A Manual for Surviving a Weird World

Chapter 368 Boundless
"Ning Zhe...where is this place?" Xia Yubing asked in a low voice. There was nothing around the small boat except for the vast, boundless fog and the endless water.

"Among all living beings, we struggle to cross the sea of ​​suffering. This is the sea of ​​suffering." Ning Zhe said as he reached into his clothes and rummaged around. "Ordinary people can only wallow in the sea of ​​suffering their whole lives, but some people are different, and that is the rich."

As he spoke, he took out a copper coin from his pocket, which was square on the outside and round on the inside, and engraved with the words "May all your wishes come true".

“Money makes the world go round. As long as you pay, you can bribe the ferryman on the sea of ​​suffering and have him carry you out of this misery and take you to where you want to go.” Ning Zhe said, placing a copper coin on the old man’s withered hand.

Previously, Ning Zhe died suddenly and committed suicide in Vanessa Castle, which triggered Lan Shiwen's death return. Lan Shiwen, realizing something was wrong, quickly connected the matter to Ning Zhe and rushed to Vanessa Castle in reality to help Ning Zhe successfully escape from the dream.

At the time, Lan Shiwen was in Yunzhou, while Vanessa Castle was in the northern mountainous region of the Apennine Peninsula. The two were separated by the entire Eurasian continent, and even with the most advanced supersonic passenger plane, it would be difficult to arrive in time, not to mention that the mountainous region where Vanessa Castle was located was not yet accessible by road.

But by bribing the ferryman, Lan Shiwen crossed the sea of ​​suffering and finally caught up.

Ning Zhe was very curious about how this guy did it, so before Lan Shiwen left yesterday, Ning Zhe got a bottle of water.

"Most of the veteran promoted individuals know about the existence of the [Ferryman]. Yu Ziqian doesn't know because he's still a newcomer, while I don't know because I'm an even newer newcomer than him."

Thinking of this, Ning Zhe couldn't help but shake his head. He guessed that Lan Shiwen probably never imagined that this guy, who had been repeatedly ambushed by Fenwu but still survived, was actually an ordinary high school student just three months ago.

Fenwu himself didn't believe it, so when Ning Zhe appeared in front of Fenwu at the gambling table as 'Ning Zhe', he thought it was just another disguise.

I'm so angry and cold. What did a high school student do to you?

The complex thoughts vanished in an instant. On the small boat, the white-haired ferryman accepted Ning Zhe's copper coin, and then extended his hand again.

“Just like Lan Shiwen said before, the fare is one copper coin per person per boat ride.” Ning Zhe nodded. Since there were two people on the boat, he and Xia Yubing, they should naturally pay two copper coins.

So Ning Zhe took out another copper coin and placed it in the ferryman's hand.

But after accepting the copper coins, the ferryman did not set sail; instead, he reached out his hand to Ning Zhe again.

"Not enough for the fare?" Ning Zhe frowned slightly. The fare for one person should be one copper coin. There was no reason for Lan Shiwen to lie to him about this. "If Lan Shiwen is not lying to me, why wouldn't two copper coins be enough for the fare? Could it be that there are more than two people on the boat right now?"

Ning Zhe pondered for a moment, then tried placing the third copper coin into the ferryman's hand.

Three, four, five... The ferryman would quickly reach out again after taking each copper coin, as if no amount of money was enough. It wasn't until he took the sixth copper coin that the ferryman stopped targeting Ning Zhe and instead reached out his aged hand to Xia Yubing, who was sitting next to Ning Zhe.

"It seems the price for one boat ride is six copper coins." Ning Zhe was relieved but still a little puzzled: "Where did this number come from? Why should I be charged the price for six people when I'm just riding alone?"

After thinking for a moment, Ning Zhe seemed to have figured something out and turned to Xia Yubing, saying, "Give it two copper coins. The price for your boat ride should be two copper coins."

"Is that so?" Xia Yubing asked, puzzled but not asking any further questions. She placed the two copper coins in the ferryman's hand.

After accepting Ning Zhe's six copper coins and Xia Yubing's two copper coins, the ferryman indeed stopped asking for more. The old man, wearing a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat, turned around with his hunched back, and finally picked up the bamboo pole for rowing the boat with his thin, withered hands.

The boat has set sail.

“Hey, Ning Zhe.” Xia Yubing looked at the old man’s hunched and thin back at the bow of the boat and asked in a low voice, “Why does it cost me 2 yuan to take the boat, but you have to pay 6 yuan?” Ning Zhe did not answer her question. He simply unscrewed the cap of the mineral water bottle he had been using, bent down and pressed the bottle down into the water, poured half a bottle of water into it, then screwed the cap back on and handed it to Xia Yubing.

"This is?"

“Seawater,” Ning Zhe said, “To board the ferry and escape the sea of ​​suffering, two conditions must be met: first, you need money; second, you need to come into contact with the seawater of the sea of ​​suffering.”

Having come into contact with the sea of ​​suffering while holding the money to buy his life, the ferryman came by the scent, put down his bamboo pole and asked the handsome young man if he wanted to take a boat ride.

"I understand." Xia Yubing took the water bottle and nodded. "So, where will this ship take us?"

“That depends on where you want to go,” Ning Zhe said. “You can think of this sea of ​​suffering as a higher-dimensional world that transcends the real world. As long as the real world exists, the ferryman can take you there.”

Another option is that you might have to pay extra to visit some haunted places.

Xia Yubing wiped the water droplets off the mineral water bottle with the corner of her clothes and thoughtfully examined the transparent water inside: This so-called seawater of the Bitter Sea looked no different from ordinary water. The water was transparent and colorless, and it didn't smell strange. Apart from being exceptionally clean, it had nothing special about it.

A vast, boundless mist enveloped the entire world. The clear water beneath the boat was as calm as a mirror, with only the ferryman's bamboo pole stirring the seawater up and down, creating a crisp sound of splashing waves.

Holding a mineral water bottle filled with seawater, Xia Yubing leaned against the side of the boat and carefully looked down. She saw the mirror-like surface of the water rippling with waves created by the boat. Through the romantic ripples, Xia Yubing could see a few dilapidated houses.

"Huh?" Xia Yubing blinked, then looked down with wide eyes in disbelief, and actually saw several houses underwater.

It was an old-fashioned mud-brick house in the countryside, with walls made of yellow earth mixed with straw and a gray tile roof. The three houses were arranged in a "品" shape, forming a T-junction. As the boat sailed down the water, the waves rippled, and Xia Yubing could even see the weeds beside the intersection swaying slowly with the waves.

"This intersection looks familiar...?" Xia Yubing wondered. The small boat beneath her continued to move forward, and the old houses were soon left behind, replaced by a lush green forest.

A small river meanders through the mountains and forests, flowing into a valley basin. The land along the river has clearly been cultivated and managed by humans. Even though it is now overgrown with weeds, you can still tell that there used to be a farmland there.

Upstream, a cylindrical building with earthen walls and a tiled roof sits there. From the river to the farmland, from the crossroads to the walled village, the underwater scenes all felt familiar to Xia Yubing.

"I...I remember now."

Xia Yubing stared blankly at the abandoned farmland and dilapidated village underwater, her voice trembling as she said, "This is my hometown... I lived in that walled village when I was a child, along with a large group of relatives such as uncles, aunts, and cousins. We all lived together. I was born in that walled village..."

Ning Zhe glanced at her: "And then?"

"Later, because of the need to divert water from the Taojiang River to develop a reservoir, the valley where our village was located was designated as a water storage area. So everyone in the village left their hometown and moved to the city. I was only 6 years old at that time."

Xia Yubing held Ning Zhe's arm and leaned on his shoulder, whispering, "After the reservoir was built, my hometown was submerged, and I have never been back."

She was very young when she left her hometown, and her memories of the small valley where she was born and raised were still vague. She also didn't remember the walled village where she had lived since childhood very clearly. It wasn't until today, when she boarded the ferry and sailed on the bitter sea, that those distant memories flooded her mind like a tide.

Xia Yubing's eyes darted around, somewhat dazed. In her daze, she felt that the calm water beneath the small boat was not some boundless sea of ​​suffering where all living beings were drowning, but rather the reservoir that had once submerged her hometown.

(End of this chapter)