183: Chapter 183 Could it be that I really am a genius?

Yang Ningcong's throat tightened.

But the words reached his lips, and he swallowed them back down.

He couldn't say it; this was his last card.

As long as he still held onto a way to leave the island, this fellow surnamed Lin wouldn't dare to actually kill him.

If he said it, he would be useless.

What kind of fate would a useless person meet on this lousy island?

No matter how foolish Yang Ningcong was, he could see it from those tightly bound bodyguards and from Lin Fan's unflinching reaction when hitting people.

This intern was long no longer the type of person who served tea and poured water in a civilized society.

This idiot might actually dare to kill someone.

But he wouldn't dare to kill someone who still held a way to survive.

Later, if he got beaten again, he would fake fainting.

No, fake death.

Anyway, once a person fainted to death, they couldn't continue the interrogation.

Stall.

As long as he dragged it out until the bodyguards found a way to break free from the ropes, how could an intern possibly be a match for these professional bodyguards of his?

Thinking of this, Yang Ningcong's courage flared up a notch.

He stared at Lin Fan, still putting up a tough front.

"Don't try to scare me with a knife."

When he spoke, his tongue touched the broken skin, hurting with a twitch.

"If I really die here, you won't survive either. If you want to leave, kneel down like a dog and lick the soles of my shoes clean."

Lin Fan didn't reply.

The tip of the blade moved down from Yang Ningcong's chin and stopped at the side of his neck.

The skin there was thin, and blood vessels pulsed rapidly.

Lin Fan didn't even use force; he just let the blade brush against the skin.

The second half of Yang Ningcong's sentence got stuck in his throat.

Liu Feifei watched from the side with a numb scalp, knowing that Lin Fan really intended to take action.

"Lin... Lin Fan..."

With a single glance from Lin Fan, Liu Feifei hurriedly shut her mouth.

As for the several bodyguards, they were all lying flat in the mud.

As for the one on the far left, from the outside, he was no different from the others, also tied tightly.

But the joint position of his left thumb was wrong.

When Lin Fan tied the knots earlier, he had twisted everyone's wrists behind their backs, pulling the knots very tight.

Under normal circumstances, the more they struggled, the tighter it got.

This person used a different method.

He pushed his thumb outward, forcibly dislocating his metacarpal joint, and then used the slipperiness of the seawater and mud to pull his palm out.

Ordinary people couldn't do this kind of work.

It hurt.

And it easily crippled the hand.

Anyone who could do this had either practiced escaping or made a living doing this kind of work.

Just as Lin Fan noticed it, characters popped up on his retina.

[Notice: The target on the left is breaking free.]

[The target's right hand has slipped out by half; the breakout is expected to be completed in three seconds.]

[Recommendation: Raise the crossbow by three feet and two inches, deviate half a foot to the left, and aim at the anterior cervical region.]

[Hitting it can sever the common carotid artery and trachea, killing with a single strike.]

Lin Fan was stunned for a moment.

Three feet and two inches?

Did this lousy prompt have some misunderstanding about humans?

Who carries a ruler with them when fighting?

He wasn't a carpenter.

What was even more outrageous was deviating half a foot to the left.

In the current environment—muddy water, the lingering force of the wind, the old hand crossbow, and the string having loosened once—where was half a foot supposed to come from?

The corners of Lin Fan's eyes pressed down, but his mind didn't stop.

Three feet and two inches, converted, was about a meter or so.

Raise it up, deviate left, anterior cervical region.

He pulled the blade back by half an inch and felt the crossbow body with his other hand.

Yang Ningcong still thought his words had worked and wanted to continue putting on airs.

"I'm telling you, you'd better know what's good for you..."

The muddy water on the left suddenly churned.

That bodyguard had broken free.

His movements were so fast that he didn't look like a half-dead person just fished out of a tsunami.

He didn't untie the ropes on his feet; instead, he exerted force from his waist and abdomen, springing up horizontally. His shoulders crashed through the mud and sand, and he lunged toward Lin Fan with his hands carrying the broken rope ends.

The timing he chose was extremely tricky.

Lin Fan held the knife in one hand and pressed down on Yang Ningcong with the other. The crossbow was slung at his side and wasn't fully set up.

As long as he lunged close, the crossbow would be useless.

Liu Feifei retreated directly, her feet slipping as she sat into the mud.

"Lin Fan, be careful!" Song Ya hurriedly spoke.

Lin Fan didn't retreat.

He raised the crossbow high in the direction indicated by the prompt.

There was no ruler.

He just relied on muscle memory and feel.

The crossbow body lifted past the opponent's chest, crossed the chin, and pressed up just a bit more.

Deviate left.

The trigger was pulled.

The crossbow string snapped back, and the short arrow left the groove.

Halfway through his charge, the bodyguard's neck suddenly jerked to a stop.

The arrowhead pierced in from the lower side of his Adam's apple, with the rear half still exposed outside.

Without stopping his momentum, he lunged forward another half step, his knees slamming into the mud.

He opened his mouth, unable to produce a complete sound.

Only air leaked out from the wound.

Blood quickly gushed out, trickling down the arrow shaft and mixing into the muddy water.

The bodyguard used both hands to grab at the arrow, but grabbed empty air, his fingers scratching frantically in front of his neck. The more he scratched, the faster the blood flowed.

His body twitched a few times, and he collapsed beside the thin hull plates, his heels scraping two short marks in the mud.

Then he stopped moving.

The beach fell silent.

Even the sound of the receding broken waves of the sea seemed far away.

Lin Fan looked at the corpse, a very untimely thought popping into his mind.

Could he really be a genius?

Hitting such a small spot for the very first time, and it was a vital neck area—a throat-sealing single arrow.

If this were placed in a shooting range, they would definitely hang a member photo.

However, this thought lingered for only a second.

He quickly restrung the crossbow.

His fingers pressed the string catch, the crossbow arm pressed down, and the short arrow was placed back into the groove.

This thing wasn't a gun; it required reloading after shooting an arrow. If he really encountered multiple people at close range, the shortcoming was very fatal.

If it weren't for the prompt just now, he would have already been tackled.

Lin Fan glanced at the corpse on the left.

In the future, when tying people up, thumbs had to be dealt with separately too.

Experience was all bought with lives.

Other people's lives counted too.

The remaining bodyguards all behaved themselves.

The Short-haired Bodyguard lay in the mud, his Adam's apple moving up and down, not even daring to look at the corpse much.

It wasn't like they had never seen dead people.

The bodyguard industry wasn't the same thing as ordinary security guards.

Some had done security outsourcing, some were retired veterans, and some had followed overseas projects.

But in that domestic environment, no matter how big the conflict was, there was a bottom line, consequences, lawyers, insurance, and someone to clean up the mess.

Right in front of them, there was none.

After killing someone, this fellow surnamed Lin didn't even take an extra breath.

He was just checking the crossbow.

That was what was truly terrifying.

Yang Ningcong's whole body stiffened in the mud.

When that bodyguard lunged out just now, he had even given birth to hope.

As long as Lin Fan was taken down, everything would return to the order he was familiar with.

The bodyguard would untie the ropes.

He would stand up.

First give this intern a couple of kicks, then have someone call Liu Feifei over to be questioned.

The supplies would be taken back.

Everyone would listen to him.

It was just that close.

The moment that trace of hope reared its head, it was pierced through by a short arrow.

A living person, a professional bodyguard hired by his family at a high price, just like that died right in front of him.

There was no rescue.

There were no doctors.

There was no emergency channel.

No one shouted "Make way."

There was only mud, blood, and the trembling tail of the arrow.

In all his life, Yang Ningcong had never even seen a chicken killed.

When he was a child, when the family chef processed seafood, the nanny was afraid he would have nightmares from watching, so she closed the kitchen door beforehand.

What he ate was neatly plated steak, and what he saw was sashimi sliced paper-thin.

Death was very far away from him.

So far away that it only existed in obituaries in financial news or slow-motion shots in movies.

Now death was lying right beside him, an arrow stuck in its neck, blood flowing into the mud pit near his face.

Yang Ningcong's stomach churned again.

This time, the smell of blood wafting over made lingering fear well up in him.

Lin Fan turned the crossbow arrow back, aiming the arrowhead at him...