WOYE Chapter 37 [Third Night Part Seven]

Editor: SeriesCircuit

Li Sinian slept for a long time. Fang Daichuan didn’t have a watch, and couldn’t see the sky from inside the cave. Meaning, that he could only make a rough estimate that two hours had passed.

Fang Daichuan was afraid that Li Sinian would slip away in his sleep, and he himself couldn’t sleep leaning against the hard rock wall, so, every few minutes, he would reach out and touch Li Sinian to make sure that he was still warm. Then he would close his eyes for a while.

At this point, Fang Daichuan would have taken a Li Sinian who was racked with fever, making him senseless, over having a silent Li Sinian where he had to reach out to check to see if his body had gone cold. If he did end up having to spend the night alone with Li Sinian’s corpse, he felt that he would break down. With a heart as fragile as his own, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what he would do.

He recounted the time that had passed since Li Sinian was poisoned to the time when he administered the antidote. Will the antidote work? Whilst he dozed, Fang Daichuan kept touching the lid of the bottle of antidote in his palm, feeling uneasy. If he was late by even a minute and a half then this bottle of the antidote would have been wasted.

Finally drifting completely into sleep, he dreamed of reaching out and touching Li Sinian in the dark. Li Sinian’s body was already ice cold. Panicking, he saw another Li Sinian leaning on the stone wall, arms folded; sneering as he said “Fool. Look at yourself, what are you injecting into me?” Fang Daichuan looked down and found that the tube with the hourglass sigil was still full, and the tube with the skull was empty.

(T/N: Remember in chapter 6 how the antidote was shown as having an hourglass design whereas the bottle with the poison in it uses a skull design)

Fang Daichuan cried out in his dream. Then his eyes flew from the horror; turning himself over he forced himself to sit up.

Bewildered, cheeks burning and drenched in sweat, he lowered his head and immediately looked at the vial in his hand, and confirmed three times that the bottle with the skull cork was still full.

“What are you doing? Looking for lice?” Fang Daichuan shifted his gaze to the source of the sound; Li Sinian was standing using a stone wall for support, while moving his limbs, his tone mocking nonetheless.

At that moment, Li Sinian’s figure and the one in his dream coincided. Fang Daichuan never realised that a sarcastic Li Sinian could look so adorable. Without another word, he jumped up and hugged Li Sinian. Li Sinian instantly quieted, his body rigid, like someone had shoved an iron rod down his back, and a murderous expression to match.

“Don’t you dare scare me again!” Fang Daichuan recalled in his mind, that after the first vote, he went mad in the living room and was reprimanded by Li Sinian after they came back into the room. * Mimicking Li Sinian’s tone at that time he continued, “Even if you don’t want to live, don’t jump into the sea. Anyway, I still have a bottle of poison here. I will keep it for you. If you don’t want to live, tell me, don’t burden others.”

(T/N: On Chapter 17)

Li Sinian slowly hugged him back, squeezed Fang Daichuan’s well-defined arm, and his body gradually relaxed. He smiled and said, “Then, you better keep it safe for me.”

The atmosphere gradually became awkward. Of course, it was wholly possible that Fang Daichuan was the only one that felt awkward at that moment. Li Sinian acted like his usual self as he went about slowly and methodically examining the stone wall.

Fang Daichuan also leaned forward and touched it with his hands. The rock wall was wet and covered with moss, and there were some aquatic organisms scattered throughout, where they had embedded themselves in the rock wall.

“What are you doing?” Fang Daichuan asked casually.

Li Sinian pulled out a barnacle and said, “This is an inner cave of a huge reef. The sound of the organ we heard outside is probably because the inner cave allowed for the sound to resonate. The walls here are wet, covered with moss and many types of aquatic life. I suspect that this place is often filled with water, but the water was pulled out with the tide, forming a space that is sometimes dry and sometimes not. But the amount of moss here in comparison to the number of barnacles also suggests that this cave spends more time free of water than it does submerged.

Fang Daichuan didn’t understand, so he shook his head in confusion.

“If we ignore the fact that the two of us stumbled in here by accident, I would argue that this place is actually quite easily accessed,” Li Sinian frowned. “With that being said, however, I still very much doubt that my father has been here.”

He stretched out his hand, the golden star necklace firmly resting in his palm, and explained: “This is my mother’s necklace, my father gave it to her to commemorate their meeting in Mohe. When I was a kid, I played with it and almost swallowed it. My dad beat me up over that so this necklace left quite the impression on me. After they separated, my father kept this necklace by his side.”

This pulled on Fang Daichuan’s heartstrings. If it was found in the boss’ villa, one could still deceive oneself, into believing that there could still be some hope of surviving. But the necklace was found on the reef instead, it could only mean 2 words-memento.*

(T/N: Memento is 遗物 [yí wù])

He was afraid that Li Sinian would be saddened by this, so he quickly changed the subject and talked about something else: “I suddenly have an idea, what if the boss is among us? Think about it, you said it yourself, this is a space that can be used. Therefore, it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, for the boss to not be aware of it. Now that I think about it there is another unexpected detail I noticed too. Do you remember when we got a box of supplies on the fourth floor during the first night?* And then the next day when you checked the island, there just happened to be a small vegetable garden behind the house, water in the lake, and tap water in the villa.* Those types of supplies are of little use to us, however for a certain someone those supplies could be essential. So, with that in mind, what if those supplies are for the boss? Then, if we assume that is the case, one could further argue that the boss potentially used some method to fake their death at the beginning and then hid in this space, right?”

(T/N: The box appeared in chapter 7, the water etc is in chapter 12)

Fang Daichuan was originally just spouting nonsense, in order to distract Li Sinian from his father’s memento. However, the more he thought about it, the more confident he became.

“Have you read ‘And Then There Were None’?! The dead bodies that haven’t been checked carefully are the most suspicious! Except for Beer Belly on the first night and Du Chaosheng’s body that I saw today, the rest were all shot in front of everyone. It’s impossible to fake a headshot. So now that I’ve had a moment to think on it, Beer Belly and Du Chaosheng are the most suspicious!”

Li Sinian was momentarily taken aback. He shook his head and said, “No, do you remember the clothes in the box? They were one-size-fits-all*, meaning that they wouldn’t be either Beer Belly’s or Du Chaosheng’s size, so they can’t wear them. I can’t see a reason for someone to make an effort to prepare supplies only to pack clothes they can’t wear. Speaking of which, after receiving this mission, I haven’t even caught a glimpse of the boss so I don’t know whether they are male or female or whether they are young or old. In short, collectively we know no identifiable characteristics. Finally, the one that hides the supplies is probably not the boss, but rather someone who, like me, has been on the island several times. This then also opens up the possibility of this same someone, being aware of this hidden space under the reef, as they could have found it on one of their previous visits, and thus, they’re taking advantage of its discrete location to conceal supplies.”

(T/N: Alright so even though this says one-size-fits-all, this actually means ‘a size that only fits certain people’ so yeah, a link for more info)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_size_fits_all

As he spoke, he walked a few steps, moving deeper into the cave. Then he asked Fang Daichuan, “Do you have a lighter? If we could illuminate this space, it would be easier to take a look around. If someone has been to this grotto, then they should have left some traces.”

Fang Daichuan obediently checked his pocket, though his remaining cigarettes had been soaked in water, the lighter fortunately was not a complete right off. This lighter had been a gift from a fan. Since the lighter was produced by a well-known and highly regarded international company, the materials to waterproof it are of excellent quality. Fang Daichuan shook off the water, rolled the spark wheel, and a flame danced into life.

“It’s best not to use it for too long,” Fang Daichuan said while looking at Li Sinian, “If this cave is closed, then we don’t know how long it will be before we can go out and it will be troublesome if the oxygen runs out.”

Li Sinian nodded: “Don’t worry, if I’m right, the tide will rise again tomorrow morning. When the tide rises and the cave is filled with water, the strong current, caused by the water rushing into the cave, will no longer exist, meaning that we can use the opportunity to get out.”

They continued chatting as they walked. The cave was shaped somewhat like a gourd, with a large entrance and a smaller interior chamber.

There was nothing in the stone cavern outside, so Li Sinian lifted his feet and stepped down into the smaller chamber, where the terrain was relatively low and some water had accumulated. Fang Daichuan on the other hand, walked right in and stumbled into a puddle of water, making his shoes, which had just dried, sopping wet again.

“For fuck’s sake!” Fang Daichuan yelled in annoyance and stomped heavily on the dry ground.

A dull thud rang out as if he had kicked something hard.

Fang Daichuan lowered his body, raised the lighter, and took a good look at the thing in front of him. He scolded: “What the hell is—ah!!!”

Before he could finish scolding, Fang Daichuan let out a frightened scream and sprang upwards, the lighter in his hand falling towards the puddle below. Quick as a flash, Li Sinian grabbed the lighter, re-lit it and looked towards the ground, only to see a decaying skeleton sitting in the corner, its eyes hollow and staring straight at them.

The insects that were hiding in the skeleton were immediately scattered by Fang Daichuan’s outburst.

Then a rat brushed past Fang Daichuan’s feet and he took three steps backwards.

“Stay away!” Fang Daichuan shouted to Li Sinian, “How old is this rotten skeleton? If it jumps up and grabs your face, we will both be doomed!”

Li Sinian ignored him as he bent down and picked up a ring, which had fallen near where the skeleton rested.

Without a word, he blew the water, plants and dust from the ring; held it up in front of the lighter, and slowly twisted it. The silver ring, which had already blackened from oxidation, was indistinguishable from any other ring under the low light.

Li Sinian rubbed off the mottled, black oxidised layer, revealing what looked like two faint outlines on the inner band of the ring and upon closer inspection, it was clear that two letters had been engraved, the letters: “L&F.”

Li Sinian knelt down to touch the rotting skeleton, his fingers trembling slightly.

(T/N: Yes, that is Li Heng, Sinian’s father. So no, there is no Star Wars scene here lol. For those who have forgotten, Sinian wore his mother’s ring so the L&F here is his father. So yeah, Chuan’er, that is very rude of you to kick your in-law like that during your first meeting)

 (E/N: I guess you could say that Chuan’er really put his foot in it. I am not sorry! Puns give me life.)

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