146: Chapter 146 Su Qingxue, are you sick?

"Whatever you shouldn't think about, you keep thinking about..." Su Qingxue grabbed a piece of ragged cloth nearby and hurled it over.

The cloth ball had no lethality; it landed limply on Lin Fan's shoulder and slid down to the ground.

Lin Fan lowered his head to take a look. Women who had received an elite education were indeed different; when they cursed people, they never resorted to classic profanities.

"President Su's combat power has dropped drastically now."

"Get lost."

"That curse rolled off the tongue quite smoothly."

Su Qingxue was so angry she wanted to kick him, but the moment her right leg moved, the pain in her knee made her clench her teeth tightly.

Lin Fan saw it and didn't continue teasing her.

He straightened up. "Alright, stop looking at me with that kind of gaze."

"I don't have that hobby."

Su Qingxue was stunned.

Lin Fan spoke very casually, even with a hint of disdain.

"If we really wanted to do something, with those people outside, the two of us wouldn't be able to fully enjoy it anyway."

Su Qingxue was just about to reply.

Lin Fan added another sentence: "Besides, after being busy all day, I'm hungry. When a person is hungry, they should do fewer energy-consuming things. This is called survival priority."

Originally, these words were quite proper.

But coming out of his mouth, no matter how you listened to it, it just begged for a beating.

Su Qingxue stared at him for two seconds, sneered, and said, "A person like you actually talks about priority?"

"Without someone like me, President Su would have died long ago. Are you acting disdainful now?"

Su Qingxue didn't reply. Lin Fan glanced at her and said, "Put your pants on properly and come out to eat."

Lin Fan turned around and walked out. Just as he was about to brush aside the curtain, he turned his head back.

"Right, don't wash your knees tonight. The medicinal properties haven't fully penetrated yet. If you think it's dirty and scrape it off yourself, and you can't walk tomorrow, don't ask me to carry you."

"Who wants you to carry them?"

"Then crawl by yourself."

Su Qingxue felt a tightness in her chest from anger.

After dropping these words, Lin Fan left the compartment.

Until the curtain closed again, Su Qingxue slowly pulled her jeans back up bit by bit.

A layer of the medicinal mud had already dried, caked onto the swollen skin, and a pungent, spicy smell was still drilling upward.

Originally, she found it utterly disgusting.

But after the most intense wave of pain passed, that feeling of her knees swelling to the point of bursting had actually dissipated somewhat.

This guy Lin Fan spoke harshly and had annoying hands.

Yet his lousy methods actually worked; that was the most fatal part.

Su Qingxue sat on the mat, lowering her head to look at her legs.

Ever since coming to the Deserted Island, she had been forced to accept too many things she would never have accepted before.

Drinking rainwater, eating unsalted meat.

Wearing clothes discarded by others on the beach, stepping barefoot in the mud, losing her purity.

And having a low-level intern whose name she used to be too lazy to remember press down on her knees to rub medicine, hurting her so much that she screamed out of control.

Two months ago, she wouldn't even have imagined these things.

Even more absurdly, just now when Lin Fan said those words "little woman", she actually dazed out for half a beat.

Not because she felt offended.

But because those four words were too unfamiliar.

"Little woman."

In Shengtang Group, no one dared to put her and these three words together.

She was President Su, the youngest and toughest one on the board of directors.

When she signed her name, a single stroke involved tens of millions.

When she held a meeting, a crowd of subordinates had to watch her expression even just to drink water.

She couldn't be soft, couldn't be tired, couldn't be wrong, and couldn't show weakness.

She had never allowed herself to show weakness either, yet on this island, Lin Fan insisted on dragging her down from that chair.

Dragged with brutality, yet also cleanly.

He wouldn't coax her, wouldn't care about her dignity, and would even use the most punchable words to make her tremble with anger.

Yet he could distinguish poisonous plants and massage away her bruised blood.

Su Qingxue closed her eyes.

No, what was she thinking?

This wasn't kindness; this was Deserted Island logic.

Lin Fan saved her because she was useful.

Her current position was exchanged by pleasing him.

Sharing meat with her, protecting her, and treating her injuries were essentially all about maintaining his own order.

Just like a boss repairing a machine that could still make money.

When had she, Su Qingxue, degenerated to the point where she would be moved just because a slaughterhouse boss applied some ointment to a beast of burden?

Absurd, simply too absurd.

Su Qingxue raised her hand and slapped her own face.

Not hard, but enough to wake her up.

"Su Qingxue, you're sick."

After cursing herself, she struggled to stand up and walked outside.

...

Meanwhile, Zhang Tao dragged Wang Lan and impatiently pressed her against a crooked-necked tree above the Karst Cave.

Zhang Tao's hands were completely haphazard, his mind filled entirely with the changed-pitch sounds of Su Qingxue from the compartment just now.

"That surnamed Su, I'll fucking kill you..." Zhang Tao cursed while tugging at Wang Lan's rough trouser waist, exerting heavy and light forces indiscriminately, "Making you never look at me properly before, now you cry out for me..."

Wang Lan's back pressed against the tree bark, the knots digging painfully into her spine. She didn't make a sound, turning her head aside and letting him mess around.

A wave of sour water surged in her stomach, which she forcefully swallowed back down her throat.

Compared to the filth on her physical body, she cared even more about the win-loss balance on the ledger.

A few minutes later, Zhang Tao deflated, but his hand still tightly pinched Wang Lan's waist. He thought of what Liu Feifei told Zhou Kai about the daytime events.

Zhang Tao asked with a tone of reproach, "Wang Lan, tell me, was your brain flooded with water today?"

Panting heavily, Zhang Tao asked, "That silly b*tch Song Ya took out all the poisonous plants, why did you shout out that yell? Just let the surnamed Su use them and let that leg rot, I want to see what she uses to seduce Lin Fan."

Wang Lan straightened her pulled-open collar and glanced at Zhang Tao through the pale moonlight filtering between the leaves.

Truly an unadulterated idiot.

"Her leg rots? And then what?" Wang Lan retorted, "She becomes a useless person, lying inside every day acting like an ancestor."

"Am I going to be her nurse, or are you going to wipe her shit and urine?"

Zhang Tao was stunned, "Then just let her die directly! Poisoned to death once and for all."

Wang Lan gave a muffled chuckle, her laughter carrying an eerie chill in the night wind, "Poison her to death, and Song Ya indeed takes the blame, but is Lin Fan an idiot?"

She pulled up the fabric that had slipped off her shoulders, "Song Ya has never entered the mountains; mistaking the medicine is common sense."

"But I was the one who took her to pluck the grass. Su Qingxue's death—anyone who isn't as stupid as you would know it has something to do with me."

Zhang Tao swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his grip loosening slightly, "Then... then why the hell did you teach her to recognize medicine, what's the point of wasting this effort?"

"Wasted?" Wang Lan raised her hand, leisurely tucking her messy hair behind her ear, "Zhang Tao, calculating accounts in the company abhors keeping single-sided accounts. With today's act, not only did I keep a double-sided account, but I even balanced future deficits."

Zhang Tao was left spinning by this rhetoric, and the anger he had just suppressed completely cooled down. "Speak more clearly."

"I taught Song Ya to recognize medicine, plucking two plants that grew together. Let alone a city girl like her, even mountain folks would mistake them."

Wang Lan's tone was breezy, "It was inevitable that she would pick the wrong one. The moment she was about to apply it to Su Qingxue's leg, me shouting to stop her was also inevitable."

"What on earth are you plotting?" Zhang Tao scratched his head anxiously.