178: Chapter 178 Pirates! We've been kidnapped by pirates!

Without hesitation, Lin Fan took the nylon rope off his shoulder, wrapped it around the man's wrists, twisted them behind his back, looped it three times, and tied a secure knot.

Then he bound the ankles as well, connecting the two short ropes so that the man couldn't stand up and run away.

The fourth person was two meters away—a woman in her early twenties whose swimsuit bottoms were still on, but her top had completely vanished.

Looking at this scene, Lin Fan genuinely wanted to find her some clothes, but after glancing around, he couldn't find a single thing.

Lin Fan walked over and repeated the steps: wrists bound behind the back, ankles secured, and knots pulled tight.

Regardless of gender, whether a young maiden or a married woman, everyone received the exact same treatment.

Lin Fan worked with great speed, and from start to finish, not a single one woke up.

After tying up the last person, he stood up and surveyed them all.

They wouldn't wake up anytime soon, and even if they did, with their hands and feet completely bound, it would take immense effort just to roll over.

If there were other survivors on the island, they would definitely come to loot the supplies. Whether it was the people who killed Wang Lan or someone else, the safest course of action was to move the newly acquired supplies back to the Karst Cave first.

He looked up toward the mountainside and shouted, "Song Ya! Liu Feifei! Get down here!"

About a minute later, Song Ya's figure appeared at the edge of the cave opening.

"Get down here."

She glanced down, then turned and said something into the cave.

Half a minute later, the two of them began shuffling down the slope.

Song Ya walked in front while Liu Feifei followed behind, slipping one step for every two they took, clinging to the stone wall as they inched their way down.

When Liu Feifei reached the bottom, she stepped straight into a puddle of mud, completely swallowing her shoe. Standing barefoot in the muck, she winced in frustration.

"What kind of evil did I commit in my past life…"

Muttering curses, she dug her shoe out of the mud, crammed it back onto her foot, and then looked up to see the scattered corpses and bound captives lying all over the beach.

Liu Feifei's face instantly turned green.

"Don't look at those." Lin Fan pointed to the scattered ship wreckage and floating debris around them. "Find things. Take everything that can be used. Medicine, food, fresh water, tools, clothes, fabric—take whatever you see."

Song Ya didn't waste any words, rolling up her sleeves to start searching.

She already had plenty of experience doing this kind of work now.

She didn't care about appearance; she only looked at the material.

Plastic barrels could hold water—keep.

Tin cans wasn't rusted through—keep.

Fabric, dirty or not, as long as it wasn't completely rotted, got stuffed straight into the basket.

Liu Feifei was a beat slower in her actions.

Her eyes kept darting toward those corpses, and she walked in wide detours—if she could walk five extra meters, she would never walk one step less.

As Lin Fan scanned the area, small golden characters appeared on his retina once more.

[ Attention, attention! ]

[ A large amount of supplies exists within the ship wreckage. ]

[ Remarks: Anything that has not taken on water is non-toxic and safe for use. ]

"Search over there." Lin Fan pointed to the section of the ship's hull wedged between the reefs.

Most of the paint on its white hull had peeled off, exposing the gray steel plates underneath.

There was a jagged breach on the port side, its edges rolled outward, just large enough for a person to crawl through.

Lin Fan arrived first.

Holding his crossbow, he thrust half his body into the opening. Pausing for a few seconds to confirm there were no living creatures inside, he squeezed in sideways.

The interior of the wreckage was larger than it looked from the outside.

It must have been a cabin in the middle section of the passenger ship. The floor was slanted and filled with half a foot of murky water.

A few decorative panels on the bulkheads had fallen off, and wires hung down from the ceiling, soaking in the water.

There was a pile of items in the corner.

Several waterproof sealed boxes—military green with metal latches—were stacked together, cushioned underneath by two foam boards.

Orange reflective labels were stuck to the outer walls of the boxes, printed with serial numbers and dates.

Lin Fan walked over and squatted down to check the label.

The date was from three months ago.

The latches were tight but unlocked. Lin Fan used his dagger to pry open the first box.

It was packed completely full inside.

The top layer consisted of compressed biscuits in standard military-issue aluminum foil packaging. Each bag was individually sealed, and twenty bags were neatly arranged in two rows.

Beneath them were one-liter bottles of purified water, their bodies wrapped in anti-collision foam sleeves. Not a single drop of seawater had gotten in.

The second box.

Pharmaceuticals.

Iodophor, gauze rolls, medical tape, painkillers, amoxicillin capsules, and a trauma suture kit.

Each type of medicine was packed in a separate waterproof bag with a heat-sealed opening, looking far too professional to be civilian supplies.

At the bottom of the box was a box of tetanus antitoxin for injection. The cold-chain label had expired, but the vials were intact.

Lin Fan picked up the box of antitoxin and stared at it for two seconds.

Zhou Kai's leg was saved.

The third box contained a more miscellaneous assortment of items.

Two folding knives, a compass, three boxes of waterproof matches, a fifty-meter roll of climbing rope, two vacuum-compressed windbreakers, and a hand-cranked LED flashlight.

This wasn't ordinary tourist luggage.

Tourists wouldn't classify and seal supplies into boxes, let alone carry military rations and suture needles.

From procurement to packaging, every aspect of this setup screamed professionalism.

These people knew something was going to happen before they even boarded the ship.

Or rather, they had prepared for an accident to occur.

After finishing checking the three boxes one by one, Lin Fan quickly processed the implications in his mind.

The gear level of the people before him was in a completely different league from what they had when they were shipwrecked.

"Song Ya, Feifei, come carry these."

Song Ya crawled through the breach and froze for a moment when she saw the three boxes.

"You and Liu Feifei carry them out in batches first."

The two of them exerted quite a bit of effort to pass the boxes out. Upon seeing the compressed biscuits inside, their eyes instantly lit up.

"Is this food? Can we eat it? It didn't get flooded, right?"

She grabbed a bag and inspected it back and forth. "Looks like it hasn't taken on water yet."

Liu Feifei tore open a corner of the aluminum foil bag, broke off a piece, and popped it into her mouth.

After chewing twice, her expression turned complicated.

"What difference does this have from chewing cardboard? But at least it didn't get wet."

Despite her verbal complaints, her hands didn't stop as she broke off another piece.

"Stop eating for a second and carry the stuff up first, or I'm afraid this might be your last meal."

Startled, Liu Feifei hurriedly swallowed what was in her mouth. She was growing more and more impressed with Lin Fan.

No matter the situation, this man always planned ahead. From what he had just said, she could tell there was danger looming.

With that, Lin Fan continued searching through the wreckage.

On the other side of the cabin were a few scattered backpacks whose zippers had been forced open by the seawater, leaving their contents thoroughly soaked.

A laptop had its screen shattered and its keyboard jammed with silt and sand, making it completely useless.

A few changes of clothing were soaked through, but still usable.

When he crawled back out of the wreckage, the light on the beach had grown slightly brighter.

A crack opened in the lead-gray sky, letting light filter down to shine upon the devastated coastline.

Lin Fan stood next to the wreckage and swept his gaze over the bound captives.

The closest man rolled over, the rope on his wrists pulling taut. After his head burrowed twice into the mud, he woke up...