Chapter Ninety-Five: Taking Flight

On the sightseeing boat at that moment, a greasy middle-aged man in an expensive suit, clutching a briefcase and sporting a head of fluffy permed curls, with a thin cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, was gripping the rail so tightly that he seemed afraid he would slip overboard at any moment.

His face was full of panic, his fat legs trembling nonstop, and he did not even realize that the cigarette had nearly burned to his lips.

A beautiful woman in a blue dress was clutching the man’s arm with both hands, her face drained pale with fear.

They were not the only ones on the boat. Beside them stood six or seven television reporters in life jackets.

Some were hugging the rail, some supporting one another, all struggling to keep their balance on the wildly pitching vessel.

The cameras and floodlights that should have been carefully protected were tossed messily across the deck, banging about inside the cabin as they pleased, with no one paying them any attention.

Under ordinary circumstances, those delicate instruments would have been the reporters’ dearest treasures.

But now everyone was busy saving their own lives, wishing they had grown a few extra arms just to cling to the rail. Who had the leisure to care about such worldly possessions?

If they were flung out of the cabin at this moment and plunged into the vast river below, the outcome would be grim indeed.

Compared with one’s own life, a few cameras and lights were worth nothing at all.

“Why have I been so unlucky lately?” The greasy man began at once with a lament fit for an old village mother.

“A while ago I was beaten up for no reason by some madman, and it took me forever to recover and get out of the hospital.”

“I was thinking of giving the television station an interview to put a little shine on our Zhao Group.”

“Everything was going fine, and then who would have thought this rotten boat would suddenly have some kind of problem?”

“It was perfectly fine staying on the river. Why insist on copying airplanes and taking to the sky? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?”

This greasy man was also an old acquaintance of Chu Yu’s. He was none other than our national entrepreneur, Mr. Zhao Dasheng.

“P-please forgive us, Chairman Zhao,” a middle-aged man with slicked hair and a powdered face stammered. “We had no idea something like this would happen.”

“If we had known this stretch of river was so dangerous, we would never have let you take such a risk!”

He was the main person in charge of this television interview. It had been he who strongly insisted on coming to the river to interview Zhao Dasheng.

Now that something like this had happened, though it was not really his fault, he would certainly have to shoulder part of the blame.

Zhao Dasheng did not bother responding to the man’s explanation. Things had already come to this point, and he no longer had the mood to pursue the interview organizer’s responsibility.

How it had happened no longer mattered. What mattered was whether his own life could be saved.

All he could think about now was how to escape this damned cabin.

Gathering his courage, he leaned out and looked down. All he could see were dark, glistening scales and the surging, violent river.

For a landlubber like him, whose fighting strength was practically zero, falling out of this cabin would almost certainly mean little chance of survival.

Either he would be devoured by the thing beneath the cabin as a sacrifice for its teeth, or he would be swallowed by the raging river, with even his body never to be found.

Just as he was filled with anxiety for his own life and future, a sneaky face suddenly peered up from beneath the cabin.

“A ghost!”

Zhao Dasheng and that furtive face nearly came nose to nose, and he was so frightened that he screamed and screamed, losing the cigarette from his mouth, which ended up scorching his suit.

“Shut up!” Chu Yu shouted as he braced his arms and climbed the boat by hand. “You’re the one who looks like a ghost. Your whole family looks like ghosts!”

Twisting his waist and coiling his abdomen, he flipped himself up like an eel and landed steadily on the cabin deck, his feet striking the iron floor with a creaking groan.

“Are you a man or a ghost?” Zhao Dasheng, terrified, hurriedly put a great distance between himself and Chu Yu.

“Rubbish!” Chu Yu rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m human.”

When the whole boat saw that this dripping, unknown creature could actually speak, every gaze turned toward him.

“Huh, it’s you?” Zhao Dasheng studied the person before him carefully and immediately recognized Chu Yu’s face.

“You’re that lunatic who always tries to cheat money out of me. What are you doing up here?”

Worried about Katerina’s safety, Chu Yu’s tone was impatient and unpleasant.

“Of course I came to save you. Why else would I go to all the trouble of climbing up here? To shout for help with you?”

“Time is short, and lives are on the line. I won’t waste words with you. From this moment on, you all do exactly as I say if you want to keep your lives.”

“Why should we listen to you?” the slick-haired television manager objected. “You look like nothing more than a half-grown child with milk still on your breath.”

“That’s right. How do we know you won’t give random orders and cost all of us our lives?” someone else in the crowd immediately echoed.

Chu Yu said nothing. He strode to the corner of the cabin, where several lifeboats and a stack of life rings had been stored.

“Here goes!”

Lifting one inflated lifeboat, Chu Yu hurled it with all his strength. The boat, large enough for three or four people, instantly cut a straight white line through the air and flew skyward.

Under Chu Yu’s terrifying strength, the lifeboat was thrown more than ten meters before barely landing on the river, nearly causing the jaws of the entire boat to drop.

“I-is he even human?” Zhao Dasheng was frightened stiff on the spot, thinking he must be hallucinating.

That lifeboat weighed at least a hundred catties. It would take at least two strong men to lift it.

And yet in the hands of this young man, a hundred-cattie lifeboat was no different from a featherweight pebble, thrown so far in a single motion.

With strength like that, not even the Olympic weightlifting champions could compare.

“That fellow’s strength is truly monstrous. If I had known he was this formidable, I never should have spoken to him so rudely in the first place.” The beautiful woman in the dress beside Zhao Dasheng looked on in lingering fear.

“Could he still be holding a grudge against me? If he wants revenge, who could possibly stop him?” At the thought of this, the woman’s face turned terribly ugly.

She had already begun to regret her sharp tongue and the fact that she had offended such a fierce man.

Just from this one display of ability, let alone serving as bodyguard for a mere Zhao Dasheng, he would have been more than qualified to guard even a president.

They thought matters ended there, but what followed left them even more stunned.

Chu Yu picked up another lifeboat and tossed it away in the same fashion.

Then a third, then a fourth... very quickly, all the lifeboats in the cabin were flung out to the river more than ten meters away.

Seen from afar, the lifeboats were arrayed in a line, rising and falling with the waves.

And Chu Yu, having finished all this, still stood there without the slightest flush or strain, like a shining superman.

“You there!” Chu Yu pointed at the television manager, who had just moments ago been so arrogant. “What was it you said earlier?”

“Nothing... nothing at all!” The slick-haired middle-aged man was so frightened that he could hardly get the words out. “I just wanted to tell you that everyone on the boat is willing to obey your instructions.”

“Oh, good.” Chu Yu stuffed a life ring into the middle-aged man’s arms, then... kicked him hard in the backside.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The middle-aged man went flying. The river wind that rushed at him whipped his hair wildly, and the place where Chu Yu had just kicked him throbbed with pain.

After sliding through the air for more than ten meters, he finally tumbled down from midair and fell with a splash into the river.

With the buoyancy of the life jacket and life ring, the middle-aged man floated steadily on the water and did not sink.

His point of entry happened to be right beside the lifeboat. This was no coincidence, but the result of Chu Yu’s deliberate arrangement.

Chu Yu knew that even with life jackets and life rings, these people would have a hard time crossing half the river, so they would need the lifeboats.

It would not do to lower the lifeboats directly from the sightseeing boat. Who knew whether the calamity beneath the vessel might suddenly erupt and hurt someone?

Throwing both boat and people a dozen meters away, far from that calamity, was undoubtedly safer.

Unfortunately, not everyone could appreciate his painstaking kindness.

“So Director Hao was just... kicked away like that?”

The people from the television station saw with their own eyes the middle-aged man being sent flying by Chu Yu’s kick and falling into the river, and they were instantly dumbfounded.

“Mm, pretty accurate.” Chu Yu glanced toward the middle-aged man and nodded in satisfaction. “The landing point was not off by much.”

“Next it’s your turn.”

He casually pulled over one television employee and was about to gather strength for a kick to send him on his way.

Unexpectedly, the man tugged desperately at his sleeve, refusing to be torn from Chu Yu’s grasp and dead set on not following in Director Hao’s footsteps.

“If you’re determined to kick me, fine. But can you tell me why you’re kicking me?” the man asked with righteous conviction.

“I’m kicking you to save you! If it were anyone else, even if they begged me to kick them, I wouldn’t.” Seeing how ungrateful the fellow was, Chu Yu also grew irritated, feeling his kindness had been repaid with contempt.

“If I were to carry you one by one through the water to the shore, how long would it take before I saved everyone on this boat?”

“With the situation this critical and time so precious, before I even carried the first person ashore, your boat would probably have already capsized.”

“Isn’t this much better? One kick sends one person flying. It saves time, saves effort, and keeps you far away from that thing beneath the boat. How much safer can you get?”

As if to confirm Chu Yu’s words, the sightseeing boat suddenly pitched violently, the whole vessel swaying as though it had struck an iceberg like the Titanic.

“My God! What happened?”

“The boat is going to capsize!”

“Help... help!”

In an instant, cries of panic and curses rose and fell across the boat. Several people who failed to hold on properly fell straight onto the deck, bruising themselves painfully.

The river water suddenly turned murky, waves rolling and surging one after another, while something beneath the hull writhed ceaselessly.

For an instant, Chu Yu caught sight of a faint blue glow flashing beneath the water.

He knew that Katerina must already be fighting that calamity, or else the boat would not be rocking so violently.

“I don’t have time to waste with you all anymore. Anyone willing to be kicked should take a life ring, line up, and stick your rear ends out.”

Chu Yu gave the command with great ceremony, like a general directing tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield.

“I’ll kick you one by one into the water. Line yourselves up in advance, and you’ll save trouble while I save trouble too. Cooperate with my work, cherish your lives, and stop making trouble for me.”

“I’m the chairman of Zhao Group. Kick me first!” Seeing the situation grow more and more urgent while everyone else still hesitated, Zhao Dasheng could not sit still any longer.

He pushed his way out of the crowd and stood first in line, with the beautiful woman in the dress who was always by his side taking second place.

This apparently brave, forward-moving act actually concealed a rather selfish motive.

He could tell that Chu Yu had shown great restraint in kicking Director Hao.

Seeing Director Hao still flailing with enough strength left to struggle in the water, it seemed he had suffered nothing more than a scare.

Right now they were racing death itself. The sooner he could leave this dangerous stretch of river, the better. Zhao Dasheng did not want to delay any longer.

“Then let’s save Chairman Zhao first!” Faced with Zhao Dasheng’s status and position, no one dared object, though they were angry enough to burn.

Who could blame them? His status was right there for all to see.

“You’ll be the last one.” Chu Yu widened his eyes, clearly regarding Zhao Dasheng with disdain, and felt more than a little resentment toward him.

After all, when Chu Yu had once volunteered himself, Zhao Dasheng had insulted him mercilessly.

Now the wheel of fortune had turned, and it was Zhao Dasheng who had come begging him for help. How could Chu Yu fail to seize the chance to give him a little medicine?

“I have the highest status here. You have to save me first.” In this moment, the selfish side of human nature came clearly to the fore, and Zhao Dasheng spoke with utter righteousness.

“Aren’t you short on money? Save me first, and I’ll give you a generous reward afterward.”