That wrenching pain came so unexpectedly that even someone with high endurance like Xia Chuan couldn't stand steadily at that moment. He staggered and fell into the shallow river, choking on a mouthful of water, then half-knelt in the soft mud, stirring up a big commotion in the small river.

However, this choking on water didn't last long. He felt that as soon as his knees touched the soft mud at the bottom of the water, he was pulled out of the water by someone holding his arms.

The force supporting him was so strong and steady, as if his 6-foot tall male body was as light as a feather.

Xia Chuan didn't even need to open his eyes to know that the person who fished him out of the water was Shen Lan. It's just that the tendons in his legs had already knotted into a ball, and that knotting pain was rapidly spreading upwards through his blood, quickly causing even his heart to ache.

Xia Chuan closed his eyes with his brows tightly knitted, sweating coldly from the pain. He couldn't care about anything else, just treating Shen Lan as a lifesaver, enduring this pain, waiting for it to pass.

In a daze, he felt someone grasp his ankle, using a very strong force to massage the tendons in his calf for quite a while, then moving to his back, massaging a few points at the center of his back.

After massaging like this for a while, that knotting pain finally slowly lightened, and then gradually disappeared. The numbness that had spread throughout his body also faded bit by bit, eventually returning to normal.

Xia Chuan narrowed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief, his tense body finally relaxing.

As a result of this relaxation, the attention originally focused on the pain was finally normally distributed to various senses. Only then did Xia Chuan feel a little embarrassed--

When he was fished out of the river by Shen Lan in extreme pain earlier, he only wanted to find a point of support during the spasm. Now that his mind was clear, he took another look and realized that his entire body was clinging to Shen Lan, while Shen Lan's two hands had passed under his armpits, rhythmically massaging his back in an almost embracing posture.

This in itself was actually fine. The problem was that he had just been bathing...

No normal person would bathe while wearing clothes, so...

Xia Chuan, who had cosplayed as an iceberg for over 20 years, felt for the first time that he had lost face to an unbelievable degree, embarrassed beyond words.

He kept a blank expression on his face, silently getting off Shen Lan and landing back in the water. The moment his feet touched the soft mud, he remembered the lesson he had just learned. He was about to lift his foot to quickly leave here when Shen Lan pressed down on his shoulder and said, "Alright, don't run. I'm in the water so they don't dare show themselves."

Xia Chuan: "..."

Only then did he realize that what Shen Lan had said earlier about it being dangerous to bathe at night probably referred to the kind of thing Xia Chuan had just encountered.

"What bit me just now?" Xia Chuan asked with a dark face.

"Night-crawling insects, I guess." Shen Lan answered, thought for a moment and added, "I don't know what they should be called either."

Xia Chuan asked, "The danger you mentioned was them?"

Shen Lan nodded, "Yes."

Xia Chuan was speechless for a moment, "Then why didn't you tell me directly?"

"You said it would be fine as long as I was here. I thought about it and felt it made a lot of sense, so I didn't mention it." Shen Lan felt his reason was sufficient.

Xia Chuan: "..." If it were Dennis, he would definitely sarcastically ask, "Overlord, is your brain really not missing a piece, Overlord?!"

Xia Chuan couldn't do anything about him. With these couple of exchanges, that bit of embarrassment from earlier was completely swept away.

What was there to be embarrassed about in front of this "wild man" who appeared naked the first time they met? Their ways of thinking were simply not on the same wavelength.

Xia Chuan waved at him, letting him stand a bit behind the water grass. After all, it still felt quite uncomfortable to fish out his clothes and put them on while being stared at, especially since Shen Lan's gaze was unwavering when he looked at people, appearing particularly serious.

"These... night-crawling insects? Are they highly venomous?" Xia Chuan's speed was quite fast, quickly fishing out his clothes and putting them on as he waded through the water towards Shen Lan.

"Actually there's not much impact, it's just a bit numb right after the bite, not much different from a mosquito sting. I told you it was dangerous earlier mainly because I was afraid your feet would go numb and you'd drown." Shen Lan said while parting the water grass and walking towards the shore.

Xia Chuan followed behind him. Hearing this, he had a numb expression and said, "Don't tell me you were bitten by them in your mosasaurus form..."

Shen Lan nodded, "Yeah."

You're a 30+ ton thick-skinned and thick-fleshed beast, no matter how much venom enters your body, it can be ignored after circulating once, right?!

Xia Chuan felt that saying one more word to this guy would likely shorten his lifespan. Without any blood, he wanted to spit out a couple mouthfuls. So he simply shut his mouth and didn't speak again.

When the two returned to the bonfire one after the other, Dennis was already fast asleep hugging his oscilloscope, and Professor Linton was also nodding off with low snores. Several of the bonfires used for roasting meat had been extinguished by them, leaving only two of them.

Xia Chuan, with his body soaked in water, sat down by the other bonfire to dry his clothes. He also casually gently pulled the oscilloscope out of Dennis's arms, carefully put it into the black bag, wrapped it in a waterproof bag, and zipped it up.

When he finished doing all this and sat up straight again, he found that Shen Lan had also sat down in a patch of shadow beside him, a little farther from the bonfire compared to the others. Once it quieted down, what Shen Lan had said earlier entered his mind again.

Since he had no intention of leaving here at all, and was following Xia Chuan and the others simply out of curiosity and novelty, how long would he actually follow them for? Would it be after tonight, before tomorrow night, when he saw the next sea, or all the way until they safely left this strange world?

Xia Chuan leaned against the pile of tree trunks, watching the dancing orange-red flames, his mind constantly turning over these questions. He wanted to ask Shen Lan, but felt drowsiness deepening. He didn't know if it was the effect of the night-crawling insect's venom, but an unprecedented feeling of fatigue swept over him, quickly submerging his consciousness.

Fortunately, Shen Lan was still here and hadn't left for the night, so he could sleep relatively at ease for a while...

Perhaps it was another near-drowning experience in the shallow river that brought about the recurring, familiar dream. Just like the previous few times, he dreamed of a dark, deep sea. He stood on the surface of the water, his feet stepping on the rippling waves. The cold, damp sea mist hit his face and neck, causing goosebumps to involuntarily rise.

His body was icy cold, but his heart seemed to be even colder than his body temperature.

As his heart contracted, a few pale and blurry faces slowly floated up from the bottom of the sea beneath his feet, gradually approaching the surface. He could see their deep, shadowy eye sockets and purple-blue lips... but no matter what, he couldn't make out their specific features.

Just like the previous times, as those faces were about to reach the surface, they suddenly disappeared, as if dissolving into the sea foam...

At that instant, Xia Chuan startled awake, his eyes snapping open--

Gradually coming into focus before his eyes was a flickering orange-red firelight. Not far from it, another pile had already completely burned out, leaving only a heap of charred branches and ashes.

Beside him, Dennis and Professor Linton were still sound asleep leaning against the woodpile, showing no signs of waking up anytime soon. The night was still deep.

Without any way to keep time, there was no telling if it was the middle of the night or early morning, or if dawn was approaching.

He was in a daze for a moment before realizing that something seemed to be missing--

No! Where was Shen Lan?

Xia Chuan abruptly sat up straight. The clothes that had been soaked earlier were now dried by the fire, no longer sticking to his body with the added weight of water, making his movements much more nimble. He quickly stood up and circled the woodpile, but did not see any sign of Shen Lan.

"Could he have gone to soak in the river?" Remembering that Shen Lan didn't like being by the fire and wasn't used to staying on shore for too long, he guessed and headed towards the shallow river.

Circling past the grass and shrubs, he walked to the other side of the shallow river. Finally, in the darkness of night, he found that tall figure with a somewhat blurry outline. He let out a sigh of relief, and then suddenly realized that he seemed to care more about Shen Lan's absence than he had imagined.

Perhaps it was because having this person around indeed made him feel much more at ease...

Xia Chuan shook his head to clear out the jumbled thoughts. He then walked over to Shen Lan, asking as he approached, "Why are you standing here?"

He was standing about a dozen meters from the river, not seeming like he came to soak in the water, nor appearing to be heading back to the sea along the original path. He was just standing there, looking up at the sky, as if lost in thought.

As soon as Xia Chuan's words fell, Shen Lan abruptly turned his face. In that instant, Xia Chuan saw a very unfamiliar emotion in those deep blue eyes.

It seemed to be agitation and... unease?

Xia Chuan thought he must not be fully awake and was hallucinating. For someone as powerful as Shen Lan, what could possibly make him feel agitated and uneasy? It had to be a joke!

But when Xia Chuan blinked and looked again, he found that he wasn't mistaken after all... There really was a hint of agitation and unease in Shen Lan's eyes. He glanced back at Xia Chuan, then looked up at the night sky again and said in a low voice, "I don't know why, but I feel very agitated, for no reason..."

Xia Chuan frowned, "Did you see or hear anything before you started feeling this way?"

"No." Shen Lan shook his head. Then he waved his hand at Xia Chuan and said, "Let's go, back to the fire. I have a feeling something bad is going to happen."

His strides back were large and hurried, very unlike his usual demeanor. Xia Chuan stood in place, frowning as he watched for a few moments, before finally quickening his pace to catch up.

So as they turned around, neither of them saw a bright spot streak across the horizon behind them, leaving a faint trail in the night sky that was quickly swallowed up by the darkness again...

Xia Chuan had just followed Shen Lan back to the edge of the fire when he suddenly heard a howl coming from the distance. That sound was like pressing a start button, immediately followed by cries of various pitches ringing out one after another. Some were sharp, some were shrill, some were deep... but they all had one thing in common - they all sounded full of deep agitation and unease.

He was surprised and wanted to look in the direction of the sounds, but found they were not coming from just one place. However, they were mainly concentrated in the dense forest they had just left and the entire southern area.