30: Chapter 30 Mr. Su... Please just say what you need.

"Your people aren't coming."

Lin Fan interrupted her, crisp and decisive.

"If you don't believe me, keep waiting. Wait until you starve to death, wait until you die of thirst, and wait until that group of men down there get other ideas about you. Then you'll remember what I said today."

"I think you should choose the second option: turn around and go back. Whether you die of thirst, starvation, freezing, or get carved up and eaten by your loyal, good employees, it has nothing to do with me."

Su Qingxue stood in place, her chest heaving more and more violently.

She stared at Lin Fan.

There was no emotion whatsoever on this man's face.

It wasn't a forced calmness, but a genuine indifference that seeped straight from his bones.

When he said those words, it was as casual as scrolling through a food delivery app on his phone.

Take it or leave it; if you don't order, fine by them, the merchant doesn't lack your single order.

This attitude was even more maddening than the insult itself.

If he had coerced her fiercely, or stared at her with greedy eyes, she could have at least found a reason to hate him, a fulcrum for resistance.

But he found even a glance more at her to be superfluous.

Su Qingxue opened her mouth, wanting to curse him out again.

Only a dry, raspy breath popped out of her throat, unable to piece together even a complete word.

She turned around and walked back step by step.

In all her life, Su Qingxue had walked out of countless failed negotiation conference rooms, always maintaining this posture: back straight, never looking back.

It was just that in the past when she walked out, she was the winner.

Lin Fan watched her retreating figure grow further and further away, then withdrew his gaze.

"Let's go."

He said to Song Ya.

Holding three packs of biscuits, Song Ya dazedly followed behind.

Her brain was still buzzing, and the impact of the scene just now was no less than when Lin Fan cut off Zhou Dahai's finger earlier.

Su Qingxue offered one hundred million.

One hundred million.

In exchange for that Karst Cave, in exchange for that water and food.

Lin Fan didn't even lift an eyelid.

What concept was one hundred million?

Song Ya calculated silently in her heart.

Her parents farmed back in her hometown, working themselves to death all year round; after deducting chemical fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides, getting twenty thousand yuan at most.

One hundred million.

You would have to farm for five thousand years.

Starting from the Shang Dynasty and farming until now, you would just barely save enough.

...

Su Qingxue returned to the edge of the beach.

She did not walk into the crowd.

She detoured behind a half-person-high reef, pressed her back against the rock face, and slowly closed her eyes.

Over and over again in her mind was a single sentence: the helicopters cannot come.

This thought burrowed back and forth in her mind.

She suppressed it countless times, each time using her willpower and the company's strength to forcibly push it back down.

But every time it would crawl back out, more and more frequently, clearer and clearer.

Su Qingxue opened her eyes once more.

She didn't look at the disheveled employees on the distant beach.

Nor did she look at the vaguely visible Karst Cave entrance halfway up the mountain.

Her gaze fell upon the gravel path leading toward the Karst Cave.

A thin, weak figure was limping her way up the slope.

Song Ya.

Su Qingxue's gaze changed.

It was neither anger nor humiliation.

The fiery anger from going head-to-head with Lin Fan just now faded completely in this single instant.

Replaced by something brought over from the business world and carved into her DNA: calculation.

She had been the helmsman of Shengtang for seven years.

What she excelled at was never a frontal assault.

It was a flanking maneuver.

If she couldn't pry Lin Fan open from the front, she would pry the people around him.

In Lin Fan's current faction, at most there were only two people.

Liu Feifei was a spineless fence-sitter who went with whoever was stronger; even if she pried her over, she'd be a useless piece.

But Song Ya was different.

Song Ya was the only person around Lin Fan who still retained "civilized social values".

She feared violence, she believed in rules, and she still held expectations for life "after going back".

More importantly, Song Ya was holding three packs of compressed biscuits in her arms.

Su Qingxue's throat rolled uncontrollably.

The half bottle of water from earlier had already been digested, and stomach acid was burning her internal organs in pain.

Three packs of biscuits, fifteen hundred grams, enough for her to act as the "pillar" in front of this group of people for another three days.

Rescue would definitely arrive after three days.

Poaching Song Ya would leave Lin Fan isolated; a lone wolf posed no threat.

Getting the biscuits could prolong her rule.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Su Qingxue walked briskly again in the direction Song Ya had left.

Song Ya was preparing to continue climbing up; Lin Fan walked in front and was almost at the Karst Cave entrance.

"Song Ya."

A voice came from behind, and Song Ya turned around.

Su Qingxue stood on the gravel path three meters away.

Against the light, the expression on her face was indistinct.

But that standing posture—Song Ya was too familiar with it.

At the company's annual gala, before Su Qingxue stepped up to the podium, this was her posture.

Back straight, chin slightly raised, she had the gazes of the entire audience under her control.

Song Ya subconsciously hugged the biscuits tighter to her chest.

"Su—President Su..."

Su Qingxue didn't rush to speak.

She took a few steps closer, her gaze scanning Song Ya from top to bottom.

Swollen left cheek, knees still seeping blood.

A shirt with two worn-out holes, and the three packs of silver aluminum foil bags tightly clutched in her arms.

"Does it hurt?"

Su Qingxue's tone suddenly became very soft, so soft that Song Ya thought something was wrong with her ears.

"The wound on your knee needs to be treated immediately, otherwise it will get infected. In this tropical climate, once a wound festers, without antibiotics, amputation is entirely possible."

Song Ya was completely dumbfounded.

From entering the company until now, Su Qingxue had never used this tone to speak to her.

Let alone this tone.

Su Qingxue hadn't even looked at her properly at all.

When they were at the company, between them stood fifty-six floors, five or six management tiers, and a class ceiling that could never be crossed in this lifetime.

People at the administrative front desk once said: "In President Su's eyes, people with a monthly salary under one hundred thousand are transparent."

Now this woman suddenly squatted on the gravel path and asked her if it hurt?

"I... I'm fine..."

Song Ya instinctively took half a step back.

Su Qingxue sighed; she wanted to use a sigh to drag the other party into the empathy zone, and then strike.

"Song Ya, I know you've suffered a lot of grievances these past two days."

"The matter of Zhou Dahai hitting you, I already know about it."

"When we return to Jiangcheng, Zhou Dahai will be directly fired by the Shengtang Group. I will personally arrange a labor arbitration lawyer for you, and Shengtang will fully compensate for all physical injuries and mental losses he caused you."

Song Ya's lips moved, but she didn't answer.

Su Qingxue didn't stop, "You are this year's fresh graduate intern, right? Your contract expires in three months?"

Song Ya nodded, "After going back, I will directly promote you to a regular employee. We won't go through the routine process, no defense needed. Pick your own position: Sales Department, Marketing Department, Brand Department, go wherever you want."

Su Qingxue reached out and gently brushed a few grains of sand off Song Ya's shoulder.

The movement was extremely natural, like an upperclassman comforting a junior who had just been bullied.

"A starting monthly salary of twenty thousand, plus year-end bonuses."

She paused, her tone softening by another fraction, "Do your parents still live in an old house back in your hometown? After going back, I'll pay out of my own pocket to renovate your family's house."

Song Ya's eye sockets instantly grew hot.

She couldn't help it.

Really couldn't help it.

From coming to the island until now, she had been pushed by Wang Qiang, kicked, slapped, and stepped on by Zhou Dahai.

Lin Fan saved her, but that man's mouth was as hard as a knife, never saying a single soft word.

"Are you dead yet?" That was Lin Fan's style of care.

Now suddenly someone was speaking to her in such a gentle tone, the string she had been holding tight for a day and a night almost snapped right on the spot.

Her nose felt agonizingly sore.

Tears swirled in her eye sockets.

But Song Ya bit the inside of her lip.

Biting right onto the wound that Zhou Dahai had slapped open earlier.

Pain.

Once it hurt, her brain snapped back to clarity.

She hadn't forgotten who Su Qingxue was.

Every single sentence of this woman's speech at the company's annual gala was pretty enough to be framed and hung on the wall.

"Shengtang will never fail every single struggler."

Then the second day after the annual gala ended, the Administrative Department laid off one-third of the people.

Laying off who should be laid off, reducing salaries where they should be reduced, not a single landmine buried in the contracts was missing.

Song Ya sniffed and forcefully pushed the tears back.

"President Su... If you have something to say, just say it directly."

Her voice was small, but steady.

Su Qingxue's gaze flickered; she withdrew her hand and stopped putting on a tender posture.

"I want you to leave Lin Fan."

The words were said crisply and cleanly.

Song Ya's fingers suddenly tightened, squeezing a deep crease into the aluminum foil bag.

"You're a smart girl, you should be able to see that Lin Fan's current state is abnormal."

Su Qingxue's voice resumed that business-like, cold hardness.

"He cut off Zhou Dahai's finger, he threatened everyone with a knife—this isn't some survival skill, this is violent crime."

"He has a knife, water, and food in his hands right now, so he can act tyrannically. But rescue will come sooner or later. The second the helicopter lands, everything returns to normal track. Every single thing he has done on this island will be settled account by account."

Su Qingxue took another step forward.

"If you follow him, you are an accomplice."

Song Ya's body swayed, as if someone had given her a push in the lower back.

"When we return to Jiangcheng and the police intervene in the investigation, do you think you can wash your hands clean?"

Su Qingxue's voice wasn't loud, but its lethality was ample,

"'I was just following him'—words like that are worthless in court."

"You just graduated this year, life is just beginning. You have an education, you have ability, and in the future you can have a family, a career, and a normal person's life. Are you really going to stake your entire future for a few packs of biscuits and an out-of-control madman?"

Song Ya lowered her head, staring at the gravel beneath her feet.

Not speaking.

Su Qingxue looked at her silent appearance and quickly evaluated the situation in her heart.

Still needed one more spark.

The scale in this girl's heart was already swaying, but hadn't tipped over yet.

The final straw had to be pressed onto the nerve she feared the most.

Su Qingxue changed to a lower, more intimate tone.

"Xiao Song, when rescue comes, the seats on the helicopter will be decided by me."

Song Ya's head jerked up abruptly.

Su Qingxue's face was less than a step away from her.

Those bloodshot eyes stared at her, without anger or any threatening expression.

"Come back to my side now."

Su Qingxue's gaze paused for a fraction of a second on the three packs of biscuits in Song Ya's arms.

An extremely short fraction, but Song Ya caught it.

That kind of look—she had already seen it once today.

When Zhou Dahai stared at the aluminum foil bags in her hands, it was this exact look.

The only difference was that Zhou Dahai was a wolf, pouncing straight away when he saw meat.

Su Qingxue was a hunter, first coaxing you to put down the meat, and then taking it away gracefully.

"I will not only give you a seat, but also give you a brand-new life."

Su Qingxue withdrew her gaze, and that instantaneous greed had never existed.

"But if you choose to stay by his side," Su Qingxue tilted her head slightly, "when the plane lands, your name won't be on the list."

"You will stay on this island together with Lin Fan."

"Forever."

The last two words slipped gently from Su Qingxue's lips.

The sea breeze happened to stop at this very moment.

Song Ya stood there, holding three packs of compressed biscuits in her arms, the blood on her knees already congealed into a dark red scab.

She looked at Su Qingxue, then glanced back toward the Karst Cave direction above.

Lin Fan's figure had already disappeared into the shadows of the cave entrance.

She turned back, meeting Su Qingxue's eyes waiting for an answer.

Her lips parted, then closed again.

Finally making up her mind, "President Su..."