Chapter 967 - 1089: Underwater Escape
Swimming out for almost five hundred meters, Li Yifei silently moved upwards, but he didn’t fully surface, instead only exposing his mouth and nose above the water to rapidly breathe in a few gulps of air before sinking down again, not once allowing Aoki Reiko to break the surface.
Aoki Reiko had no idea that Li Yifei had gone up for air; all she felt was him swimming continuously under the water. When she became breathless, her only option was to seek air from Li Yifei’s lips.
The first time, Li Yifei had actively given it to her; the second time, he did not offer, and Aoki Reiko, being a young woman, could not bring herself to actively take air from a man’s mouth. But as the suffocating sensation intensified, eventually making her chest feel like it was about to explode, she had no choice but to go to Li Yifei for air.
The third, the fourth time, Aoki Reiko continued to hold off until she could not bear it any longer before she sought air, but after several iterations, she no longer felt awkward. Realizing it was unnecessary to torture herself, she began to take air proactively when she started to feel uncomfortable, at least making the ordeal less unbearable for herself.
And all this time underwater, although she still couldn’t see anything, she began to feel less frightened, and her thoughts started to become more active.
"Oh my God, this guy is really a monster, is he a fish?" she thought after breathing through Li Yifei’s mouth a few times. Since Li Yifei never allowed her head to surface, she hadn’t noticed him going up for air, which led Aoki Reiko to a conclusion unimaginable by anything other than fantastical creatures.
Li Yifei swam on continuously for two kilometers before finally surfacing and allowing Aoki Reiko to rise to the water’s surface as well.
They could still hear the helicopter from their position, but Li Yifei knew it was imperative for him to rest now. The shockwave from the recent explosion had seriously injured him, and the constant swimming without any rest had aggravated his internal injuries.
There didn’t seem to be any immediate danger, so Li Yifei had to quickly recover. What lay ahead was unlikely to be smooth.
Though Aoki Reiko could swim, she was no expert. Apart from hearing the hum of the helicopter and seeing the lights, she could roughly estimate their distance from the shore. The realization of how far they had traveled in such a short time, especially with her in tow, made her anxious—his speed was simply too fast.