Dawn of a New Era - Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Golden Sand

Translator: Lordbluefire Editor: Lordbluefire
Chen Shouyi wiped away the saliva on his face. All of a sudden, he felt like he was an extremely evil villain.

However, he wasn’t prepared to release her.

Since he had captured her using his own capabilities, why should he release her?

He placed the shell girl onto the ground. The first end of the rope was tied to her leg and the other end was tied to a blade of grass.

After that, he took his wooden rod and began to practice his sword techniques.

He instantly felt the difference between training here and training on Earth.

Under the gravity of this world, he felt every time he exerted strength, his reactions would be slow and heavy. His muscles were like rusted machinery and it was quite strenuous. It was as though he had returned to those days where he had just learned sword techniques. All his movements here weren’t as smooth and as proficient as on Earth.

Also, after practicing for a few minutes, his muscles would start to throb with pain as they spasmed. He had to rest for a while before he could continue.

However, the more severe the environment was, the better the training effect would be.

He could feel that as long as he managed to train to the point where he could unleash his moves at will in the Otherworld, his sword techniques would improve by another level.

…

In the meantime, taking advantage of the fact that Chen Shouyi wasn’t paying attention, the shell girl constantly tried looking for ways to escape.

…

First, her brows were beaded with sweat from the effort of trying to remove the rope on her leg. Sadly, it was tied in a dead knot. With her weak body, she wasn’t above to undo it even after trying for an extremely long time.

After that, she started to attack that tiny blade of grass.

It was a tiny blade of grass to Chen Shouyi. But to the shell girl, it was something thicker than her thigh.

No matter how she struggled or using her teeth to bite, she wasn’t able to break the blade of grass despite exhausting all her strength.

She finally gave up. She sat on the ground helplessly with a face of numbness and despair. Maybe because she was thinking of her future that would now be shrouded in darkness, a row of tears slowly flowed down her face. She seemed truly sad and pitiful.

Gradually, she began to feel hungry. She flew to the nearby flowers and drank a meal of nectar before submitting to her fate and coming back to sit down.

…

Time slowly flowed and the sun gradually set. At this moment, Chen Shouyi began to feel hungry and finally stopped. He discovered that his planning was somewhat off. If he had known about this earlier, he would have brought some food with him.

After that, he turned around and discovered a grain of sand clutched in the shell girl’s tiny hand. She was tossing it about, seemingly to amuse herself.

At the start, Chen Shouyi didn’t pay too much attention to that. But when a flash of golden light manifested, his sharp senses realized that something was strange.

He walked over and caused the shell girl to be so scared that she tossed the grain of sand away, retreating.

However, Chen Shouyi’s target wasn’t her. It was the grain of sand she had thrown away.

He carefully picked it up. That grain of sand was only the size of a sesame seed, yet it shone with a golden luster.

This kind of soul-stirring color caused his heart to pound rapidly.

“Gold!” Chen Shouyi almost exclaimed out loud.

There was actually gold on this island!

He hurriedly examined the sandy soil, yet he discovered nothing.

“Where did you find it?”

“@￥#%&;@,” mumbled the shell girl in a strange language while doing her utmost to shake her head, tears flowing from her eyes.

It was clear that she had no way to understand him.

Chen Shouyi was patient. He pointed to the golden sand and pointed to himself. After that, he made a gesture that indicated that this item belonged to him.

He repeatedly communicated in this manner patiently for a few times, yet the shell girl still had a dazed look on her face.

Chen Shouyi thought about it. He had to do an action that was easy to understand in both worlds.

He muttered irresolutely to himself, and all of a sudden, a thought flashed through his mind.

At the next instant, he opened his mouth and placed the golden sand in it. After chewing a few times, he appeared to have swallowed it, but in truth, the golden sand was hidden in his hand.

After that, he glanced at the shell girl. His expression was malevolent as he bared his teeth.

From the perspective of the tiny shell girl, his mouth was undoubtedly like a gigantic bloody maw. As expected, she was truly frightened. She did her best to retreat, her countenance was as pale as paper.

Very soon, she seemed to understand something. She glanced to the left and right and suddenly flew around.

After flying for a few meters, she landed on the ground. He didn’t see how she searched, but very soon, another grain of golden sand was clutched in her palm. After that, she flew forward and placed that grain of sand in Chen Shouyi’s hand with a fawning look on her face.

Joy filled his heart when he saw this. There was indeed quite a lot of gold in the area.

However, he revealed nothing on his face. He continued pretending to shove the gold into his mouth and kept staring at the shell girl.

The pitiful girl didn’t even have time to catch her breath as she hurriedly flew around in a panic to search for more gold.

When Chen Shouyi saw this, he felt some shock in his heart. He discovered that the shell girl seemed to have a kind of sharp instinct. She could accurately find the grains of golden sand hiding among the sand particles.

He didn’t only see it once. The shell girl dug into the surface of the sand and retrieved the grains of golden from underneath.

After a while, the two grains of gold in Chen Shouyi’s hand became a total of eighteen. The small ones were the size of a needle’s tip while the large ones were as big as a green pea.

After that, the shell girl could no longer fly. She sat limply on the ground and was perspiring madly.

Staring at her exhausted self, Chen Shouyi finally felt some embarrassment. He no longer forced her to look for more gold.

He grew increasingly hungry and decided to head outside to eat something.

He glanced at the shell girl. He hesitated a little but decided to let her remain here.

He placed the shell, which she originally used to hide in, beside her. With the protection of the shell, he believed she wouldn’t encounter any danger. At the very least, if she encountered any bugs, she could completely hide in the shell.

…

Very soon, he acted nonchalantly and left the unfinished building.

He took out his phone and very soon later, a series of messages appeared.

He glanced at his phone screen and discovered that all these messages were sent by Zhang Shaoyue.

“So boring!”

“What are you doing?”

…

“Today, I ate my father’s cooking. It’s so unpalatable.”

Chen Shouyi had a smile on his face. He hurriedly replied, “Sorry, I was doing martial training earlier and just saw your messages now. What are you doing now?”

Not long later, a reply came back.

“I was taking an afternoon nap but was awakened by you. How abominable!” Zhang Shaoyue lay on her bed with her phone in her hands. Her cheek bulged slightly as she typed her reply.

Speaking of which, she only got acquainted with Chen Shouyi this month when they became senior high students. Before this, she didn’t really have any impression of him.

He had been a male student that was extremely easy to be neglected.

But that day when he demonstrated the Bow Stance Pierce in class and shocked everyone, only then did she gradually begin to take notice of him.

And after that, the two of them had encountered the barbarian in the bookstore. He had held onto her wrist and had had a serious look on his face as he protected her. She suddenly felt as though he was a magnet that attracted her.

…

“Well, maybe your sleeping posture isn’t correct!” Chen Shouyi smiled and replied.

“Then you tell me what sleeping posture do I need?”

Chen Shouyi involuntarily thought of some examples he had seen ‘online’ and swiftly typed, “There are many sleeping postures, even more than the Thirty-six Stances of Body Training.”

He felt it sounded wrong and quickly deleted it. But she had already replied.

“You are so dirty. I didn’t expect you to be so dishonest.”

Chen Shouyi was stunned. He hurriedly typed the sweating emoticon and sent it.

He found a hot spicy soup shop. After ordering some dishes, he sent another text, “What are you talking about? Why don’t I know anything about it?”

As he ate his hot spicy soup, he smiled and replied to her texts. After finishing his meal, he had exchanged tens of texts, and they both felt like they had unending topics to chat about.

In the end, he used his extremely strong willpower to terminate the conversation. “I’m going to practice my sword techniques. Chat with you later!”

“Mhm, you have to work hard!”

Chen Shouyi closed his phone after reading the last text, all of a sudden, he felt full of motivation.

….

The shell girl sat on top of the shell, and her legs shook lightly in contentment. But when she saw that terrifying giant returning, she hurriedly hid within her shell.

Chen Shouyi glanced over and discovered that there were seven to eight more grains of gold now beside the shell. These golden sand were shining brilliantly, attracting attention. Clearly, she must have found them after he had exited earlier.

He didn’t expect the shell girl to still have such awareness.

Chen SHouyi decided to treat her a little better in the future. This was a goose that could lay golden eggs!

His mood wasn’t bad, and he patrolled around the island once to aid in his digestion.

After that, he continued to practice his sword techniques.

Time flowed quickly, and night gradually descended in the Otherworld.

There was no moon; there wasn’t even starlight.

Even now, the Earth had no way to judge what sort of world the Otherworld was exactly. It seemed completely unlike the normal universe.

Other than the ‘sun’, the other celestial bodies couldn’t be seen.

But it wasn’t as if this place had no light.

Chen Shouyi could see countless specks of fluorescence gathering on the ocean. They would occasionally disperse and seemed like the aurora. What a pretty and magnificent sight, shocking and mysterious.

These specks of light even rose from the island like a faint mist, giving the place a magical colorization.

At this moment, he could faintly hear someone singing. The singing voice seemed ethereal and was filled with melancholy, seemingly drifting over from the ocean faraway. Such a voice would cause people to involuntarily stop what they were doing and listen.

Yet, Chen Shouyi felt a chill in his heart when he heard this. Night in the Otherworld was truly terrifying. This was a world filled with monsters, phantoms, and demons. There was countless information about the Otherworld that repeatedly emphasized this point.

When he turned his head back to look at the shell girl, he discovered that she had long since hid away within her shell.