Yibo was furious with me and, as he said, with good reason because of my solo attempt and dragged me behind him to a car that had been left standing. He pushed me into the car, which, by the way, smelled as if someone had left the diapers of a half-dead person there and vomited on it, and scolded, "What were you thinking, facing those creatures alone? Who do you think you are? Don't you realize what could have happened to you? What am I going to do without you if you get killed?"

First of all, before searching for an answer in my just rather confused brain, I looked around at Haikuan who was standing by the supermarket doing something with two shopping carts. Then I looked at Yibo and said, "Hey, it wasn't like I did that willingly. Somehow my body reacted to the threats all by itself."

Apparently Yibo didn't know what to say to that either and just replied, "This can't go on. I can't let you out of my sight for a second!"

"I'm not a little kid." I replied stubbornly.

"Then don't act like one. Tell me what would have happened to me if you had been killed? How would I be able to go on living without you?"

I scratched my nose and desperately searched my brain for a good answer, but could only bring out, "I'm sorry." and look to the side in embarrassment.

"You are impossible Zhan! First you let that elf vampire bite you and now you single-handedly fight two Dangerous Creatures in a dark narrow alley. And I suppose you don't just owe your victory to your new spear, do you?"

He had me figured out! What else was I supposed to do? Continue pretending to be the old me? No, I calmly described to him what changes my body had made and what abilities I now possessed, and he calmly listened. "I'm still me, just improved." I said at the end of my explanation.

"You're telling me here right now how much your body or abilities have changed and in the same breath you're telling me you're still the same. How can that be true? Zhan, I don't doubt that you are still my Zhan. I love you either way and it doesn't matter to me. But you shouldn't keep such things a secret from me. Especially because we are not alone and that Meng Yao will go crazy if he notices that something has changed with you. Don't forget, we depend on Haikuan because he's the only one who can steer this sailing yacht. But if Meng Yao wants it, they'll leave us behind. And Meng Yao is already watching our every move. He's just looking for a reason to get rid of us."

"You're right, I'm sorry. I should have told you right away."

"Yes, you should have. But Zhan, I'm glad you told me now."

"You Yibo?"

"Mn?"

"I wish the two of us could go on our own again."

"And how are we going to do that? It's too dangerous here on shore. Even though those creatures obviously fear you now, and the elf-vampires recognize you as one of them because you're now the blood brother of their king, they'd still keep trying to kill me."

"Elf vampires? Mhhh, sounds good. But then what does that make me? Who am I? And yes, it's true and I'm well aware that it's too dangerous on land. It was just a thought of mine. A wish to finally get rid of this Meng Yao."

"At the moment we still have to put up with him. Maybe not for much longer. From the looks of it, things aren't going so well between Haikuan and Meng Yao."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because he told me himself. He said Meng Yao's been getting on his nerves a lot lately, and that he's been close to just pushing him into the sea a few times."

"I haven't noticed that yet. I've heard the two of them talking more than once. But it sounded anything but like they were arguing."

"So Haikuan was lying to me?"

"Not necessarily. Maybe he's annoyed and manages to hide it well. Or maybe he realizes how annoyed we are with Meng Yao and to calm us down a bit, he tells us he feels the same way. I don't know."

"Well Zhan, I think we should keep an eye on that. I don't have a good feeling about this Meng Yao."

"Mn, it's probably better. Not that we'll miss anything important. And now we should go to Haikuan. He's already looking here over and over impatiently. And besides, it just smells horrible in this car." I said. Yibo nodded and we got out of the car. I was relieved that Yibo had calmed down so quickly. Before, he was so mad at me that I thought he was going to rip my head off.

The yield of the supermarket, even if it is small, was really very small. I could not believe that the two had packed only two shopping carts and then wanted to take almost only canned food.

I asked them to wait a moment and then went into the supermarket myself. I packed all the food in my shopping cart that had a shelf life. Pasta, rice, sauces, potato powder and much more. Quickly my cart was full and I got another one and filled it with the fruit and vegetables that were not yet rotten. I also packed dried fruit. I also picked up juices and lemon concentrate. I also found a couple of small gas bottles and a grill.

In the end, the three of us then pushed five shopping carts to the dock and brought everything onto the sailing yacht while Meng Yao supervised everything. He didn't lift a finger and even got upset that we would need so long and that it would soon be dark again. I would have loved to pull him off the yacht and leave him at the dock!

As we cast off again and headed back out to sea, we saw the winged creatures slowly gathering in the small town. They stayed on high places from where they could see everything. I was surprised that they did not try to attack us. Maybe there are still people in the place and these flying creatures see them as easier prey.

Haikuan drove us safely back to the open sea while Yibo and I stowed our spoils from the supermarket in the kitchen cupboards and pantry. Also, he and I cooked dinner. Meng Yao preferred to sleep. Apparently staying on the sailing yacht and doing nothing was very tiring for him.

However, Meng Yao came back for dinner and sat at the table with us. Haikuan immediately turned to him and asked, "Why didn't you help? We put ourselves in danger and got everything. Then you could have done some cooking."

In response, Meng Yao said, "I'm sorry. But I haven't been feeling well all day. I think I'm getting a cold. And I don't want to infect anyone, so that's why I didn't cook." Damn liar! Someday I'll just push him off the boat into the sea and hope he drowns there!

Late in the evening, we were almost back to our anchorage, Haikuan and Meng Yao went to sleep. Yibo and I used the undisturbed time to talk again about our current situation. And we agree that we want to get rid of Meng Yao. No, we don't want to kill him. But we also don't want to stay with him on the yacht much longer.

If the opportunity arises, Yibo and I want to take a normal sailboat and get away from them. Haikuan taught us a lot about sailing and we think we could do it on our own. Of course, we would prefer if Haikuan continued to be our captain and we could continue to stay on our luxury sailing yacht. But the situation with Meng Yao becomes more and more unbearable for us.

But eventually the tiredness also caught up with us and we also went to sleep. After we were sure that the flying monsters really don't fly that far out to sea to look for prey, we stopped doing guard duty every night.

Later that day when we woke up, it was almost noon and we wondered why it was so quiet on the yacht. Usually we always heard one of them rattling something, music or the radio, over which we could hear other people who were escaping to sea. We just never answer them for fear they might be after our yacht or our supplies.

So we got out of bed, went to shower as usual, and then looked around the yacht for the other two. But, well how can I say, there was no one there except Yibo and me! And the by-boat was missing! But not only the by-boat, but also a lot of our supplies, some water canisters, the radio and the stuff of the two.

Yibo looked out to sea in disbelief and laughed, shaking his head. I, on the other hand, looked around more closely, searching for a message, any clue as to why the two had left and when. But I found nothing. And then Yibo said, "I think they planned this from the beginning!"

"Why do you think that?" I asked him.

"Because Haikuan told me two or three days ago that he had located his sailboat and that it wasn't that far away."

"I see, and now you think they're on their way there?"

"Where else would they be going? We are on the open sea. There's nothing around here for miles."

"You're right about that." I said. Then I saw Yibo run to the steering room or whatever the thing was called and quickly followed him. He looked around briefly and then pointed to the key for the yacht. Yibo then said that Haikuan probably didn't want us unable to get out of there. But what did the key get us?

The luxury sailing yacht has the latest technology. The best of the best. Heaps of monitors, switches and displays and for more than half of them we had no idea what they were good for. After all, Haikuan had just started explaining and showing us everything. And there is no manual!

But since Yibo and I didn't want to go crazy right away, we first sat down and discussed our new situation. We also went over our supplies and calculated how long we would be able to get by before we had to go back ashore. About 2 weeks if we catch a fish in between and eat that.

So now we have two weeks to familiarize ourselves with the sailing yacht and the on-board technology and to do that without a manual and just by learning by doing. Yibo is sure to have it all figured out in two weeks. I rely on him, because he is also interested in these things.

Now they've beaten us here. The good thing is that we got rid of Meng Yao. Bad thing is, they just left without saying anything and took more than half of our supplies and the radio. Luckily we had the satellite phone in our room or they probably would have stolen that too.

Yibo is pretty angry and can't understand why Haikuan didn't tell us. We are sure that they didn't hear us last night and that's why they left, because we were whispering and too far away from their room. So they really must have planned this beforehand. After all, Haikuan had told Yibo that he had been able to locate his sailboat a few days ago. They've probably been planning it since then.

I wonder what they will do if they can't get their sailboat back because there are others on it and they can't be driven away? Do they then come back here and want to be welcomed back?