Chapter 12 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

So, this really was all just a game?

In reality, once watch hands pointed to twelve midnight, Zhang Heng would enter Still Time. But here, the wind continued to whistle in his ears, and the coconuts trees swayed along, except for that voice that appeared suddenly not long ago, nothing else had changed.

Zhang Heng had tried playing several computer games during Still Time.

Following the contact-recover principle, as long as he was not in contact with other people, everything would continue to work.

But now was not the time to talk about such things.

Just as victory was within reach, the difficulty of the game was raised to a hellish level.

Realizing that he had another five hundred days and not twenty days left on the godforsaken island, Zhang Heng did not even have the strength to draw a bitter smile.

Instead, he sat by the beach, staring at the horizon, doing nothing else until sundown. This was the first time he felt like life was full of spite.

But at this point, griping was meaningless.

Even if he wanted to settle scores with whoever, he would have to wait until five hundred days later.

Before dark, Zhang Heng finally roused. He was never the kind of person who was easily knocked down by difficulties. He did as Ed had taught him in between the lessons, to let go, to vent out all his negative emotions first, and then regain his composure.

With the fish and crabs he caught, Zhang Heng enjoyed a full meal, and then early the next morning, devoted himself fighting against nature.

Fire can be used to cook food and boil water, and keep him warm at night. Simultaneously, keeping the fire burning had become Zhang Heng’s responsibility.

Every day, not only did he have to go out to collect food and freshwater, he also needed to find firewood that would burn easily—this task was especially tough after a shower of rain.

He had wanted to collect more firewood and store them in the cave to cope with the rainy weather, but earlier on, he had to focus his energy on scavenging for food; now that Ed was gone, the amount of food he needed to find was halved, leaving with ample time to do other things.

Other than collecting firewood, Zhang Heng also attempted at fashioning a couple of stone axes. Ed was not very good at making tools, and had only imparted the rough idea of how to put together a stone axe. Before this, Zhang Heng had used the sharper edge of the clams to hack at the trees but it did not work very well—it took him at least two to three hours to cut down a small tree.

That got him thinking about trying out the stone tools so highly favored by the primitive man. But for some unknown reasons, the axes he made either crack after only two chops, or the heads would be separated from the handle at a swing.

Zhang Heng could only comfort himself that failure is the mother of success.

In a blink of an eye, another twenty days had passed.

That familiar voice, again, sounded in Zhang Heng’s ears.

[Task complete…]

[To return after 480 days…]

The sentences were fine on their own but when put together like that, it sounded like a bit of a joke.

Zhang Heng ignored the voice. He had just finished his lunch, and was looking for some shells to carry water. The one he had used was burnt. He was picking up goods from the ‘free market’ when he suddenly noticed two black dots from afar.

Huh? This was a rather familiar scenario.

What was more familiar were the two people struggling in the water.

Were those option B adventure man and option C laddie in shorts?

Zhang Heng found himself speechless. What kind of humans were they? That was some powerful will and tenacity to live. It had not been easy for him to have survived on this island and yet those two were still living and kicking after drifting in the water for forty days.

Zhang Heng’s thoughts immediately went back to the late Ed. Before he breathed his last breath, Ed had thanked Zhang Heng for saving him, and being able to die on land, unlike the two other people who would be swept into a watery grave.

Instead, right now, Zhang Heng felt sorry for Ed.