223: Chapter 223 Am I the Chosen One?

Inside and outside the cave, it instantly grew so quiet that only the sound of the rain remained.

Zhou Kai, Song Ya, and Liu Feifei looked at each other, their facial expressions all somewhat peculiar.

Lin Fan is... possessed?

Xu Zhixia did not answer immediately.

She simply stared at Lin Fan's profile for a full dozen seconds.

That pair of eyes was very calm; there was no madness, no fanaticism, nor was he joking.

After a long while, she spoke.

"Analyzed from a neurological perspective, the symptoms you described are extremely rare, but similar case reports are not entirely absent. It may involve a variety of complex physiological and psychological mechanisms."

Xu Zhixia's speaking speed was not fast, but her choice of words was extremely professional.

"One possibility is that under extreme stress, the limbic system of the brain becomes hyperactive, leading to functional disorders in the cortical layer and triggering visual hallucinations accompanied by materialized text. This is occasionally mentioned in certain rare variants of post-traumatic stress disorder."

"Another possibility is that you possess an undiscovered synesthetic trait. Certain types of synesthetes perceive abstract concepts—such as danger—in concrete forms, like text or color. The massive impact of the shipwreck may have triggered this dormant ability."

"Of course, organic lesions cannot be ruled out either. For example, a tiny hemangioma in the visual occipital lobe region or a local epileptic focus discharging under specific stimulation could also produce fixed-pattern visual illusions, similar to the manifestations of Charles Bonnet syndrome."

In a single breath, she rattled off a long string of terms that Lin Fan had never even heard of.

Zhou Kai listened from behind in a daze, and softly asked Song Ya beside him, "What is she saying?"

Song Ya shook her head; she couldn't understand a single word either.

Lin Fan frowned, interrupting her academic report.

"Speak human."

Xu Zhixia paused for a moment.

She looked at Lin Fan, the professionalism and rigor in her eyes slowly fading, replaced by an extremely peculiar yet somewhat earnest expression.

She took a deep breath and gave her final diagnosis in an extremely easy-to-understand manner.

"The professional terminology is rather tedious to summarize. In words that we ordinary people can understand, it comes down to three words."

"What?"

"Psycho."

"Pfft..."

Zhou Kai was the first one who couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.

His laugh was like lighting a fuse.

Song Ya and Liu Feifei beside him couldn't hold back either.

Song Ya covered her mouth, her shoulders trembling unceasingly, clearly suffering from holding it in.

As for Liu Feifei, she laughed out loud unceremoniously, her ample chest rising and falling with her laughter.

The laughter in the cave came quickly and went quickly.

After laughing, Zhou Kai looked at Lin Fan's expressionless face and felt a bit timid again, quickly shrinking his head back.

Lin Fan ignored the reaction of those women; he looked at Xu Zhixia and asked again.

"I'm being serious with you."

His tone was very flat, making it impossible to tell whether he was joking or taking it seriously.

The slight trace of a peculiar expression on Xu Zhixia's face also vanished. She tucked a strand of hair scattered across her forehead behind her ear, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned slightly against the rock wall behind her.

"Then I will answer you seriously as well." Meeting his gaze, Xu Zhixia countered with a very practical question, "If there really is such a supernatural ability, why does it have to be you?"

"Look, all these people fell from the same ship and experienced the shipwreck; why don't they have it?"

"And Yang Ningcong—our ship also had dozens of people in distress, why isn't there a single one?"

This question made Lin Fan pause for a moment.

He really hadn't thought about it.

Why was it him?

He was silent for a few seconds, then the corners of his mouth suddenly twitched into an arc carrying a hint of indescribable self-deprecation, or perhaps something else.

"Could I be the chosen one?"

Xu Zhixia was choked by his words to the point of being speechless for a long time.

She had seen narcissistic patients before, but never one who could be narcissistic with such righteous confidence on a Deserted Island.

In the end, she gave up on discussing the condition in depth with a "mental patient," and simply waved her hand, considering it dropped.

Xu Zhixia turned and walked deeper into the cave, "When psychological stress is too great, the brain will produce various compensatory reactions."

"The intensity of what you've experienced on this island far exceeds the endurance threshold of a normal person."

"Lack of sleep combined with long-term high tension makes experiencing some abnormal perceptual phenomena unsurprising."

"Once you've rested enough, it will probably disappear."

Lin Fan did not pursue the matter further.

He leaned back against the cave wall and closed his eyes.

...

Beach.

It was no longer just raining; it was pouring down.

The sky and the sea seemed to merge into one, making it impossible to distinguish where the clouds were and where the waves were.

The wind wrapped around the raindrops, slashing horizontally and stinging fiercely when hitting the face.

The wreckage of the shelter that had just been blown up was washed scattered and broken in the rainstorm.

Yang Ningcong squatted behind a piece of upright sheet metal, holding his head with both arms, soaked to the bone.

Several women beside him huddled together; some were crying, some were trembling, but their cries were completely covered by the wind and rain.

"Young Master Yang..." a female assistant shouted at the top of her lungs, "Young Master Yang, I'm scared..."

Yang Ningcong revealed half his face from the gap between his arms.

"No shit, you're scared? I'm scared to death too!"

After roaring, he buried his head back down.

The skin at the root of his thighs was still aching, the ringing in his ears had not disappeared, and that explosion just now had almost shocked his soul out of his body.

Meng Tiantian couldn't even be pieced back together anymore, and that woman who had been drinking water had also lost all movement.

Two human lives had been blown away by the bomb just two meters beneath his butt.

And this bomb was precisely what he had ripped out from his pants crotch.

If he hadn't taken it off, taken it off later, or triggered some mechanism when taking it off...

Would his parents still be able to piece together all his corpse fragments?

Every time he thought of this point, a layer of goosebumps would rise on Yang Ningcong's back.

The return gift Lin Fan mentioned wasn't just to disgust him; it was genuinely sending him to his death.

That intern was certain that he wouldn't hand the item over to Wang Laoliu.

No wonder he let him go; he was trying to wipe them all out in one fell swoop.

A bolt of lightning split across the horizon, illuminating the entire beach in a ghastly white.

The following thunderclap exploded directly above their heads, and several women shrieked as they threw themselves onto Yang Ningcong.

"Stop fucking pouncing on me! Shrink toward the sheet metal!"

Yang Ningcong's throat was completely hoarse from shouting.

He raised his head and looked around through the rainwater.

Wang Laoliu's figure was no longer behind the sheet metal.

That figure was walking toward the south side of the beach.

Over there was a natural cleft in the rock wall. "Wang Laoliu! Where are you going?" he shouted at the top of his lungs, but the wind covered up most of the sound.