, there were also another six people lying, some with broken legs, some half-paralyzed from the fall, some unconscious.
Through the simple shed door, could see several meters away the bronze ship’s gunwale. The gunwale’s copper rust was very thick, both having ancient charm, and a sense of abandonment for thousands of years.
By his ear could hear the rhythmic waves sound, could perceive the slight vibration of waves slapping the ship hull.
The wind was leaping over the bronze gunwale, blowing in from outside the door.
“The things experienced before were not hallucinations, all real?” Li Weiyi murmured.
“Of course real, we should have fallen into a completely unknown sea area world, um… very likely in extremely microscopic view.” Cai Yutong’s person not yet arrived, her cold voice arrived first.
She and Qi Shanshan wearing white physician uniform walked in together, both women with outstanding tall figures.
Li Weiyi heart startled: “Extremely microscopic view? What does that mean?”
“I don’t really understand either, all said by those leaders. What Buddha’s Sarira, what microscope, what bronze ship, they seem to have long known some inside story.”
Cai Yutong still that icy demeanor, fingers placed on Li Weiyi’s forehead, nodding satisfactorily: “Fever gone is good, not in vain drawing my blood for three days to transfuse to you.”
Qi Shanshan directly exposed, giggling and teasing: “Aiya, starting to claim credit already? During transfusion, knew you this vegetable had ulterior motives.”
Qi Shanshan and Cai Yutong were from the same dormitory in undergraduate university, both heavenly proud daughters with great style in chemistry department. Relationship if said good, were close as best friends.
Relationship if said not good, was also always secretly competing.
Later one took medical graduate studies, one continued deep in chemistry major, no more competition, relationship instead even closer.
This Arctic scientific expedition trip, was Qi Shanshan who learned the news from Cai Yutong, then as best friend “ordered” her, making her recommend herself to the leaders.
She was very pragmatic, also very good at seizing opportunities, proactively striving for advancement chances.
