293: Chapter 293 So what is my current state?

"Everyone shouldn't think of the worst either." Yang Ningcong raised his sleeve and wiped away the cold sweat on his chin.

"If we're really going to talk about aliens, that's just too absurd. The reports are all just speculations. Can speculations be taken seriously?"

He licked his chapped, cracked lips and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"I figure this is just a top-secret biochemical project cooked up by Beautiful Country over there."

"Their military bases on the ocean are as numerous as cow hairs. First, they found this abnormal island, put up electric fences, and released some experimental viruses. It makes total sense."

At this, Yang Ningcong straightened his spine slightly, and that swagger uniquely belonging to men discussing international situations returned to him a bit.

"After being discovered, to pull the wool over people's eyes, they made up some nonsense about aliens and magnetic field disturbances to fool outsiders. This kind of routine has been played to death in Hollywood movies."

Zhou Kai jabbed the wooden stick in his hand against the ground twice and curled his lips.

"That's true. A few years ago, didn't people post online every day saying that a certain country's moon landing was filmed in a studio? Those big-nosed foreigners love engaging in these conspiracy theories."

He turned his head and spat on the ground.

"Who the hell cares about Beautiful Country or little Japanese. If it's really a biochemical virus created by humans, it's still better than some invisible and intangible alien ghosts and monsters. If humans made it, that means there's a way out."

Aside from these two singing in harmony, no one else in the cave picked up the conversation.

Liu Feifei shrank into a dead corner where the firelight couldn't reach, keeping her breathing very low.

Song Ya stood next to the pile of supplies, her gaze lingering on Lin Fan.

Lin Fan leaned against the stone wall, ignoring Yang Ningcong and Zhou Kai's idle chatter.

His gaze was on Su Qingxue.

While Yang Ningcong and Zhou Kai were comforting themselves there, using international conspiracy theories to build up their courage, Lin Fan's mind was racing with another issue.

Virus.

If that mutation factor was essentially a virus that could infect organisms.

Then what on earth was his current state?

Lin Fan lowered his head, his gaze falling on his own palm.

Triple Enhancement.

This wasn't a cheat granted by a system, nor was it a stroke of divine grace.

This was an infection.

He had been changed by that thing.

Following this line of thought down, was Su Qingxue also an infected person?

If the virus was transmitted through bodily fluids.

Was Xu Zhixia carrying the virus by now as well?

The most fatal point.

Su Qingxue was carrying his seed.

The fertilized egg combined inside the maternal body.

Virus-carrying sperm, coupled with a virus-carrying mother.

What on earth was that embryo growing day by day in Su Qingxue's womb?

The outline of that gray monster on the beach last night forcibly intruded into his mind.

An extra bent joint.

Deformed long arms hanging below the knees.

A gray, withered skin pouch without a shred of flesh.

An extremely distinct wave of acid reflux surged in Lin Fan's stomach.

If it were a human, he had the confidence to protect the mother and child to survive on this Deserted Island.

Even if food and clothing were scarce, even if they licked blood off the edge of a knife every day.

But what if what was born turned out to be a monster?

A deformed mutant that didn't look like a human or a ghost, one that would only drink blood and eat raw meat the moment it tore open its mother's womb and crawled out?

Should it still be kept?

Or rather, could it still be kept?

Once that guess came true, this was not just a burden, but a bomb that could take everyone's life at any moment.

Lin Fan's breathing rhythm was completely disrupted.

A slightly cool hand suddenly reached over from the side, and Lin Fan instinctively counter-clasped it.

The force was absurdly large.

"Hiss..."

Xu Zhixia let out a short cry of pain, and was yanked half a step forward, her shoulder colliding against the stone wall.

Lin Fan immediately let go.

Xu Zhixia rubbed her wrist, which had a circle of red prints pinched into it, and stood by his side with her back against the stone wall.

She didn't look at him, her gaze cast calmly toward the pitch-black beach outside the cave.

"Come out with me for a moment."

Su Qingxue sat there without looking at the two of them, trying hard to recall something.

Lin Fan stood up and followed Xu Zhixia outside. Xu Zhixia didn't beat around the bush and spoke directly.

"You're thinking about the child in Qingxue's belly."

Lin Fan neither admitted nor denied it.

Xu Zhixia was too smart.

"You're afraid." Xu Zhixia pressed further.

"Afraid that the mutation in your body will be passed on to that child."

"Afraid that Qingxue will give birth to a monster you can't control at all."

Lin Fan's jawline was clenched tight, and the veins on his neck bulged one by one.

He turned around, his entire body pressing forward against Xu Zhixia.

The distance between the two of them was pulled within less than a foot.

"Do you even know mind-reading?"

"Since you've read it all."

"Then Dr. Xu, give me a suggestion from your professional perspective. Can this child still be kept?"

"Of course it can be kept." Four words, crisp and neat, without a trace of hesitation.

Lin Fan was stunned for a moment.

He thought Xu Zhixia would use a set of ambiguous medical terms to brush it off, or use human ethics to dissuade him.

He didn't expect her to give an extremely definitive conclusion.

"Are you sure?" Lin Fan pressed forward another inch, "If it's born looking like that ghost from last night, will you take responsibility for choking it to death?"

Xu Zhixia raised her head and looked straight into Lin Fan's eyes.

"Lin Fan, you got one thing wrong."

"You are using the standards of civilized society to measure the survival rules of this Deserted Island."

She raised a finger and poked it against the hard muscle on Lin Fan's chest.

"In the outside world, giving birth to a deformed child with an extra arm and gray skin is called a disaster."

"It would be sent into a research institute, treated as a freak, and obliterated by society."

Her finger tapped lightly twice on his chest.

"But where is this?"

"This is a Deserted Island."

"It is an isolated island floating on the sea, filled with man-eating beasts everywhere."

"If that child were an ordinary baby, chubby and white, with hands unable to even bind a chicken."

"If you really got rid of it, you would regret it for the rest of your life."

Xu Zhixia paused slightly, "There is another possibility: he inherited your enhanced physical fitness, inheriting the toughness of that mutation factor."

"Even..."

"Even stronger than you."

"Not looking like a human and not looking like a ghost, so what?"

"Monsters are the only ones fit to survive in a pile of monsters."

That nerve in Lin Fan's brain was severely lashed by these words.

Only monsters are fit to survive.

Xu Zhixia's logic was extremely cold-blooded and extremely self-consistent.

He had always been worrying about his offspring with the mindset of a human father.

Yet he forgot that this was not a human society at all.

Here, morality, ethics, appearance, and the inherent form of humans were all utterly worthless.

Staying alive was the only truth.

A mutated offspring with super physical fitness was not a bomb, but the most formidable combat force.

The restless fire in Lin Fan's chest was mostly extinguished by Xu Zhixia's rational words.

He looked at the woman in front of him.

Xu Zhixia's face was exceptionally calm under the dim light.

"You sure take things lightly." Lin Fan withdrew his oppressive posture, his spine leaning back against the stone wall.

"Then what if the virus acts up in you too?"

He steered the topic toward Xu Zhixia herself.

Those two times yesterday were not just an outlet for hormones, but also a direct exchange of bodily fluids.

Xu Zhixia understood the implication.

She pulled her hand out from her pocket and fiddled with the stray hair by her ear.

The movement was very casual.

"Act up if it acts up."

"As an ordinary doctor, my greatest value on this island is knowing a few herbs."

"If I could really mutate, making me run faster than that monster, or giving me strength strong enough to crush stones with bare hands."

She looked at Lin Fan, the corners of her mouth curving up slightly, her tone calm, "Then I'd wake up laughing in my dreams."