Chapter 61 "Stars

"Damn it, this guy really sucks! He doesn't even know how to use control! Died again," the teenager irritably tossed his phone onto the sofa.

The girl watching TV beside him disdainfully curled her lip, "Sounds more like you're the noob."

Right at that moment, the TV showed a chest-thumping gorilla, and the boy curled his lip at the screen. "Look, you're on TV again."

The girl angrily picked up a cushion nearby and hurled it at him. "Gao Zhiming! Go to hell!" The siblings immediately started tussling.

"Stop it, both of you, come and eat," the woman's voice from the living room brought the fighting siblings to a halt.

At the dining table, the woman wearing an apron said to her son, "You're so grown up now, can't you just let your sister win for once?"

"Why should I, when she was stronger than me when we were little, she never let me win."

The girl who was eating angrily lifted her right leg and kicked towards him, and the boy immediately responded in kind.

Watching the scuffle grow under the table, the woman shook her head without further intervention; she had gotten used to her two children fighting since they were young.

After eating a few bites, she spoke to her son again, "Why do you insist on taking a boat for this trip with your classmates instead of the train? Boats can be so dangerous."

"Mom, it's modern times, what's dangerous about a boat, and it's Liu De's dad's boat. It's safe," said Gao Zhiming, his feet moving non-stop under the table.

"But still, didn't a boat sink in South Korea a few years ago? How about changing to a high-speed train instead?"

"The tickets are already bought, you can stop worrying, nothing will happen," Gao Zhiming said confidently.

It was at this moment that he suddenly felt a chill around his ankles, and when he looked down, he saw a layer of pitch-black water covering the floor and rising rapidly.

By the time the panicked Gao Zhiming managed to stand up, the water had swiftly risen above his head, and the thought immediately struck him that his sister didn't know how to swim.

Struggling, Gao Zhiming reached out his hands towards his family submerged in the water, but his sister, with a pained expression, seemed to be pulled away by something, drifting farther and farther from him. He turned his head to look for his mother, only to find she had already disappeared without a trace.

Frantically searching underwater, Gao Zhiming couldn't find anyone, and as the air in his lungs decreased, the suffocation grew stronger. On the brink of death, he saw a set of fierce teeth in a fearsome mouth swallow him whole.

"Whoa!" Charles woke up with a start, his eyes wide open.

Listening to the sound of waves and feeling the rocking of the ship, he realized that everything had just been a dream.

"Dude, having a nightmare? What did you dream about? Tell me so I can have a laugh."

Ignoring the teasing of his alternate personality, Charles raised himself up and looked around, realizing that he wasn't lying in the Captain's Room but was instead wearing shorts, lying on the deck with a transparent glass in hand, and even wearing sunglasses–a perfect beach vacation outfit.

"Why am I sleeping out here?"

"It's my time now; I was sunbathing."

Charles gave an incredulous look at the pitch-dark surroundings. "Sunbathing? Are you insane?"

"You just don't get it. As long as you have the beach in your heart, anywhere can be the Maldives. It's a lifestyle."

"What's the situation with our course?" Charles got up and took control of his body.

"Still the same, not a shadow of an island on the sea chart. I checked the supplies before sunbathing. If we don't find that island within ten days, we have to head back the way we came."

Charles leaned against the ship's rail, staring at the pitch-black sea in silence. He was certain that the sea chart had been accurate, yet at that crucial moment, it all depended on his "Memory". To claim there had been no mistake, he wasn't so sure.

"Don't be so down, if we can't find it this time, we'll come back again. I find you take life too seriously, want to cheer up a bit? How about I tell you a joke?"

Charles walked back, raised his glass, and drained it. Just as he tilted his head to drink, he suddenly saw several white dots flickering in the far distance above.

"Stars? There are stars underground? Have we returned to the Earth's surface?"

After a few seconds, the stars began to twinkle more frequently, then suddenly went out, plunging into a "Darkness" so deep that not even Charles could see.

With a "snap", a small stone unexpectedly smashed onto his face from above.

Charles, with his night vision "Ability", pupils constricting as if he had seen something, his face immediately turned pale, and he madly shouted to Second Officer Krona behind the ship's tower glass: "Second Officer! Hard to starboard! Full throttle on the turbines!!"

As the Unicorne swiftly turned, more small stones began to fall from the sky, transforming it into a veritable stone rain.

Along with a thunderous sound, to Charles's shock, a stalactite as huge as a mountain peak fell from the sky, violently crashing onto Unicorne's just evacuated position.

A roar erupted, and the tsunami waves caused by the impact surged one after another, swaying the Unicorne from side to side.

On deck, Charles wound the ropes tightly around his body to avoid being swept away by the waves.

"Damn, do stars have such nasty tempers now? Just a few glances and they decide to jump down at us?" Richard exclaimed frantically.

Spitting out the bitter seawater in his mouth, Charles replied, "Those weren't stars. Whatever that was, it was alive. Whatever they are, they must have seen us, for those stones were cast by them."

"Damn, there's something on top of us? How do they stay up there without falling? Are they geckos or something?"

"That's not for us to worry about, look! The stars are shining again!"

Above their heads, the dim white dots lit up once again, only to be extinguished seconds later, as more mountainous stalactites followed in succession, with the Unicorne fleeing in disarray.

As another huge wave crashed over them, Richard shouted, "This isn't working, those things are chasing us!"

Looking at the stars lighting up again in the sky, Charles quickly contemplated and then issued the command to turn off the lights.

In the pitch Darkness, all Charles could hear was his own rapid breathing. When he noticed that no more stone rain fell from above, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

Whatever was up there, it had been using the light from the Unicorne to locate them. Without the lights, they couldn't lock onto the ship's position.

In the Darkness, Charles was communicating with the crew.

"Second Officer, don't stop, keep moving. We're not completely safe yet."

"Captain, I can't see a thing,"

"I can see, I'll navigate for you."

In the pitch black, the Unicorne continued to sail. Charles stood on deck, clutching the sea chart, anxiously determining bearings to ensure the ship didn't lose its way.

After half an hour of sailing, as Charles lifted his head to scan the sea once more, he heard Richard's excited shout,

"An island! It's an island! We've found it!"