269: Chapter 269 You believe what he said?

"This island… is floating."

As soon as Yang Ningcong said these words, no one in the Karst Cave chimed in.

Zhou Kai's first reaction was to laugh, but he couldn't laugh out because Lin Fan didn't laugh.

"What did you say?" Zhou Kai leaned on his wooden stick and tilted his head to look at him.

Yang Ningcong ignored him and kept his eyes fixed entirely on Lin Fan.

"Brother Fan, what I said is true. This island is not fixed to the seabed; it is moving."

"It has always been moving."

Lin Fan didn't rush to speak. Over this period of time, he had always thought it was magnetic interference, which was why signals couldn't be sent out.

But if the island itself was moving, all of this made sense.

"Continue."

Yang Ningcong licked his dry, cracked lips and took another gulp of water.

"This island was discovered long ago."

"Originally, an ocean-going scientific research ship captured abnormal magnetic field signals on the periphery of the Arctic. They followed the signals and discovered an island."

"Later, countries everywhere sent people over." Yang Ningcong rubbed his hands on his knees. "Scientists, geologists, oceanographers—they came in batch after batch."

"At the very beginning, it was routine geological surveys and biological sampling. People from other countries wrote reports after returning."

"The reports were submitted, but no one believed them."

"A floating island? A magnetic field so chaotic that compasses spin around? Animals and plants undergoing irreversible genetic mutations?"

"Who in the world would believe that?"

"The higher-ups felt that the scientific research team had stayed at sea too long and collectively developed mental problems. The reports were sent back, and the project was almost axed."

Yang Ningcong's Adam's apple bobbed.

"But suddenly, the second batch of people who went up the island got into trouble."

"The second batch that came up weren't scientists; they were military personnel. Various countries sent special forces squads over for on-site verification."

"They went onto the island with full sets of equipment—satellite positioning, radios, weapons and ammunition, everything was there."

"As a result, less than seventy-two hours after getting on the island, all electronic devices completely failed. Satellite signals were cut off, and radios turned into white noise."

"They were trapped."

Yang Ningcong paused for a moment.

"How long they were trapped is unknown, but by the time some people were picked up and taken out…"

"Among the people who returned alive, three showed varying degrees of physical mutation."

Xu Zhixia's hand stopped. She was smearing the mashed herbal paste onto a clean piece of cloth, and upon hearing the word 'mutation', her entire body froze.

"What kind of mutation?" Xu Zhixia spoke up.

"This…"

"I can only tell you that ever since then, all data, reports, and video records regarding this island have been completely sealed."

"Everyone who participated in the project signed a confidentiality agreement."

"This island disappeared from any public marine archives."

The Karst Cave was quiet for several seconds.

Zhou Kai switched the wooden stick to support himself with his other hand. The expression on his face turned from doubt to confusion, and then from confusion to annoyance.

"Wait a minute."

He took a step forward and looked down at Yang Ningcong.

"How come I've never heard of these things?"

"You kid aren't making up stories here to fool us, are you?"

"What floating island, what scientists from various countries, what sealed reports—how the hell is this any different from those street-stall pulp literatures on the internet?"

Yang Ningcong raised his head and looked at Zhou Kai.

On that filthy face, a very familiar expression suddenly surfaced—that was a sense of superiority carved into his very bones.

"Zhou Kai, right?"

Yang Ningcong wiped the corner of his mouth and straightened his posture.

"I'm not looking down on you, but information of this level—do you think a wage earner like you with a salary of a few thousand yuan per month has any right to know?"

Zhou Kai's face sank, but Yang Ningcong didn't stop.

"You can't even enter the front door of Shengtang's headquarters building; you can only use the employee passage next to the underground garage. When you eat, you use the cheapest set meal window in the company cafeteria, twelve yuan per portion, with a mix of meat and vegetables."

"Put it in the past, the biggest leader you'd ever seen in your life was probably that bald supervisor in your department."

"This kind of matter—let alone you not knowing, even if you did know, you wouldn't have the brains to understand it."

Zhou Kai's jaw bulged slightly.

The hand leaning on the wooden stick exerted force again, and his knuckles creaked.

Lin Fan glanced at Zhou Kai. Zhou Kai clenched his teeth and swallowed that breath back down.

Lin Fan withdrew his gaze and looked back at Yang Ningcong.

Top-secret projects jointly blockaded by various countries like this were fundamentally impossible for ordinary people to come into contact with, aside from direct participants and a tiny handful of top-tier dignitaries.

"Who told you these?"

Yang Ningcong put away that expression. "My dad has an old connection in the foreign military. Once, when he got drunk, he told my dad about it."

"My dad didn't believe it at first either. He directly took out those report photos, and that's when my dad believed it."

"What was the specific content of that report?"

Lin Fan's question was very direct.

Yang Ningcong didn't answer. After several seconds, he raised his head.

"Brother Fan."

"I can't say this."

Lin Fan raised an eyebrow.

Yang Ningcong hurriedly added another sentence, "It's not that I don't want to say it, it's that I can't say it right now."

He moved forward half a step, "Half a year. Protect me for half a year and let me live in this cave for half a year. Half a year later, regardless of whether we can go back or not, I will tell you everything I know, without leaving a single word."

Zhou Kai snorted from the side, "Half a year? It's hard to say whether your life can survive past next week, and you're talking about half a year."

"Brother Fan, stop wasting words with him. With just this bit of crappy news, he's still putting on airs."

"I'll just beat it out of him for you."

Yang Ningcong shrank his neck slightly, but didn't take back his words.

"Brother Fan, even if you beat me to death, I still won't be able to say it."

Lin Fan stood in front of him without moving.

Yang Ningcong looked at the tips of Lin Fan's shoes. He was gambling.

Yesterday Wang Laoliu was crippled by a single kick from him. If this kick landed on himself, even if he didn't die he would be disabled.

But matters had come to this, he could only bite down and refuse to let go.

This was his last bargaining chip. Once handed over, his life would become worthless.

Keeping it could at least make people feel that he was useful.

Lin Fan looked at Yang Ningcong. If the information in Yang Ningcong's hands truly involved the core rules of the island's mutations, then this information itself was the key to their long-term survival on the island.

Forceful interrogation? A person like Yang Ningcong, if genuinely beaten into desperation, might just make things up randomly.

It was better to keep him around first and slowly squeeze it out.

Half a year was enough time for him to indirectly probe out seventy or eighty percent of it.

"Fine."

Yang Ningcong suddenly raised his head.

"But there are two conditions."

"Speak!"

"First, within these six months, you do the work. Carrying firewood, fetching water, clearing garbage—whatever is dirty or tiring, you do it. You are not a guest; you are a laborer."

Yang Ningcong's mouth twitched, but he quickly nodded, "Alright."

"Second."

Lin Fan bent down and leaned close to him.

"If half a year later, the things you tell me aren't worth the food for these six months…"

Lin Fan's hand rested on Yang Ningcong's shoulder. The force was very light, but Yang Ningcong's shoulder blade emitted a crack.

"I will eat you up, and make up for all of it from your body."

"Did you understand?"

"Under… understood."

"Liu Feifei, clear out a corner for him, and don't put him near the supplies area."

Liu Feifei acknowledged.

Yang Ningcong was still slumped in place, trembling all over.

The Karst Cave returned to silence once more, and Lin Fan walked into the partition to get his dagger.

Su Qingxue followed closely behind, "Do you believe what he said?"