The pale blue sky gradually turned into sapphire blue, and then gradually turned indigo, and soon after, the fish-scale clouds were burned orange-red by the setting sun, and the sea surface on one side of the speedboat seemed to be dotted with countless gems, scattering light, and the other side was deeper and deeper, like a solidified stone, Takakawa didn't know if this strange scene was the daily life on the sea, but in his eyes, it was a strange and shocking scene that he had never seen before. The speedboat seemed to sail on the dividing line of the sea that had been split in half by might, and the scene that had gradually become dull in the past ten hours or so was exuding a heavy pressure, even if the sea was so vast, it still made Gao Chuan feel that he was being squeezed by some invisible and infinite thing.

This is a spectacle that makes people reluctant to look away, but the more they look at it, the more suffocating they feel.

Takakawa had a premonition that something special would happen after more than ten hours of an ordinary journey without any sense of mystery.

He and the new Titanic have long lost contact, although they are carrying communication devices on their bodies and ships, however, since the new Titanic was involved in mysterious events as planned, communication with the outside world has been intermittent, until now, he is driving a speedboat alone on the sea, and he has completely fallen into a situation of isolation from the outside world - for Gao Chuan, who has experienced too many mysterious events, this is not a new situation.

Because of the relationship between the prosthesis, Gao Chuan can not eat for a long time, under normal circumstances, the operation of objects requires energy, Gao Chuan feels that the prosthesis must be the same, but the way the prosthetic body replenishes energy may be a little different from common sense, at least, Gao Chuan has never fallen into the dilemma of lack of energy and unable to operate the prosthesis - in short, although it has not been specifically tested, however, normal eating does not seem to be necessary, and how long can it be maintained without eating in a normal way, Gao Chuan has not yet come to a bottom line. In the beginning, he had explored the ruins of the Ruling Authority while running out of ammunition, but before the prosthetic body was completely paralyzed, he had found energy bars full of the Ruling Authority's legacy features.

After the worldline change, the prosthetic body was in a state of extreme wear and injury, but after that, he was given a long time to recuperate, and the prosthetic's operation returned to its normal state again. In the midst of a battle that seemed to have terrible consequences, his combat attrition still hadn't reached the limits of his prosthetics.

Takakawa found the battle difficult, but, judging by the post-war statistics, he never reached the limit in the true sense of the word. Even when death is imminent, it is because the situation of death completely exceeds the limit of what he can bear, and then this limit cannot be clearly compared.

Gao Chuan didn't have a very clear and accurate understanding of his limits, but he didn't think it was a bad thing. It would be great if things could be solved without going to the limit. If something can't be solved at the limit, then there's no need to worry too much, because that's not something you can fix yourself. If the things he encountered were limited to these two things, in a sense, he felt that he was lucky.

Before the sky darkened completely and the sunlight disappeared at sea level, Takakawa shot a few fish from a speedboat to make dinner. The speedboat is not large, but it also has a canopy cabin. This cabin is both a wheelhouse and a living room, and even if it sinks into the sea, as long as it is within a certain pressure, the seawater cannot penetrate as long as it is still within the specified pressure. The cabin is equipped with a variety of portable products for daily life, such as a complete set of cooking utensils and cutlery.

Although the prosthetic body does not seem to need to replenish energy, Takakawa still tries to maintain a normal way of eating during this lonely journey because he is alone and unable to communicate with the outside world. He knows very well that this has no meaning for his body, but it is of great significance for his psychological adjustment - even if the brain is strong enough to eliminate all the negative factors in the mind, he is no longer the prosthetic Gao Chuan who relied on the brain and hardware all the time.

There will be a big battle tonight, Takakawa has this intuition, he hopes to enjoy this rare calm daily life at sea before the big war comes.

The meals are all fish, with the head and guts removed, and everything else, including the bones, can be eaten. The only condiment to the grilled fish is salt, but it is particularly delicious in the current environment. The internal organs are actually edible, but Takagawa threw them away, leaving only the fish head to boil the thick soup, and after drinking it, the prosthetic part did not feel anything special, but the flesh and blood part still came with a calm and happy warmth. The feeling of his body splitting in half was bizarre, and Takakawa rarely had a chance to savor it, and he remembered that he had been in such a hurry for most of the past, whether in the Central Duchy or in London. In the days of cyberball, two-thirds of the time was spent in the adjustment warehouse as a corpse.

When there are many people around him, he will always find that the people around him are in danger, and he has to do something for them, and there is rarely a time like now, when he is completely alone, completely unconnected with the outside world, and completely calms down both good and bad things.

The more Takakawa thought about it, the more he felt that the current situation was so rare in his life. He can choose what to think and what not to think, rather than being forced to think in what direction he has to think in the direction that comes his own way. He began to feel that only in the short time now, he was free - he was indeed still thinking about the "virus", the "apocalypse", the "mystery and danger ahead", "philosophy, occultism and science", "the fate of the new Titanic and the plans organized by various forces", etc., there was not much difference between peace, but when he was thinking about these times, he felt a kind of freedom of choice - there was no sense of morality, mission and responsibility, and there was no external pressureto force him to think about these things or not to think about these things.

Takakawa felt that this was the reason why he suddenly liked this inevitably short period of peace - maybe it was an illusion, maybe it was the reward of life, and he was becoming unnecessary, as if there were no such people who were expecting something from him, and he didn't need to respond to these non-existent expectations, so he seemed to be liberated.

Although the sea makes me feel small, the more I think about it, the more I feel my stupidity, the more I seek the truth, the more I realize that I may be a mental patient, but these small, stupid, abnormal labels quietly melt and become meaningless, like muddy water gradually becoming clear in some invisible and transparent filter.

Gao Chuan suddenly gave birth to a sense of happiness, a feeling of no regrets that grew from every flesh and blood cell, from every subtle corner of the prosthesis. It made him feel that it was such a short period of time that made him know the meaning of his life in this world - what is the meaning of it? He couldn't tell, just from the data, it was just an illusion that the physiological hormones secreted in special circumstances were exacerbated, but he didn't want to use this cold and monotonous data to explain his emotions at this time.

It's beautiful, and it makes him feel so real and beautiful; It is also very independent and self-contained, making him feel that he is not a substitute at all, but a unique life.

Takakawa was immersed in this sudden beauty and happiness, listened to the sound of the waves, ate all the fish, drank all the fish head soup, did not sweep, felt a cigarette and lit it, and lay on the deck, looking at the rare night sky full of stars. The moon also seemed to be bigger and heavier than ever, and it felt more like a hard sphere than a white dish. Even if he only saw it with the naked eye, he felt that he could vaguely see the crater on the surface of the moon.

He spread his limbs and posed in large letters, still being led by the speedboat's automatic navigation system into the distance, he was not sure if the autopilot system was working, if he was really heading towards Australia, but, only for this time, he did not want to know these things.

Gao Chuan closed his eyes and didn't specifically count the time, all the information on the retina screen stopped being displayed, and the brain hardware seemed to stop working. The silence, the darkness that really has no superfluous information, is like a curtain falling. He had a sense of falling, he didn't know when he fell, where he fell, as if he was already in such a state of falling when he felt it. He didn't know whether the fall was straight or oblique, or around the bend, and he didn't know where the fall would take him, and whether there was an end.

Takakawa didn't think about anything, just felt the feeling of falling - he knew that he was dreaming, and this dream was not such a new dream. To be precise, the dream of falling like this is the most common dream among the few dreams that I have. As he had dreamed in the past, he felt that there was something in the deepest part of the bottomless abyss—it was staring at him, making a sound, as if it were talking to himself, as if it was talking to himself, but most of the time he didn't understand what it was saying.

In some other Takakawa, there was also the impression of the same dream, especially the young Takakawa, the impression he left was so deep and strong, he felt that it was "Jiang" - whether it was "Jiang" or not, or rather, it was a reflection of the lesions in Takakawa's body, and Takakawa of the prosthetic body could not be sure, but he did not have any sense of rejection in addition to fear. As the young Takagawa said, he didn't understand what kind of existence it was, but he could accept its existence. Even, no matter which Takakawa can feel its presence, he will like this incomprehensible sound.

This sound is different from any sound in nature, I can't say what is the difference, but I just feel different, when I hear it, it is not a natural sound, it is more like some complex language, similar to the language I am familiar with but I can't translate the two into each other. There is a feeling that you can understand the language, but only in a certain situation.

The voice was like chanting, it was like singing, sometimes it was an eerie prayer, sometimes it was a divine prophecy, sometimes it was the whisper of a predator, and sometimes it was a thorn that people could not help but embrace even though they knew they would be hurt.

I don't know how long it took, but an abnormal feeling made Takakawa suddenly jump out of this dream, open his eyes hard, and sit up from the deck. He didn't have the ignorance of just waking up, the operation of the brain hardware and the prosthetic body were all in a standard state like it had never stopped, and those perceptual things were cleaned up by the brain and hardware at the moment they all woke up.

Takakawa looked around from the deck and under the sea, but he didn't see anything unusual. He turned back to the cabin, checked the data on the monitoring equipment, compared it with the results of the chain judgment, and confirmed that although there was no phenomenon that he could observe, something was indeed happening.

Takakawa's instincts grew stronger and stronger, and he rechecked his gear and turned the speedboat up to the top gear. Now that the fish has bitten the hook, there is no need to wander like this. The end of the peaceful time is a little regrettable, but Takakawa feels that this is his own life - in the midst of mystery and crisis, he walks on thin ice to fight and find hope.

About a minute or so, a particularly ferocious wave hit and engulfed the speedboat. Gao Chuan tried his best to keep the speedboat from capsizing, and when he broke through the waves and returned to the sea, Gao Chuan had already turned on all the lights on the ship, because, at some point, the originally clear sky was already covered with lead clouds, and electric snakes were running, looking like a huge storm was brewing.

I don't know if it's a reflection or if there is really something, Takakawa saw that on the sea in front of the speedboat, there were two huge spots of light that were becoming more and more obvious - the light source came from the bottom of the sea, like the eyes of some kind of huge monster.

Sea monster? Such a thought flashed through Takakawa's mind. Anyway, since that thing was right in front of it, it was definitely not a good idea for the speedboat to go straight ahead. Takakawa turned off the automatic navigation system, leaving only some assistance systems to quickly turn the steering wheel. The speedboat made a circle with a radius of twenty meters, and the angle of inclination almost exposed most of the bottom of the boat.

Just as the hull of the ship was horizontal, parallel to the behemoth hiding in the sea, the thing suddenly popped up, and its huge body drove the seawater, forming a huge wave that submerged the speedboat entirely. Takakawa had closed the hatch and locked all the water holes, and the speedboat had temporarily turned into an airtight submarine, tumbling into the sea. Then, part of the figure of the behemoth, which had been captured by the machine, appeared on the retina screen - an octopus-like monster with a yellow body, a standard round head, several thick tentacles forming the body, and slightly more slender but more numerous tentacles forming the limbs, which appeared to be upright, rather than limp in the sea like an octopus. (To be continued.) )