Who medicates the medic? It’s not a rhetorical question, so much as an awkward reality that develops.
In this group, it falls to the yacht crew to baby Xu Wang back to consciousness after tripping over him on the way to wash up for lunch. He spends longer out cold against the scuffed tile than anyone would like to admit, and the guilt makes them be extra-conscientious towards their forgotten comrade. Even Captain Li learns how to fluff pillows.
Predictably, lunch falls apart.
Ding Dongqi being out of the picture– no matter how shocking his recovery and immediate re-injury was, at this point, it’s normal for him to be gone. Normal enough to eat through, even if the mood would be very subdued.
But now Xu Wang?
Even if he’s just got a bruise and low blood sugar, no one wants to leave him or go socialize. He’s their medic, he’s the one that knows how to keep the rest of them healthy. The fact that he’s seemingly been shaken to the point of his own self-injury is enough to make everyone panic about being in a worse situation than they’re admitting to themselves.
It’s enough to remind them that this place really is isolated. That when things go wrong, there’s none of the safety nets that they’ve grown up taking for granted and taking advantage of. There’s no police to call, limited medicine, and no one who can easily make it better, no surveillance or internet to keep them connected and make them omniscient like they can pretend to be in the rest of the world.
Despite being more used to hard living, the yacht crew end up being the most affected. Not just because of closeness, but because they’re the ones that learn the secret. They’re the ones that can taste the inauspiciousness, as Xu Wang wakes up and brings out a little tentacle, which is already shriveled and dry-
But if it dried out so quickly, how did it appear there, seemingly alive, weeks after-
“…Could it have been inside him?” All the men feel their stomachs turn at Xu Mei’s question. The mental image– such a thing, coming out, maybe even still carrying venom? That would certainly explain the screaming, and the blind fleeing. But-
“No. Not possible.”
No one in the world knows more about the state of Ding Dongqi’s urinary tract than Xu Wang now does, and as a nurse, at the very least, he knows how a cath works. No way something else was in there, past the initial insertion and the later pull. And if it was all the way up in his bladder? No way that it wasn’t eaten away.
Not a chance.
There’s no logical explanation at all, for why the tentacle would appear in the stall. And that’s the real thing worth screaming about. Especially since they’re not the types to tell Xu Wang that he’s mistaken, or imagining things, or just overwrought.
They believe in all sorts of dark things.
—
Yachties aren’t sailors, but there’s plenty of overlap.
Most of them are the children of fishermen or day workers, and grew up on the water, in stilted houses over fishmongers or down the street from processing plants and dry docks. They ate in the same cafeterias as those old salts, and grew up with a fearful wonder of the ocean– grew up hearing about who was lost, about storms that swallowed whole ships, about impossible things that swam underneath, once you got far enough away from civilization.
Engineer Di even had a brother who just left one day and never came back. That’s how he ended up being born. A replacement for the one that was lost. It’s a story that’s all too common.
Becoming a member of a yacht crew was an elevation, but their bones are still those of the seaside children. And those children are raised on superstitions. Superstitions that this island is starting to check off.
The storm that shouldn’t have existed, and the way it devoured the Ru Yi, in a manner that still didn’t make sense. The miracle of everyone surviving. The impossibility of this place, that they never saw on the horizon, that never appeared on their maps or in their lore or even on the comprehensive GPS.
In truth, they’ve had a prickling sense of unease since the very start.
This has just laid it bare and forced them to stop running from it.
The guests might be able to wave it away with black sand and gratitude, but the yacht crew has kept their awareness, and the raised hairs on the back of their necks tell them that they’re part of the stories that they grew up hearing repeated.
It was okay when things were fine, but now that someone is half-dead and the one of their own has been injured– Well, they won’t self-comfort to the point of walking into danger. Closing your ears and humming is fine, but not when the tiger is already snarling in your face.
Impossible or not, some things cannot be ignored.
There’s no way they can eat, with that kind of lore sitting heavy between them. It’s hard to dig in, when you’re suddenly remembering your grandmother’s stories about rotten food hidden behind a mirage and ghosts that only show their true form when seen under a full moon. Hard to act normal and nice with the locals, when they might be cultists or worse–
If there are ghost ships, why can’t there be ghost islands?
It doesn’t matter that Shan Haoyu, Shan Yutian, and Xi Kuang have been kind to them. They might be the kindest people in the world. But if this land is poison, if this is some portal to the underworld, if that volcano is actually one of the long-lost doors to hell–
Then it doesn’t matter how kind they are. The island is dangerous. They’re dangerous by association.
Waiting isn’t an option, if reality is starting to fray around them.
So they don’t eat lunch. They close themselves away and they share troubled looks. They don’t plot, not quite yet– but they do start to quietly talk. Share information and concerns and reasons why they are filial and pious and deserve to live. They think about ways that they could allow that to happen, without angering anything that they can’t afford to offend. Like the indifferent ocean, or ghosts that love to tear apart overconfident men.
Self-rescue is the most difficult skill to cultivate, and the most important. They silently pray and make promises to the heavens.
—
While everyone huddles in comforting groups, Zhou Xiwei just wants to be alone. He waves off Song Bai’s worried eyes and Shan Haoyu’s obvious concern and stumbles into his room. Into his room and straight into the wardrobe, just like when he was a kid.
He has to bend himself into the tightest v, just to get the doors to shut.
He knows he’s ridiculous.
He knows he shouldn’t have peeked. But he is, and he did. Saw the blood and the limpness of Ding Dongqi’s body and– Now he’s in the wardrobe again.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
It’s an insult to his parents memory, and a cruel indifference to Ding Dongqi’s present situation, to let one remind him of the other. He despises himself for this weakness, for not being the kind of man that can go carry a friend’s body, like all the rest of them can. He’s lacking. But he can’t help it, any more than he can help his need to be alone and in silence and surrounded by darkness, as he processes.
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Zhou Xiwei can take that devil’s bargain. He welcomes it.
.
..
…
Eventually, through the wooden planks, he hears the muffled sound of the door to their room opening, and feels the shift of another body pressing against the apron doors of his hiding place. Not trying to get in. Acting like a bulwark. Assuring him wordlessly that the doors won’t fly open, and he won’t be dragged to the psychiatrist. Providing the security of another person.
She’s a good sister.
She’s only two years older, but even at eleven, she knew how to be a protector. And blamed herself for being born a girl, as if the sexism that made the officers choose the younger son as the source of identification is her fault, and not theirs. Turns out, taking blame that doesn’t belong to them is a family resemblance.
But just like Song Bai, ever since that first time, when she didn’t know enough to protect him– ever since, Zhou Xiting has been his guardian. She’s less flashy than Song-ge, but she might know how to comfort him even better. Just like now– she doesn’t speak. She doesn’t talk through what’s wrong, she doesn’t try to cheer him up or minimize what has happened. She just lets him feel that she’s there. That she’ll participate, even in these rituals that he should have outgrown somewhere in middle school.
It makes the dark feel warmer. Makes the safety feel more real.
Makes Zhou Xiwei start silently crying all over again.
God, such a fucking wimp. Doesn’t deserve the people that he’s surrounded with.
All he wants is the kind of life where he doesn’t have to know these things about himself. Where he’s not constantly confronted with his own failings. He doesn’t want to know that he’s the type to fall apart over a grievous injury. He doesn’t want to know that he’s the type to panic and overthink about things as simple as telling the person he likes that he likes them.
He wants to be better.
Instead, he’s just… disappointingly him.
—
Every so often, there’s the creak of the door opening and the rustle of Zhou Xiting taking a break from her novel to shake her head. Father Song, Song Bai, Shan Haoyu, Shan Yutian– each of them comes to check on Zhou Xiwei. Each of them is quietly turned away by the bouncer in the linen dress.
Just like this, the entire day passes.
—
“He’s okay. Not great, not awake, but not dead.”
When Zhou Xiwei finally stumbles out of his hiding spot with legs so cramped that his sister has to half-carry him to bed and start massaging his calves, Zhou Xiting answers his most pressing question, even before he asks. Neck tight, he nods his head.
“Sorry.”
“Why sorry? It’s not like you had anything to do with it. Just a witness.”
Zhou Xiwei looks down guiltily and mutters, “But I thought harsh things about him.”
She sighs and hugs him, softly shifting from side to side. Rocking.
“He’s easy to think harsh things about.” As a single young lady, Zhou Xiting didn’t interact with Ding Dongqi much, but she still has an impression after years of watching him subtly clash with her brother. She’s confident in her assessment, but when Zhou Xiwei peers up, he looks scandalized. And tired. But mostly scandalized.
“Don’t- don’t say bad things about patients. It’s not good for them.”
“Okay, okay, nothing bad. As long as you know that you didn’t have anything to do with it. Not with him getting hurt, not with whatever that freakout was, not with any of it. The world is just like that sometimes.”
Uncontrollable. Vicious. Violent.
Zhou Xiwei knows. That’s why he does things like hide in wardrobes.
“Seemed busy earlier.”
“En. Uncle Song came by with a pep-talk planned. Song Bai with coconut macaroons that I still don’t know where he found ‘em-” She coughs and looks at the shaving filled plate, where a single macaroon remains of what once was clearly a small pile of them. “-Well, I’m sure we can find more.”
Zhou Xiwei’s lips tiredly twitch as she hurries on.
“And then your handsome little Yu’er” -blushing, don’t blush, not in front of your sister- “-came with a thermos of tea and some sort of book on cute animals– I guess that’s their version of eyebleach? Must be a family habit, because his little bro showed up a few hours later, with a plate of brownies and another thermos.”
“Oh? Brownies?”
Zhou Xiting turns around, works some magic, and Zhou Xiwei is presented with a plate that contains one macaroon and one and a half brownies. His sister twirls her ponytail into a thick snake, doing a very silly, very effective impression of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“…In my defense, being a bouncer is hard work. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to feel my tailbone when we wake up tomorrow.”
“Yes, you’ve suffered. Between that and testing for poison, you’re really a dedicated sister.”
This is why she’s the best.
Only she can give him space when he needs it and attention when he asks and even diversions, when he’s ready to stop thinking about heavy topics. Last he checked, his sister didn’t even particularly like chocolate (outside of little covered espresso beans)– yet just for the sake of making him laugh at her piggishness, she’d bravely sacrificed herself and spent the whole afternoon snacking.
Really a paragon of sisterly virtue. She should be sainted. Or at least given a medal, or something.
Instead, she has to settle for Zhou Xiwei splitting the last macaroon with her, as they sit on his bed and look morosely out the windows. He tilts, so that his head rests against her shoulder. He likes the reassuring up-down of her breaths.
“…I really liked it here.” His voice is small and tired.
“I know. You still can.” But it won’t be the same. It won’t be an unblemished mystery. Not now that an accident has turned into the disaster that the wreck should have been. He sighs and swallows another bite of brownie. A-Tian really is talented.
“Why are even the farthest places tainted?”
“I don’t know. But the worst is behind us, yeah?”
He hopes so. But there’s this churning feeling in his gut. This fear that everything is just beginning. It’s the same sense of dread that he felt that last night on the yacht, when everyone was still insisting the storm was just a flash in the pan. He hopes he’s wrong.
He’s afraid he isn’t.
—
They’re not the only pair of siblings feeling crushed this evening.
Across the sloping field, Shan Haoyu is taking a sledgehammer to the walls of the school building while his brother quietly watches. Like a caged animal throwing itself against the bars, nevermind the blood, Shan Haoyu punishes himself by punishing the environment he’s confined to.
Tonight, he’s ripping apart the nurses station. It hadn’t helped at all! It even made things worse, because at least if Ding Dongqi had died of an infection in the middle of the night, Zhou Xiwei wouldn’t have had to see him looking like that.
Wouldn’t be afraid of the island. He knows he’s afraid.
He can feel it. He saw it.
He failed him.
He shatters the vials of drugs that hurt instead or healed and tears down the wellness charts that are already brittle with age and rips into the first aid manuals and diagnostic books. As he wrecks the building, he starts to wreck himself as well– long black cracks spread out from his sternum, winding up his neck and down his shoulders, making him look like a forgotten porcelain doll that will shatter as soon as you touch it.
“Da-ge, please calm down.”
The cracks continue to spread, and Shan Yutian stands up. Grabs the sledgehammer, even though he can’t possibly pull it away if Shan Haoyu is even halfway determined. But Shan Haoyu won’t risk hurting him. Shan Yutian holds onto that, as he tries to save him.
“Da-ge, you’re scaring me!”
Shan Haoyu stops.
Chest heaving, he closes his eyes and lets go of the sledgehammer. A-Tian very nearly collapses when its full weight falls to him. After a long time– too long, long enough for Shan Yutian to worry this is the time he’ll truly lose him, to feel the terror bubbling up and choking him– eventually, the cracks retreat, and Shan Haoyu is just a normal, heartbroken human again.
Familiar. Not about to leave forever.
Shan Yutian throws himself into his arms and squeezes. Cries and trembles and softly chides:
“Don’t do these things.”
“It will fix itself anyway.”
“Don’t do these things.”
“Giving him treatment was a mistake.”
“Don’t do these things.”
“…Okay. Brother knows his wrongs.”
Shan Yutian keeps holding on. And pushes his luck, because he doesn’t want this to turn into a full-blown relapse, “It wasn’t a mistake. It makes you good. Zhou-ge is good. And you should be good with him. We can both be. Then, maybe the island will be as well.”
That’s what Shan Haoyu had been counting on, A-Tian knows.
His brother, who forgot what hope was, had hoped.
He’d remembered a little of what peace meant, and had fallen in love with it all over again. Had fallen in love with the idea of a life with Zhou Xiwei. That’s why he’s now so much more enraged, the worst he’s been since this all started, since that man had… Shan Yutian shakes his head and focuses on taking the type of deep, slow breaths that will allow him to keep his brother steady.
Keep him from shattering again.
His brother, him, them both- had been hoping that the sun and the peace and the delicious food that appeared in their larders whenever they needed it– he’d been hoping that meant that the island really could change. That Zhou Xiwei was all it would take, for this to be a paradise again, instead of a forgotten graveyard. He’d hoped that they just weren’t good enough, that they were worth being punished, but that if they just learned from Zhou-ge, they’d be able to be better.
To be happy again, instead of just clinging miserably to one another in this place that shouldn’t exist.
And then the island had played on of its favorite tricks, and Shan Haoyu had-
Had actually held it together, for a while. After all, the guy wasn’t dead. That was still an improvement. But then his da-ge had gone to visit the first person he’s ever had those kinds of feelings for, and had found him hiding in a closet. Had found him closing himself off.
Then, his brother had started to go mad again.
Shan Yutian holds him tighter, like he can hold him together with the force of his arms alone.
—
Barely a day after Ding Dongqi’s ill-fated fall, the yacht crew slowly slide into action.
Director Xi seems like the easiest mark.
Well, actually, the little kid is, but it’s not like a teenager would know much of anything about sailing. Especially not with such an obviously involved older brother constantly flitting around and making sure that the boy was safe in a way that seems to preclude seabound journeys.
Looking back, it’s a little surprising that he even let the kid participate in their rescue, actually.
But that Director dude–
He’s clearly originally from somewhere else, and as the school director, was surely the one in charge of things like deliveries and ferries and such in the past. Given the tendency of all beings towards inertia, it seems reasonable that he’s still the one with the best knowledge of things like currents and headings and-
Ways to escape this island.
The trick is to grab the answers from him without alerting anyone. Including the man being questioned. After all, plenty of ghost stories have twists. Everything that happened might just be crazy chance and bad luck, but the yacht crew aren’t willing to take any chances.
Well, other than the chef, who declared them all, “fucking coconut crazy” and had refused to participate. It became quite awkward, when not even his boyfriend Wang Xi was able to convince him to join their little conspiracy. Now, the lovers were in a cold war, he was getting drunk in a root cellar, and they were having to expedite their plan, just in case Chef Bohai got toasted enough to throw one of his (in)famous confrontational dinner parties.
With possible ghosts.
This was the problem with dating strict materialists. They definitely had a knack for getting you chased by ghosts, pranked by spirits, or just annoyed to the point of dying yourself! What a completely moron, what cannon-fodder bullshit, what a-!!
“It’s not his fault, he grew up in a restaurant.” Wang Xi defends his lover. He can say those kinds of things about Bohai, but others can’t!
Engineer Di responds to his defense with a punch to the shoulder.
“I’m not blaming him. I’m blaming you for thinking with your lower half! And breaking the rules against boat romances.”
“…Everyone breaks that rule. Every season.” Two years ago, Di Qing hooked up with not one, but two shipmates. Created an amazingly messy fight between the interior and the deck crew. Psha, lower half!
“And they always get shit for it. This time, it’s your fault. Especially if we get eaten by you know what’s because he’s pouting about not getting to treat this as a vacation.”
“Hush.”
In an effort to (un)ruffle some feathers, Junior Stew Wang had offered to be in the information-gathering party alongside a mostly-recovered Engineer Di. And now he has to spend half his effort defending his lover and the other half trying not to fall and break his neck, as they troop around the island and try to ‘coincidentally stumble upon’ the surprisingly hard-to-find old director uncle.
They’ve checked the bungalows (which is how they know Bohai is pouting and drinking some questionable old cooking wine that mysteriously appeared in an overlooked crate a few days ago). They’ve checked the school (which is an extra stressful place, now that they’re thinking about ghosts).
They know for a fact that he’s not in the dormitory.
Now, they’re stuck walking the barely-there path towards the stomach-flipping site of Ding Dongqi’s fall. They won’t go all the way (gods willing), but according to Young Lady Zhou, there’s a whole plot of lovingly tended plants over that way, and Director Xi is their primary custodial parent.
Wang Xi and Di Qing’s shudders are synchronized, as they turn the corner and the black spires of the broken volcano overtake the horizon. Another point in the favor of this being a cursed place– the whole crew agrees that the ridge didn’t look nearly as sharp or ominous, before it got some blood to feed it.
No matter what Bohai says, it’s not just ‘group hysteria’ and ‘seeing patterns where none exist, because you’d rather believe in fucking what? Cannibal mountains? Instead of admitting that the world just is what it is, good and bad and overwhelmingly indifferent.’
…The guy is funny as shit and great in bed, but sometimes, he’s really unloveable, bleh.
“Come on. I think this is where the Young Miss said to turn off the path.”
Wang Xi shakes his head and follows Di Qing’s lead, turning to the left and hoping there’s no snakes in the grass. He hopes this doesn’t take too long. Even fighting one another, even offended at his boyfriend implying that he’s dumb for believing what he does–
He still wants to hurry to their home and stop him from drinking himself stupid.
Author’s Corner:
We’ve made it through the medical gore, promise!
Now to watch the world’s worst Scooby Gang try to find their way out while Zhou Xiwei and Shan Haoyu bond and become cute lil sweethearts.
Thanks for the chapter ! ^^
i fear about how zhou xiwei will react when he learns of the true nature of uto… not because the bastard suffered (maybe a little actually but i’m not really sure), but probably that he’s still in pain because he hoped for him not to die
The ” he’s just disappointingly… Him” kinda hurt me deep between the ribs like outch. Very good chapter, the worst Scooby gang killed me (in a good way not an Uto way) (ʘᴗʘ✿)
As someone in the medical field who (intentionally) chose a subspecialty that doesn’t involve direct patient care, I feel for Xu Wang having to work beyond what his training prepared him for. So props to him for trying so hard for his patient even if it involves finding mysterious jellyfish appendages where they absolutely should not have been and subsequently passing out.
I hope whenever the next thing happens, Zhou Xiwei will let Shan Haoyu be the safe closet. He might be able to convince him that sensitivity is a trait, not a weakness. It is reassuring to be reminded how close both pairs of siblings are though.
Ahah the Scooby Gang.. let’s see what they can find out XD