195: Chapter 195 Still have guns?

"Island cult's."

Xu Zhixia cleaned away the medicinal residue around the wound and rinsed it with the remaining mineral water.

Her movements were finer than Lin Fan's, her strength well-controlled; she sped up where she needed to and stopped where she needed to.

Zhou Kai grimaced in pain, baring his teeth.

Xu Zhixia didn't raise her head. "You can curse, but don't kick people."

After finishing her examination, Xu Zhixia covered the wound back up with the dressing.

"Not a bad job handling it."

This sentence was directed at Lin Fan.

"The binding delayed the toxin from traveling upward, cutting and letting blood drained out some of the superficial venom, and scorching could destroy the residual toxic proteins on the surface of the wound. The herbs are a bit useful, but not enough."

Lin Fan asked, "Can his leg be saved?"

"It's too early to talk about saving the leg."

Xu Zhixia sat back down on her heels, her speech crisp and clean, "This isn't an ordinary centipede. The venom contains neurotoxins and hemolyzed components, and the most troublesome part is the subsequent reaction. Local tissue necrosis, infection, fever, and shock can all be fatal."

Zhou Kai listened, a chill running down his back.

"Doctor, don't speak so professionally; to me, it sounds like last words."

Xu Zhixia looked at him. "Want to hear it simply?"

"Yes."

"You're not dead yet, but you aren't far from death either."

Zhou Kai: "..."

Song Ya grew anxious, "Then what should we do?"

Xu Zhixia re-covered Zhou Kai's dressing and stood up.

"We need antibiotics."

"Amoxicillin can hold out for a while, but the iodophor and gauze must be replaced with new ones. The herbs on his wound can only delay superficial infection; the deep tissues have already begun to inflame."

She wiped the blood off her fingers.

"And tetanus antitoxin; getting it is better than not getting it."

Lin Fan went through it in his mind.

The medicine was in the second waterproof box.

When the gunshots rang out, the two of them dropped the box and ran back into the cave.

"The medicine is down there." Lin Fan walked to the cave entrance and leaned half his body out.

On the stone ledge in the middle section of the slope, that military-green waterproof box lay crookedly at the junction of the gravel pile and the beach, its metal buckles facing the sky, having not slid down.

Looking further down was the beach.

Those three bodyguards were no longer in their original positions.

The ropes were scattered on the muddy ground, empty.

Wang Laoliu stood beside the bodyguard who had woken up first, helping the last person untie the knot on his wrist.

After untying the ropes, the bodyguards did not scatter, nor did they retreat toward the woods.

Instead, under Wang Laoliu's direction, the four of them began moving things.

Two people carried a board, one person dragged the canvas, and Wang Laoliu himself went to break off a few broken wooden stakes.

Were they building a shelter?

Lin Fan's question hadn't yet had time to form a complete judgment.

Bang...

Gunshot.

It came from the direction of the beach, a muffled sound, not like a pistol, nor like a sniper rifle.

The sound was rather deep, carrying a kind of muffled echo.

Lin Fan lowered his entire body, drew his pistol from his waist, and pointed the muzzle toward the bottom of the slope.

Liu Feifei was so frightened by this sound that she took two steps back, her back pressing against the stone wall.

"Damn it, no way..." Lin Fan cursed in a low voice, his finger resting on the trigger guard.

Wang Laoliu still had a gun on him?

His pistol was confiscated, his sniper rifle was confiscated, and this guy still had a third one hidden on him?

He turned his head and grabbed Yang Ningcong by the back collar.

Yang Ningcong had almost fallen asleep leaning against a rock just now, but with this tug, he was dragged straight down from the rock, his knees hitting the ground, the pain causing his facial features to wrinkle together.

"Just how many guns did Wang Laoliu bring?"

Yang Ningcong had a bewildered look on his face.

"Huh?"

Lin Fan dragged him right in front of him, the muzzle of the pistol less than ten centimeters from his nose tip.

Yang Ningcong's brain suffered a brief 0.3-second crash in front of the muzzle. "I don't know!"

"You don't know?"

"I really don't know!" Yang Ningcong's voice cracked. "I'm the client! I pay the money! I don't care what kind of equipment he brings onto the ship! All those things were purchased by himself, I only sign the invoices! Where am I supposed to go to count how many bullets are in his pockets?!"

Lin Fan stared at him for two seconds.

There was genuine panic in Yang Ningcong's eyes, not something faked.

This kind of young master usually only cared about spending money and looking at results, so security details indeed might not have passed through his hands.

It was like keeping a guard dog, only bothering to feed it dog food; as for how many times the dog's teeth had been ground down or how strong its bite force was, the owner had no interest in understanding at all.

Lin Fan released his collar and walked back to the cave entrance.

He pressed his body behind the rock wall, exposing only half his head to look down.

There was no second gunshot.

On the beach, no one fell either.

But there was something extra in the sky.

An orange-red arc, dragging a white smoke tail, was slowly rising in the gray sky.

The trajectory wasn't high; it began to decelerate after rising to about a hundred meters, then exploded at its highest point, scattering into a dark red ball of light that hung at the bottom of the lead-gray clouds for a few seconds before slowly dimming.

A flare.

Lin Fan's muzzle slowly lowered.

He stared at the gradually dissipating red light for three seconds, then tucked his gun back into his waist.

Behind him, Yang Ningcong tremblingly poked his head over and also saw that lingering red hue in the sky.

"A flare gun?" Lin Fan turned back to look at him.

Yang Ningcong licked his dry, cracked lips and cautiously nodded.

"You said before that there was a way to go back—is this it?"

Lin Fan's tone wasn't fierce, but Yang Ningcong's back still tightened.

He had learned his lesson now: whenever Lin Fan asked a question, answer first, then explain, and definitely don't ask questions back.

"No." Yang Ningcong shook his head, very quickly.

"The flare gun is just a fallback. The effective radius is only thirty nautical miles. In a ghost place like this, there might not even be a fishing boat within thirty nautical miles."

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva, lowering his voice a bit, "I prepared something else too."

Lin Fan didn't speak, waiting for him to continue.

Yang Ningcong looked outside the cave entrance, then looked at the gun on Lin Fan's waist. Weighing it for half a second, he decided to confess honestly. Hiding half and telling half at this time would only make things worse if exposed.

"Before setting off, I had Wang Laoliu hide a PLB at the bottom of the supply box."

Lin Fan didn't answer, but he had a question: what was this thing?

Yang Ningcong hurriedly explained, "A Personal Locator Beacon. Military-grade purchased from the US side, 406 MHz frequency band, connected to the international search and rescue satellite system. As long as you press it, the signal goes straight to the satellite, and the satellite forwards it to the nearest ground search and rescue station."

He swallowed.

"The positioning accuracy is within five kilometers, and the signal continuously transmits for forty-eight hours. In the Northern Hemisphere coverage area, theoretically, search and rescue forces will respond within twelve hours."

The wind from the cave entrance poured in, blowing the dried blood crust on Yang Ningcong's neck so hard it itched terribly.

"This thing isn't something ordinary people can get. It's military-controlled material, banned from civilian sale, and one unit costs over one hundred thousand US dollars. I got one through channels before going out to sea..."