182: Chapter 182 You fucking dare hit me?

"Of course there is."

Yang Ningcong's mouth twitched.

These three words spilled out almost instinctively.

The air on the beach froze for a second.

Liu Feifei had originally been cursing, but upon hearing those three words, she lunged half a step forward.

"What did you say?"

Her voice completely changed.

"You have a way to leave this place?"

Yang Ningcong did not continue immediately.

He licked his chapped lips, his Adam's apple bobbing, and then stubbornly lifted his chin, putting on that condescending young master persona once again.

As if the person playing dead in the mud ten seconds ago wasn't him.

"Yes."

He gave a cough and spat out the mud in his mouth.

"But why should I tell you?"

Liu Feifei grew anxious. "Are you out of your mind? Everyone is trapped here, yet you're hiding the method even though you know it. Right now, we need to pull together to escape this Deserted Island!"

"Who is pulling together with you?"

Yang Ningcong glanced at her.

"Liu Feifei, considering you're a public figure, I'm sparing you some face. This place isn't filming a variety show, so stop putting on an act of unity and friendship with me here."

He turned to Lin Fan instead.

"If you want to know, sure."

"Untie me first."

Lin Fan looked at him without moving.

Thinking Lin Fan was tempted, Yang Ningcong immediately upped the ante.

"And my people, release them all as well."

"Return the supplies to us."

"Those boxes you took just now belong to the Yang Family. Taking them for yourself is a matter of legal liability, and more importantly, it means going to prison."

The Short-haired Bodyguard's expression shifted slightly.

He wanted to speak, but swallowed his words back down.

Talking about legal liability on a Deserted Island where not even a cell phone signal existed—hearing those words come out of Yang Ningcong's mouth, even as a hired hand, he found it absurd.

Lin Fan chuckled.

"What are you laughing at?"

Yang Ningcong frowned.

Lin Fan took a step forward.

"I'm laughing at the fact that you still haven't figured out the situation."

"Figured out what?"

"There is no father of yours here."

Lin Fan looked down at him.

"There is no Yang Group."

"There are no lawyers."

"There are no police."

"Nor is there anyone who will kneel down and untie your ropes just because your surname is Yang."

Yang Ningcong's expression darkened.

"What do you mean?"

Lin Fan squatted down and reached out to pat his face.

The action wasn't heavy, but it was deeply insulting.

"I mean that here, no one can threaten me yet."

Yang Ningcong's eyes widened instantly.

"You dare touch me?"

"Slap."

Lin Fan backhanded him across the face with a crisp sound.

Yang Ningcong's head tilted to the side, half of his face slamming directly into the muddy water.

The beach fell silent.

The pupils of several bodyguards constricted, their bodies instinctively tensing.

The ropes instantly tightened.

The Short-haired Bodyguard let out a muffled groan, bloody marks being chafed onto his wrists by the ropes.

Lin Fan turned his head to look at them.

The crossbow was raised.

Those bodyguards stopped immediately.

They were more lucid than Yang Ningcong.

In a civilized society, something like a crossbow was considered a prohibited toy.

Here, it was the Judge's Brush.

It took Yang Ningcong two seconds to react.

He was completely dumbfounded.

It wasn't being dumbfounded by pain, but rather a conceptual shock.

In the twenty-six years Yang Ningcong had lived, the most serious injury he had ever suffered was being bitten by a mosquito on the lawn of his family's estate when he was seven years old.

His mother fired the gardener over the matter, replaced the entire outdoor mosquito repellent system, and dragged him to a major hospital for a full battery of allergy tests.

Ever since he was little, everyone's responsibility around him was to ensure that no unnatural red marks ever appeared on Young Master Yang's skin.

Right now, half of his face was burning, and he tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth.

Someone had slapped him.

He had been slapped by someone.

Yang Ningcong's brain took a full two seconds to process this information.

He lifted his face from the mud, the corners of his mouth stained with mud and blood, his eyeballs bulging as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.

"How the fuck dare you hit me?"

"Slap."

Another slap.

This time it was harder.

Yang Ningcong was struck hard enough to roll halfway over; if his hands and feet weren't tied, he would have rolled right away.

"Lin Fan!"

Liu Feifei panicked.

She wasn't feeling sorry for Yang Ningcong; a person like him deserved a couple of slaps.

What she was anxious about was that this young master still had the method to leave the island stored in his mouth; if he got beaten into a concussion, they wouldn't get a thing out of him.

Lin Fan didn't look at her.

He stood up and stepped down onto Yang Ningcong's shoulder.

"Speak."

Yang Ningcong's face contorted in pain.

Yet he still hadn't come to his senses.

Or rather, he had never learned how to do so in his entire life.

"You're done for."

He panted heavily.

"I've remembered you. Lin Fan, right? A Shengtang intern, right?"

"You just wait."

"When I get out, I'll make you kneel at the entrance of the Yang Family, kneeling until your legs rot."

"And your parents, where you live, your ID number—I can dig all of it up."

"I'll let your old man know that not shooting you against the wall back then is the most incorrect decision they've ever made in their lives."

"Bang."

Lin Fan kicked him in the stomach.

Yang Ningcong's entire body arched, and a dry retch escaped his throat.

The seawater and muddy water in his stomach spewed out together.

Lin Fan squatted down beside Yang Ningcong.

"Continue."

"Weren't you quite talkative just now?"

Yang Ningcong kept his mouth open, unable to catch his breath for a long time.

He finally felt something unprecedented.

Pain.

It wasn't the itchy pain of a mosquito bite, nor the stinging pain of scalding one's tongue on hot coffee.

It was the pain of having one's internal organs crushed over and over by a blunt instrument.

This kind of pain short-circuited his brain for a few seconds.

Ever since he was a child, if he bumped his head on a table corner someone would fuss over him, if he stepped in a puddle someone would apologize, and even when tying his shoelaces, someone would squat down to help.

Now he was lying flat in the mud, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth, his stomach churning violently, while in front of him squatted a mud-soaked man staring at him as if looking at a dog.

No one rushed forward to shield him.

No one blocked that kick for him.

Those four bodyguards with annual salaries of a million were all sprawled in the mud, not even daring to meet his gaze.

Yang Ningcong's throat bobbed, and an unfamiliar emotion welled up from his stomach, mixing with the muddy water.

He couldn't tell whether it was anger or fear.

"I... even if I told you, you wouldn't understand."

Yang Ningcong gritted his teeth.

"Then keep talking until I do."

Lin Fan grabbed his hair and shoved his head down into the muddy ground.

"Let me go first."

"Bang."

Lin Fan slammed a kick into his left ribs.

Yang Ningcong let out a cry, curling up into a ball.

"Still not talking?"

"You let go first..."

Yang Ningcong's voice was completely different from before.

Hoarse, trembling, as if a piece of broken glass was stuck in his throat.

Lin Fan tilted his head.

He had originally thought that a good-for-nothing rich second-generation heir would behave after a couple of slaps.

He didn't expect this fellow's mouth to be harder than his bones.

But it didn't matter.

Lin Fan drew the dagger from his waist, squatted down in front of Yang Ningcong, and hooked his chin up with the tip of the blade.

The metal pressed against his skin, bone-chillingly cold.

Yang Ningcong's Adam's apple jerked uncontrollably.