Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 25: Journey to the End of the World (25)

Dragon Raja 4

Chu Zihang shook his head. “I don’t know. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Thank you, Reginleif.”

“So how did you fall for her? You seem like a whale— a different species from humans, always swimming alone.”

“Love and hate are both accumulated over time,” Chu Zihang said softly. “But I don’t have time anymore.”

Reginleif was silent for a moment. “I’ll help you complete your mission, and you help me get off this ship. I won’t let you die. Your life is in my hands.”

Chu Zihang looked at the suddenly confident girl in surprise. She didn’t seem to be joking; every word she said was firm and resolute.

“Have you ever wondered why I am the Saintess? I don’t actually know the way to the Gate of the Divine Kingdom, nor do I fully believe in Vincent’s theories. But I am a medicine—my blood can calm hybrids who are on the verge of their bloodline limit, extending their lives. Maria is not my great-grandmother; I am her clone. She was tainted by something from within the Gate of the Divine Kingdom, and I inherited that contamination. I am the Holy Grail, carrying divine blood within me. The divine blood does nothing for me, but it can help people like you. Many who are willing to board this ship are like you,” Reginleif said slowly. “But I don’t want to be a living medicine jar. I know it’s selfish, but I wasn’t born to save anyone. I just want to live this life freely and love whoever I choose.”

She pushed the door open and left. Moments later, Sasha slipped in. It seemed the captain had been waiting outside the infirmary for quite a while.

“Sorry, my friend,” he said, patting Chu Zihang on the shoulder. “I was busy with something else. It seems the Saintess is quite interested in you?”

“She just told me she was joking.”

“That’s good. Love is such an illusory thing; it’s not suited for real men like us. We should focus on the big things.”

“Is Anna also an illusion? You’re still waiting to go back to Moscow to see her.”

“Anna might be an illusion too. Who knows whose heart she has touched in my absence… whose lips she has kissed… who she’s spent the night with in the apartment where I paid her rent?”

“That sounds pretty awful.”

“I want to go back and see Anna, but that may not be what she wants. When I get back to Moscow to see my ex-wife, she might see me as a stranger,” Sasha chuckled. “She might cry and ask to see her boyfriend. The doctor said that sometimes amnesia progresses from past to present, and sometimes it progresses from present to past. In the former, she’d forget her ex; in the latter, she’d forget me. Even without amnesia, how do I know I’d be better than the person in front of her now?”

“But you’re still going back to see her,” Chu Zihang said.

“Yeah, because I’m afraid that Anna, who hasn’t forgotten me, might wake up and not find me.”

“I also don’t want that person before to think it was all just a dream… even though that dream was crafted by her, and even she herself was an illusion.”

“I don’t quite understand what you’re saying, but if I get the chance, I’ll take you to Moscow to meet Anna.”

“Let’s hope she’s still waiting for you.” Chu Zihang and Sasha shook hands.

That’s how friendships between men are—after watching whales together and chatting about each other’s disappointments, it feels like they could entrust their lives to each other.

Maybe it’s just that they’re too lonely, like whales swimming in the vast ocean. If they lose their pod or a companion, it might take a long time to find another.

“I came to tell you that things are getting more complicated. My chief engineer managed to make a simple long-wave transmitter from the ship’s components—it’s the best we could cobble together. Theoretically, it should be able to receive signals from within several hundred nautical miles and isn’t affected by solar flares since it doesn’t rely on ionospheric reflection. But we haven’t received any signal so far,” Sasha said. “Also, our ship stopped after reaching this point. This morning, those groups broke into the nuclear reactor, and its output power dropped to the critical point, so we had to switch to the diesel generators.”

“My people went out with dog sleds to scout the area and saw a red sea—the base of the glaciers was stained blood-red. That phenomenon is called a red tide, caused by an explosive growth of red algae, but these algae are not cold-resistant, and the seawater in the Arctic Ocean is near freezing.”

The snow vehicle drove for more than ten kilometers. From a distance, Chu Zihang saw the newly raised metal frame. A diesel generator roared, providing power to the lights on the frame and to the machinery in the crew’s hands. The crew was drilling near a huge ice crevice, and from time to time, crimson waves surged up from the crack, turning into a rain of red droplets. Chu Zihang shone his flashlight on the ice shelf beneath his feet. The ice crystals were filled with blood-red veins, looking both beautiful and eerie. Sasha sniffed the air; it was filled with the scent of decaying plants and animals. This polar sea, which should have been quiet and cold, smelled as if it were full of organic matter.

Orev, the chief marine biologist, was busy extracting water samples. When he saw Sasha and Chu Zihang approaching, he put down what he was doing and said, “It’s indeed a red tide algae bloom, but the seawater also contains an excessive amount of blood components.”

“Red tide algae usually bloom in southern seas; they don’t tolerate the cold,” Sasha said, pouring a sample tube of water onto the ice. The algae and small dead fish could be seen with the naked eye.

A red tide algae bloom rapidly depletes the oxygen in the water, indirectly causing some fish to suffocate, which was the source of the rotting smell. Chu Zihang looked up at the night sky, asking, “In the polar night, how do red tide algae photosynthesize? Is the water temperature normal? What species is the blood component from?”

“It’s 3.6 degrees lower than normal, and the seawater doesn’t contain excessive sulfur or phosphorus,” the navigator said. “We can’t conduct a complete analysis right now; we only used hemoglobin test strips.”

Chu Zihang nodded slightly. The navigator’s point was that a submarine volcanic eruption had been ruled out. If there were a volcanic eruption, the ejecta would contain a large amount of phosphorus, which could promote algae growth and photosynthesis. However, the seawater temperature hadn’t risen, and photosynthesis was difficult in the polar night environment, making this abnormal phenomenon inexplicable.

Sasha raised his binoculars to look ahead, seeing only icebergs and sea mist, which from a distance looked like rolling black hills. Were these the towering mountains Maria had mentioned? A hidden paradise filled with vegetation? Were they heading there to visit the Eagle’s Nest of the old man in the mountains?

A humming sound reached his ears. Sasha looked in the direction of the sound and saw a crew member standing by the ice crevice. His skin was a dark brown, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep like knife cuts. He took out a piece of frozen meat and a seal skin-wrapped knife from his coat, cut the meat into small pieces, arranged them in a specific pattern on the ice, and knelt to pray. He was an Inuit, whose ancestors had lived in the Arctic Circle for generations and were often hired as guides. For them, the deadly cold that explorers faced was a daily occurrence. When food was scarce, they could rely on their knives to hunt seals and survive for weeks.

Sasha walked up behind the crew member and patted him on the shoulder. “Hey! Seal Paw! What are you praying to? The North Pole? Is there something there worth praying for?”

He called the crew member “Seal Paw” because he always wore a dried seal paw as a talisman around his neck and was also skilled with a claw knife.

“The elders in the village say there’s a bottomless cave at the North Pole that leads to the afterlife. Cold air constantly flows out of the cave, which is why the North Pole is so…,” Seal Paw said mysteriously.

“Alright! Get back to your post, no slacking off!” Sasha waved him away, more interested in legends of unknown islands or mysterious palaces.

“The sonar shows a lot of activity beneath the ice layer—large schools of fish, and even whale calls. In short, for some reason, this area’s ecosystem is thriving. Fish that feed on plankton are here, and whales that hunt those fish have also come…” Orev continued.

Chu Zihang had encountered similar situations before. The depths of the Japan Trench were supposed to be lifeless, but the rift between the continental plates released a lot of energy, sustaining billions of microorganisms and creating a unique ecosystem—one centered around dragon subspecies. However…

They had just ruled out volcanic eruptions, so what mysterious force was sustaining this ecosystem in such a desperate environment?

“The cave is usually sealed by ice, but when the weather warms up, the ice at the entrance becomes fragile, and monsters from hell sneak out…” Seal Paw, still unwilling to leave, continued sharing his hometown’s legends.

Sasha was slightly startled and looked at Chu Zihang, who then turned to Orev. “Do you have dry suits? I want to dive down and take a look. Preferably with an experienced dive buddy.”

Sasha was about to speak when Seal Paw raised his hand. “Look, I’m a seal, and I have a pair of sharp claws.”