After a pitiful breakfast with two small sea cucumbers, Shiyuan decided to spend some time writing a letter to his future self.

Yes, that's how bored he was on this barren island. The lack of contact with other living beings was about to drive him crazy, so he had decided to befriend the future Shiyuan.

The idea came from the odd tombstone behind the abandoned hut—the only sign of human activity on this island. Etched on the tombstone was a strange question.

Does your future self appreciate your current self?

Shiyuan had laughed the first time he discovered the tombstone. The person lying inside was dead already. What future did he have? What a stupid thing to carve on a tombstone!

But then, Shiyuan had realized that the person who had carved those letters could very well be himself. The one occupying the grave did not certainly write anything after their death, not to mention, Shiyuan did not remember much from his own past, almost like an amnesiac patient. All that existed in his mind was... wisdom, perhaps?

There was no other way to frame it. He recognized everything in the hut, knew his way around the kitchen, knew numerous recipes, could read and write multiple languages fluently, and recall a wide variety of information that seemed to have stemmed from extensive, methodical studies.

The robe he was wearing since becoming conscious on the island's shore also seemed to belong to a scholar, plain but tasteful, with large pockets that probably had been designed to carry scrolls and writing materials. After four months of regular use, the cloth was about to start tearing near the joints, just like Shiyuan's despair-soaked mind.

So when he came up with the idea to become pen-friends with his future self to alleviate his maddening loneliness, he ended up writing nine letters throughout the whole day.

The first letter addressed the Shiyuan who would survive for at least five months on this island, hunting small fish and eating up the remaining rice inside the earthen container that he had discovered in the kitchen of the hut.

Shiyuan assumed that after the rice ran out, his future self would be forced to take more drastic measures to fill his stomach. The desperation would affect him significantly, and the experience, if he survived, would change his personality.

The Shiyuan next month would not be the same as who he was now.

The second letter addressed a Shiyuan who had survived a whole year on this island. That Shiyuan would be eight months older than him, and perhaps an entirely different young man who thrived on the ocean's bountiful waves like a water spirit sorcerer.

Recalling the information stored in his mind about water sprit sorcerers, Shiyuan felt like he was being tortured. He knew exactly how to become one, enabling himself to manipulate the seawater to hunt more fish, and perhaps even escape this isolated prison.

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However, he did not have the innate roots for water-based sorcery. And the only replacement for such roots, a water spirit, would never approach this island.

Spirits love lifeforce, the stronger, the better, the more, the merrier. If he wanted to look for a water spirit, Shiyuan would have to swim past the shallow waters surrounding the beach and descend under the surface of the ocean to chase after massive shoals.

Shiyuan neither had such guts, nor was the sort who believed that fortune favors the bold.

So the third letter was addressed to that future self who had been down on luck and was at his deathbed, be it on the sea or in some corner of this island. This letter was a compilation of crude jokes.

In his vivid imagination, when the dying Shiyuan received this letter, his death would not be so gloomy and lonely. It was the least he could do for his unlucky future self, right?

The fourth and fifth letters carried lots of praise, addressing Shiyuans who had somehow crafted a floating device and swam away, finally reaching human civilization after dramatic twists and turns on the sea.

Shiyuan hoped for these two future selves to live a good life, find a pretty wife, and die in peace under the knife of time.

The sixth and seventh letters, on the other hand, lamented the misfortune of Shiyuans on similar paths. Perhaps he would never reach civilization, or perhaps after reaching there, he would suffer so horribly that he'd regret leaving the island one day.

Fate's jokes are always extreme. The more one perceived its strings, the more suffocated they'd feel. Accumulating wisdom, in a way, was self harm.

Shiyuan had fallen into a bout of depression after completing the seventh letter. All sorts of dark philosophies crowded his mind. Looking to escape, he had then written something bordering on pure fantasy.

The eighth letter was meant for a Shiyuan whose fortune had been so good that he not only escaped the island, he became a revered hero, a conqueror whose feats were never before heard of in even the wildest folklore. This Shiyuan could tear apart the sky, suppress the cosmic laws, and challenge imagination itself to keep up with him.

Shiyuan sincerely requested this future self to travel back in time and rescue the current him. If that wasn’t possible, he could also try helping in other ways. Any help would be appreciated!

The ninth letter, the last one, was addressed to all the Shiyuans who would wake up every following day with a heart mired in negative emotions.

Shiyuan asked them to nurture hope. Shiyuan hoped that they would not commit suicide. Their past self had great aspirations for them. They needed to grit their teeth and look forward to a miracle, even if it never came.

Hope was the sweetheart of human consciousness. A hopeless consciousness was a dying consciousness. Shiyuan could not let his consciousness run towards death. That would be an insult to his magnificent existence, a desecration of his vivid imagination, and an affront to his current struggles to survive.

After finishing the ninth letter, Shiyuan spent the whole evening folding each of them into meticulous paper boats. One by one, he dropped them off on the gentlest waves of sea, and watched them float away towards an orange, setting sun on the horizon.

Whatever thoughts might have occupied his head at that moment, nothing surely pointed at the strange incident the day after.

The next morning, Shiyuan encountered something inexplicable.

A piece of red paper was laid out on the rough stone table in front of him. Written using charcoal, a cryptic message had been put on it:

Take the opportunity to leave the island.

The problem was, Shiyuan had not written anything like this, never. Who was the writer and what opportunity was he talking about?

Had he overlooked something inside the hut?

Impossible!

He had discovered this piece of paper as a neatly folded paper crane, tucked inside the right pocket of his tattered robe as if a postman had visited him last night while he was asleep.

He would have assumed that a ghost was messing with him, if not for the fact that he had even walked around the island many times at night, hoping to meet a ghost.

Even if it killed him, Shiyuan wanted to have a heartfelt chat before dying. It would be best if the ghost happened to be one of those lady legends like the Stitched-Up Bride, or the Soulsnatcher Succubi, or the Burning Widow...

Anyway, Shiyuan's thoughts continued to drift back to his nine letters, trying to find a connection between the two incidents. Both were in written form, that was all he had as a lead.

Was there another island nearby where his letters had been received? But he was pretty sure all nine paper boats had sunk quickly into the sea.

That evening, he saw a miracle unfolding in the sky.