When number 56 Piers told Bright “Feel free to order any of them for tonight,” the camera gave a close-up shot of the appearance and expression of everyone on the yacht.
Among them the most eye-catching is Beauty. He’s the prima donna of a club. Under the sun, his blonde hair is glittering, together with the sparkling surface of the body of water. No matter where he is, he is the one who is capturing attention. Since the beginning of the show, he has almost starred in half of the sexual scenes. The audience is already very familiar with his expression and body. Whenever they see his face, they immediately think of physical exercise and start salivating. Yet right now his eyes that are looking at Bright is truly clear, seemingly including something special, completely different from usual.
Next to Beauty is the Ginger Ronald. He is often with Piers, but not in the form of a CP, but as an owned object. The audience, quite surprisingly, seems to really enjoy that. They like to watch the sweet everyday life between the human fleshlight and the overbearing young master. Ginger is currently sneaking glances towards the front of the yacht where Piers and Bright are sitting. He looks to be nervous. If one observes him in detail, you will find that he is looking more at Bright.
As for the amusing comedic relationship between Bright and number 56, and his love-hate tragic relationship with Old Veteran, and his ‘special someone’ relationship with Wolfie, and his apparent love triangle with the Dwarf and the Giant… They have already produced much fruit under the wild imaginations of the audience and the creativity of the experts among them, in the form of R18 novellas, radio programs, video compilations, edited videos, cosplay, etc. etc.
There are even third-rate video production companies playing near-miss with copyright protection by using surgery to modify actors to their likenesses and shot a whole series of adult videos. Currently, the most popular ones among the completed videos include Bright x Beauty and Soldier x Young Bright. The Wolves x Bright x Wolfie is apparently in the works, and it is certain they’ll be stretching their sinful grasp towards Grizzlybear soon.
The staff of the show who are following their journey closely have suddenly thought of the same strange thought in their minds, while beginning to feel envious or jealous or hateful of number 199 even as they admit in secret how charismatic he is.
“Are you thinking the same as me?” Someone is winking at his coworker like they have a seizure while having a wretched-looking smile on them.
His coworker, often an accomplice in his antics, immediately understands, “group orgy?”
They high-five each other, celebrating their mutual understanding.
George is rolling his eyes so hard they’ve probably ended up at the back of his head.
As an anti-fan who’s already beyond such inferior delusions and who is avid in <s>following stars</s> working, he is focusing on Bright’s main challenge for the episode——Grizzlybear Andy.
“Leader, Grizzlybear’s status is abnormal. His countenance has been absolutely disastrous since he boarded the ship… oh, shit! He’s puking!”
Watching Grizzlybear who’s had most of his fight taken out of him, the leader has a worried look on his face. Nobody could have guessed that one of the most popular candidates for the championship would be seasick, and in such half-dead manner too. It’ll be useless to kill him like this. After all, what the animal protection groups want to see is the powerful and savage scum get his due punishment after hurting the animals, and not a black-hearted contestant taking advantage of a weakened person in distress. This is very disadvantageous to building the bright image of number 199.
It goes without saying that the stronger the bad guys the greater the sense of achievement and justice when you beat the bad guys.
The leader massages the middle of his brows and adjusts the plan, “delay his meeting with Bright, at least until he recovers a bit more stamina. We’ll see.”
And yet, while the show is earnestly expectant of him, Grizzlybear’s condition does not improve as dusk falls. His face looks green as vegetables and his steps unsteady. They do not suspect he’s pretending because Grizzlybear even puked his bile out. He looks like he’s on his last breath, half-dead.
The leader reports the situation to his higher-ups, who will hold a discussion to decide on their backup plan.
While waiting for the decision, someone else goes wrong in the competition.
Bright, who doesn’t know that Grizzlybear is seasick and out of action has always been waiting for the show to present Grizzlybear to him. While waiting, he does not interfere while number 56 orders everyone besides Wolfie around to work hard on this and that like a bully. They present clean water, sweet coconut and delicious oysters to Bright.
This is an equivalent exchange. They repent and ingratiate themselves as Bright sees no reason in rejecting them. After being fed, even Wolfie is looking much less hostilely at them.
Suddenly, Thin Bamboo Harry hurriedly informs them while running, “help! We were catching fish over the reef when the tide flooded the path to return. When we saw that we were surrounded by sharks and I escaped as I was near the shore, but Ginger is trapped on the reef.”
Everyone is shocked.
“I’ve come to tell you that. Beauty is already headed for the yacht.” Harry says while gasping for air.
Led by Harry, the others immediately make their way to the coast where it happened.
The normally peaceful, serene beaches have been filled with an unsettling atmosphere of danger right now, as sharks big and small are swimming nearby. They have arrived at the coast with the tide. Their iconic fins as if the harbingers of death, sinking the hearts of everyone. Close to them, about a hundred metres away, is a slightly larger reef on which Ginger is standing, alone and helpless, hopelessness written all over his face. The tide is still rising and it won’t be long until the reef is submerged. The sharks swimming around the reef are also closer and closer to him.
“What do we do? Wait for Beauty to get the ship here?” Harry asks anxiously. He was the one who brought Ronald along to hunt for fish. He had to take care of Big Retard while he was working so he neglected the changes around the situation, and failed to help him.
Old Veteran says pessimistically, “I’m afraid it’s helpless. There are shallow reefs all over the location. Ships will easily run aground so the yacht cannot close in to that location. The moment Ginger goes into the water he’ll become fish feed. Why don’t we…”
“give up,” the two words appeared simultaneously in the contestants’ minds, including Ginger who is surrounded by sharks in the distance.
“I’ll go.” Bright says. He took some makeshift weapon from Harry including a wooden harpoon and a dagger made by sharpening seashells.
Piers sees through his intention and tries to stop him, “you’re mad!”
Bright is telling him he has made a decision with his look. Ronald is trapped because he was catching fish for them, so he cannot merely look on as he is dying. Then he gives a mission to everyone rapidly – number 56, Old Veteran, Harry and Big Retard are to kill the sharks by the coast, to attract them with the smell of blood as much as possible, creating a diversion; have Beauty approach the reef as much as possible, preparing to receive them.
Outside the screen, George starts yelling out of apprehension, almost the exact expression Piers has on him right now, “the fuck are you playing hero right now!” He looks to his leader, “leader, what do we do? What do the higher-ups say?”
“To observe quietly.” The leader ends his call with a complicated expression. The Director does not seem to like number 199 very much. Just now the vice director has objected to it but he was scolded by the Director.
George looks dumbfounded, almost going insane, even, “it’s a group of sharks! There’re dozens! Number 199 will die!”
“We’ll see how it goes first.” The leader could only shrug as well. The orders from the upper brass cannot be disobeyed. He takes cameras from number 56 while gathering the underwater cameras filming the sharks to focus on number 199 from all angles. This might be the final act of that silent man. Since the start of the show, he has shown his extraordinary abilities and contributed outstanding scenes. He should have a grand exit.
George is out of options besides turning back to the screen and praying that the sharks will suddenly lose their sense of smell and be unable to detect the scent of humans so that Bright can save Ginger successfully.
A hundred metres does not seem far, but the whole situation is precarious as the blue ocean rises while the threat of sharks is everywhere. Every inch, every foot along is stretched infinitely long and lives could be lost wherever and whenever.
Bright runs quickly before walking lightly into the water. When the water is about to reach his thighs he lowers himself immediately into the water while moving his body about as close in form as a fish as possible to swim quickly towards Ginger.
Their territory in the water invaded by an unfamiliar scent, the current detection mechanism installed on the shark’s noses detect a special heartbeat and pulse. They feel a tiny change in the water current and the sharks quickly approach Bright. Even though sharks are only ranked 5 <sup>th</sup> in speed among waterborne creatures at about 50 km/h, it is still much faster than a human’s swimming speed.
It has not been long until a shark catches up to Bright. It moves its streamlined body as it opens its big, terrifying mouth. Through the camera you can see a countless number of teeth arranged in a row as if they will tear apart the man’s body in the next second, making people’s hairs stand on end.
The first attack was narrowly dodged by Bright. The shark quickly turns back around and strikes back at Bright. As it happened, from the front of the man’s right and his upper-left comes one shark each respectively. Farther out are more sharks that are approaching.
People always thought sharks were lone creatures used to hunting solo. In fact they are highly social and they have a clear hierarchy in a group. Right now, they have perfectly demonstrated their integrity like a pack of disciplined, orderly wolves, hunting the prey by coordinating and producing a tight net of death, preparing to forever bound this odd-looking small bipedal creature in the water.
Bright is holding his air as he swims as quickly as he can towards his original direction. He is swimming in as straight a line as possible because it’s more dangerous the longer he stays in the water.
Just dodging forever will kill him eventually and Bright starts actively attacking. The harpoon in his right hand stabs towards the shark that first approached him. That shark starts struggling wildly as the blood disperses in the water. The smell irritates the group of sharks and the atmosphere in the water has become even heavier.
Bright holds onto the harpoon closely as he removes it while his legs push strongly to move forward by the force of the water, and just barely misses the sharp teeth of the shark just behind him. Just then, the third shark is only less than half a metre from him. He uses an unbelievably flexible posture, with his body arcing and suddenly diving downwards, to just pass the shark by. The dark colour of the scales of the shark passes right by the clothes of the man waving in the water.
As the water is clear, the camera captures every small change in detail. The male body held aloft by bubbles, splashes and waves is lean and dexterous, agile like a king of the seas; it is full of the aesthetics of the combination of power and elasticity.
Before more killers of the sea approach, the man exchanges air on the water surface before continuing to swim towards the reef.
“Just 15 more metres.”
Outside the screen, almost everyone has stopped their work and is watching each and every dodge, attack and fight between the man and the sharks. He is inching ever so closer to Ginger. Behind him are several floating corpses of sharks, many of which died after being attacked by their kind when they have been wounded.
Right now, the water has risen over the lower leg of Ginger. His eyes were originally hollowed as he gave up hope, but when he sees the man beating the sharks back, again and again, to close in on him, Ronald regains hope and starts to pay attention to his surroundings, staying alert against any potential shark attacks. He also manages to wound one and is working hard to stay alive himself, trying to last until rescue arrives.
On the coastline and in the water near the coast, the other members are also working hard to kill the sharks. Blood is blossoming as several large red flowers in the water. Thanks to their hard work, much of the attention of the killers of the sea has been divided, lessening Bright’s burden.
Beauty has driven the yacht as close as he could. There are just several sharks between them and the way out now.
Bright’s harpoon snaps in one attack, and he has to resort to his short dagger and his fists in fighting with the sharks. This is much more thrilling than using a long weapon. His fists and palm are interacting with the sharks at a negative distance apart. A normal person would be stupefied and petrified just thinking about it.
This is not just a fight of wits, stamina and endurance. It is also a fight between men and nature, between men and the ruler of the oceans.
“Now!” Beauty has a good perspective from where he is standing. When he sees Bright has attracted most of the attention, he immediately shouts towards Ginger, urging him to enter the water and swim right now. Ronald jumps in without hesitation and swims towards the yacht as quickly as possible. He was close to ending up in the stomach of the sharks a few times. When he safely boarded the yacht, they move on to rescuing Bright.
Finally, Bright also breaks through the shark’s tight encirclement with the help of his companions. Everyone who is bearing witness to this can’t help but cheer.
“Damn!” Even the usually calm leader curses in excitement.
The people on the shore watch as Ginger and Beauty drag Bright onto the yacht. Then Ginger flies into the embrace of Bright. The two remain in that position without separating for a long time.
Seeing the odd looks from his companions, Piers asks Harry in an exasperated manner.
“The fuck you looking at?”
“Looking at all the greenery growing out of your head (‘Wearing a green hat’ is a Chinese expression for the one who is betrayed in a relationship when their partner has been unfaithful. It has since been extended in possible forms of expression from wearing anything green and then to having anything green on one’s head) hahaha!” The crisis averted, Harry, whose nerves are finally relaxed, mocking laughs out loud.
“Bugger off!”
Author’s notes: Hopkin: Is that… greenery? Growing out of my head?