113: Chapter 113 The pie in the sky gets bigger and bigger, but also more and more unrealistic.

Even Su Qingxue herself could not remember anymore.

Counting on her fingers, it was at least half a month, maybe longer.

She did not dare to think deeply about this number.

Because once she thought it through, the psychological defense line she had built—that "Rescue will definitely come"—would crumble at the slightest touch.

Therefore, she chose not to think about it, and even more so, chose not to speak of it.

"They will come," Su Qingxue began, trying her best to keep her tone steady. "The company is conducting a search and rescue, my father will not give up, and the country will not give up on us either."

She had been saying this set of words for twenty days, cycling through seven or eight versions.

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From "Before twelve" to "Within three days," from "Within three days" to "Within a week," and now to this phrase without any time node: "Will not give up."

The pie she painted grew bigger and emptier, but she had no other choice.

As long as this group of people still believed her dad would come to save her, she still had utilization value.

But this time, Xiao Liang did not take up the conversation.

He just squatted there, gently tapping the ground with a pebble, tap by tap, at a very slow rhythm, the threat unspoken yet clear.

"President Su."

His voice became very calm, calm enough to make an individual scalp tingle.

"Do you know what I used to do?"

Su Qingxue did not speak.

"I used to operate a crane at the port dock, the kind that loads and unloads containers."

Xiao Liang raised his head, his eyes staring dead at Su Qingxue.

"When an accident happens at sea, what the search and rescue process is, how to report a lost ship, how long the Maritime Safety Administration responds—I do not know the details of these things, but I know one number."

"Fifteen days."

"If your dad is as powerful as you say, and still has not found us after fifteen days, there is only one possibility."

Xiao Liang pulled back his fingers and gripped the stone again.

"This place is simply not within the normal search range."

The rock crevice fell silent.

A few male employees sitting against the wall glanced at each other.

Wang Lan shrank in the corner, her eyelids twitching slightly without making a sound.

Su Qingxue dug her fingers into her knees.

She knew Xiao Liang had hit the nail on the head.

But she could not admit it.

Admitting it meant it was over.

She raised her chin, met his gaze, and her tone was even a fraction more resolute than before.

"You operated a crane at the dock, how many times have you seen maritime search and rescue?"

Xiao Liang was taken aback for a moment.

Taking advantage of this one-second gap, Su Qingxue lowered her voice by half a degree.

"The number of search and rescue vessels, the coverage density of routes, the search cycle—these are not things you can judge just by glancing at them from the dock."

"You think fifteen days is long?"

Su Qingxue shook her head slightly, a smile barely worthy of being called calm emerging on her face.

"The standard cycle for ocean-going search and rescue is twenty-eight days. How many days has it been?"

As soon as these words came out, the atmosphere in the rock crevice that had originally turned ashen flickered slightly.

Two male employees exchanged glances, the layer of dead ash in the depths of their eyes seeming to fade just a bit.

Twenty-eight days.

That meant there were still at least more than ten days left.

Ten days, it seemed... could still be endured?

Xiao Liang also fell silent.

He truly did not understand the specific procedures of ocean-going search and rescue.

His experience operating a crane at the dock was only enough for him to judge that "fifteen days is too long," but he could not give a precise answer as to how long exactly was considered normal.

Su Qingxue breathed a sigh of relief in her heart.

What she was gambling on was the information gap.

Not a single person in this group had worked in maritime affairs, and none of them truly understood the full process of the search and rescue mechanism.

As long as she dared to speak, and spoke professionally and confidently enough, this group of starved people would, like drowning people, tightly grasp anything that looked like a rope.

Even if that rope was just painted on.

But she had missed calculating one person.

Wang Lan.

From beginning to end, this woman had not said a single word, leaning against the rock wall in the corner like a stone.

But just when Su Qingxue said "twenty-eight days," Wang Lan twitched the corner of her mouth.

The amplitude was very small.

It was not a smile, more like a confirmation—confirming that Su Qingxue was lying.

Xiao Liang did not notice the expression of Wang Lan.

But he noticed something else.

Su Qingxue hugged her knees with both well-maintained hands, the knuckles turning white from the force.

If a person firmly believed what she was saying, she would not need to dig bloody marks into her knees.

Xiao Liang squatted back down.

He tossed the pebble back and forth between his left and right hands, tilting his head to look at Su Qingxue. "Twenty-eight days, huh."

He chewed over these three words, then nodded.

"Alright, then I will ask you one last question."

Su Qingxue experienced a slight acceleration in her heartbeat.

"If the search and rescue is really still ongoing, if your dad is really mobilizing all his connections to find you, then let me ask you, why is there not a single peep of movement over here?"

"Planes not passing by I can understand as having no flight route, but the day we crashed, from losing consciousness to waking up was only two or three hours, right?"

"Our location at that time was in the core area of the flight route. Drifting for two or three hours after the accident, we should not have drifted out of the planned route and come to a no-man's zone, right? Why, after half a month has passed, have we not seen a single surface target or airplane?"

These words fell.

Su Qingxue missed a breath.

Dead silence enveloped the rock crevice once more.

This time, it was a silence even deeper than before.

The tiny bit of confidence that Su Qingxue had just re-gathered with her words "twenty-eight days" was smashed to pieces by this question.

Several male employees exchanged glances again. This time, the layer of dead ash in their eyes completely solidified.

That is right.

It had been fifteen days.

Let alone a search and rescue plane, not even the shadow of a single boat had appeared.

This patch of sea seemed as though it had been wiped off the map.

Su Qingxue opened her mouth, her brain frantically organizing rhetorical strategies.

But this time, she could not dig up any usable excuses from her hard drive.

"Twenty-eight days" was her last card.

The card had been played.

Xiao Liang looked at her stammering, speechless appearance, and the last shred of patience in the depths of his eyes was extinguished.

He stood up, turning the pebble around in his palm. "President Su, do you think I am a fool?"

"One day, three days, a week, twenty-eight days—your mouth is like a money printing machine, popping out all kinds of numbers, but not a single one ever came true."

"I bet my life on your phrase 'soon,' and what was the result?"

He took a step forward.

The back of Su Qingxue pressed tightly against the rock wall; she had nowhere left to retreat.

"Those pies you painted before, I swallowed them. How they tasted did not matter; at least there was something to look forward to."

"But this pie of yours today..."

Xiao Liang bent down, looking at Su Qingxue eye-to-eye.

"I smell something spoiled."

He placed the pebble in front of Su Qingxue.

He did not smash it down, but that stone stained with dried blood placed right there was more effective than any threat.

"Use your professional knowledge to give us a heart-to-heart talk: what on earth is going on here?"

"The last person who pissed me off, what was used to bash open their temple? You should still remember, right?"

Su Qingxue remembered.

When that female executive fell down, her eyes were still open.

"But you will not get off that easily." Xiao Liang twisted the corner of his mouth, squeezing out an arc devoid of any smile.

"You will end up just like Song Ya."

The pupils of Su Qingxue shrank violently.

She had seen the fate of Song Ya crystal clear.

Tied up, dragged, and hauled like cargo across barnacle-covered reefs.

Knees worn through, fingernails turned outward, half her face swollen out of human shape.

If Lin Fan had not fished her up, that woman probably would have died already.

And the only reason she, Su Qingxue, had not fallen to that step yet was because this group of people still believed the story that Su Zhenbang would come to save his daughter.

Once the story could no longer be told, she would be the next Song Ya.

No, she would be even more miserable than Song Ya.

Song Ya was just an ordinary employee; no one held any extra hatred toward her.

But she, Su Qingxue, was the boss.

Once the fig leaf of rescue was ripped open, everyone would come pouring down head-on toward her.

Who told you to organize this team-building event?

Who told you to insist on taking a cruise ship?

Who told you to be the boss?

Telling the truth, her protective shield would shatter, and this group of people would tear her to pieces just like they tore apart Song Ya.

Continuing to lie—if the lie was seen through, the stone in the hand of Xiao Liang was only an arm's length away from her temple.

Both roads led to death.

Which one to choose?