Volume I – Isolated island survival memoir
Chapter C – Saves a vixen
G.o.d seemed to be intentionally making things difficult for Liu Shock. When he went to sleep, the weather was nice with a bright moon and stars hanging in the sky. But suddenly, a violent storm took the whole island in its grasp. Although his small house was hidden behind the mound and blocking the strong winds, but the roof was unable to bear the fierce slaps of rampaging rain. The dry leaves gave way to seeping rainwater and his whole house was flooded.
Liu Shock was at first awakened by a loud thunder clap. He immediately regretted not making a drain before going to sleep, but before his repentance could continue any further, the heavy rain began to pour down from the roof. He looked at his failed shelter and thought how it lost the very meaning of its existence in this rainstorm. The rainwater gradually soaked his bed but the wolf skin wasn’t affected. The rain drops basically rolled down over it as a string of beads.
Liu Shock decided to use it as a raincoat and set it on his head, embraced Fruit and felt warm inside the wolf skin. At this time, he was innocently waiting for the rain to stop.
The rainstorm grew more intense without a chance of slowing down, forget about stopping. The lightning was striking one after another, pounding again and again on the tamarisk forest. Liu Shock felt the ground tremble and the rain drops were blown by the strong winds, appearing like a bead curtain as if swaying in the air. Bushes were m.u.f.fled and trees were compelled to bow down in the face of this mighty rainstorm. As the wind pa.s.sed through the tamarisk forest, it produced a whistling sound and added to the spookiness. This was not new for Liu Shock because he was well aware of mother nature’s might. As they say, everything becomes insignificant in the face of the power of mother nature.
At this time, Liu Shock heard a loud sound as if produced by tearing down the wood. It was an extremely tragic sound and he could affirm that it was similar to the sound produced if a huge truck would crash into a wooden door.
He heard the faint cries for help coming from afar. Although he could not understand the language in which they were calling for help, but he could still sense the despair and pessimism in their terrified cries. One doesn’t need to know the language to sense the emotions wrapped in the words. Liu Shock instantly sensed that they were in danger and something tragic must have happened.
A ship must have come to this island to take shelter in this rainstorm, but judging from the sound he heard before, he guessed that the ship must have hit the coral reef. His mind instantly grasped the whole picture based on the clues he had so far.
“I must save them!”
Liu Shock did not waste time on thinking. He immediately wrapped himself in wolf skin, took his bone knife and rushed into the rain. If a ship really arrived on this deserted island then this was going to be a huge opportunity for him to get out of here. He was worrying about the safety of the ship because he had seen huge coral reefs underwater when he dived to catch the mussel. After seeing the coral reefs, he had come to know that this seemingly calm sea had hidden dangers.
The winds were stronger than he imagined. He ran out of the range of the mound and the wolf skin was almost blown away by the mighty winds. At this time, he had to hug the wolf skin tightly with his arms crossed near his chest. He was walking slowly and taking each and every step seemed extremely difficult.
The last resort was to lie down on the muddy ground and crawl forward, the way he trained in the army, while also taking care of Fruit in his bosom and grabbing the wolf cloak. The big raindrops were landing on his face intermittently and re-incited the pain in his injured nose.
He somehow arrived near the tamarisk forest and dashed inside. Although the winds weren’t so strong under the cover of tamarisk forest but the wind pressure was still strong because of fairly small-sized trees. He also had to be careful of not getting hit by a blown branch on his head. He was shielding his head with his hand and moving forward, searching for the symbol ‘ten’ he carved on the trees and proceeding accordingly. The guano and mud had mixed together in the rainwater to form a natural trap. His legs sank all the way to the knees when he stepped into that, but he used his hands to literally swim forward and got out of the quagmire.
Liu Shock staggered out of the tamarisk forest and noticed that the rain had slightly calmed down. The raindrops no longer stung his face. He let go of the wolf skin and allowed the softened rain to wash down the filth from his body. Fruit’s fur was very smooth, but in the rain, only its eyelashes stayed erect while the fur on its body was wet and stuck to its skin.
Liu Shock gently wiped the rainwater from its wet fur. Taking advantage of the lightning flashes, he began to scan the pitch-black sea and finally saw a huge sail ship stuck between two coral reefs. The entire front half of the ship ramp was pointing towards the sky and there was a huge hole in the cabin below. His brain immediately put together the observations and he deduced that seawater must be filling the back portion of the boat and causing the ship to sink from the rear.
The sail and mast of the ship were almost damaged and the broken parts were floating on the seawater. Liu Shock quickly estimated the length and diameter of the ship. The ship’s height was approximately 25 meters and had a radius of more than ten meters.
Liu Shock noticed the figurehead of this ship which was actually the statue of a snake-faced man holding a bow in his hands. He couldn’t figure out the nation it belonged to.
Although his mind was full of doubts, but he decided to first rescue the people on board. He gathered some solid vines and collected several coconuts that had already fallen on the ground due to the rainstorm. Then, he firmly tied the vines together with the coconuts to make a makeshift lifebuoy. He left Fruit on the beach for its safety then jumped into the sea, however, just then, Fruit suddenly jumped on his head. Liu Shock almost stopped himself from scolding Fruit.
The strong winds led to the formation of whirlpools around the coral reefs. Liu Shock had lain in the lifebuoy and was swimming toward the ship. He arrived near the ship only to find out that he could not climb up. At this time, he was surrounded by a few floating corpses in white robes. He couldn’t bear to continue to see the pale faces and bloated bellies of these corpses and focused on thinking of a way to board the ship.
But at this time, the ship’s hull tilted forward and made a series of creaking sounds. His heart began to beat loudly like a drum. Now, he especially regretted his decision of boarding this almost sunken ship to rescue the survivors but he would certainly not ignore his honor as a soldier.
Fortunately, the ship swayed a bit then stopped and the creaking sound of rubbing planks also got fainter. After careful consideration, he tied a vine to himself and gave the other end to Fruit. It firmly clenched the vine in its mouth and heard Liu Shock say, “Fruit, go!”
Fruit was very clever and immediately understood what Liu Shock was trying to do. With the vine in its mouth, it jumped off his head on a floating corpse and directly boarded the ship in the next jump. It crawled to the broad side of the ship, found a hole, went inside and came out from the other side then jumped off the ship and came parachuting down to Liu Shock’s head.
Using this vine as a rope as if attached to a pulley, Liu Shock first checked whether it could sustain his weight then slowly proceeded to climb up. The ship had almost reached the tilt of 40 degrees and it was hard to find a stable place to lodge his feet, and also prevent slipping. After boarding the ship, he step by step moved towards the cabin. The cabin was already flooded and most of the parts were submerged in the water. Under the impact of gravity, boxes and cabinets had rolled down and piled up on the drowning side of the ship. And, some lighter objects were floating on the water.
Lightning was flashing again and again. Liu Shock sat down and slowly slid down to other sections of the cabin. He checked the first section of the cabin but there were no survivors instead he found broken wooden detritus and clothes.
After entering the third section of the cabin, he saw a considerably big bread that looked like a dough dumpling floating on the water. He picked it up and took a bite but it was hard like the iron. Its surface had probably not fermented yet. He felt like choking, while at the same time, Fruit also leaned over to take a bite, only to disdainfully spit it out.
Liu Shock fished out a robe from the water, wrapped the bread in it and tied to his back. There were many watermelons and honeydew melons floating on the cabin water but most of them were split open. He altogether incorporated all sorts of valuable items in his makeshift Goodie Bag.
This section of the cabin was the last one. Since there were no survivors, he simply gave up the futile search and began to concentrate on searching for useful things for his own survival. The biggest found was a pile of boxes and a liquor barrel. Perhaps his nose did not have a special sense of smell but he would not make a mistake when it came to smelling good food, tobacco, and liquor.
This barrel was large, almost the size of a person, and was releasing a faint smell of wine. There was a sudden burst of happiness in his heart as he immediately decided to open it and have a taste.
He kicked open all of the boxes to have a look. The contents made him temporarily forget about the wine. He found some boxes filled with clothes, though they looked like Arabic style wide robes but he was still very happy. He was particularly feeling uncomfortable roaming around in his birth suit and preferred having a comfortable set of clothing!
In addition, he was very happy to find some nice machetes in a box. Not too long, the blade was bent in a strange antelope horn-like arc and the scabbard was also quite beautiful, covered in strange engravings and designs. There was also a gem embedded on it and it was hard to figure out whether it was a precious gem or just an imitation. However, in his current situation, he was not too interested in finding out the authenticity of this gem.
He pulled out the machete slowly and it shined brightly in the lightning flash. He could clearly see its sharp uniform edge and the beautiful brocade pattern covering its body.
He used to envy Elder Geng for his sharp machete but today he found one himself. He was initially depressed that he was unable to save anyone on this ship but this came as a pleasant surprise and helped in cheering up his depressed heart.
At the bottom of the pile of boxes, there was a big box that resembled an elaborate coffin and there was big lock placed on it. Liu Shock certainly wouldn’t dare to kick this one open because he knew that it was not made up of red sandalwood like all other boxes. It was perhaps made up of high-quality tough wood, so he used the machete and gave a heavy blow to the big lock. This caused a cl.u.s.ter of sparks but the machete was bounced off, so next time, his arm covered a longer arc as he rotated once to gain rotational force and severely pounded the machete on the lock.
This time, not only the lock was sent flying but the machete also got stuck in the wood. He made an effort to pull out the machete and ended up opening the wooden cover in the process.
At this moment, there was an exceptionally bright flash of lightning and Liu Shock’s joyfully smiling face instantly stiffened.
Even Fruit covered its mouth.
The machete silently slipped from his hand and fell into the water with a plop.
He hadn’t been this shocked since the time he encountered the giant blue wolf and saw it shooting wind blade from its mouth.
Thunder and lightning continued to rampage outside as the beads of sweat appeared on his face and rolled down all the way to the corners of his mouth.
When the salty taste of his own sweat spread in his mouth, he was pulled back to the reality and he immediately wiped his eyes in disbelief. Another bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree and made the whole scene clear in front of his eyes. He clearly saw the contents of the box and a baffled expression appeared on his face.
In the s.p.a.cious wooden box, four or five people were lying down with their bodies tangled with each other to the point of making it difficult for him to count their numbers. The bottom of the box was flooded with water and their long hair was floating like seabed algae in the water.
Liu Shock felt as if his head would explode with bafflement, not because they were all dead and their corpses appeared in an outrageously worse condition, but because all of them were women and the kind of women he had never seen before.
These women had fiery red hair and also had large red tails protruding from their tail bones.
Their red tails were floating on the water and looked like a bunch of dancing flames. The lightning flashes as if worked like camera flashes and recorded this scene permanently in his memories.
“How is this possible!” Liu Shock covered his face and accidently touched his nose, giving rise to intense pain.
This was too much for his brain to take at once and he sat down in the water then nervously touched the wooden box to get up. He felt as if his whole was shivering, perhaps caused by overexcitement or fear of the unknown.
“Fox Spirit.” His voice choked as he somehow managed to squeeze these two words out of his throat in a strange exquisite accent.
He was foolishly standing in front of the box and watching this scene while his mind was entirely in chaos.
However, suddenly, the red tail of a fox slightly moved, although the scope of the movement was not big, but it still produced faint traces of ripples in the water.
Liu Shock’s sharp eyes instantly dilated upon seeing this.
The first time he was left dumbstruck was while facing the giant wolf and this turned out to be the second time.
The hull made a creaking sound giving a warning to Liu Shock that the ship was about to disintegrate.
Liu Shock clenched his teeth, held that fox woman in his arms and saw the rest of the women half submerged in the water with their faces up. It didn’t take him long to confirm that all these fox women were dead except the one in his arms.
The very thought of what must have happened to have left them in such a sorry state induced a burst of dizziness.
As soon as he hugged her, he felt her faint heartbeats. He tried not to look at her big red tail. He hastily pulled a table, gently placed her on it and used the vines to firmly tie her down above the table.
At this time, taking advantage of slant hull, he slid down with the table and tried to be as smooth as possible so as to reduce the jerks.
Of course, he did not forget to take his machete. He did not know how he got to so much strength but he somehow managed to widen an existing hole in the porthole plank with the help of his machete.
He clutched Fruit’s big ears and put it in the makeshift bag on his back, then slowly dropped the table through that hole. Afterward, he also jumped in the ice-cold water and quickly grabbed the table and began to swim crazily towards the sh.o.r.e.
Liu Shock was fully focused on getting out of the range of the ship because at the time of the sinking it would give rise to whirlpools in the surrounding waters and might suck them into the water.
As he was struggling to reach the sh.o.r.e with the table on his side, he could not help but think about the wine barrel.
Ah! Such a pity, I wanted to taste that wine, must have been a great wine! He kept on licking his lips but they, unfortunately, tasted like salty seawater.
Fortunately, they finally reached the sh.o.r.e. Just then, he heard a loud cracking sound and turned back to see the whole ship slowly sinking into the sea.
The wind and rain were no longer raging like earlier, but the sea still looked terrifying with floating corpses everywhere.
Liu Shock wiped the beads of water from his face, then gripped the splinter on his arm and pulled it out in one go. His face contorted with pain but he was still grinning all the while. His arm was pierced by the splinter at the time of widening the hole.
The fox woman on the table twisted her head to one side that attracted his attention. He immediately leaned over and touched her neck with his fingers, and fortunately, he could feel the beating pulse, though it was still very weak. He also saw a wound on her shoulder.
Liu Shock gave her artificial respiration and she began to violently cough, spewing out a lot of seawater. He had only learned the basics in the army, but he had no other option. He tore a piece of cloth and dressed her wound, though he did not dare to tinker too much with her wound because he was afraid that she might have a fracture. He tried his best to drag the table as smoothly as possible towards his home.
In spite of being very busy, he did not forget to touch the large bag on his back, and fortunately, he felt Fruit’s soft ears.
He arrived at his home and decided to quickly get some hot water to warm her body. Right now, her body was losing heat too fast and if it went on like this then she might freeze to death.
At this time, his mind was in chaos and he could not possibly let this fox spirit die. For the time being, he decided to call her fox woman. He had heard ghost stories about sly fox women in the childhood but at this time, he did not have the luxury of believing in superst.i.tions, especially when this fox woman had pulse and breath and was also slowly dying. So, it was impossible for her to be some kind of evil monster as portrayed in the stories.
The firewood he had gathered earlier was already wet and where would he find dry firewood to burn fire, after all, even his own house was flooded with rain water. He slapped his forehead and cursed out loud for being so confused in this critical situation.
He could not arrange hot water for the fox woman and helpless watched her lips turning purple, even her red tails were trembling. He was anxiously rubbing his hands, just like an ant on a hot saucepan.
He pondered for a while and came up with an idea.
He gently removed the long robe from the fox’s body and felt as if he was looking at a delicate flower. She was wearing bluish-white undergarments, and to be honest, he had never seen a woman in undergarments in real life. In the army, although whenever he was bored, he would steal the undergarments of female soldiers for fun but he never peeped, since it was against his own rules.
Trembling as he opened her undergarments, he ordered himself to turn his head but was actually unable to follow his own command. The first thought that came to his mind was – How could someone be so perfect? She had a perfect figure with well-developed curves. In simple words, she had already achieved peerless beauty and in Liu Shock’s words, her beauty was simply life-threatening.
Suddenly, a Shaolin Temple as if rose up under the coconut sh.e.l.l that was covering his crotch, producing a ‘BoBoBo’ sound in a rhythmic manner. Fruit jumped in front of him and strangely looked at the coconut sh.e.l.l while saying ‘Fruit Fruit’.
“d.a.m.n it!” Liu Shock blushed.
What have I become! Hoodlum! Thug! Liu Shock scolded himself.
He gently held her in his arms and closed his eyes. He felt his hot body b.u.mping into two cold lumps, inducing an intoxicated feeling in his very soul.
This is certainly a dream, has to be a dream, thought Liu Shock.