314: Chapter 314 Stockpiling Supplies Again

Lin Fan did not take his words.

Xu Zhixia observed Lin Fan from the side.

After nearly two months of getting along, she knew this man far too well.

If it were just ordinary drifters coming ashore, Lin Fan wouldn't have specifically gathered everyone for a meeting.

"This time is different?" Xu Zhixia asked.

Lin Fan looked at her.

"Right."

Zhou Kai's smile froze on his face, and his hands remained in a rubbing posture. "Brother Fan, what do you mean? How is it different?"

"When we first came to the island, including Zhixia and the others, it was all passive."

"The cruise ship met with an accident, and we were washed ashore by the waves. We had no preparation and were empty-handed."

"But the third batch won't be."

He paused for a moment, seemingly giving them time to process it.

"Based on the information hints, I guess this group of people is coming ashore actively. They are guarded, prepared, and organized."

"And their numbers… are countless times our current scale."

Zhou Kai put his hands down; he stopped rubbing them.

"Guarded?" Su Qingxue raised her head from behind the bowl of prenatal medicine. "What do you mean? Do they know there are monsters on this island?"

"They might know," Lin Fan replied.

"Then why are they still coming?" Song Ya asked softly.

"Coming even knowing there is danger can only mean one thing," Xu Zhixia took over the conversation. "Their coming here serves a purpose in itself."

"And this purpose is worth the risk for them."

The Karst Cave fell silent for a few seconds.

"Brother Fan," Zhou Kai swallowed a mouthful of saliva, "does being guarded mean… they might have thermal weapons?"

"There is a high probability they do."

Zhou Kai's face collapsed, and he looked down at the stick in his hand.

A stick against a group of people with guns?

This isn't delivering takeout; this is delivering heads.

"When will they arrive?" Xu Zhixia asked the most critical question.

"The prompt says fifteen days later."

"Lin Fan," Su Qingxue looked up, "is it possible that this group of people is the rat-raising gang Chen Jian mentioned?"

"It cannot be ruled out," Lin Fan nodded, "but they could also be a third party, or even a search and rescue team sent by the country and your father."

"Would a search and rescue team come ashore with guards?" Xu Zhixia retorted.

"If they knew in advance that there are abnormal creatures on the island, yes."

Xu Zhixia closed her mouth; this logic indeed held up.

"No matter who they are," Lin Fan looked at the crowd, "we must be prepared."

"If they are enemies, even if we can't beat them, we must at least be able to run away."

"If it is a rescue, we also need to confirm that the other party is truly here to save people, rather than to retrieve experimental subjects."

As soon as Lin Fan said these words, the Karst Cave became pin-drop silent.

Yang Ningcong, eavesdropping outside, slid straight down the stone wall to the ground. "Damn it, how are people supposed to live like this!"

Lin Fan ignored his breakdown and continued speaking to the people inside, "This place is a natural stronghold, easy to defend and hard to attack."

"The slope outside is narrow. As long as we guard the top, no matter how many people come, we can smash them to death with stones. But the premise is that we can't starve ourselves to death first."

Su Qingxue could refresh supplies, but that thing depended purely on luck.

Today it might refresh bottled water, tomorrow it might refresh a nail clipper, and the day after it might hand you a pack of sanitary napkins directly.

If they really relied on her to feed a few mouths, they would sooner or later turn into mummies.

They had to stockpile food; their racial talent could not be lost.

"Tomorrow at dawn, except for Zhou Kai who stays behind to guard, everyone else goes into the forest."

Lin Fan issued a strict order, "Dig fruit roots, find wild fruits, and fetch water. Bring back everything edible, even scrape back the tree bark for me."

Zhou Kai patted his thigh; his foot injury had completely healed. "Brother Fan, rest assured, leave the Karst Cave to me."

Su Qingxue sat on a stone and pointed at herself. "Me too?"

"You have to go," Lin Fan stared at her. "You are our mobile warehouse now."

Su Qingxue's pregnancy was still in its early months, and her belly couldn't be seen at all.

The most crucial thing was her spatial skill, which was simply a zero-cost humanoid truck.

If these resources weren't squeezed dry, it would practically be doing a disservice to his identity as a capitalist husband.

"So my current positioning is a donkey?" Su Qingxue looked at him.

"An advanced donkey," Lin Fan corrected, "with spatial storage functions."

"Lin Fan, is your mouth asking for it…"

"Hehe… Sleep, sleep, we have to wake up early tomorrow…" Lin Fan pushed Su Qingxue into the compartment.

Xu Zhixia also followed inside, but as soon as she opened the curtain of the compartment, she retreated back out.

"Ahem…" She coughed twice. "Zhou Kai, Yang Ningcong, the two of you come with Song Ya and me to pick a few medicinal flowers."

"Why didn't we go during the day?" Yang Ningcong asked.

"Some flowers only bloom at night."

Yang Ningcong wouldn't go; no one except Lin Fan could boss him around, which was his bottom line.

Just as Yang Ningcong wanted to retort, Su Qingxue's voice came from inside, "Don't touch me… Aren't Xu Zhixia and Song Ya enough for you?"

"Aha, how could they compare to you!" Lin Fan's voice continued to come out.

Xu Zhixia looked at the curtain with a fierce glint in her eyes; she remembered Lin Fan's words.

Song Ya blushed furiously. "Sister Zhixia, let's hurry up and leave!"

The voice inside continued, "Qingxue, it's been so long, don't you want to…"

"Be lighter… Watch out for your seed…"

"Got it!"

Yang Ningcong listened with relish. Xu Zhixia stepped heavily on his foot, considering it an outlet for Lin Fan's remark.

"Still listening? If Lin Fan finds out later that you were eavesdropping, he'll cut off your ears."

Yang Ningcong felt lingering fear whenever he heard Lin Fan. Song Ya and Zhou Kai had already sensibly walked towards the cave entrance, and he had no choice but to follow.

The next day.

Just as dawn broke, they set off on time.

Lin Fan walked at the very front, carrying a firewood knife in his hand to clear the path.

Xu Zhixia and Song Ya followed in the middle with bamboo baskets on their backs, Su Qingxue walked beside them, and Yang Ningcong dragged behind at the very end, swaying three times with every step. For a rich second-generation heir like him who had never even walked on dirt paths, drilling into the forest was practically taking half his life.

He finally caught up with Lin Fan and the others, and just as he was about to catch his breath, Lin Fan scolded, "Yang Ningcong, you're slacking off again. Dig quickly, or believe it or not, I'll whip you."

Inside, Yang Ningcong cursed like a grass-mud horse, but on the outside, he laughed heartily. "Alright, Brother Fan."

He dug twice and rested for three minutes; this job was simply not something a human could do. As the dignified heir of the Yang Group, he was now reduced to digging tree roots, and damn it, he was worse than a pig.

Lin Fan glanced at him. "Yang Ningcong, this is my last warning to you. If there is a next time, I really will whip you."

Yang Ningcong scrambled to continue working.

Su Qingxue's side was much more magical.

Song Ya and Xu Zhixia picked the dug-out fruit roots and wild fruits, stacking them into a pile.

Su Qingxue walked over, raised her hand, and the air distorted.

A pile of things vanished out of thin air, directly loaded into her space.

Two hours later.

"Lin Fan!" Su Qingxue glared at him, pointing at a fat rabbit on the ground that had just been beaten to death by Lin Fan. "You want me to load this thing in too? It's bloody!"

"Load it," Lin Fan said unceremoniously. "That's meat. Can't your space keep things fresh? Putting it in won't ruin it."

Su Qingxue rolled her eyes in anger; she, a billionaire CEO, had now become a walking double-door large refrigerator!

With a little one in her belly and a pile of rotten tree roots and dead rabbits in her space.

But scold as she might, she still pinched her nose and took the rabbit in.

This kind of life stubbornly lasted for a week.

Leaving early and returning late every day, frantically plundering nature's resources.

All edible fruits were picked, and all diggable tree roots were dug up.

In the Karst Cave.

Piles of supplies were neatly stacked: red sweet fruits, large starchy roots and stems, fresh water in bamboo tubes, and medicinal herbs sorted and dried by Xu Zhixia.

Yang Ningcong collapsed beside the pile of supplies, looking at this small mountain. "Brother Fan, is this enough? This damn thing is enough for us to eat for half a year. Can we rest for a day?"

"Not enough," Lin Fan directly snuffed out his fantasy.

"Still not enough?!" Yang Ningcong almost jumped up.

"Do you know how many people are coming in a few days? That's countless times more!"

Lin Fan tossed over a sharpened wooden stick. "In case the mountain is surrounded, we will have to fight to the death relying on these things. One more mouthful of water means one more day of life. Continue."

Looking at his fear of insufficient firepower, Lin Fan's condition would never be cured in this lifetime.

There was no help for it; identities had changed. Now Lin Fan was that detestable capitalist, and he had already turned into an ox-and-horse beast of burden.

They came directly to the side of the stream.

This place had many types of vegetation, and many animals came here to drink water, so resources were abundant.

Xu Zhixia was teaching Song Ya to recognize an edible mushroom.

Yang Ningcong was beating the tree trunk with a stick on the side, trying to shake down the fruits hidden on it.

Su Qingxue stood aside acting as a supervisor, conveniently waiting to collect the goods.

Just at this moment, movement came from the bushes not far away.

Rustle, rustle…

Branches and leaves swayed wildly, making a huge commotion.

Lin Fan instantly became alert, gripping his firewood knife with a backhand, crouching down the whole body, and blocking Su Qingxue behind him. "Don't move."

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared intently at that patch of bushes.

Yang Ningcong was so scared he hid directly behind Song Ya, poking out half his head.

The movement in the grass grew louder and louder, and then, a dark hand reached out from inside, grabbing a branch tightly.

Then came a faint cry.

"Su… President Su…"

This voice sounded like it was on the verge of breathing its last breath.

Lin Fan didn't move, holding the firewood knife horizontally across his chest.

The bushes were completely pushed aside, and a figure crawled out from inside, plunging face first onto the ground.

This person was emaciated to the bone, and the clothes on their body had become strips of cloth, hanging on them like a living skeleton frame.

The hair was like a chicken coop, covered entirely in mud and dead leaves.

Su Qingxue poked her head out from behind Lin Fan, took one look, and completely failed to recognize them.

"Who is this?" Su Qingxue asked Lin Fan.

Lin Fan looked at Su Qingxue. "Didn't she just call you?"

Hearing Su Qingxue's voice, the skeleton frame on the ground raised its head with difficulty.

That face was sunken out of shape, with both cheekbones protruding high and eye sockets deeply sunken, somewhat resembling Chen Jian.

"President Su… It's me…" That person panted heavily, grabbing two handfuls of mud on the ground. "I am… Yang Xiaoli from the Legal Department…"

Legal Department? Yang Xiaoli?

Su Qingxue was stunned for a moment, recalling the people she knew.

She remembered! That decisive ace female lawyer of the group, the legal backbone with an annual salary of millions.

This piece of air-dried cured meat in front of her was Yang Xiaoli?

Su Qingxue hurriedly took two steps forward. "Attorney Yang? How did you turn into this ghost-like appearance? I thought you guys were dead!"

"I didn't expect you to still be alive."

Seeing Su Qingxue, Yang Xiaoli's tears burst out on the spot.

"President Su… Help… There are ghosts… They…"

Yang Xiaoli opened her mouth wide, her hands reaching forward desperately, as if wanting to grab Su Qingxue's ankles.

Before she could even finish half her sentence, her eyeballs rolled upwards, she failed to catch her breath, her head smashed downward, and she stopped moving completely…