25: Chapter 25 If only I had listened earlier, none of this would have happened.

That smile looked quite amiable, but deep in his eyes, they were like dead fish eyes, completely devoid of any warmth.

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"Alright, you found it first. Then how do you plan to handle it? Eat it yourself?"

"I'm going to move it to the gathering point," Song Ya swallowed a mouthful of saliva, "The things we find will be put together uniformly, and we'll divide them up together later."

"Gathering point?" Zhou Dahai's eyebrows twitched. "Who set the gathering point? Lin Fan?"

Song Ya didn't pick up on that remark.

She wasn't stupid.

Yesterday, what was Lin Fan in the eyes of that group of people? A bottom-tier corporate slave with a monthly salary of three thousand, someone who had been cursed as a beast by Su Qingxue.

Mentioning the rules set by Lin Fan at this time was no different from holding up a target for people to shoot at.

"I set it myself," Song Ya tightened her grip on the aluminum foil bag in her hand, "There are too many things to move, so I'll find a place to put them first and talk about it later."

"You set it yourself?" Zhou Dahai laughed again.

This time, the smile was even falser than before.

"An intern, carving out territory for yourself here?"

He took another step forward.

Song Ya took another step back, her heel hitting the edge of the reef, stumbling and almost missing her footing.

"Brother Zhou, I found this first, and even in the company, we talk about first-come, first-served."

"Company?" Zhou Dahai interrupted her, the smile on his face instantly vanishing.

"Take a look at where you're standing. Is this fucking a company?"

He reached out his hand.

"Stop talking nonsense, hand the stuff over to me, and I'll take it back for President Su to distribute. President Su said all found supplies must be turned in. If you don't believe it, go back and ask Director Wang."

Song Ya stared at that outstretched hand.

The gaps in the fingernails were filled with black mud, and there were fresh scrapes on the knuckles.

She didn't move.

"Then go ask President Su to write a slip for you." Song Ya wanted to find an excuse to dismiss Zhou Dahai and then go find Lin Fan, "If President Su says so, I'll hand it over."

Zhou Dahai's face darkened instantly.

He withdrew his hand, tilted his head slightly, as if re-evaluating the young girl in front of him.

He evaluated her for two or three seconds.

He smiled.

This smile was uglier than the previous two.

"Little sister, I'm talking to you nicely, don't push your luck."

Before his voice faded, he took a step forward and directly reached out to grab the aluminum foil bag in Song Ya's arms.

"Don't touch it!" Song Ya shrieked, turning around to shield the biscuits with her back.

Zhou Dahai didn't catch them.

He completely lost face.

Back at the company, for a minor intern like Song Ya, he couldn't even be bothered to remember her name.

For a regular employee of the Legal Department to snatch things from an intern who had been there for less than three months, if word got out, it would make people laugh their heads off.

But this wasn't the company.

This was a Deserted Island.

He hadn't eaten anything for a full day and night.

His stomach was as empty as a dry well, and the stomach acid was burning his throat into a blaze.

He had been sent by Su Qingxue to search for supplies on the east side, and after walking for most of the day, he hadn't turned up anything, not even picking up a broken plastic bucket.

Yet a little intern had actually found a treasure first.

On what grounds?

As a regular employee, why should he watch helplessly as a three-month intern ran off hugging food?

"I've been giving you face, haven't I?"

Zhou Dahai grabbed Song Ya by the back of her collar and gave it a fierce yank backward.

Song Ya was dragged staggering backward, her feet slipping on the rough reef surface, and her left knee slammed heavily against the rock face with a "bang".

"Ah~!"

A large patch of skin on her knee was scraped right off by the reef, and blood gushed out immediately, flowing down her lower leg.

But her two hands were still tightly clamped around those two packs of compressed biscuits.

She didn't let go.

Seeing her refusing to let go no matter what, the fire in Zhou Dahai's heart surged straight up.

"You fucking..."

He raised his foot and kicked hard at Song Ya's back.

Song Ya collapsed face-first onto the reef. Her chin struck the rock face, her teeth bit the tip of her tongue until it bled, and a bloody taste filled her mouth.

One of the packs of compressed biscuits rolled out of her arms and fell into a nearby reef crevice, while she protected the other pack in her arms.

Song Ya lay prone on the ground, the pain making her vision go black in waves.

But her first reaction wasn't to get up, but to desperately protect the biscuits.

Seeing that he couldn't seem to reach that pack, Zhou Dahai stepped on it with one foot.

He stepped on the back of her hand.

The pattern of the sole embedded into the skin of the back of her hand, "I'll say this one last time."

Zhou Dahai looked down at Song Ya lying on the ground.

His tone changed, "Let go and give me the stuff. Otherwise, I'll break your fingers one by one."

Song Ya's tears fell.

It wasn't from the pain.

It was grievance.

That grievance surged up like a tidal wave, a hundred times more violent than when she was freezing outside the Karst Cave last night.

She just wanted to find something to eat.

She was just picking up things.

She didn't steal, rob, or harm anyone.

On what grounds?

Why could someone hit her whenever they wanted, kick her whenever they pleased?

Back at the company, when she was scolded a couple of times by her supervisor, she endured it.

When she was ordered around to run errands by seniors, she endured it.

When treated as air by Su Qingxue, she endured that too.

She had been enduring it all along.

She endured all the way to the Deserted Island, yet she still got beaten.

She was still being trampled under someone's feet.

Song Ya lay prone on the icy reef, her tears mixing with the blood from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the rock face.

But her five fingers on that stepped-on hand tightly hooked onto the edge of the aluminum foil bag.

She wouldn't let go.

Even if she died, she wouldn't let go.

"I won't give it."

Song Ya's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

But every word was so stubborn that it surprised Zhou Dahai.

"Even if you beat me to death... I still won't give it."

The corner of Zhou Dahai's mouth twitched.

He increased the force of his foot.

Song Ya let out a muffled groan, the sweat and tears on her forehead mixing together.

But that hand didn't move an inch.

"You really are a stubborn mule."

Zhou Dahai bent down, grabbed Song Ya by the hair, and lifted her head up from the reef.

Song Ya's scalp tingled from being pulled, her vision filled entirely with the swaying sky and stones.

"Little girl, do you think this is at the company? Call the police? Complain to the Labor Bureau? Cry to HR?"

Zhou Dahai brought his face close, the hot breath exhaling from his mouth carrying a sour, stinky odor, blowing directly onto Song Ya's face.

"On this lousy island, whoever has the harder fist makes the rules. A little brat weighing just over a hundred catties, and you want to be stubborn with me?"

His other hand began to pry open Song Ya's fingers.

One.

Song Ya bit her lip, and blood oozed out again.

Two.

Her fingernails scratched a white mark on the aluminum foil bag, her finger joints being bent to the point of almost dislocating.

But she still didn't let go.

Zhou Dahai was completely annoyed.

He released Song Ya's hair and backhanded a slap across her face.

It struck Song Ya on the left cheek.

"Slap!"

That sound was crisp and loud, echoing back and forth several times among the empty reef cluster.

Song Ya's head jerked to one side, half of her face instantly swelling up, and a burst of white light exploding before her eyes.

A long " Buzz~" (buzz) sounded in her ears, like someone had struck a giant bell inside her brain.

Her hand loosened.

It wasn't that she wanted to let go.

It was because she was beaten into a daze, and her muscles refused to obey commands.

The compressed biscuits scattered across the reef.

Zhou Dahai bent down, picked them up, and then walked quickly over to the flat-topped reef at the gathering point.

The three packs that Song Ya had moved over earlier were still placed on top.

He glanced at them and scooped them all up.

Four packs.

Not a single pack left.

"If you had just been obedient earlier, wouldn't everything have been fine? You just had to force me to use my hands."

He stood straight, lowered his head, and glanced at Song Ya lying paralyzed on the ground.

The young girl curled up in the depression of the reef, her left cheek swollen high, bloodstains hanging from the corner of her mouth, the wound on her knee still oozing blood, already dyeing that small patch of rock surface nearby a dark red.

The back of her shirt had two holes worn through by the reef, exposing the sunburned, reddish skin underneath.

Back at the company, with this face and figure, he would have had to sneak a second glance, afraid of being called wretched.

But now...

Zhou Dahai's gaze lingered on Song Ya for two seconds.

It lingered for another two seconds.

Then he shook his head and turned to walk back.

After walking three steps, he stopped again.

He looked back.

"Right."

"If you dare to complain about this matter, no matter who you tell, when we return to the company, I will definitely make sure you go to prison."

"By then, I'll make sure your dozen or so years of studying go to waste, and all your parents' hard work goes down the drain."

Zhou Dahai knew that recent graduates, especially those from rural areas, feared this the most.

Back at the company, he had slept with a few newly graduated girls using this set of rhetoric and it worked every time.

Moreover, he had long since investigated Song Ya's background; she was a true, through-and-through rural person.

Song Ya lay prone on the reef.

She didn't answer.

The sea breeze blew over, pouring into the holes of her shirt, the chill drilling straight into the cracks of her bones.

She stared at Zhou Dahai's retreating back as he walked farther and farther away.

Tears streamed silently down her face.

It wasn't that she didn't want to chase after him.

It was that all over her body, she didn't even have the strength to crawl up.

She pressed her face against the icy rock face.

She smelled the fishy stench of the seawater, the bloody taste at the corner of her mouth, and that tiny trace of food odor remaining on the aluminum foil bag...