Chapter 14 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

That nameless giant fowl was so ugly it was off-putting tasted surprisingly good.

Zhang Heng had been seafood for so long he had almost forgotten what chicken tasted like. The ‘chicken’ soup he boiled for dinner brought back memories.

Actually, strictly speaking, the meat of this creature was much tougher than chicken meat. Its texture was actually closer to that of pigeons.

But to Zhang Heng who nearly went crazy thinking about meat, this was the most delicious chicken he had ever tasted. Unable to finish the entire 15 catty ‘chicken’ at one meal, Zhang Heng removed the internal organs, soaked the flesh in seawater and then smoked it. The ‘chicken’ jerky now hung under the eaves of his house.

Behind the house, Zhang Heng found a plot of land that received a good amount of sunlight and planted the potatoes he saved. He also burnt some grass and wood, sprinkling them over his crops as fertilizer. Finally, he fenced up the plot of land, looking forward to see the surprise it would bring him after about half a month.

Early on, Zhang Heng had recorded the time on the wall of the cave but he could not move the wall to his new dwelling so he relied on the watch on his wrist.

With the watch’s scientifically unexplainable toughness, Zhang Heng had used it to whet stones in the earlier days on the island. By looking at the positions of the hour hand and the seconds hand, he could use a simple calculation to determine the date. Today, it had been 201 days since he was ‘washed ashore’.

The clothes he was wearing was the first to crumble, then his shoes acquired a large hole. He was lucky to have been in the tropics, he did not need to worry about temperature even if it was winter. Zhang Heng even settled on going about the day completely nude.

His skin was now a tan shade of bronze, his beard unkempt and his hair a frizzy mess. He looked a little scruffy.

Today afternoon, Zhang Heng put down whatever he was doing, and climbed onto a cliff by the beach. He sat down with his legs crossed, staring into the distance.

After about half an hour, the old friend he had been waiting for appeared.

The adventurer was struggling against the waves, looking as if he could drown at any time.

Zhang Heng looked at the silhouette rising and falling with the tide, conflicted.

The great philosopher, mathematician and historian Russel1 once said that his life was governed by three pure yet overwhelmingly strong passions: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Thing for Zhang Heng, right now, was much simpler.

There were only two things that was going to keep him alive for these five-hundred days—exploring the center of the island, and seeing the man in the water who would appear every forty days. The former kept him busy and kept his mind from wandering; the latter reminded him that he was not alone.

So many time, Zhang Heng had been tempted to save the adventurer.

Saving him meant having someone with him for nineteen days, providing him with the much-needed interaction, company and warmth from a creature of the same kind.

But Zhang Heng had never taken any action.

He thought about a movie he had seen called ‘Cast Away’. The plane that the protagonist boarded had crashed and he was washed ashore with a heap of packages. To survive, he opened up all the packages leaving only one because it symbolized hope to him.