However, this time Robinson, the protagonist, lost his usual good luck.
The heavy waves gave him no moment to breathe. Under the murky water, a sharp reef struck his head. Even though he used his last bit of strength to swim to the shallows, even though Chen Zhou courageously risked dragging him to the beach, he still couldn't escape the shadow of death.
Watching helplessly as a living person died in painful struggle, the fear within Chen Zhou was beyond words.
For a long time, he just sat there, rigid, lifeless, his mind blank, replaying the events that unfolded after waking up.
When his wildly beating heart finally calmed, the sea breeze interrupted his thoughts. He finally withdrew his gaze from the distance, his mind still flashing with the ghastly, bloodied image of Robinson being dragged ashore.
Chen Zhou knew that Robinson did not die from the sea, but from the rules, the rules of this "cross-time large-scale live challenge show."
Those rules, mocked and ridiculed in online forums, were ironclad and unassailable here.
The cold corpse lying beside him seemed to remind Chen Zhou—
Here, do not harbor any idle hopes. Discard cowardice, abandon illusions, and if you want something, work hard to get it with your own hands. There is no shortcut.
Yet recognizing the merciless rules and seeing Robinson dead further added to Chen Zhou's internal pressure.
For a moment, an overwhelming urge to hysterically vent that pressure filled his mind.
Back in university, he would not rest until he let this nameless fire burn fiercely.
But having ground away for over a year at the cement factory, mingling with those seasoned workers who had been there for decades, if nothing else, Chen Zhou had learned to control his emotions. Just like the often-quoted sentiment of middle-aged people—life had ultimately smoothed his edges.
It's just that his edges hadn't yet become particularly rounded, and occasionally, he still wanted to distinguish himself from mediocrity…
With his facial muscles slightly trembling, Chen Zhou managed to take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
"Hoo~"
He kept telling himself that yelling madly to relieve stress would only futilely waste energy, reducing his chances of survival.
Eventually, he overcame the fear and restrained that irrational thought.
Fixing his eyes on Robinson's bloodstained body, once fear subsided, it was as if Chen Zhou saw a treasure.
This was the adventurer's final gift, he reminded himself.
"It shouldn't be wasted. To live, it's time to get to work."
Encouraging himself inwardly, his outstretched hand hovered in mid-air, hesitating and not touching down.
After all, not yet at an age frequently experiencing life and death, this was Chen Zhou's first close encounter with a corpse. Even though he never believed in ghosts, nor felt squeamish or unlucky, inside he felt like a tipped-over spice jar—something was definitely amiss.
This feeling came swiftly and retreated just as quickly, crashing like a tide, eventually dissipating on the beach.
Chen Zhou knew that no matter how many thoughts he had now, he could only do what needed to be done.
In just a few seconds, he geared himself up mentally, and his hands fell onto Robinson's body, deftly undoing the buttons of the soaked outerwear.
Some things only become known as not as difficult as imagined once they are done.
The corpse wasn't as cold and stiff as to repel one to nausea, and his ordinary psyche wasn't as fragile as he envisioned.
He did not feel fear or discomfort, nor nausea or revulsion, not even any sensation, so calm that even he found it unfamiliar.
Under the threat of the sword of Damocles that is death, and the allure of unreachable challenge rewards, Chen Zhou armored himself with a layer of indifference, his body mechanically working, leaving only his mind calmly pondering how to extract deserved benefits from Robinson.
Perhaps because the struggling time in the sea was far shorter than described in the original story, although Robinson was soaked through, the buttoned coat wasn't washed open, still tightly fastened together.
On his left chest was an obvious bulge, indicating there were some miscellaneous items in the inner pocket.
Opening the jacket, Chen Zhou found in the damp inner pocket a small knife sheathed in leather, an engraved pipe with a silver mouthpiece, and several pieces of sea-soaked sticky orange-red preserves.
Beneath the coat, Robinson was wearing a thin shirt, and underneath the shirt, a closely fitting vest.
Thinking that in the decades to come, clothes would become luxurious articles hard to make, Chen Zhou neatly placed the knife and pipe on the beach, and began to try peeling these garments off.
The wet seawater caused the clothes to cling to the skin, and Robinson's gradually stiffening corpse compounded the difficulty of the task. Chen Zhou spent more than ten minutes and finally only managed to retrieve an unbroken coat and shirt, while the cotton vest was torn into scraps due to violent tugs.
By the time he finished, the sky had darkened.
On the island shrouded by dark clouds, neither moon nor stars were visible. Strange cries occasionally emerged from the nearby woods.
Amidst the continuous sound of waves, the dimming light constructed a primitive cage named the unknown, terrifying in its mystery.
The wind grew stronger, carrying many droplets from the direction of the sea, as if rain was imminent.
Worried that the clothes just removed would be blown away, Chen Zhou wrapped the knife and pipe with them and tied them tightly with a strip of cloth, securing the bundle to a small tree.