31: Chapter 31 More People Will Die Tonight

Su Qingxue narrowed her eyes slightly.

She was all too familiar with this expression.

In the office on the fifty-eighth floor of Shengtang Group, nine and a half out of ten suppliers, bidders, and negotiation rivals sitting across from her would eventually docilely accept the olive branch she extended.

No one could refuse a safe card.

Let alone a bottom-tier intern who had nothing.

Song Ya lowered her head.

She remained silent for a good while before speaking.

"President Su, every word you say sounds wonderful."

She took a step back, hugging the biscuits in her arms even tighter.

"Even better than the ones at the annual meeting."

"But I don't believe it."

The gravel road fell silent.

Su Qingxue stared at the little intern before her—someone whose name she couldn't even recall before.

In those bloodshot eyes, there was no defiance, no fear.

There was only something she couldn't understand, something that made her skin crawl all over.

"Song Ya, have you thought this through?"

Every trace of softness on Su Qingxue's face vanished completely, her voice as cold as last night's sea breeze.

"Rejecting me right now is equivalent to choosing a dead end."

"Wait for the helicopter to—"

"The helicopter won't come." Song Ya interrupted her.

Ever since the establishment of Shengtang Group, no one had ever dared to interrupt Su Qingxue while she was speaking.

The vice president didn't dare.

The board of directors didn't dare.

An intern with a monthly salary of three thousand had just done it.

The corner of Su Qingxue's eye twitched rapidly.

"What did you say?"

"Lin Fan said so."

Song Ya's voice wasn't loud, but not a single word trembled.

"The satellite phone won't go through, this island is not on a normal shipping route, and there's a problem with the magnetic field."

"You believe him?" Su Qingxue's tone raised by half a notch, "You believe a fresh graduate intern? And not me?"

"I believe him."

Song Ya didn't explain why.

She couldn't explain.

Because that reason was buried far too deep.

The first time she saw the name Lin Fan was not on the onboarding list of Shengtang Group.

It was much earlier.

Much, much earlier.

Song Ya bit down on the wound inside her lip, using the pain to forcefully force that memory back down.

Now was not the time to think about these things.

"President Su, give up."

Song Ya adjusted her grip on the three packets of compressed biscuits, turned around, and limped her way up the slope.

"I won't give you the biscuits."

"I don't want the helicopter seat either."

"After we get back, you can fire me or blacklist me; I don't care anymore."

"But these three packets of biscuits were found by myself, protected only after I took a slap to the face and scraped a layer of skin off my knees."

"Who I want to give them to is up to me."

She didn't look back, but she walked very slowly. Every step her left leg took pulled at the wound on her knee, oozing fresh blood.

New injuries piled on top of old ones, and every step hurt straight to the bone.

Su Qingxue stood on the gravel road, watching that frail figure inching step by step toward the direction of the Karst Cave.

The sea breeze swept in from the side, blowing Song Ya's shirt—which had two holes in it—tight against her body, outlining a slender, thin waistline.

Su Qingxue's fists clenched tightly.

Then loosened.

She didn't chase after her.

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

It was that she had run out of cards.

One hundred million, a regular position, building a house, a helicopter seat.

The chips Su Qingxue could pull out were laid out completely on the table, not a single one left.

And then they were thrown back into her face one by one by an intern.

Su Qingxue turned around and walked slowly toward the beach.

Her back remained straight.

But her steps were much heavier than when she had come.

...

At the entrance of the Karst Cave.

Lin Fan was squatting on the ground, organizing the supplies in the first-aid kit.

Footsteps came echoing from outside the cave.

He didn't even raise his head.

"You're back?"

Song Ya stood at the cave entrance, holding three packages of silver aluminum foil bags in her arms.

The sunlight shone in from behind her, outlining her entire silhouette with a bright rim.

It was just that her half-swollen face really had no aesthetic value.

Lin Fan lifted his eyelids slightly.

He had heard Su Qingxue shouting Song Ya's name from the cave entrance just moments ago.

He didn't turn around.

He wanted to see the result.

If Song Ya had left with Su Qingxue, he wouldn't have stopped her.

For a naive little flower who had never experienced anything to be sweet-talked away by someone like Su Qingxue was completely normal.

Su Qingxue's routine could even be used as a teaching case in a business school MBA class.

First empathy, then material temptation, and finally threats.

Standard three-step axe combo.

Throughout the entire Shengtang Group, counting on his fingers, there were very few who could withstand this combination of punches.

But Song Ya had returned.

Not a single one of the three packets of biscuits was missing, and the tear stains on her face were dry; she hadn't run back crying.

Interesting.

"Put the things there." Lin Fan tilted his chin toward the direction of the rock shelf, "Don't let them get damp."

Song Ya neatly stacked the three packets of biscuits like a supermarket shelf, even making sure the openings of the aluminum foil bags faced upward.

Lin Fan rummaged through the first-aid kit and fished out a roll of gauze and a small bottle of alcohol.

The first-aid kit was one he had picked up earlier on the eastern side of the reef zone. It had soaked in seawater, but the seal was decent, and the medicine inside could barely be used.

There was plenty of medicine, but there was just no iodophor.

He tossed the alcohol and gauze to Song Ya's feet.

"Wrap your knees first. In tropical weather, if wounds aren't treated, they'll rot down to the bone in two days."

Song Ya unscrewed the cap of the alcohol.

The exact moment the white liquid poured onto the wound, her entire body jolted.

Her teeth clamped down tightly, and a fine layer of sweat broke out on her forehead.

But she didn't cry out.

Lin Fan glanced over from the side.

Yesterday, this girl could hum and haw for half a day just from being in the sun.

Today, with alcohol poured directly onto an open wound, she managed to swallow her voice right back down.

People are always pushed to their limits.

Anyone can say this reasoning, but when forced into a corner, nine out of ten people collapse first before slowly adapting.

Song Ya belonged to the type who would first bite her back molars to pieces and then endure it bit by bit.

Just like a stubborn donkey.

She was truly foolish.

But she could really endure it.

She wrapped the gauze.

Her technique was terribly clumsy; it took her three wraps to barely cover the wound, loose and sloppy like wrapping a rice dumpling.

Lin Fan glanced at it and didn't correct her.

As long as it could stop the bleeding, it wasn't like she was going to an operating table.

"Eat something."

He took a few pieces of bread down from the rock shelf.

The bread had a short shelf life and needed to be eaten as soon as possible.

He handed a few to Song Ya, "Chew slowly, don't rush to swallow. With your stomach empty for a day and a night, eating too fast will only make you throw it all up."

Song Ya took the bread, broke off a piece, and put it into her mouth.

The first bite went down.

Her eye sockets instantly turned red.

Not from being moved.

It was that at the very instant the food melted in her mouth, every single nerve in her body screamed like mad that she was still alive.

She chewed slowly and swallowed slowly.

Tears spun around in her eyes twice, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

Lin Fan tore open a few for himself and finished them in two or three bites.

He picked up a bottle of mineral water from beside the first-aid kit, unscrewed it, took two sips, and handed it over.

Song Ya took the bottle and took two small sips.

The fresh water slid down her throat.

That feeling was like land parched for three years finally receiving its first drop of rain.

From inside out, her entire person was soaked through.

She handed the water bottle back.

"Thank you."

"Don't say thank you to me."

Lin Fan screwed the cap back on, his tone sounding like he was reporting accounts.

"What you eat and drink will all be paid back with labor later. I'm keeping track of this account."

Song Ya nodded.

Without refuting.

Without Lin Fan, she would probably still be starving on the beach below, or already dead.

A debt is a debt, and she, Song Ya, acknowledged this account.

Lin Fan stood up, walked to the cave entrance, and glanced down toward the beach.

Su Qingxue had already returned to the middle of the crowd.

From afar, she could be seen talking to Wang Qiang, their heads huddled closely together, whispering about something unknown.

He had no interest in guessing.

His gaze shifted to the terrain outside the Karst Cave.

The rock slope.

The Mangrove Forest.

The eastern ridge line.

Further away, the region he hadn't had time to explore yet was concealed within the low-hanging clouds and mist.

Then, the golden prompt box emerged once again on his retina.

The amount of information this time was much larger than any previous one.

Lin Fan narrowed his eyes slightly.

The golden characters rolled down line by line right in the center of his vision, and he read them word by word.

There was no change in expression on his face.

But the hand gripping the edge of the cave wall saw its knuckles gradually tighten.

"Go pick up firewood when you're done eating."

He turned his head to say to Song Ya, his tone no different from usual.

The sea breeze surged up along the cliff wall, carrying a fishy, salty dampness as it poured into the Karst Cave.

Song Ya let out an "Mn" and stood up while biting into her last bite of bread.

She didn't notice that the look Lin Fan cast outside the cave had changed.

It wasn't the look of someone admiring the scenery; that look was somewhat murky, and Song Ya couldn't understand it either.

Lin Fan watched the last line of small golden text on his retina slowly dissipate.

More people will die tonight.