191: Chapter 191 Female Doctor or Female Assassin

Lin Fan dragged Yang Ningcong backward toward the ramp.

"Follow me up."

How dared Yang Ningcong say no?

"Up, up, of course up."

He struggled to shuffle forward a bit, but his ankles were tripped by the rope, causing his whole body to lunge forward and his knees to bang against the gravel.

The icy-cold sensation returned to his neck, and he immediately cried out.

"Slow down! Master Lin, seriously slow down! It's not that I'm not cooperating, it's that this rope isn't cooperating!"

Lin Fan had just dragged Yang Ningcong two steps forward.

"Wait." A female voice came from behind.

Lin Fan paused his steps without turning his head.

The knife in his hand didn't loosen, and he glanced backward out of the corner of his eye.

The person speaking was one of the women under the deck boards.

That group of people had just been swept over by his glance; most of them were escorts Yang Ningcong had brought on board.

The tsunami had tossed them about in disarray, their makeup was ruined, their dresses were torn, and there was even one with nothing left on her chest.

A few were still crying, hugging their heads with their arms, and repeatedly chanting nonsense like "Don't kill me, I don't know anything" over and over.

The voice came from the edge of that group of people.

The woman speaking did not curl up into a ball.

Lin Fan turned his head.

When his gaze fell upon her, the first thing he noticed wasn't her face.

It was that long white shirt.

The shirt was soaked through by seawater, the fabric turning translucent and clinging smoothly to her body. From her collarbone to her waistline, every contour was clearly outlined by the wet cloth.

There were a few buttons left on the front, barely fastened, but the pressure those few buttons bore clearly exceeded their design limits. A gap was forced open between the third and fourth buttons, faintly revealing a patch of skin and the edge of her soaked white undergarment inside the slit.

Her waist tapered tightly downwards, and the hem of the shirt clung to her thighs.

Beneath that was a pair of dark trousers, equally soaked, with the fabric wrapping around the lines of her two legs all the way down to her bare ankles.

Her toes were covered in mud.

At a glance, this was clearly not the kind of female companion Yang Ningcong brought out for fun.

No matter how good-looking those female companions were, they all possessed a deliberate refinement—manicured nails, trimmed eyebrows.

This woman didn't have any of those things on her.

She was good-looking, but in a different way. Her facial features leaned towards coldness, her cheekbone lines were clean, and her lips were thin.

Her hair was soaked into strands, sticking to her neck and shoulders, with a few strands resting in front of her collarbone, rising and falling slightly with her breathing.

Compared to those women crying nearby whose makeup had smeared into a palette, she was completely of a different species.

Lin Fan looked for two extra seconds.

Not because she looked good, and even less because of her buns...

It was because something was wrong with her.

Gunshots had rung out for four rounds, pistols and sniper rifles taking turns.

Everyone's first reaction on the beach was to drop, curl up, and find something to take cover behind.

This was instinct. When bullets flew overhead, people would crouch down, reduce their target area, and lower their center of gravity.

No training was needed, no thinking was required; the brain bypassed consciousness and directly issued commands.

But she didn't.

From start to finish, she didn't run, didn't scream, and didn't even crouch down.

When those rounds of gunfire merged into a chaotic mess, she stayed right where she was.

There were only two possibilities.

Either her courage was physiologically abnormal.

Or she had undergone professional training—trained to the point of suppressing instinctual reactions.

Why hadn't Lin Fan noticed her when he was tying people up earlier?

Probably because his attention back then was entirely focused on the one without clothes and the bodyguards. The women were huddled behind the deck boards, so he gave a glance and didn't look closely.

Now he was looking closely.

He stared at her.

"Who are you?"

The woman did not answer the question first.

Her gaze shifted from the dagger in Lin Fan's hand and stopped at Yang Ningcong's neck.

That bloodstain was almost dry. "He has an open wound on his neck."

"Full-thickness tear of the epidermis, depth uncertain, but judging from the bleeding speed and volume, it hasn't injured the carotid artery or external jugular vein."

She paused for a moment, as if waiting for Lin Fan to digest this information.

"The problem right now isn't blood loss; it's infection."

Lin Fan didn't speak.

She continued speaking.

"Especially since he just waded through muddy water. You know very well what is in the muddy water of this island without me saying it."

"The soil bacteria density in tropical uninhabited areas is ten to twenty times that of cities. Clostridium tetani, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus—whichever one enters an open wound will cause obvious inflammatory reactions within six to eight hours."

"After inflammation comes suppuration, and after suppuration comes sepsis."

"Under the condition of having antibiotics, the control rate of sepsis exceeds ninety percent."

She raised her eyes.

Looking straight at Lin Fan.

"No antibiotics? One hundred percent mortality rate. It's just a matter of time."

The beach fell silent for two seconds.

One of the women in that group poked out half her head and glanced at her with the look one gives a lunatic.

What time is it, and who is giving a medical lecture here?

Then that woman quickly shrank back.

Lin Fan didn't respond.

Yang Ningcong brought escorts when going out, but the one in front of him was obviously neither an escort nor a vase.

A vase wouldn't stay silent amidst a hail of bullets. A vase even less likely would give a complete clinical assessment leisurely in a situation where a knife was pressed against someone's neck.

A doctor?

Or something else?

The Yang Family's security setup had already exceeded normal levels. Four bodyguards on the surface, one sniper in the dark.

If another female special operative disguised as a doctor were stuffed in here, it wouldn't be impossible.

Lin Fan stared at her hands.

Her fingers were slender, the proportions of her joints symmetrical, and her nails were trimmed very short without any manicures.

This pair of hands either truly spent year-round immersed in the operating room.

Or someone had deliberately disguised them.

"What is your name?"

"Xu Zhixia."

She answered very quickly without hesitation. Her gaze didn't drift, nor did she deliberately make eye contact.

"What relation are you to Yang Ningcong?"

Xu Zhixia glanced at Yang Ningcong.

Her expression barely changed. "Private medical consultant."

Lin Fan looked down at Yang Ningcong.

The knife was still pressed against this young master's neck.

Yang Ningcong was scared pale-faced.

Seeing Lin Fan look at him like this, he thought he was going to be beaten again, or worse, have his throat cut.

He quickly blurted out, "It's true! It's true! She's a doctor!"

He didn't dare move his neck, and frantically rolled his eyeballs toward Xu Zhixia's direction.

"My mom arranged to hire her! My mom said for a long voyage at sea, there must be a doctor following along! A contract was signed! It's official!"

Lin Fan didn't speak.

Yang Ningcong was anxious, his brain completely entering survival mode, pouring out whatever information he had.

"Her name is Xu Zhixia, she studied abroad for several years, and my mom poached her from some medical center with an annual salary of three million!"

He paused for a moment and added, "She even knows Su Qingxue! They met abroad! If you don't believe me, go ask Su Qingxue!"