There is no guarantee for the lottery? So what?

#168 - Chapter 168 Time Jellyfish

"Fish on?"

Qi Jing looked at the fishing rod in Gou Dehao's hand; his fishing line was now directly beneath the vehicle.

Just as he was about to reel it in, Qi Jing's spider-sense suddenly went off.

What?

Qi Jing turned sharply, his gaze landing on a towering wave, surging towards them with the force of a thunderbolt.

Alarmed, he quickly donned his mask, plugged in his oxygen tank, and braced himself for the impending impact.

He attempted to use his Qinggong to bring Gou Dehao and the vehicle back to the giant ship, but to his shock, a blue energy shield suddenly appeared around the ship, an invisible barrier isolating it from the outside world.

"Grandpa Gou, quickly, get inside the car!" Qi Jing shouted anxiously.

Gou Dehao turned and saw the massive wave about to engulf everything; his expression changed drastically, and without a second glance, he hastily tossed the fish he had just caught into the car, scrambling in after it.

Qi Jing also quickly entered the car through another window.

Just as they were about to close the windows, the wave crashed violently into the vehicle like a ferocious beast, the powerful impact causing the small car to roll and spin in the water, each rotation accompanied by violent shaking and a strong sense of weightlessness.

Qi Jing and Gou Dehao gripped the seatbelts, bracing themselves against the roof to stay in their seats.

"Close the window!"

Why does this window have to be manually cranked to close!

Just a little more!

Whew~

Qi Jing and Gou Dehao endured the weightlessness and managed to close the window.

Thankfully, they were wearing anti-dizziness headbands, or they would have passed out long ago.

"A mere wave, nothing more."

Gou Dehao clutched his wine pot and laughed wildly, "Soon I'll have to trouble Old Mo Dog to come and save me again, hahaha!"

Listening to the laughter beside him, Qi Jing also felt a sense of exhilaration.

Wait, why is this feeling of weightlessness getting stronger and stronger?

Not only that, but his eyelids are also getting heavier and heavier.

It feels like something is crawling on his leg.

He strained his eyelids and looked down at his calf, discovering a transparent ribbon.

What is this?

Qi Jing followed the ribbon back.

There were actually other ribbons around this ribbon, dense and constantly wriggling.

They were wrapped around Gou Dehao's body, ending in a transparent, soft membrane covering his head.

It's a jellyfish!

What he had just fished up wasn't a porpoise, it was a jellyfish!

It had actually enveloped Grandpa Gou!

Just as Qi Jing was about to cut it, he suddenly felt his consciousness falling into a black hole.

Poison!

The car sank into the boundless silence underwater.

......

When Qi Jing woke up, he found himself in an unfamiliar place.

Before him was an endless sea, and beneath his feet was a sandy beach.

"Little Qi, you're here too."

Qi Jing turned and saw Gou Dehao standing behind him.

"Where are we?"

Qi Jing was confused; weren't they poisoned by the jellyfish? How did they end up here after waking up?

Could it be that they had been rescued?

"In the past."

"The past?"

"Yes, you saw that jellyfish just now, right? It's called a Time Jellyfish; when it hunts, it wraps its body around its prey, pulling them into their most painful memories.

It makes them relive their most painful experiences, killing them with memories."

Gou Dehao looked at Qi Jing, sighed, and continued, "At the same time, its tentacles also pull anyone who comes into contact with it into the memories, preventing a third party from ambushing it while it's hunting."

Gou Dehao smiled.

"However, if the person pulled into the memories is not defeated, then they will wake up at the end of this memory.

The Time Jellyfish itself doesn't have much offensive power; each of its hunts is a gamble on whether the other person can face their own fears; win, and it gets a feast; lose, and it loses its life.

But this time, it ran into me; it's just unlucky."

Watching the slightly bitter smile on Gou Dehao's face, Qi Jing asked, "Grandpa Gou, then where is this place?"

Hearing Qi Jing's question, Gou Dehao turned his back and looked at the small island, "This, is where my son is buried."

In that instant, Qi Jing seemed to see the old man's back stoop a little.

"My son, born in the year of the dragon; from a young age, I hoped he would become a dragon, but I never expected him to be eaten by a fish."

Gou Dehao's voice was calm, as if he had already accepted his son's death.

He turned around, patted Qi Jing on the back, and said, "It's good to be able to see my son again, let's go."

Then, Gou Dehao led Qi Jing towards the interior of the island.

Qi Jing silently followed behind; he knew that now was not the time to ask questions.

This was Grandpa Gou's saddest time, and since he wasn't good at comforting people, he would just stay quiet.

"This is Island Number Seventy-Seven; remember the story I told you about the Deep Sea Giant Turtle?" Gou Dehao asked Qi Jing as they walked.

"Yes," Qi Jing nodded.

"After we killed the Deep Sea Giant Turtle, we used its body to build the outer city gate of Bixiao City.

The huge commotion scared away all the surrounding creatures.

At that time, we used flying ability users and airplanes to confirm that there were a total of one hundred and eight islands in this archipelago; we only occupied two, Yuan Island and Bi Island.

The remaining islands were occupied by the four major sea tribes.

How could we allow others to snore beside our bed? If they discovered the other-dimensional gate, they would definitely fight to the death to seize it.

We immediately decided to drive them all out of this archipelago or kill them all.

Then, we used these two islands as a base to expand outwards."

Gou Dehao put his hands behind his back and sighed, "Back then, we didn't have Source Energy cultivation methods, no teleportation gates, no Painless Armbands, and no Source Stones that could convert Source Energy into usable energy.

We only had our own abilities, and guns and airplanes.

We could only sail our small iron boats to attack each island one by one.

But those sea tribes weren't stupid either; when we spent a great price to destroy one tribe and began to attack the second tribe, they actually united to resist our attacks."

That's not right, back then, Grandpa Hong should have been able to kill them all, right?

Seeing the confused look in Qi Jing's eyes, Gou Dehao immediately knew what he was thinking, "You must be thinking, didn't we have five top-level ability users back then? Why didn't we send them to fight, right?"

Qi Jing nodded.

"That's what we thought at the time too; as the first step of the operation, we sent [Bucai] and [Wen Huang], two level-five ability users, to freeze them all, island by island.

We didn't expect that they would lose contact as soon as they left.

We sent invisible ability users to investigate, but they didn't find anything at all.

So, we gave up the plan of letting the remaining level-five ability users attack alone, because each of them was an extremely important strategic resource; losing one would be a serious blow, let alone two disappearing together.

Soldiers can die, but they can't die without knowing why, they can't die without any value."