175: Chapter 175 The Others on the Island

Song Ya dropped the stone in her hand and rushed over.

Liu Feifei ran out of the Karst Cave. "Are you injured? Did that crazy woman Wang Lan do this...?"

"No injuries." Lin Fan placed Su Qingxue on the platform at the entrance of the Karst Cave.

Su Qingxue sat on a stone, her entire body curled up into a ball.

She didn't look at anyone, her eyes staring fixedly at her own hands.

Song Ya squatted in front of her and reached out to grab her wrist. "President Su?"

Su Qingxue did not react.

Liu Feifei crowded closer, and seeing her like this, swallowed half of what she was going to say.

Although she was usually carefree, she was an actress by trade after all, and she had seen this kind of state before.

Actors who finished shooting extreme thriller scenes on set would be like this after wrap-up; their souls were still stuck in that scene, and though their bodies had come out, their brains hadn't caught up.

"Lin Fan, what happened?" Song Ya raised her head to look at Lin Fan.

"Wang Lan is dead too."

First Zhang Tao died, and now Wang Lan was dead too. This Deserted Island was too terrifying, so Liu Feifei asked tremblingly, "H-How did she die?"

"You don't want to know."

These five words from Lin Fan blocked Liu Feifei so completely that she couldn't ask a single thing.

She opened her mouth, looked at Su Qingxue's reaction, then looked at Lin Fan's expression, and suddenly decided she didn't want to know anymore.

Something that could scare Su Qingxue like this was indeed something she didn't want to know about.

"Song Ya, take good care of her." Lin Fan loosened the crossbow string by half a turn and leaned it against the stone wall.

Song Ya nodded and helped Su Qingxue walk into the Karst Cave.

After walking two steps, Su Qingxue stopped.

She turned her head back to look at Lin Fan.

There was nothing extra in those eyes—only pure terror.

After being completely pierced through her psychological defenses by some kind of imagery, a woman in her twenties instinctively wanted to grab onto something that made her feel safe.

"Lin Fan."

"Don't go, hold me..."

Song Ya froze, her hand still resting on Su Qingxue's shoulder.

Lin Fan looked at her.

Su Qingxue let go of Song Ya's hand, turned back two steps, and stood in front of Lin Fan.

Then she pulled Lin Fan into an embrace. This action was far too abnormal.

President Su of the Shengtang Group, the woman who could lecture over a dozen men at the conference table until they didn't dare raise their heads.

Was now actively seeking sanctuary, and Lin Fan knew what this was.

After a human being suffered extreme visual impact, adrenaline receded, the parasympathetic nervous system took over the body, blood pressure dropped, and body temperature regulation became imbalanced.

The brain would instinctively search for safety signal sources—a familiar voice, a familiar body temperature, a familiar scent.

This wasn't being pretentious, nor was it acting.

This was the human body's self-protection mechanism forcibly operating.

Su Qingxue's forehead pressed against below his collarbone, her whole body still trembling.

Liu Feifei stood three steps away, watching this scene with her mouth wide open.

Lin Fan placed one hand on the back of Su Qingxue's head, his other hand hanging at his side.

He didn't say any comforting words, nor did he make any superfluous movements.

He just stood there like that, letting her lean on him.

His brain was turning to other matters.

Who on earth was the murderer of that corpse?

"Liu Feifei."

When Liu Feifei was called out, she stepped forward half a step. "Ah?"

"Back on the day of the shipwreck, after everyone woke up, did anyone ever go into the woods?"

Liu Feifei thought for a moment and shook her head.

"No, back then everyone gathered around President Su, thinking she was the boss and following her would surely allow us to wait for a rescue ship. Who would run into the woods?"

As she spoke, she added another sentence: "Besides, the beach was in complete chaos that day. Wang Qiang was shouting over there, Zhang Tao was snatching things, and Zhao Na was crying as if her mother had died. Everyone was looking toward the sea, waiting for the boat to come; no one ever thought of entering the woods."

Lin Fan didn't speak.

That ruled out the possibility of the first batch of survivors.

What about later?

Later, that mutated giant snake appeared at the edge of the woods, scaring everyone back onto the beach. Aside from himself, no one dared to step half a step into the woods.

After that, the layout on the beach was already set. Wang Qiang's gang was cleared out by him, and Zhou Kai, Song Ya, and Liu Feifei followed him to move into the Karst Cave.

From beginning to end, the depths of the woods were a complete blank space.

No one had ever been there.

Then the people in the tent were not from their batch of survivors.

They were not people from the cruise ship.

Then who were they?

This island already had people on it before they arrived.

And those people had survived until now.

Lin Fan lowered his head. Su Qingxue's breathing had stabilized a bit, and her hands were still clutching his clothes, but she was no longer trembling.

The sky outside the cave grew another shade darker.

The tide line on the sea was still receding.

He looked toward that gray, hazy sea outside the cave entrance.

He didn't know when the tsunami would arrive.

He didn't know what kind of people were hiding on the island.

Two matters pressed down simultaneously, and the usable people around him were only a half-dead Zhou Kai, a paralyzed-with-fear Su Qingxue, a soft-hearted Song Ya, and a Liu Feifei who only knew how to scream.

No one spoke again inside the cave.

After a long while, Su Qingxue was finally willing to leave Lin Fan.

Song Ya helped Su Qingxue sit down by the stone wall and placed a dry cloth over her shoulders.

Su Qingxue curled up right there, her eyes wide open, refusing to look at anyone.

Without a fire, the Karst Cave was much darker than usual.

The only light source left was that tiny bit of grayish-white daylight at the cave entrance.

Zhou Kai's breathing grew heavier and rougher.

At first it was still normal exhalation and inhalation, evenly spaced.

Later it turned into one long breath and one short breath, interspersed with rattling phlegm sounds, and further on, that sound became whimpers.

Liu Feifei sat beside him, and upon hearing this movement, reached out her hand to touch Zhou Kai's forehead.

"Mom!"

Liu Feifei withdrew her hand faster than if she had touched a red-hot block of iron.

"He's running a fever again! Even hotter than last night!"

Lin Fan walked over and pressed the back of his hand against Zhou Kai's forehead.

Boiling hot.

At least thirty-nine degrees Celsius and above.

The low-grade fever that the herbs had suppressed last night made a comeback after holding out for less than half a day.

The toxins hadn't been cleared out; they were only temporarily blocked below the knee, and his body was fighting a war of attrition against the poison.

White blood cells were desperately rushing toward the wound, which was how his body temperature had spiked up like this.

Zhou Kai's eyelids lifted slightly, his pupils dilated, and his lips were covered with a layer of white peeling skin.

"Brother Fan..."

"Don't speak."

Lin Fan re-kneaded the leftover herbal paste from last night and applied it to his forehead and both sides of his neck.

The evaporation of moisture in the herbs could take away a little heat—not much, but it was better than just waiting around blankly.

Liu Feifei rummaged out half a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap, and poured a little into Zhou Kai's mouth.

Most of the water flowed down the corner of his mouth, and Zhou Kai's throat rolled once, swallowing less than a mouthful.

Lin Fan untied the cloth strip on Zhou Kai's leg and checked the wound.

His ankle was even more swollen, the skin tight and shiny, and the blue-purple poisonous line was no longer crawling upward, but it hadn't retreated either.

The entire lower leg had a dark color, and when pressed down, it wouldn't bounce back.

Tissue edema.

Without antibiotics or antivenom serum, there was a high probability that this leg couldn't be saved...