Chapter 102 – Volcanoes, the Ocean and Love

Despite the inkling suspicion of Jiang Que’s pitiful act being a mere ruse during the mating period, Shen Tazhi still arranged to take Jiang Que to see the volcano as soon as he finished his work.

The island nation with an active volcano was located in the Pacific Ocean. Due to the ongoing chaos in the country, flights had not yet resumed. So Shen Tazhi directly chartered an air taxi¹honestly I didn’t know these things existed until I searched for it myself. What can I say? I’m poor to take Jiang Que there.

Even if flights had resumed, Jiang Que’s special status would have caused delays at customs. For this trip, the Anomaly Investigation Department sponsored a clearance certificate.

They successfully arrived at the local hotel… on the opposite side of the island at noon.

“Our hotel is actually on the island?”

Jiang Que looked at the hotel perched alone on the small island in surprise.

The hotel was surrounded by the sea and could only be accessed by a small ferry. Jiang Que had never seen such a unique hotel before.

“Yes, because this hotel is close to the sea and offers snorkelling activities,” Shen Tazhi explained with a light laugh.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Que immediately became interested. “Snorkelling? Can we swim in the sea?”

Ever since the last barbecue outing with Shen Tazhi, Jiang Que had been full of doubts about what species he belonged to. In the middle of winter, he even dragged Shen Tazhi to the indoor swimming pool at home to swim, just to confirm whether he was an ocean creature.

Of course, he wasn’t. Although Jiang Que wouldn’t die if he didn’t breathe, he nearly drowned the first time he tried swimming in the pool.

However, thanks to his perseverance, he had at least learned how to swim.

Of course, Shen Tazhi was the one who taught him.

“Yes,” Shen Tazhi replied, “I remember there are also activities like jet skiing and parasailing on the sea. If you want to try them, we can do that too.”

As they spoke, the ferry docked, and Jiang Que and Shen Tazhi together carried their luggage onto the ferry.

Taking their seats, the ferry started, splashing water all around.

“Wow.”

Jiang Que looked at the waves outside the railing, reached out to touch it, and got a handful of seawater.

He pulled his hand back and leaned against Shen Tazhi: “Shen Tazhi, I want to drive the ferry too.”

“You wanted to fly a plane before,” Shen Tazhi teased. “Why do you want to learn everything you see?”

“Because it’s fun,” Jiang Que pouted.

He was just talking casually about the possibility of learning to fly a helicopter, but learning to sail in a landlocked area like Beijing seemed a bit too troublesome.

As Jiang Que thought this, he was about to raise his hand to touch the waves again when he realized that the seawater on his hand had dried without him noticing.

The icy sensation had disappeared, replaced by a sticky feeling, with tiny salt grains left in his palm.

Jiang Que brought his hand close to his nose and sniffed, then immediately turned his head in disgust.

Alright, not only was it sticky, but it also smelled fishy. His hand was dirty.

Seeing his disgusted expression, Shen Tazhi knew it was Jiang Que’s cleanliness obsession and couldn’t help but laugh, “You touched it even though you find it dirty.”

Jiang Que complained, “I didn’t know that dried seawater would smell like this.”

He didn’t like it and wanted to hurry back to the hotel to shower.

Shen Tazhi casually remarked, “But if you want to snorkel, you’ll have to immerse your whole body in seawater, and most of the snorkelling equipment is reusable.”

Jiang Que:..

Jiang Que: “Then I can just skip snorkelling.”

Shen Tazhi chuckled beside him, and Jiang Que belatedly realised that he was being teased.

He lightly hammered Shen Tazhi in frustration, “What are you trying to do?!”

Shen Tazhi took out a wet wipe from his bag to clean Jiang Que’s hand. After being lightly hammered a few times by Jiang Que, he stopped laughing and said gently, “Didn’t I show you all my certificates, resumes, assets, and so on before?”

“I saw them, so what?” Jiang Que couldn’t understand the connection between those documents and the current situation.

Shen Tazhi explained, “There’s a scuba diving instructor certificate in there. If it’s just snorkelling, I can take you, and we can buy new equipment. We’ll play and then return to the hotel to shower.”

Looking at the hotel not far from the shore, Jiang Que finally understood why Shen Tazhi had chosen this location.

Curiously, he asked, “You have an instructor certificate? So, can you take me scuba diving? The kind where you dive with an oxygen tank.”

Shen Tazhi thought for a moment, “Yes, I can. I’ll ask the local diving guide about safe locations and give you some tips. Shallow water diving should be fine.”

Deep-sea diving wasn’t exactly an obscure tourist activity, so there should be some options nearby.

Jiang Que was somewhat excited, “Really? Then I want to play! Since I have to shower anyway, I don’t want to snorkel; I want to go deep-sea diving.”

He added, “But you don’t need to worry about me. I won’t die even if I don’t breathe.”

Shen Tazhi looked at him with a smile, “But you’ll be talking while underwater. I’ll have to teach you the basic communication gestures for diving. By the way, can you swim in the sea?”

Jiang Que fell silent.

Jiang Que: “I think I probably can.”

Based on his experience swimming at home, as long as his tentacles didn’t sway around, he could maintain balance in the water. The problem was that his tentacles were part of him and liked to play in the water just like him. Often, while swimming, his tentacles would start moving independently, attempting to swim.

Jiang Que’s swimming style was still the breaststroke taught by Shen Tazhi. At times, before he could extend his arms and legs, his limbs would end up entangling with his tentacles.

When Shen Tazhi heard the loud splash of water approaching, he would find a tangled ball of tentacles at the bottom of the sea.

Shen Tazhi chuckled again, “It’s okay. You can just hold onto my arm when the time comes.”

As they spoke, the ferry arrived at the small island. Jiang Que and Shen Tazhi disembarked with their luggage and checked into the hotel.

As it was just a tourist-type hotel on a small island nation, despite the high price, the accommodation conditions were still not as good as those Jiang Que was used to during his travels.

Jiang Que didn’t mind the slightly basic room. He eagerly used his eighteen tentacles to efficiently pack their luggage and rushed downstairs.

Having eaten on the plane, they weren’t hungry now, so they decided to go diving right away.

Shen Tazhi was helplessly dragged downstairs by Jiang Que.

On the beach, there were many people holding signs for various water activities. Shen Tazhi found a shop with advertisements for snorkelling and diving, and purchased two sets of brand new equipment in one go. He also inquired about the safest locations for deep-sea diving.

With such a large purchase, the shop was happy to provide information. They promptly brought out a diving map, circled the locations for Shen Tazhi, and finally handed the map over to him.

Excited to go diving, Jiang Que, holding the two sets of diving suits, couldn’t wait. He listened to Shen Tazhi’s instructions on the way and reached the shore.

There was a public changing room nearby. Shen Tazhi went to change into the diving suit, but Jiang Que didn’t bother. The two suits were just for show; the diving suit was tight-fitting, and even though his tentacles were transparent, they would still be visible once he put it on.

Not to mention, the main purpose of a wetsuit was for warmth and to prevent hypothermia. Jiang Que wasn’t afraid of the cold and wouldn’t freeze to death. At most, he might bump into something accidentally. Compared to the risk of his tentacles being discovered, this was a minor issue.

Meanwhile, Shen Tazhi had geared up, carrying the oxygen tank and wearing goggles, with only half of his face exposed.

Jiang Que followed Shen Tazhi as they slowly walked into the seawater. Shen Tazhi asked him again, “Do you remember what I taught you just now?”

“I remember. Can’t talk in the water, ‘ok’ means good, thumbs up means up, thumbs down means down, palm flip is a question…”

Jiang Que rattled off everything and, as instructed by Shen Tazhi, placed one hand on his arm.

“Can we go down now?”

Shen Tazhi glanced at him, nodded, and bit onto the regulator.

Unable to speak now, he first took Jiang Que for a few trial dives to ensure he was okay before signalling thumbs down.

Jiang Que made an “ok” gesture with his hand.

In the next moment, he and Shen Tazhi were completely submerged underwater.

Blue dominated their entire field of vision.

Actually, this area of the sea was not very deep, being a developed tourist area, the seabed could even be described as open and desolate.

But this was the first time Jiang Que had truly seen the underwater world.

As he descended with Shen Tazhi, the first thing in sight was rugged rocks, followed by various colours of coral.

Wow, there were corals.

Jiang Que wanted to speak, but remembered Shen Tazhi’s instructions and tightly closed his mouth.

He gestured to Shen Tazhi that he wanted to see the corals, and Shen Tazhi brought him closer. Jiang Que cautiously reached out to touch them. Corals were rough to the touch, just as hard as rocks, not as cute as they appeared.

In the shallow waters, there were no fish, only rocks and some strange underwater plants whose names he couldn’t tell. Jiang Que touched this and that.

Surrounded by seawater, it was the first time Jiang Que felt so light in the water.

After about ten minutes, Shen Tazhi prepared to take Jiang Que back to the surface.

However, just at that moment, Jiang Que’s tentacles, which had been quiet for a while, couldn’t sit still.

They had maintained their transparent form hidden in the wetsuit, swaying along with the seawater as much as possible to avoid being noticed by the occasional deep-sea diving tourists passing by.

At this moment, they were probably quite happy floating in the water, even mimicking Jiang Que’s swimming posture from before, contracting and extending just like a swimming jellyfish or octopus, using all eighteen tentacles to attempt swimming.

Before Jiang Que could react, the propulsion from his own tentacles pushed him far away.

Jiang Que: ?

He nearly somersaulted in the water, looking at Shen Tazhi, who was equally puzzled and at least five meters away.

Proudly, the tentacles twisted and turned. They could swim!

As if conducting another experiment, the tentacles extended again, generating a powerful thrust. Jiang Que was pushed back towards Shen Tazhi.

This time, Jiang Que managed to steady himself. Unable to speak, he could only lift up one tentacle and shake it back and forth, trying to shake out the water it had taken in.

He had been holding onto Shen Tazhi’s arm earlier!! Fortunately, he let go quickly. Otherwise, he might have accidentally taken Shen Tazhi with him.

Super-speed underwater was very dangerous!!

Shen Tazhi made a questioning gesture, and Jiang Que stopped his seemingly empty hand movements, giving him an “OK” sign.

Glancing around and seeing no one, he revealed the true form of his tentacles, showing Shen Tazhi how he had swum away earlier. After swimming away, he quickly turned his tentacles back to transparency, using their propulsion to try and control the direction, circling around Shen Tazhi.

Shen Tazhi, in his heavy protective suit with most of his expression hidden by the goggles, unable to make facial gestures, so Jiang Que couldn’t read his expression.

But for some reason, he felt that Shen Tazhi should be finding this somewhat amusing and speechless at the moment.

Shen Tazhi stood still, watching Jiang Que swim around for a while, until Jiang Que showed signs of fatigue before making a gesture to ascend.

Jiang Que nodded, grasping Shen Tazhi’s arm.

However, this time it wasn’t Shen Tazhi leading him, but Jiang Que controlling the tentacle’s strength, bringing Shen Tazhi back to the surface.

“Whoosh–“

The two emerged from the water.

Shen Tazhi took off his regulator, lifted his goggles, and looked at the bedraggled Jiang Que, who was completely soaked, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry. “Are you a little octopus?”

“Mm-hmm.” Jiang Que was quite proud. “I can swim now! This time, I really can.”

It turned out he shouldn’t swim in the human way, he should swim using his tentacles.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Shen Tazhi responded helplessly. “Do you want to play more?”

“No more playing, let’s go back and take a shower,” Jiang Que said.

His clothes were soaked with seawater, so Shen Tazhi went ashore first to get the large towel he had bought along with the diving suit earlier. He walked to the shore to wrap it around Jiang Que before heading back to the shore.

While it didn’t feel cold in the water, once they were completely soaked and on land, the sea breeze made Jiang Que shiver. Even though the sun was high in the sky, he felt the chill.

Shivering, he and Shen Tazhi, both wrapped in towels, walked back to the hotel.

Returning to the hotel in such a manner was not uncommon, and the reception staff didn’t pay much attention. After all, no one could have imagined that beneath the towels were tentacles twisted together.

After a hot shower and changing into clean clothes, they finally collapsed onto the hotel bed.

It was already afternoon, and both of them were exhausted, slowly feeling drowsy as they lay on the bed.

“Shen Tazhi… I can… swim…”

Jiang Que, a mix of excitement and fatigue, fell asleep halfway through his sentence.

Shen Tazhi chuckled, watching Jiang Que, now asleep, with his tentacles slowly becoming visible. He poked the beautiful face before falling asleep himself.

When they woke up, it was already evening. They went to the Chinese restaurant to have dinner, marking the end of their first day on the island.

The next morning at 8 a.m., Jiang Que and Shen Tazhi packed their bags, had breakfast, and then took a car to the airport. From there, they flew directly to the volcano.

On the plane, Jiang Que could see the faint red churning at the crater of the volcano. He grabbed Shen Tazhi and exclaimed, “Look! It’s an active volcano!”

Shen Tazhi smiled, “Yes, we’ll climb that later.”

He had arranged for a local guide to take them up the mountain, so after having a slightly delayed lunch upon landing, and resting at a hotel near the volcano with Jiang Que, they met up with the guide to start their climb.

The guide was a dark-skinned man, flashing a bright smile that revealed a set of big white teeth. Jiang Que glanced at him curiously but quickly lost interest, focusing instead on the volcanic ash and rocks as they climbed.

The surroundings were a dull black-gray, and it was hard to imagine that the vibrant red colours would turn into such dark shades once they settled. Jiang Que had learned a bit of basic geology from Du Lulu, so he could distinguish what a volcano was.

The air was filled with a pungent smell of sulfur. Both Jiang Que and Shen Tazhi wore masks, and the guide thoughtfully provided them with protective goggles to prevent volcanic ash from getting into their eyes. Of course, the goggles came at an additional cost.

The mountain path was indeed steep, but the three of them, being men with good physical strength, managed the climb without much difficulty. Shen Tazhi even engaged in a conversation with the guide about the guide’s sick mother and younger sister, who was attending school.

Jiang Que had no doubt that, given a bit more time, Shen Tazhi would be able to chat with the guide as if they were old friends. Since Jiang Que had never formally learned English and the guide’s Chinese was poor, communication was a challenge, and Shen Tazhi had to act as the mediator throughout the journey.

Fortunately, Shen Tazhi made sure to keep Jiang Que entertained, making the journey quite enjoyable.

After a hectic trek, they successfully reached the volcano crater before sunset.

The crater was shrouded in mist, a mix of water vapor and sulfur. Jiang Que wiped his sunglasses several times and finally took them off. Since they had arrived, he decided to take a look without the glasses.

In the next moment, he was left speechless.

Before his eyes churned a fiery red lava, quite different from what they had seen in the morning. At sunset, this volcano was particularly active, changing from a faint red to a striking crimson color.

Beyond the massive crater, there was an orange-red sunset glow, with the sun slowly descending behind the white vapor of the volcano. The sky was a spectacle of colours and movement.

As the sun began to set, it should have been the end of the day, but amidst the churning lava, standing atop the mountain, everything appeared magnificent.

It took Jiang Que a while to find his voice. He tugged at Shen Tazhi, unable to find the right words, and simply said, “Shen Tazhi, the sun and the volcano are so beautiful.”

Unlike the ill intent he initially saw, the bubbling lava felt scorching hot, and the colors of the sunset were reflected in his eyes. He could almost feel the heat by reaching out his hand. This was all so real.

Shen Tazhi responded with a simple “Mm,” perhaps not having seen such a magnificent natural spectacle in a long time.

He said, “Yes, very beautiful.”

The guide said something beside them, but Jiang Que didn’t catch it.

Shen Tazhi translated for him, “He’s asking if we want to take a photo before the sun sets.”

“Of course!” Jiang Que responded without hesitation.

Shen Tazhi relayed Jiang Que’s answer to the guide, and then both Shen Tazhi and Jiang Que stood at the edge of the volcano.

They both removed their masks, and the guide raised his phone.

3, 2, 1.

The photo was captured.

The beautiful youth and the handsome man stood together, with occasional bursts of volcanic lava and the magnificent sunset in the background, looking almost unreal in their beauty.

Surrounded by gray-black volcanic ash, they were the only bright colors against the orange lava and setting sun.

Jiang Que was very pleased with the photo.

“I’ll have this photo printed when we get back home. I want to hang it on the wall,” he said.

“Okay,” Shen Tazhi agreed.

He suddenly remembered, “By the way, I forgot to take a photo of you while we were diving yesterday.” He really wanted the other person to see how he swam using his tentacles.

Unaware of Shen Tazhi’s mischievous intentions, Jiang Que nonchalantly replied, “Diving, well, we can go diving in various places in the future and take photos then.”

As the sun gradually set, it was time for them to descend the mountain.

By the time the three of them descended, it was already late at night. Shen Tazhi settled the guide’s payment and took Jiang Que back to the hotel for an early rest.

The next morning, the two of them woke up early.

It was their departure day, but before leaving, they had one last thing to do: helicopter tour over the volcano.

At 5:30, they boarded the helicopter and by around 6 o’clock, they arrived over another volcano.

Unlike the red flames of the previous volcano, this one was evidently more active, with sulfur permeating the air, and occasionally, they could see local miners carrying baskets mining sulfur.

When this sulfur burned and came into contact with the air, it created a whole area of blue flames.

Tongues of fire flickered, and the thick mist produced by the sulfur and volcanic lava intermingled, presenting another kind of magnificent yet dangerous volcano.

This was also the reason why Shen Tazhi and Jiang Que hadn’t personally climbed this one.

On the helicopter, Jiang Que looked down in awe. “…It’s blue fire.”

After a moment of thought, he said, “Like a big stove.”

A vivid metaphor that reminded Shen Tazhi of a classic fairy tale.

He chuckled lightly, “Very much like a stove. In the human world, there’s a story about a little prince who lived alone on a planet with two active volcanoes and one extinct one. The extinct volcano was his chair, and the active volcanoes were his stove.”

Eyes wide, Jiang Que asked, “And then? What did he cook using the volcanoes?”

Shen Tazhi paused. He tried to recall, but the focus of the fairy tale clearly wasn’t on cooking. After a while, he admitted he couldn’t remember what the little prince had cooked using the volcanoes.

“I don’t remember because he left later.”

“Why?” Jiang Que inquired.

Shen Tazhi pondered for a moment, “He went to search for his freedom, his love, and his hope.”

Frowning at first, Jiang Que then relaxed his brows, “Oh well, that sounds good too.”

Looking at him curiously, Shen Tazhi felt Jiang Que wrapping his arm around his, his voice a bit muffled, “Love is indeed more important after all. I agree. Did he eventually find it?”

“I suppose he did.”

“That’s great, I’ve found it too.”

Leaning against him, Jiang Que always enjoyed leaning against Shen Tazhi, feeling so comfortable without any reservations.

The roaring sound of the helicopter was deafening, while below them, there were surging blue flames, with dawn on the horizon.

They had witnessed the gentle red lava at dusk and now the vibrant blue flames at sunrise. There were still the depths of the sea, the sky, and many other things he had never even imagined.

The world was so vast, with a diverse array of people and stunning landscapes. The world of human life was actually quite beautiful.

Jiang Que had completely forgotten the hatred he once harbored in the abyss. As he suddenly recalled it, it felt like a distant memory shrouded in mist, fragmented and unclear.

Looking at Shen Tazhi, he softly said, “Shen Tazhi, I love you so much.”

He loved Shen Tazhi, and because Shen Tazhi had shown him a broader world, he also began to love this world.

Shen Tazhi didn’t know what had happened, but he patiently responded to Jiang Que as always, “I love you very much too, always have.”

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  honestly I didn’t know these things existed until I searched for it myself. What can I say? I’m poor ↩︎