The dark, clumpy thing seemed to have some weight to it, making a heavy thud as it hit the ground. At first glance, it appeared to be covered in hair-like strands, tangled and knotted, spreading a large puddle of water on the ground - a rather unsettling sight.

"What the heck is that!" Dennis exclaimed in shock, shrinking back towards Xia Chuan after just a quick glance, the last grilled tentacle falling from his mouth.

His strong reaction was understandable. After all, in this godforsaken place, the appearance of any deadly thing was a real possibility.

Xia Chuan, on the other hand, remained calm, not even furrowing his brow, as his intuition told him that Shen Lan wouldn't bring anything threatening.

In fact, as Dennis perceived, Xia Chuan was a very guarded person. Generally speaking, when faced with people of unknown origin and unusual skills, Xia Chuan would never let his guard down, let alone eat food they prepared.

But Shen Lan was an exception.

The first time Xia Chuan's eyes met Shen Lan's, he felt that this strange, naked man bore no hostility towards him.

Over the years, he had encountered too many people - young and old; enthusiastic and simple-minded, thoughtful and scheming; those with simple identities and those with complex backgrounds... But he had never seen an adult's eyes as pure as Shen Lan's.

All his emotions were plainly written in his eyes, without any concealment, like a child with little experience, forming a stark contrast to his enigmatic identity and background.

This contrast strongly aroused one's curiosity, yet it was difficult to reject or dislike.

It was under the influence of this mentality and his consistently accurate intuition that Xia Chuan temporarily let down his guard against Shen Lan.

As it turned out, the thing Shen Lan brought into the cave indeed posed no threat to Xia Chuan and Dennis.

After throwing it on the ground, Shen Lan glanced at Xia Chuan and Dennis. The former had difficulty getting up due to his immobility, while the latter stood there with his mouth agape as if he had lost the ability to speak, seemingly scared silly.

So Shen Lan simply bent down, picked the thing up again, tore off the hair-like stuff in a few motions, revealing its true form, and tossed it back in front of the two before walking to the fire pit and throwing the strands tangled on his fingers into the flames.

The hair-like stuff made a soft "poof" sound and was completely incinerated, leaving not a trace behind.

As Shen Lan withdrew his hand from the flames, the stunned Dennis suddenly spoke up, his voice filled with utter surprise, "Ah - this, this is my backpack, isn't it?!"

Without the seaweed-like strands entangled on it, the dark object's silhouette became distinct under the firelight. It was clearly unrelated to sea beasts and the like, just a plain black backpack with a very simple design. On the lower right corner of the bag, a silver metal plate about two centimeters wide was attached, engraved with two letters - d.p.

"It's actually... actually found my backpack?" Until he had fished the black backpack into his arms and felt it over and over, Dennis could hardly believe it.

After muttering to himself several times, he seemed to remember something and said to Xia Chuan, "...Come to think of it, when you pulled me out of the boat, I think I grabbed the bag, but later when I was struggling in the sea, I accidentally threw the bag away. It actually followed us to this hellish place?"

Xia Chuan frowned.

After all, time-space travel was not as simple and commonplace as eating and drinking. Not just anyone could travel through time and space at will, right? He originally thought that the reason he and Dennis woke up together in this alternate world was that Dennis had clung to his leg and refused to let go as they sank into the sea, and the two of them happened to hit some trigger together to arrive here.

But now it seemed that the conditions for this time-space journey were a bit loose - if Dennis had lost his grip on the backpack during the struggle, the backpack should have continued sinking about one or two meters away from them, or even farther. Yet now, this backpack, like them, had also arrived in this alternate world, which meant...

"There were so many people sinking in the sea at that time, and there must have been quite a few around us, right? Do you think--"

Dennis pondered for a moment and speculated, "Could it be that the people and objects within a certain range around us have all come over? That sea area was so strange, with abnormal buoyancy and pressure. There have been incidents of entire ships disappearing before, right? Could they have encountered the same situation as us? Thinking about it this way is a bit exciting! If that German guy who always has a long face also came, at least there would be someone to treat the injured! And Professor Linton, he's a severe dinosaur fanatic, at least he knows more about these big guys than we do! And..."

As he spoke, his voice lowered again...

The people he mentioned were on the same cruise ship as them, together forming a complete research team. Several of the researchers were on Xia Chuan's task list.

When they encountered the four utterly unexpected sea tornadoes, those people were still within Xia Chuan's sight, not one missing. But the subsequent series of changes happened too quickly and too incredibly, so much so that at the moment they struggled out of the sinking ship, aside from Dennis, Xia Chuan only had time to grab two of them and pull them out of the cabin.

If all of Dennis's speculations just now could come true, of course nothing could be better. But the reality was... now, the only living beings in this stone cave were the two of them, and a water-soaked backpack.

What were the chances of successfully struggling out of the ship's cabin?

After struggling out, what were the chances of not drowning in the endless sea?

What were the chances of coincidentally hitting the trigger to arrive in this alternate world?

And after waking up in the sea of this alternate world, what were the chances of not becoming lunch for those prehistoric giant beasts?

...

Doing some quick calculations, the results were all desperately low.

So Dennis gradually fell silent. A long time later, he sighed, shook his head to shake out these thoughts that only added to the sadness, and then began to rummage through his backpack.

When Xia Chuan saw Dennis's backpack, he did not immediately feel relieved.

In the three years since they had known each other, he had only traveled with Dennis a handful of times, but he still knew a bit about Dennis's habits - whenever this guy packed for a trip, there was never the slightest bit of order, and he never categorized anything.

He would just grab whatever came to mind and toss it into the nearest suitcase or backpack until it was time to leave. So his bags were often a hodgepodge mess. If lucky, you might dig out something useful, but if unlucky, the whole bag might be filled with all sorts of bizarre "junk".

Xia Chuan stared at Dennis's hands, watching as he pulled things out of the bag one by one -

Two bundles of soaked clothing, two small bottles of soda water, a Swiss army knife... as well as a circular disk engraved with numbers and rulers of various sizes. Its purpose was unclear, but it matched the strange style of things Dennis usually collected.

Dennis sat there and emptied over half of his backpack, but so far there were only a handful of things that looked like they might come in handy.

Shen Lan watched from the side for a while, then picked up the Swiss army knife to fiddle with it for a couple turns before tossing it back into the pile of items. Then, seeming a bit bored, he leaned against the cave wall and glanced at Xia Chuan a few times. Without a word, he circled around the fire pit and dove straight into the sea at the cave entrance.

Dennis glanced towards the entrance and muttered, "Huh? What's he going out to fish for now?"

As he spoke, he pulled the last bundle out of the backpack - it was a sealed waterproof bag where many items that couldn't get wet were stored.

Xia Chuan saw him take out a leather notebook with a pen clipped to it, a limited edition lighter, a spare cell phone, a power bank, a blue and white striped square pouch... and a black box, about the size of a business card and half a finger tall. It had a row of varicolored knobs on it, but the craftsmanship was a bit crude. The whole box didn't have a single letter visible, and the knobs had no corresponding labels, making it impossible to tell what the thing was at a glance.

After taking out these items, the first thing Dennis did was power on the spare cell phone to see how much battery was left, to know if it would be enough in an emergency, even just to use as a flashlight.

But after just a couple glances, he froze, staring unblinkingly at the phone screen. His brows furrowed tighter and tighter, as if he saw something that made him very puzzled.