Xu Wang does, indeed, spend a long time at Xu Mei’s door, reassuring and begging and at one point, even gently threatening her to open up and make the right choice, please, for him, for them, for the future.
But eventually he buys a clue, and realizes that even if it was just due to annoyance, by now, Xu Mei would have responded or at least stomped around. She’s never been the type to suffer in silence, she’s always had an amazing fire inside her.
Xu Wang curses himself for a fool and checks the bathroom and all the other unlocked doors before circling the building and finding her open window. Oh no. If this whole time, she’s been gone? Then what happens if she’s already cut the tubing to purpose or thrown it away in a fit of pique over it not fitting?!
He promised to fix it.
What if it’s too late? What then? How can he redeem them if she’s already gone off and done something unsolvable with something so necessary to the survival of Ding Dongqi? How much danger must she be in, how far into a mistake must he have allowed her to wade through his own weakness?!
Xu Wang runs towards the boat house and prays that it’s not too late.
He feels damnation chasing behind him.
—
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
The trick is to take deep, slow breaths and to push her lungs to the limits. Just long enough, just until someone notices. The carbon dioxide isn’t a problem right away. She can just wait- Just persist-
She can’t cry. If she cries, she’ll go shallow. If she goes shallow, she’ll die. She knows that, from a hundred safety courses and what feels like a thousand dives.
At least she’s not trapped in some cramped cave. At least she’s close enough to the surface for her fingers to touch air. As soon as anyone comes, as soon as they look, they’ll see her. She won’t be forgotten here.
She won’t-
She can’t cry, if she cries, she’ll poison her air.
She wants Xu Wang. She wants her dad and her mom.
Xu Mei wiggles her waist slowly– slowly enough to not increase her heart rate, not by too much– just enough to check that somehow, she’s still caught in a rusted, seized up anchor chain. A chain that she must have swum through, but it doesn’t make sense, why she can’t swim back out-
She refuses to drown in water this shallow.
She refuses to be the championship swimmer that drowns by the shore, she refuses to be a cautionary tale for parents to scare children with, she refuses to not be in control of her destiny. Herself.
She refuses.
She breathes through her stolen rubber hose, in until her lungs feel like they’re about to burst, out until her ribcage feels hollow as bird bones. The first few breaths were the worst– salt and bile and ground up chicken marrow sliding into her mouth– but now, the hose is her only hope, and every laborious breath is a gift.
Xu Wang-
Xu Wang will come. She has faith in him.
Xu Wang loves her enough to stand by and let her kill someone, even though he had to leave the army over his inability to fire his gun. She knows that he cares, just as much as she does, but he’s always been better at showing it, never been weak like her, who can only cover up her insecurity with hollow barbs.
He’s a good cousin.
He even helped her get this job. Female deckhands aren’t popular at all. No one thinks that they have the power or the work ethic of a man, but Xu Wang had risked his own good name to get her a chance to prove her worth. A very good cousin.
She just has to keep breathing, she just can’t let the carbon dioxide overtake the oxygen, and Xu Wang will come. She just has to last a little longer, be a little stronger, and it will be okay.
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.
Vtf’ii ufa ab rff tfg qjgfcar-
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..
…
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Vtf mjc rwfii wbw’r olrttfjv rafk bc atf mbbxabq wlzfv klat mtjgmbfi ygldefaafr atja yegc rbbas jcv ragbcu, atf rmfca bo tfg mtlivtbbv atja rtf ibnfv, fnfc atbeut jr j affcjufg rtf qgfafcvfv ab vlrvjlc la jr qfjrjca’r ygbat.
And there, at the edge, by the open window is the acrid smell of her father’s pipe, down to one session a day to keep his wife from worrying about his lungs. She can smell the petrol of the boats just off the edge, and hear the cries of the ever-present gulls.
In the distance, she thinks she can hear the sound of her cousin’s bicycle bell, as he races down the wharf to bring her that latest news about the jobs at the nice marina, and someone who is selling cheap uniform clothes that they can wear for their interview photos.
She cries in joy and relief.
She didn’t know she could miss this broken little house so much. Only now does she feel the safety and love that have always whistled through it. Nothing bad can happen as long as her mom and dad are still there, immovable and steady as giants.
Everything is fine.
Everything is fine and she’s back in bed at her family home, her mother brushing her hair and softly chiding her about how yachting isn’t a good career for a girl, and it’s time to settle down and meet someone good for her. She opens her eyes and sees her mother’s tired, loving smile.
For the first time in a long time, she returns it with no resentment.
I know Mom.
I won’t leave home again, and I’ll give you big fat grandchildren, how about it?
—
On the water’s surface, a clear bit of tubing floats up and curls into a circle, docilely waiting to be picked up and be returned to its rightful owner.
—
Shan Yutian isn’t like Shan Haoyu.
They’ve never discussed it, but he knows that he can’t feel things the way his brother can. But he knows enough. Knows enough that when he sees the young woman running, he bites his lips. Knows enough that when the clear blue sky turns to that familiar overcast gray, his hands tremble.
He knows enough that when he sees the poor medic chasing after, far too late for whatever the island has done, he feels his soul quake.
He likes Xu Wang. Likes him almost as much as he likes Zhou-ge.
Xu Wang isn’t as perfect. Xu Wang is a bit scared of them, and he keeps secrets. But he’s still nice. He still helps people, and once cared enough to go to school just to learn how to help people better. Shan Yutian likes that about him, a lot.
He doesn’t want him to be unhappy, or hurt, or whatever he’ll be, once the island is done.
Shan Yutian worries the dishcloth between his hands and tries a skill that he’s not very good at–
He wishes, hard, for Xu Wang’s friends to head to the boathouse.
He’d go himself, but Xu Wang is already afraid of them. If he shows up right as something bad is happening, it won’t be a comfort. It will be a twisting knife. And for all the mistakes in his past, and all that’s happened… Shan Yutian doesn’t like hurting people.
He doesn’t even like watching it happen, not even when it’s on his behalf. Especially not then.
Shan Yutian feels misery-tinged relief, when he sees most of the yacht crew headed in that direction.
Good then. As long as he’s supported. That’s-
That’s better. It’s not good. It won’t be enough to make it okay, he’s sure, but… This is the best he can manage. He returns to cleaning up the half-made lemonade and the bloody strawberries on the counter, and he quietly mourns the peace falling apart around them.
He cuts his own fingers a few times, just to see if they’ll still bleed, or if that too will be taken away from him.
—
At first, Xu Wang thinks it’s lotus roots, peeking through the top of the water.
It doesn’t make sense, this is salt, not fresh, but what else could it be?
It has to be a lotus, or at least definitely has to be some sort of waterplant- what else would be so pale and slim and skimming the surface, if not a sunlight-drinking flower trying to escape the gloominess?
Something had probably been mucking around in the mud, and the roots had been overturned, and now it was the lotus’ chance to escape to a brighter nursery. Maybe it was one of his friends that found the thing as they scrapped the boat, and specially moved it a bit so that they’d have a nice surprise when it finally bloomed.
That’s nice of them.
Yes. It has to be lotus roots. Most definitely. Lotus roots and black seaweed.
Nothing else should be planted here. Nothing else should-
Xu Wang walks forward, with that kind of hysterical giggle wedged deep in his stomach, just waiting to burst out. He feels lightheaded, and floaty, and like he’s doing something very stupid, by walking across those planks and towards the ‘lotus.’
In the crease of his elbow and behind his knees, he feels an electric kind of sickness building, like he’s about to vomit or collapse or he ran even faster than he thought and he really can’t deal with the aftereffects. He shouldn’t walk towards it.
But he’s not in control of himself. He’s-
He’s the boy that taught Xu Mei how to catch catfish with bean paste. He’s the medic that knows that you have to render aid. He’s both at once, and it’s left him in this shifting, miserable state where he can’t move forward and can’t move back. He thinks he might be breaking apart, right here against the boards. He thinks he’s going mad.
He thinks he might prefer that.
He keeps hoping that she’ll pop out and berate him for being so slow on the uptake, and not realizing that she went out the window like when they were younger and she convinced him to sneak her into one of those fancy parties as a member of the waitstaff. He keeps hoping that he’ll feel the sensation of falling, and wake up in his bed, this all a nightmare.
He’s hoping for many things that he knows won’t come to pass.
For once, the water is cruelly unclouded, like all the silt and muck and murkiness that he’s grown accustomed to has been cleared away, just so he can see what’s waiting for him.
When he reaches the other side of the boat, he can see with terrible clarity his ‘lotus.’
Wide eyed. Still.
Smiling.
A coiled piece of clear rubber pipe floating above her head like a halo that’s lost its shine.
Xu Wang’s lungs empty out, but he still jumps in on instinct and attacks the brown iron that he can see wrapped around her waist. He still pulls her cold body from the water and throws her on the dock, like the shock of it will wake her up. He still slams into her ribs, hard enough to crack them, as he wills his stupid fucking hands to create a miracle again.
The blood from where the rusty chain cut him colors her skin in rivulets of scarlet.
CPR doesn’t work like that, but it does on this island.
He just needs it to work when it shouldn’t.
Just-
Just one more time.
Just- Just once more, and he swears, he’ll spend the rest of his life saving others. Bedpans, degradation, low wages and harsh hours– He’ll take it and leave all his other dreams behind, if he can just bring someone back to life when they shouldn’t be, one. more. time.
He compresses and he breathes for her and he reminds himself, over and over, that ‘you’re not dead until you’re warm and dead,’ and Xu Mei is still far too chilly to call-
She’s always hated the cold.
He keeps working.
He doesn’t let his rhythm be interrupted even as he hears the sounds of people getting closer, even as he feels the vibrations of their footfalls against the wobbly, half-rotten dock. Even when he hears a scream and a curse and a gasp, he keeps working.
He has to keep working.
He has to bring Xu Mei back for Auntie and Uncle. They’re both so old, and they love her so much, and there’s that chest at the foot of their bed, with the linens and the silk that Auntie has been carefully putting away for years and years, so her daughter can be proud when she finds a man and marries in.
If he stops, if he calls it, then it’s over. It’s over, so he can’t stop.
He has to bring Xu Mei back.
He had to give the island’s magic just a little longer to work, just a little longer, just a few more breaths and she’ll push him away and call him a donkey and-
Just a little longer, and she’ll-
—
It’s a sobbing Di Qing that eventually pulls Xu Wang away from Xu Mei’s body.
He has to. She’s gone, her sternum is so fractured that the dip is visible, underneath her bruised skin. She’s gone, and Xu Wang is so far gone alongside her that he hasn’t realized that he’s hyperventilating, and isn’t even pushing air into her anymore.
Engineer Di’s in charge of pulling Xu Wang away, like his shattered friend is another tool for him to fix, but he doesn’t have the parts for this at all. He can’t even bear to look at her, or him, or the boat or anything in this horror that’s become so suddenly real after weeks of vague uneasiness.
He wishes they’d never started down this road at all.
Wang Xi whispers apologies and covers Xu Wang’s eyes and helps hug-walk him back out, away from the scene of the crime. Wang Bohai helps hold him down, once they’re outside the boathouse.
Fang Daiyu is the one left to kneel down, button her friend’s shirt back up, and close her unseeing eyes. With her shirt back on and her eyes closed, the smile makes it look peaceful, but what’s peaceful about the 28 year old dying?
Eventually, someone comes with a tarp, and Xu Mei is tenderly shrouded and carried out.
But they don’t know what to do with her body.
For all their fears of this place, they’re not prepared for something as concrete as a silent, still body. Not prepared for this at all.
Author’s Corner: 
All pitiful people have hateful aspects– but I prefer the reserve:
All hateful people are also pitiful. Not that it means they can get away with hurting others, ah.
Well, at least the island didn’t make her suffer much?
But is that a kindness meant for her, or for Xu Wang? Or Zhou Xiwei, who can’t stand the sight of blood? More importantly, is this the kind of thing to calm the crew down, or set them on fire?
i’m 50/50 on the last one but there’s more chance of this event setting them on a slow fire that will slowly burn them
+1 I get that feeling, too.
And I know he didn’t do right by not being more forceful about stopping her, but still, poor Xu Wang.
It’s terribly hard to be human. You can be a hateful person and still have true loved ones you take care of. Nobody is bad bad. Still she kinda deserves it (I’m petty like Uto she made Zhou Xiwei and Xu Wang sad okay ?) Poor Uncle and Auntie.
If there’s enough superstition among them, this would be the point where they form a cult and throw one of their own into the volcano every so often.
This is going to split the yacht group. And it’s going to be an ugly split.