Chapter 7 The Song Sung by the Drowned Man (1)

Davos, the smuggler who ventured across the blockade, brought some onions and pickled fish, but because of the capsizing problem, the quantity was small and did not solve the food crisis at Storm's End.

So much so that in the following days, lunch was still simple and even crude.

However, Renly's attention has been focused on the dentures recently. Whenever he has time, he will hide in the room to observe it, and then he will be entangled-

As long as he looks at the dentures, he can feel a special attraction, as if there is a voice calling him faintly, clench, clench the dentures...

However, the "consequences" of clenching make Renly full of hesitation.

Experiments have shown that after clenching, he will inexplicably run to an ocean archipelago on the other side of the Westeros continent, become an islander there, and then drown!

Just like in his previous "dream", he became a knight, but was crushed to death by his own horse...

He doesn't care about knights or sea people, the problem is that the feeling of death is really terrifying.

But if the tips provided by the smuggler are effective...

"Life is about breaking through yourself." At lunch on the sixth day, he suddenly sighed as he used a silver dagger to pick at two dry salted fish on the plate.

"Having a mountain of treasure but not taking it is like marrying a beautiful wife with great difficulty, but you can't get hard."

"Can't get hard?" The fat man next to him didn't understand this sentence, and blinked blankly when he heard it.

"What can't get hard? Fists? Why can't get hard? Is it because you don't have enough food? Then I can't get hard either. You know Renly, I haven't had enough food recently..."

As he spoke, he stole a glance at the two humiliated salted fish on the plate in front of Renly, and then blinked at the black-haired friend in front of him.

"You seem to hate it? Or-"

"Not fists." Renly interrupted him with a squint.

"It's probably a mental illness."

After saying that, he stabbed the dead pickled fish in the forehead with the silver dagger in his right hand, and then slid off the bench and walked towards the door under the surprised gaze of Fatty.

But after a few steps, the black-haired boy turned back and took the plate of fish away.

"It's better to have something to eat than nothing."

He emphasized with disgust, and Fatty sighed.

"We're going to play in the Godswood Forest later!" The thin bamboo pole on the other side was originally sneezing and chewing an onion. Seeing this, he hurriedly shouted at Renly's back, and after shouting, he hurriedly raised his sleeves to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes.

"Don't forget!"

"You two go." Renly waved his hand without looking back: "I'm not an idle person."

The two looked at each other when they heard this.

"He's speaking in a sarcastic way?"

"Maybe Master Cressen has arranged a new course for him?"

"That's the only possibility... He's really amazing. He can stick to such a boring thing for so long?"

...

Maester Cressen obviously didn't arrange any new courses for Renly. After returning to the room, he directly left the plate of salted fish on the shelf for later use, and then took out the dentures hidden in the bedside table and held them in his hands.

His movements were done in one go, as if he was afraid that someone would come to grab this thing, but in fact he was just afraid that he would regret it.

His worries were correct, because he regretted it not long after, but it was too late.

After holding the dentures tightly, Renly's originally clear thinking quickly diverged, and then quickly fell into a special state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness.

This state may have lasted for a long time, but it seemed to be just a moment.

...

When the cold wind blew, Renly suddenly felt that several people were reaching out to press his head and arms, and he quickly woke up.

Unfortunately, before Renly could even take a look around him after opening his eyes, his head was pressed hard into the clear, light blue sea water below.

He was no longer Renly, but a young man with obviously strong limbs.

Having been here once before, Renly was prepared for this, so he was not at a loss when facing the abnormality, he was just panicked.

He knew that he was in a place called the Iron Islands.

The Iron Islands are one of the nine major territories of Westeros. A group of people living on the islands are called Ironmen, and this tenacious nation has a special religious ritual - the drowning ritual.

Simply put, it means pressing you into the sea water and choking you to death.

Of course, the Ironmen believe that true believers of the Drowned God (the god they believe in) will not be afraid of drowning, because they will be resurrected afterwards.

If lucky, the drowned can indeed come back to life through the primitive cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques of the Drowned Man (the Drowned God's priest).

Right now, Renly is being drowned, and he very much hopes that he can have this luck.

At the same time, he also prayed that the formula that the smuggler Davos said would help him get through the difficulties smoothly, because he was very curious about this "dream" world and even wanted to see its true face.

However, no matter what his mood was, for now, the difficulty he faced was how to avoid drowning.

…

At the beginning of the ceremony, the sufficient oxygen made Renly's senses very clear. With his eyes wide open, he could vaguely see the beach at the bottom of the sea, which was just a palm away, and the green seaweed that sprang out of the sand and swayed with the sea water, and saw a silver fish running away in panic, as well as three lines of words sunken on the surface of the sand, three lines of strange words.

Even though the current situation was very tense, Renly was involuntarily attracted by these three lines of words. Unfortunately, his vision was blurred in the water. He only took a few glances. Before he could think carefully, a pair of rough feet stepped on the left side of his sight, and the thick sand brought up covered everything in front of him.

The surroundings were terribly quiet. The ocean blocked most of the worldly sounds outside the water. Only a faint prayer sound lingered around, as if it came from the sky.

"Supreme God who drowned for us, let your servant Hal be reborn from the sea like you. Give him the blessing of sea salt, the blessing of stone, the blessing of steel..."

The most important thing is to stay calm.

Renly said to himself secretly.

He kept holding his breath, and the oxygen in his lungs became thinner as the ceremony progressed. Soon, his body instinctively began to urge him to struggle to get up, but the pressure from the back of his head and shoulders on both sides was particularly strong.

As time went by, the pain gradually grew, and everything became more and more unbearable.

The most important thing is to stay calm.

When he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he thought about the key points mentioned by the smuggler again.

How can I stay calm when I'm going to die?

He remembered that he replied to Davos like this.

The stranger who represents death is terrifying, but if we don't want to be completely captured by him, we'd better face him directly. You have to know that this behavior is to survive at the risk of death.

The other party replied.

Survive at the risk of death... survive at the risk of death...

The severe pain caused by holding his breath made Renly's mind hazy and tense. He tried to suppress himself, suppress, suppress...

Until a certain moment, he could no longer suppress his instinctive desire to breathe, so he suddenly opened his mouth.

The wet and salty sea water rushed in.

The most important thing is to stay calm...

He sobbed to himself.

But when his mind was trapped in the pain of drowning and couldn't extricate himself, when the cold liquid invaded his lungs uncontrollably, and when the sea water made his entire internal organs cramp wildly, he vaguely flashed an opposite thought -

This is fucking bullshit!

Darkness immediately took over his body and mind, and then after an unknown amount of time, a cool breath of life suddenly came slowly from the outside world, and at the same time, there seemed to be a roar.

"The dead do not die!"

There seemed to be a sharp-edged pebble under his waist, which made him particularly uncomfortable. He wanted to reach out and pull it away, but he felt that his limbs were stiff and unable to move.

"The dead do not die!" Another roar came, accompanied by a strong knock on his back, and the shock seemed to gradually thaw his whole body.

"The dead do not die!" When the third roar came, he subconsciously thought that he should respond to the other party, so he murmured and opened his mouth.

"Will rise again..."

The other party roared a very famous sentence in the customs of the Iron People, so he could continue. I just don't know if he said this sentence, but everything around him quickly became clear.

The cool sea breeze kept blowing, the cold tide licked against the soles of his feet, and the obvious swelling in his abdomen made him shudder suddenly, and then he turned over, bent over on the beach and coughed violently.

The seawater was spat out in large quantities due to coughing, and at the same time, his mind became clearer. There were figures quietly shrouding him, and he could feel three pairs of eyes staring at him motionlessly, as if expecting something.

"I will, I will rise again!" He responded with a painful cough, then staggered to his feet, and stood on the beach with weak legs. Trembling, facing the three encouraging eyes, he squeezed out the last words of this ceremony from between his teeth.

"It's getting stronger!"