152: Chapter 152 There's a problem here

Lin Fan inserted his shovel into the mud, bent down to pick up a crab, and pinched its carapace.

"I grew up in the countryside as a child."

He said it casually.

"Is it really that strange for a mountain person to know a thing or two?"

Wang Lan's throat choked for a moment.

Lin Fan said these words on purpose, and his goal was to tell Wang Lan that her little tricks were nothing more than showing off one's proficiency with a broadsword before Guan Yu.

Zhang Tao listened from the side, completely confused. "Brother Fan, are you country folks all so bizarre? My hometown is also in the countryside, why do I only know how to steal corn?"

Lin Fan looked at him. "That's why you're carrying a back basket now."

Zhou Kai couldn't help but chuckle.

Liu Feifei also laughed, and Zhang Tao's face turned dark.

Liu Feifei scooped up some water with her hands and drank it. "This water is really sweet. It doesn't taste like distilled water with that plastic smell."

Song Ya also drank a few sips.

Zhang Tao lay flat by the stream, sucking continuously.

Lin Fan didn't stop him. If it were in civilized society, drinking this water would definitely give spoiled people like them diarrhea.

However, they had been on the Deserted Island for nearly two months, and their bodies had long since adapted.

Wang Lan squatted by the stream, dipped her fingers into the water, rubbed them together, and sniffed.

"There is a problem with this place..."

Hearing this, several people suddenly raised their heads, and Zhang Tao even started trying to make himself vomit.

Lin Fan looked at Wang Lan.

Wang Lan pointed to a trampled patch of grass on the stream bank.

"Large animals have been here. The footprints are washed away by the water, but the height at which the grass is broken is not low."

She looked upstream again.

"There is also a fishy smell. It's not the smell of water, but the kind of smell near animal dens."

Hearing this, Zhang Tao's fear dissipated a little. "Then this water isn't poisonous, right!"

Wang Lan shook her head. "Judging by the flow direction, it should be groundwater, so it's not poisonous."

Wang Lan looked at Lin Fan.

This was her third card.

Finding water was only one of its values.

Those who could truly survive to the end were people who could judge risks in advance.

Lin Fan lowered his head and looked at the muddy ground by the stream.

The characters on his retina jumped out again.

[One hundred and twenty meters upstream of the stream, there are traces of mutant giant otters. Adult body length is about 2.3 meters, they live in groups, and their teeth have a strong bite force. There are currently cubs in the nest, and the giant otters are expected to return in half an hour.]

[Danger level: Medium. It is recommended to stay for no more than twenty minutes.]

Lin Fan withdrew his gaze.

"There is something up there."

Before Wang Lan could even speak, Lin Fan continued, "Not just one, they live in groups, and the nest is more than a hundred meters up. The main occupants are not here right now, but they won't leave for too long."

Wang Lan's breath caught for a moment.

Just now, she could only determine that large animals had been active.

As for what they were, how many there were, where the nest was, or whether they had left, she couldn't tell.

Lin Fan said it all.

And he said it in even more detail than she was prepared to say.

Zhang Tao hugged his empty bottle, his legs a bit weak. "What is it?"

Lin Fan glanced at the surface of the stream.

"Otters."

Zhang Tao breathed a sigh of relief. "Otters? Aren't those things pretty cute? The ones in the zoo holding clams?"

Zhou Kai raised his hand and slapped the back of his head.

"Those are sea otters."

"Pretty much the same, aren't they all cute?"

Lin Fan used the tip of his knife to pick up a section of broken bone by the stream.

There were two rows of bite marks on the bone, and the edges were neatly chewed.

He threw the bone to Zhang Tao's feet.

"This cute thing can crack your toes like peanuts."

Zhang Tao lowered his head and took a look, instantly pulling his feet back.

"Then why the hell are we still filling water, run!"

"Fill them up before we go."

Lin Fan looked at the stream water. "We have twenty minutes."

With the order given, no one talked nonsense anymore.

Zhou Kai was responsible for keeping watch.

Zhang Tao and Liu Feifei filled the water.

Wang Lan also squatted down to help, pressing the bottle mouths into the water with swift movements.

Yet her mind didn't stop working.

Lin Fan is abnormal.

Too abnormal.

If he only knew plants, it could be explained as rural experience.

If he could find water, it could also be attributed to wilderness survival experience.

However, his judgment of danger just now had crossed the line of experience.

She felt that Lin Fan's ability was a bit too heaven-defying.

This feeling was terrible.

She didn't like it.

There were no timers in the forest, and no one had the energy to count time.

But the numbers on the retina were still refreshing!

Ten minutes... Five minutes... Three minutes.

"Fall back."

Although there were still plastic bottles that hadn't been filled with water, there was no time left.

Several people put on their back baskets.

The plastic bottles squeezed against each other, making creaking sounds.

Those sounds, which usually sounded cheap, were like lifelines right now.

Returning along the same path was even more exhausting than coming.

Although it was tiring on the way here, the back baskets were empty, and no matter how muddy the path was, they could grit their teeth and move along.

Now everyone was weighed down with water; when dozens of bottles shook, the straw ropes on their shoulders dug into their flesh like saws.

The rotting leaf mud underfoot also seemed alive.

Every time they pulled their feet out, a "squelch" sound could be heard, and dark brown muddy water surged up from the edges of their shoes, carrying the stench of rotting leaves and animal feces straight into their noses.

Zhou Kai walked ahead of Zhang Tao.

Sweat streamed down his forehead, dripping into his eyes and stinging them into a squint, but his pace didn't stop.

The piece of meat Lin Fan gave him last night had now completely turned into the strength in his legs.

After taking the meat, one had to risk their life.

Zhou Kai understood this logic.

Zhang Tao walked in third place, panting heavily.

His shoulders were rubbed into two red marks by the braided straw straps, and the innermost layer of skin had already been chafed raw, burning and stinging when soaked in sweat.

He moved forward a few steps, unable to hold it in any longer, and turned his head to mutter to Zhou Kai.

"Zhou Kai, do you think those otters just now were real or fake?"

Zhang Tao licked his dry, peeling lips, his voice hoarse and resentful.

"Even if those things are really in the nest, the five of us are live humans with tools in our hands, what are we afraid of? Otter meat can probably be eaten too! If we team up to kill and roast one, it's at least dozens of pounds of fat and oil."

When he said this, his peripheral vision secretly glanced at Lin Fan in front.

He didn't dare to speak too loudly.

He certainly didn't dare to scold Lin Fan.

But if he didn't complain a bit, he felt that carrying these dozens of pounds of water was too big a loss.

Zhou Kai didn't look back, and retorted coldly, "If you want to die, stay there by yourself. Dozens of pounds of things, with teeth sharper than a steel saw—by the water, you wouldn't even be able to touch a single hair of theirs, and they can bite straight through your lower leg bone in one bite."

Zhang Tao curled his lips and cursed in a low voice unconvinced.

"You know everything, your courage is even smaller than a mouse."

These words were directed at Zhou Kai.

However, after saying them, he still subconsciously shrank his neck, not daring to look toward Lin Fan again.

At the back of the team, Wang Lan followed without a word.

She didn't hear a single word of Zhang Tao's chatter.

Her mind was in a mess.

Her steps moved forward mechanically, her shoe uppers filled with black mud, and the muddy sludge seeped into her trouser legs, wet and cold, yet she didn't even have the heart to look down.

In the past when balancing accounts, as long as the entries were sorted out and the debits and credits matched, even if there was a deficit, she could always find a way to balance it.

But today's account made her realize that she had taken the wrong ledger from the very beginning.

She originally planned...