Chapter 4

A distance of three hundred meters would not have been a problem for the Left Qingcang of his previous life, or for Liu Zhicheng in good condition. However, for the current Left Qingcang, who was feeling weak and sore all over, it was a journey that required gritting his teeth and persevering.

He swam toward the other person bit by bit, then carefully grabbed the other end of the wooden board, while his other hand held onto a stone, slowly approaching the person on the board.

Left Qingcang suddenly flipped the man's body over, but the pale, smiling face he had imagined did not appear. Instead, it was a face that was purple and blue. Left Qingcang had seen too many such faces in his previous life; they were the faces of the dead.

He reached out and pressed his hand against the man's neck, but felt no pulse at all.

"Dead?"

Not interested in lamenting the fact that the only compatriot he had encountered was dead, Left Qingcang began to drag the man's body toward the shore, intending to check if there was anything on the body that he could use. Now that he was stranded on a deserted island, even a small knife or a packet of food could be of great help to him.

After great effort, he finally dragged the man's body to the shore and lay down on the beach to catch his breath. The series of movements had made his already exhausted body even more tired.

After resting for about five minutes, he slowly got up and began to examine the man's body.

At this point, Left Qingcang had the leisure to carefully examine the man's clothing. A red robe, a crystal hairpin on his head, and a jade plaque at his waist. According to Liu Zhicheng's memory, this should be a Daoist priest appointed by the Great Qi Dynasty.

So-called appointed Daoist priests are those who are personally appointed and recognized by the court, enjoying a status equivalent to officials from the ninth to the first rank. According to Liu Zhicheng's memory, these appointed Daoist priests are all true practitioners of Daoist and immortal arts, possessing powerful magical abilities.

For example, the current national master of the Great Qi Dynasty, Ji Xingling, is said to have the ability to summon wind and rain and call upon ghosts and spirits. He is a popular figure in folk legends.

However, Left Qingcang came from a technological era and had never believed in such ghost and god stories. In his view, so-called Daoist priests and their immortal arts were nothing more than tricks to deceive the rulers of feudal dynasties to gain benefits. There were too many such figures in Earth's history.

Liu Zhicheng had not personally seen Daoist arts and the many legends he had heard seemed very similar to the tricks on Earth's history, as seen by Left Qingcang.

However, the experience on the ship made Left Qingcang realize that this world was different from the past Earth. After all, this place was an alien world compared to Earth, and it was not impossible for the aliens here to have some special abilities.

Without spending too much time thinking about the Daoist's identity, Left Qingcang directly opened the man's outer clothing. He found a dagger at the man's waist and a small bundle on his chest. Inside the small bundle was a palm-sized box, a book, and some bottles and jars.

The bundle seemed to be made from the skin of some animal and appeared to have excellent waterproofing, as the items inside were mostly dry.

These items were placed close to the body, clearly indicating that they were important to the man.

Left Qingcang attached the dagger to his belt and picked up the book first. The text on it was completely different from that on Earth, but fortunately, Liu Zhicheng could read it, so it did not affect Left Qingcang's ability to read the book.

The cover of the book read "The Divine Mirror of the Fire Baptism" in large characters. Left Qingcang flipped through it and found that it seemed to be about some divine and natural things, extremely obscure and difficult to understand. He shook his head and casually threw it on the ground.

Next, he picked up the bottles and jars. There were five small bottles, each about the size of a thumb, in red, green, yellow, blue, and purple. However, there were no words written on them, indicating that the Daoist identified them by color.

Left Qingcang picked up the red bottle, carefully unscrewed the cap, and looked inside, finding what seemed to be white metal powder. He then opened the other small bottles one by one, which contained different colored metal powders and liquids.

In Liu Zhicheng's memory, everything about Daoists was mysterious and strange, and he knew nothing about it.

In Left Qingcang's memory, these items seemed to match the situation of Daoists using various materials to refine elixirs in Earth's history. He guessed that these materials might be similar to iron, carbon, lead, and mercury. These things, which were extremely precious to Daoists, were of no use to the current Left Qingcang.

Disappointed, he put the small bottles away and finally picked up the box. The box was made of silver-white metal, and Left Qingcang, feeling its weight, sensed something rolling inside. Based on the contents of the previous small bottles, he suspected that the contents of this box would not be of much help to his current situation.

As Left Qingcang opened the box, a silver-white bead the size of an eyeball appeared before him. The surface of the bead was extremely smooth, and Left Qingcang could clearly see his own face reflected in it, like a mirror. He found it hard to imagine that such a thing could be processed in the feudal society of the Great Qi Dynasty.

But why would such a small silver ball be placed close to the body?

While he was thinking about this, the silver ball suddenly started to jump and then melted like a candle, directly penetrating his finger and entering his body.

Left Qingcang immediately pulled his right hand back, but it was too late; most of the ball had already entered his index finger. He then tried to shake it off, but by the time he did, the ball had completely entered his right palm.

He stared at his palm, completely baffled by what had just happened.

"Could that thing be alive?" Seeing his hand, which looked exactly the same as before, Left Qingcang found it hard to believe that a lump of metal had just entered it.

After observing for about ten minutes, Left Qingcang could not figure out where the silver metal had gone. His body showed no signs of any abnormalities, and he even suspected that he might have hallucinated.

In the end, he could only give up and not worry about it.

"The things in this world seem to be getting stranger and stranger."

After searching the body, the most useful item for Left Qingcang was still the dagger. He temporarily piled the other items together and entered the nearby small forest.

After temporarily solving the water and plant problems with coconut leaves, he needed to start a fire to help him through the coming days. Fire is a great source of human progress; it would not only help Left Qingcang survive the cold nights but also help him cook food, send signals, and defend against possible animals.

In the forest, Left Qingcang gathered some relatively dry wood and grass and piled them together.

He then used the fire plow method to start the fire. Specifically, he used the dagger to cut a wooden handle and then dug a small groove in the wood. By rubbing the wooden handle back and forth in the groove, he created a substance similar to charcoal, which he then used to start the fire.

With water, food, and fire taken care of, Left Qingcang was temporarily safe for the day.

In the following days, his physical condition gradually recovered, and Left Qingcang demonstrated remarkable wilderness survival skills. He used bamboo from the forest to build a bed, used a bamboo spear to fish in the near sea, and used the fire to create a signal to attract passing ships.

The reason he had such proficient skills was that in his previous life, he had learned wilderness survival techniques from a man named Bear Grylls.

Two days passed quickly, and the beach area had become Left Qingcang's territory. With the help of coconuts, fish, and adequate sleep, his body had largely recovered. So this morning, after lighting the signal fire, he hung the dagger on his waist, held a spear in his hand, and walked along the beach.

His goal for the day was to walk around the island to see how big it was and whether there were any humans living there. He also wanted to find a water source.

It took Left Qingcang about half a day to walk around the island, and he found that it was not very large and was indeed a deserted island. The northern part was a cliff, while the southern part, where he was, was mainly a beach. He then planned to explore deeper into the forest and the island's interior to see if he could find a long-term water source.

During his free time, he passed the time by looking at the so-called "The Divine Mirror of the Fire Baptism," but found that it was full of obscure and difficult-to-understand text, with various metaphorical terms. Although he could understand each word, he could not understand the text as a whole, so he gave up reading it.

Although the situation did not look promising, and Left Qingcang did not know how long he would have to survive on the deserted island, he still maintained a positive attitude, a skill he had learned in his previous life, which was to never despair in any situation.

On the third day of arriving at the deserted island, with adequate food and sleep, Left Qingcang brought a coconut as dry rations, a small knife, a spear, and a rope made from dry grass, and set off toward the center of the island, wearing the Daoist's robe.

The island was indeed not very large, and Left Qingcang did not find any traces of large animals during his journey. However, the forest became denser, the path more difficult, and the light dimmer.

After about two hours of careful advancement, Left Qingcang made an unexpected discovery.

He found a cluster of buildings wrapped in trees. Due to their age, a large amount of vines and trees had grown in the gaps of the ruins, eventually enveloping the buildings, making them difficult to distinguish.

Left Qingcang swung his dagger and cut away the vines on a piece of building debris, discovering that it seemed to be the top of some structure, extending underground. He suspected that most of the buildings might have been buried by soil, decaying leaves, and rain.

Left Qingcang did not expect to see the ruins of human buildings on such a desolate island, which indicated that people had once lived there. He carefully examined the tops of the buildings in the forest and found many square holes, about the size of a human head.

These holes were strange; they seemed too small to be windows, as a person could only stick out their head, but small animals could easily pass through.

Left Qingcang looked at them curiously and continued toward the center of the island. The deeper he went, the more ruins and broken statues and pavilions he found, giving a strange and majestic feeling.

Looking at the buildings, Left Qingcang thought to himself, "Regardless of what ethnicity the people who built these structures were, their level of civilization does not seem to be lower than that of the Great Qi Dynasty. It is unlikely that such a civilization could have developed on such a small island."

But why did they build so many structures on a deserted island, and why did they leave?

At that moment, a branch snapped behind Left Qingcang. He quickly turned around and saw a green, vine-covered, grotesque face behind him.

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