DISN – Chapter 11

Deserted Island Survival Notes

By Gu Cheng Huai

—

Translator note: I don’t speak Chinese so this has been awkwardly translated using google translate and cleaned up. I was just going to do it for myself but thought I’d share it. I have no idea how accurate my translation is. Original text found here: https://www.sto.cx/book-138000-1.html 

All credit to the original author for this wonderful story.

Please read this translation on https://erzoohobbytranslating.wordpress.com/

_________________

Chapter 11

Ye Zheng felt itchy. After the mermaid scratched her feet, Ye Zheng kicked out at him.

“Hiss—”

Ye Zheng, who was a little drowsy, woke up immediately with a sharp inhale. She grit her teeth and pulled her feet closer.

She didn’t know where she kicked him but the bones of the mermaid were very hard. Ye Zheng felt like she had kicked a steel plate and her foot really hurt.

Ye Zheng’s feet curled up and she wiggled her toes, trying to make the throbbing more comfortable. Then she squeezed deeper into the grass shed, trying to get rid of the mermaid who was disturbing her.

But she did not succeed. Perhaps Ye Zheng’s wiggling toes attracted the mermaid’s attention because he grabbed Ye Zheng’s feet again. The cold fingers tapped on Ye Zheng’s toes, just like tapping a keyboard, sliding between them and pressing the bottoms, just having fun.

Ye Zheng impatiently yanked her feet back, sat up, and stared at the mermaid angrily. One man, one fish, one in the grass shed and one lying on the sand stared at each other for a while. Ye Zheng re-closed the thin grass curtain at the entrance of the grass shed, blocking the mermaid out, and then fell back to the ground, trying to get back her interrupted sleep.

But the grass curtain was no match for an energetic mermaid. In the darkness, Ye Zheng felt that something cold was leaning on her bare legs, crawling up slowly along her legs.

Ye Zheng could feel the mermaid’s chest with its tiny spurs and fins pressing on her legs. The mermaid was now twisting its tail, trying to squeeze into the grass shed that she only just built.

Ye Zheng’s grass shed was very small, it was not only low but also very short in length, at most one meter around. Ye Zheng couldn’t stretch out when she was sleeping alone. She already had to shrink her legs up and now there was a mermaid who was struggling to squeeze in beside her.

Ye Zheng didn’t have time to push the mermaid out again before the poor humble grass hut broke under the pressure of the mermaid’s huge size. The grass shed creaked as it fell apart.

Ye Zheng looked at the shining starry sky that reappeared over her head. In addition to the starry sky, the face of the mermaid also appeared in front of her eyes. It seemed very proud to have solved the problem of the small space. Its tail flicked a few times and then he started to pull on Ye Zheng’s wrist, as if to try to get Ye Zheng from the ground.

Ye Zheng spit out the bits of grass and straw that had fallen into her mouth at the demise of her grass shed and looked around. The straw bales she had bundled up were scattered in messy piles. In addition, many of the grass stems she had carefully measured were now too short. They were cut in the middle, obviously by someone with sharp nails.

Ye Zheng stared at the big fish in front of her.

She had worked hard all day, her back was aching, and the haystacks that had blistered her hands to make were now gone.

Ye Zheng felt her blood rise. She grabbed a small bale of straw by her hand and used them to backhand the mermaid.

She knew that the skin of the mermaid was hard and would not feel the weak force. Such small, fragile dried grass would probably not cause him pain but Ye Zheng believed that at least the fish would know it was wrong!

The mermaid flexibly avoided Ye Zheng’s first whipping and rolled his body sideways. The grass bundle in Ye Zheng’s hand whooshed past but every time it would land on the ground beside him. It had finished digesting its meal and now its movements were flexible and light again.

Ye Zheng soon got tired of chasing him. Even though she usually worked hard, she was exhausted, how could she be faster than him. Ye Zheng bent her back, holding her waist as she gasped, looking at the mermaid patting the ground excitedly with his tail.

Seeing Ye Zheng had stopped chasing him, he touched Ye Zheng’s instep with the tip of his tail, seeming to wonder why she didn’t continue to beat it.

…It didn’t even know that Ye Zheng was angry!

It thought it was a brand-new game! Ye Zheng realized with frustration, feeling that she had really failed. Not only was she very angry at the ignorant fish but she had only made the fish think they were playing.

The fish was still looking at her with his head tilted, as if waiting for the next round of beating.

Ye Zheng slowly put down the small bale of straw in his hand, feeling that his behavior was just ridiculously ridiculous.

Forget it, she said to herself, sighing helplessly. She decided to build a better nest in the tree. A tree nest would not only prevent snakes and beasts on this relatively safe island, but mostly importantly, it would also prevent mermaids.

Ye Zheng turned around and walked back to the trees, with a bale under her arm, and crawled hard onto a large tree branch. When she stepped on the branch and moved up, she looked down and saw that the mermaid also slowly followed. At this moment, he was holding the root of the tree, looking up at Ye Zheng. It didn’t seem to be able to climb but it still wanted to follow Ye Zheng.

Was the mermaid reluctant for her to leave? Ye Zheng couldn’t help but wonder and truthfully, she also couldn’t bear to leave it behind. However, she looked at the little bale in her hand and couldn’t decide. At the very least, this might make the mermaid realize it shouldn’t have demolished her shed.

Ye Zheng leaned back against the trunk of the tree, covered her legs that had become cold with straw, and closed her eyes again.

But this time, she couldn’t sleep anyway.

Ye Zheng forced herself to close her eyes, but found that she could not sleep, despite how tired she had been in her grass hut. But when in the grass shed, Ye Zheng had been ready to drop before she had even hit the sand. Now she was upset.

 For insomniacs, it took forever for them to feel drowsy. Ye Zheng felt like she had been in the tree for a long time but could not determine the exact time. After a while, she opened her eyes indignantly. It was all the mermaid’s fault, she thought angrily.

But then Ye Zheng closed her eyes and thought of the way that the mermaid had grabbed the roots of this big tree.

Although Ye Zheng had wanted the mermaid to realize his mistakes, now that her anger had gradually cooled down… she couldn’t help but worry about him.

I really owe it. Ye Zheng mumbled, feeling that her mood was really changeable tonight. Sure enough, staying with the fish for a long time, her thoughts became uncontrollable.

When Ye Zheng climbed down the tree, the mermaid was no longer there.

“Are you there?” Ye Zheng shouted, cupping her mouth with her palms.

But quietly in the darkness, only the faint sound of the sea breeze blowing through the trees. Ye Zheng swallowed subconsciously. For humans, being alone in this kind of darkness was easy to cause fear— even if she knew that there were no other dangerous species on the island.

Ye Zheng held the bow and arrow in her hand and walked carefully along the coastline in the direction of where she had first arrived on the island. As she walked, she whispered to the mermaid.

But when Ye Zheng returned back to the original place two or three times, the mermaid was still missing. This time Ye Zheng was even more worried: Is it sad? Still angry?

Although Ye Zheng knew, for mermaids, the sea was the safest place. However, with the mermaid gone, she felt a little lost.

“Sure enough, did I go too far?” Ye Zheng touched the arch of ‘Cold Light Hunter’ and couldn’t tell what she should do.

Go to sleep. She said to herself, wake up tomorrow morning to make plans. She slowly walked back under the tree.

While Ye Zheng was thinking about things in a mess, there was a song from the far side of the sea, so soft, so beautiful. That was a mermaid’s song!

Ye Zheng’s eyes lit up and she couldn’t help but turn from the road under her feet, stumbling to the beach. Although she also knew that the mermaid she knew was not able to sing, but now, now …

Ye Zheng couldn’t think about it and hurried to the shore. Ye Zheng heard her heart beating fast. She even tripped over some small rocks but quickly got up again. She had never so desperately wanted to see the mermaid.

When Ye Zheng ran to the shore, a big creature whipped out of the water. It was the mermaid she was familiar with. At the moment, water was trickling down all over his body but his eyes looked at Ye Zheng quietly.

“It’s you, it’s you …” Ye Zheng was incoherent. She didn’t care that the mermaid was still dripping, she stepped forward and hugged its neck.

“I’m sorry.” Ye Zheng murmured holding the mermaid’s head as he lay quietly in her arms.

The water on his chest soaked her and she was blown by the sea breeze. Ye Zheng could feel the coolness of the mermaid’s skin through her clothes.

But she didn’t let go quickly. She reached out and touched the mermaid’s smooth head before lifting her face.

“Aren’t you angry? Did you come to find me again?” She asked with a smile, not noticing her voice tremble.

The mermaid didn’t speak. It patted its tail, turned its head, and looked back at the sea.

Ye Zheng followed its look and was surprised to find that not one, but the dorsal fins of a dozen mermaids were exposed on the sea!

Ye Zheng could hear several of them sing as they swam closer. There were several mermaids that looked smaller than the one in front of them. They came out of the water, flicked their tails in the direction of Ye Zheng, and then quickly plunged into the sea.

Ye Zheng stared blankly at the mermaid in front of her: “You are… a sashimi group watching me?”

The author has something to say: Train the fish to pay attention to methods.

See you on Wednesday.