Chapter 93: The Relentless Pursuit of Ke Bei

When Fang Yuan’s hand touched Ke Bei’s body, the suffocating pressure vanished in an instant.

Ke Bei himself was never quite sure what had happened afterward. He only remembered being dragged ashore by Fang Yuan, and then, in a dazed haze, seeing Li Mingbo’s anxious face.

As for how he had gotten out, and for the oddly strange Fang Yuan at the time, Ke Bei was not entirely clear in his own mind either. But once he heard Fang Yuan say that he himself did not remember that stretch of events, he began to embroider the tale of that miraculous, unknown experience with ever more color and flourish.

Ke Bei had already read plenty of legendary stories, and from childhood he had longed to become someone with wondrous abilities himself. Even if he could not become such a person, merely knowing one of those legendary figures would be enough to thrill the hot-blooded Ke Bei.

Li Fu had gone down together with Fang Yuan as well, and at that time their location was nowhere near as deep as Ke Bei had claimed. Little did he know that when Fang Yuan went down a second time, the colossal thing had already descended nearly five hundred meters farther.

So when he heard Ke Bei speak of the immense water pressure, Li Fu concluded that most of Ke Bei’s words were greatly exaggerated. And when he heard Ke Bei’s later account of Fang Yuan, he naturally took it to be Ke Bei’s own embellishment as well.

There were only the three of them in the room. After hearing Ke Bei’s account, Fang Yuan had already guessed that what Ke Bei later described must have been the result of Wormy using his body to rescue Ke Bei after Fang Yuan had fallen unconscious.

But Fang Yuan would never mention Wormy to anyone. So after listening to Ke Bei’s explanation, he merely said that he had suffered a severe injury and that, at the time, everything had felt like a dream, so for a moment he had failed to remember it.

Naturally, Ke Bei had no reason to doubt Fang Yuan’s explanation, because to this day he still believed it had all been a dream. Even now, his mind remained dazed and muddled.

“Enough already. You think you’re telling stories here?” Li Fu did not believe a single word Ke Bei said. Because of this matter, his impression of Ke Bei had plummeted.

He had never had a favorable opinion of this arrogant fellow to begin with, and after hearing his account, everything about Ke Bei struck Li Fu as annoyingly crooked and uncomfortable. If not for Fang Yuan being present, and for Li Mingbo’s regard for Ke Bei, Li Fu might have driven him out on the spot.

“Hey, I’m telling you, if you don’t believe it, so be it. I still feel like I’m dreaming, too.” Ke Bei did not care in the least about the way Li Fu looked at him. So long as he thought of Fang Yuan and those miraculous abilities, he could not suppress the excitement surging in his heart.

Sensing the change in the way Ke Bei looked at him, Fang Yuan felt uncomfortable all over.

“Ahem. Tell me, then—what happened to that giant thing afterward?” Fang Yuan did not want to continue the discussion of how Ke Bei had been rescued, and so shifted the subject elsewhere.

“Afterward? Nothing happened afterward.” Ke Bei did not give Li Fu any chance to speak and answered first. He had finally met an expert, and no matter what, he wanted to leave a good impression on Fang Yuan.

Before Fang Yuan had even awakened, Ke Bei had already made up his mind: from now on, wherever Fang Yuan went, he would follow. He was full of curiosity about Fang Yuan now. Of course, what he valued was not Fang Yuan himself, but the tremendous supernatural power hidden within his body.

“Nothing happened? What do you mean, nothing happened? Then make yourself clear.” Hearing this, Fang Yuan was rather helpless; with just that one phrase, “nothing happened,” Ke Bei had swept the entire ending under the rug.

“Once we came back up, that giant thing disappeared. Maybe it was afraid of you, so while you were away it took the chance to flee.” Ke Bei rarely flattered anyone in his life—no, not rarely; never at all.

But for the sake of Fang Yuan’s supernatural abilities, Ke Bei was more than willing to use every bit of his fawning skill.

At Ke Bei’s words, Fang Yuan, lying on the bed, could not help pressing a hand to his forehead. If he had not heard Wormy say that most of what Ke Bei had said was true, only exaggerated a little by the way Ke Bei told it, Fang Yuan would have suspected that Ke Bei’s real profession was being a comic storyteller.

“Since Fang Yuan’s awake, you two can talk. I’ll go report to our boss first.” Mentioning his boss, Li Fu immediately thought of Fang Yuan’s earlier way of addressing Li Mingbo as the ship’s boss, and after he finished speaking, he could not help but smile.

Seeing Li Fu suddenly smile like that, Ke Bei assumed he was mocking him, and immediately glared at him angrily.

“You little brat, so what if you can tell stories? Big deal. Keep glaring at me if you dare, and I’ll squeeze your eyes out and use them as balls.” Ke Bei was about the same age as Fang Yuan, in his twenties, while Li Fu was already thirty and older than both of them.

Naturally broad in temperament, Li Fu was also quite angry to see Ke Bei glaring at him in displeasure. What legendary figure was this, as his boss had made him out to be? He was nothing more than a foul-mouthed little punk with a smooth tongue and no beard. At once, Li Fu looked down on Ke Bei with open contempt.

In truth, anyone who knew Ke Bei and saw him at that moment would surely have thought they had mistaken someone else for him. The Ke Bei they knew was famous for being all but unable to keep his mouth shut; if he could, he would probably have spread his lips all the way to the top of his head.

Who had ever seen Ke Bei treat someone with such humble deference?

Still, no matter how angry he was, Li Fu would not actually do anything to Ke Bei. After all, their boss had made it very clear: Ke Bei was the most important person to him, and no one was allowed to harm him.

Not only that, but Li Mingbo had also ordered everyone involved in the rescue operation to spare no effort in helping Ke Bei whenever he needed it in the future.

Ke Bei and Li Mingbo were originally people who would never have crossed paths, except that one of Ke Bei’s teachers had an extraordinary relationship with Li Mingbo. Yet for Li Mingbo to value so highly the student of a friend, those who knew him were all left puzzled, secretly wondering whether Ke Bei might somehow be his illegitimate son.

After Li Fu left, only Fang Yuan and Ke Bei remained in the room. Ke Bei’s eyes rolled restlessly.

“Fang Yuan, there’s no one else here, so tell me the truth. How did you get those supernatural abilities of yours?” Ke Bei wore a fawning expression, and Fang Yuan truly felt that he must have mistaken Ke Bei for a man.