171: Chapter 171 Seriously though, how long are you going to keep Wang Lan here?

Lin Fan stood in place, not chasing after her to continue pressing the issue.

Hearing these harsh words, not only was he not angry, but he unceremoniously laughed out loud.

Su Qingxue heard that laughter sounding particularly grating on the empty beach.

"Worse than death?" Lin Fan's aggressively predatory gaze sized up her body, which was tense with anger, sweeping all the way from her slender neck before finally locking onto her chest. "With just this physique of yours, I'm actually quite curious about how you plan to make me wish I were dead. I'm really looking forward to it."

"Stop acting so shameless here. To fight with me, the little capital you have is simply not enough!"

Su Qingxue glared at him, her eyes—usually accustomed to giving orders at the conference table—now brimming with anger. "Have you ever heard of the Ten Tortures?"

"As long as we get back, I'll spend money to hire people to hang you upside down in my private garage. Finger-squeezing, pouring chili water, sitting on the tiger bench—I'll have them inflict all those cheap, despicable tortures on you from head to toe!"

Hearing this vent, Lin Fan nodded in solemn agreement.

He even stepped forward and kicked away a torn fishing net that had fallen near Su Qingxue's feet.

"That's easy to settle. There's really no need to wait for the trouble of returning to civilized society."

Looking straight into her eyes, Lin Fan intensified his malicious words, "Tonight when we go back to the Karst Cave, you can just come at it directly."

"There's no need to hire anyone else; do it yourself. Tonight, I'll let you put those tortures through my body once. I'll lie flat and cooperate, guaranteed to make you satisfied."

Su Qingxue was choked so red in the face by these utterly bottomless rogue words that she held back for a long time without being able to counter with a single complete sentence.

In the two tracks of being shameless and risking one's life, she, a higher-education-receiving chaebol daughter, could never possibly be Lin Fan's match in this lifetime.

Knowing that if she continued to drag on with this topic, she would definitely be the one to suffer and be pinned down on the beach to take advantage of in the end, Su Qingxue simply put on a stern face and forcibly cut off this extremely ambiguous and dangerous topic.

"Shut up, and stop talking this shameless nonsense." Su Qingxue bypassed the reef, walked over to the bamboo basket holding supplies, and pulled the topic back on track, "Let's get serious. Exactly how long are you going to keep Wang Lan around?"

Seeing her back down and return to the main point, Lin Fan also put away his bantering demeanor.

The survival pressure of the Deserted Island always loomed over flirting, and he knew very well what problems should be handled at what stage.

"The injury on Zhou Kai's leg was clearly plotted by Wang Lan behind the scenes."

Lin Fan tossed the copper wire into the basket beside Su Qingxue.

Su Qingxue's face sank. Last night's situation was too chaotic, but Wang Lan's calm and composed process of getting herbs and reporting back was far too smooth—so smooth that it made people's hair stand on end.

"She wanted to use the hands of that trash Zhang Tao to cripple the core combat power around me."

"This woman's brain works better than most people's."

"She calculated Zhang Tao's desire for revenge. With just Zhang Tao's ability, he couldn't have gotten that centipede."

"It was obviously prepared by Wang Lan for Zhang Tao. Whether the matter succeeded or not, Zhang Tao was just that scapegoat shield."

Hearing this analysis, a layer of cold sweat broke out on Su Qingxue's back.

At Shengtang Group, Wang Lan was just an honest accountant who was scolded every day.

Now on this fatal Deserted Island, after losing the shackles of rules, the sinister poison deep in this woman's bones had been completely exposed.

"Since you knew everything and saw through the trickery last night, why didn't you make a move?"

Su Qingxue pressed, "This equals keeping a time bomb by your side."

"You even let them go fetch water together. Aren't you afraid she'll poison the water..."

Lin Fan kicked away a blocking stone and turned back to look at Su Qingxue.

"Squeezing out surplus value—this is the method you capitalists are best at. Did you forget so quickly?"

"She wouldn't dare to poison it. She knows I have my guard up against her; whatever food and water she brings back, she definitely has to eat it first..."

"I'm just worried—"

"Worried abou—" Su Qingxue's words hadn't had time to be asked out.

"Ah—"

An extremely shrill scream rose abruptly from the mountain forest hundreds of meters behind.

The man's voice completely cracked, and the sea breeze blew along the beach.

Su Qingxue's breathing stopped for half a second as she turned her head to look in the direction the sound came from.

She was very familiar with this voice.

The day before, the owner of this voice had just been pinned to the ground and beaten by Zhou Kai.

"It's Zhang Tao," Su Qingxue spoke.

Meanwhile, inside the woods, the air in this area was twice as stuffy as the outer edges.

A few minutes earlier.

Zhang Tao walked in front, carrying several empty plastic bottles in his hand, his two legs constantly shaking. "Wang Lan, let's not walk forward anymore. I always feel like something is staring at us here."

Wang Lan followed behind carrying a rattan basket without speaking.

Her gaze searched back and forth among the piles of scattered rocks around, finally stopping on a grayish-white granite stone half-buried in the soil.

The stone was about the size of half a watermelon, with sharp breaks on the edges.

"Let's just wander around here and head back. If Lin Fan investigates, we'll just say we got lost and couldn't find it."

Zhang Tao turned around, still complaining in his mouth. The grievances of the past few days made him unable to help grumbling, "That fellow surnamed Lin sits by the beach blowing the sea breeze himself; why should he let us come and send ourselves to die..."

The grumbling wasn't finished.

The back of his head took a solid, heavy blow.

The sound of the skull colliding with the hard stone was exceptionally clear in the stuffy mountain gully.

Zhang Tao didn't even have time to let out a muffled groan before he lost his balance and fell straight forward into the mud, snapping several fragile dead branches.

Zhang Tao lay prone on the ground for a full five or six seconds before he felt the warm liquid coming from the back of his head.

Reaching out to touch it, his hand was full of sticky red.

Holding his head, Zhang Tao laboriously rolled over, his legs still twitching uncontrollably.

Ahead in his line of sight, Wang Lan stood two steps away.

Both her hands were holding that grayish-white granite stone.

Blood plasma hung at the bottom of the stone, and drops of blood trickled down her fingers.

Zhang Tao stared with wide eyes, his vision somewhat double, looking at this woman incomprehensibly.

"Wang Lan..."

His voice trembled severely.

"Are you crazy?"

Wang Lan didn't answer. The hem of her clothes was scraped open by tree branches, and her trouser cuffs were stained with mud.

The rattan basket lay not far away, and several empty plastic bottles rolled out.

Looking at the stone in her hand, all that cunning in Zhang Tao's eyes was smashed away, leaving only fear.

"I listened to you about everything."

He swallowed a mouthful of bloody foam, his words spoken vaguely.

"Whatever you told me to do, I did. Wang Lan, I didn't sell you out."

Wang Lan finally lowered her head to look at him.

"Of course you didn't sell out."

Zhang Tao was stunned.

Wang Lan switched the stone to her other hand and shook her wrist. The force of that strike just now had been so hard that the webbing of her hand was shaken numb.

"Because you haven't had the chance to sell out yet, and you won't have the opportunity in the future either."

A chill ran down Zhang Tao's back.

This place wasn't far from the Karst Cave, yet neither was it close.

Even if he shouted his throat out, someone might not rush over immediately.

Zhang Tao finally understood why Wang Lan had urged him all the way to walk deep into the mountain gully, saying that this place could take a shortcut and bypass yesterday's location.

"You want to kill me?"

His lips trembled. "If you kill me, there won't be anyone left in this forest who can protect you..."