104: Chapter 104 Lin Fan's move was so vicious it penetrated to the bone marrow.

The people next to Song Ya were too busy saving themselves, scurrying away with their heads in their hands. Who still had the mind to care about a half-dead bargaining chip for food exchange?

Song Ya used all her strength just to keep her balance, unable to move her feet even half a step.

Just at the moment when that sharp-angled rock was about to roll over Song Ya's head, a pair of lean and withered hands suddenly reached out from the side, grabbing her collar tightly and pulling her back with all might.

The stone flew past Song Ya's hair, smashing heavily into the soft sandy ground and creating a deep pit.

The one who pulled Song Ya back was Wang Lan.

Of course, she hadn't suddenly grown a benevolent heart to save an insignificant woman.

In her eyes, Song Ya was not a human at all, but the sole redemption ticket for the mineral water, self-heating rice, and chunks of meat on the cliff.

If the bargaining chip shattered, what would their group use to trade with Lin Fan for food?

Their lives? Lin Fan would find them too dirty.

The falling rocks finally stopped.

The beach was dead silent, leaving only heavy panting.

Several people had their skin grazed by the flying stones, clutching their legs on the ground and hissing in pain.

Lin Fan didn't even have the interest to stick out half his body, only leaving a blurry silhouette at the edge of the platform.

"If you block the bottom again, the next wave of rocks won't be so easy to dodge."

Chen Jian propped himself up on the ground and stood up, spitting out a mouthful of sand-mixed saliva, his glasses crooked on the bridge of his nose.

The trap he had meticulously plotted, that fatal game that manipulated human nature, was smashed to smithereens by Lin Fan with a few stones.

Lin Fan didn't even walk down the steps; he directly flipped the table.

"Retreat! Back to the rock crevice!" Chen Jian growled, biting down on his back teeth.

No one raised any objections. Everyone dragged their trembling legs, hoisted Song Ya up again, and retreated back into the shadows like a pack of stray dogs.

The atmosphere inside the rock crevice was so oppressive that it made people want to vomit.

"F*ck his mother! Lin Fan is simply a pure lunatic!"

Someone spoke up, "He didn't even care about Song Ya's life! That stone just now was genuinely aimed at Song Ya. If not for Sister Lan, I'm afraid Song Ya's brains would've f*cking spilled out."

"He doesn't want to negotiate at all; he just wants to watch us scampering around down here like mice with our heads in our hands," another male employee chimed in.

Chen Jian leaned against the wall, his physical strength rapidly depleting.

This was not just physical exhaustion, but also the collapse of his psychological defense line. He found that he couldn't see through Lin Fan at all.

Lin Fan was just like a beast, without any so-called moral burden.

The sun gradually climbed to its highest point. Although the rock crevice was sheltered from the light, it was also stuffy and hot like a steamer.

Right in this extremely depressed atmosphere, a scent quietly crept into the rock crevice along with the sea breeze.

That was the unique smell of technology and ruthless additives from modern industrial society.

After the inferior essence and heavy-oil, heavy-salt seasoning packets were blasted open by high temperature, they emitted that extremely aggressive and domineering fragrance.

Immediately following that, mixed within it, was also the sizzling aroma of roasted meat from animal fat dripping onto an open flame.

The smell was too authentic.

It could never be hermit crabs from the sea; it was clearly braised beef noodles mixed and matched with roasted roe deer meat.

The twenty-odd people in the rock crevice all froze in unison.

The people who were still cursing earlier had their mouths half-open, their voices abruptly cut off.

Gulp.

Someone swallowed a large mouthful of saliva extremely loudly.

Xiao Liang's eyes went straight in an instant.

Just yesterday he had swallowed a piece of bloody raw meat whole, and his gastric juices were still churning frantically at this moment.

That physical torture of not being full, but instead having all his cravings hooked, reached a critical point at this moment.

His stomach began to spasm, and a bout of colic struck.

Xiao Liang squatted on the ground holding his stomach, saliva uncontrollably secreting in his mouth and flowing down the corners of his chapped lips.

He wiped it randomly with the back of his hand, and his eyes began to turn green.

Above the cliff.

Lin Fan sat on a flat rock, toying with that tactical dagger in his hand.

Near the campfire not far away, Zhang Tao and Zhou Kai were sweating profusely as they turned and roasted several thick chunks of hind leg meat. Grease dripped down, and the flames leaped high.

Beside them, boiling water was being heated in discarded tin cans, with two packs of instant noodles bubbling inside, and crimson chili oil rolling on the surface of the water.

"Brother Fan." Zhou Kai sniffed, staring dead at the oil slick on the meat, "That bunch down below probably have their eyeballs about to fall out. But... when you dropped the rocks just now, did you really intend to kill Song Ya?"

Lin Fan lifted his eyelids: "There are smart people down below."

He never intended to kill Song Ya; Song Ya was the core axis for intensifying internal conflicts on the beach.

Dropping the stones was to tear apart Chen Jian's disguised decency and shatter their confidence in wanting to negotiate terms on flat ground.

And now this meal was the real killer move.

In the face of absolute hunger, a group maintained by so-called discipline was just a piece of waste paper soaked in water, breaking at a single poke.

Those ten pounds of meat yesterday were the fuse Lin Fan buried in their digestive tracts; now, he personally lit the fire.

Inside the rock crevice, reason was evaporating at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Someone began to sob, not because of fear, but because of hunger.

Able to smell it but unable to eat it—this psychological lingchi was more tormenting than directly stabbing someone with a knife.

"Engineer Chen." Xiao Liang propped himself against the wall and stood up, his voice sharp and hoarse, "Let's trade. Hand Song Ya over."

This sentence instantly ignited the others.

"Right! Take her up and trade!" Someone immediately followed up, their eyes flashing with madness, "Lin Fan said it himself yesterday, as long as we bring the person up, the remaining supplies will be given to us. Up there, there's self-heating rice and sausages!"

"Are you all crazy? He requested that only three people can go up."

Chen Jian forcefully suppressed the panic in his heart and tried to reason, "That's a pit! That kid has a knife, and he only lets three people bring someone up to deliver them. Do you think you can survive coming back down?"

"We can't care about that much anymore!" Xiao Liang completely exploded, pointing directly at Chen Jian's nose, "You always say pit, pit, pit! That's because you're afraid to die! This daddy is not afraid! As long as you let me drink a sip of that noodle soup, even if I go up and take a slash, I accept it!"

"If we're late and Lin Fan really doesn't need this woman anymore, we won't even have the qualification to trade."

"Exactly! If you are willing to smell the scent and starve to death here, don't drag us down with you!"

"Yeah! Looking at Lin Fan's stance just now, it seems he doesn't want this woman anymore. I wonder if we send someone up now, whether he will still trade."

Several male employees had already begun moving towards Song Ya's direction.

The intention was very straightforward: if Chen Jian didn't take the lead, they would go it alone.

Chen Jian froze in place, his fingers trembling uncontrollably.

The prestige he had painstakingly built up over the past few days shattered all over the ground in front of this pot of red-oil instant noodles.

He turned his head to look at his wife Wang Lan, expecting her to come up with an idea.

Wang Lan had been shrinking in the corner without making a sound, quietly observing these men who had starved into wild dogs, her palms covered in cold sweat.

She figured it out belatedly.

Lin Fan's move was cruel to the bone.

Yesterday, Lin Fan didn't expect those three idiots Wang Qiang and Liu Gang to accomplish anything at all.

All his foreshadowing was entirely for this moment today.

Letting the people on the beach taste a little sweetness and experience a long-lost sense of fullness.

Then, at the moment when they desired food the most, he used absolute military force to extinguish their thoughts of seizing it.

Finally, he used this irresistible fragrance to completely destroy their bottom line.

Lin Fan's logic was very simple: he would never voluntarily walk down the cliff.

He wanted the group of people below, driven by hunger, to overthrow the rules set by Chen Jian themselves and willingly send Song Ya up.

Wang Lan shuddered. How could that man up above be any ordinary low-level employee?

Fighting against a tyrant without any moral shackles like this—how could someone like Chen Jian, who only knew how to talk on paper, possibly win?

"Let them go." Wang Lan finally spoke up, her volume not high, but clearly heard inside the rock crevice.

Chen Jian abruptly turned his head, looking at her as if he had seen a ghost...