321: Chapter 321 He deserves a dignified afterlife.

Lin Fan's throat bobbed.

Xu Zhixia was beside him, making no further medical attempts, as there had been no conditions for it from the very beginning.

Su Qingxue stood in the shadow at the entrance of the Karst Cave, her face as pale as a sheet, her lips pressed into a thin line.

That stone had been aimed at her.

If Lin Fan hadn't turned back to catch that stone, Zhou Kai wouldn't have...

"Don't..."

Zhou Kai seemed to have noticed something. His gaze shifted away from Lin Fan and tilted slightly toward Su Qingxue's direction.

"Su... President Su... Pfft..."

His throat was full of bloody froth, forcing the words out one by one.

"It... It has nothing to do with you..."

"It was my own choice..."

"When... When I swallowed it... I already thought... I might be disemboweled..."

His hand moved slightly within Lin Fan's palm.

"Brother Fan..."

"Mhm."

"Help me... take... take those beasts—" The rest of his words faded away.

Zhou Kai's hand completely went limp in Lin Fan's palm.

That pair of half-opened eyes fixed in the direction of the sky, their pupils no longer focusing.

His chest rose and fell one last time, and then he stopped moving. Xu Zhixia reached out, placing two fingers on the side of his neck.

After a few seconds, she pulled her hand back.

"He's gone."

The platform of the Karst Cave fell silent.

Only the howling sea wind blew in, flipping and dropping the corner of Zhou Kai's blood-soaked clothes.

Lin Fan placed Zhou Kai's limp hand back on the ground.

Then he stood up. His knees were covered in blood, his trouser legs soaked through, dripping down the moment he stood up.

Yang Ningcong looked at Lin Fan's profile, his entire back pressing tightly against the stone wall.

There was no crying, no roaring, and no sign of any loss of control on that face.

But it was precisely this calmness that made Yang Ningcong feel a bit terrified.

Lin Fan stood at the edge of the platform, his mind currently in complete chaos.

On the first day they arrived on the island, he had said some words to Song Ya.

"On this island, you cannot be soft-hearted, and you cannot have emotions."

It had sounded so effortless when he said it, yet over the past few months, in the same Karst Cave, around the same bonfire, digging tree roots, carrying logs, and dodging monsters in the same dense forest...

Zhou Kai had guarded the cave entrance for him, taken beatings for him, and struck out on his behalf.

But now, how could it be that simple?

Emotion wasn't like a water faucet that you could just turn off whenever you wanted.

It was a thorn; you didn't feel it when it pierced in, but once the person was gone, you realized that the thorn had been pulled out together with your flesh.

It was empty; his back felt empty.

Starting today, there was no one behind Lin Fan; those three women needed protection.

That good-for-nothing Yang Ningcong would only lie on the ground playing dead at critical moments.

The only person who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him had just been disemboweled by someone.

But now was not the time for grief.

That Suit Man had proven one thing: behind Chen Jian's group of mutated monsters, there were humans directing them, and they were even supernatural humans.

If nothing unexpected happened, that man should be the one directing Chen Jian and controlling the monsters.

People were coming in a few days, and he had to screen out a few reliable ones from that batch who could shoulder responsibilities.

He didn't need brothers like Zhou Kai who followed him from beginning to end; such people were hard to come by.

But at the very least, he needed a few dogs that obeyed commands to block things for him at critical moments.

Song Ya was still crying, her voice suppressed very low, her shoulders trembling with every sob.

Xu Zhixia squatted beside Zhou Kai.

The blood had stopped flowing. With no heartbeat and blood pressure dropping to zero, there naturally was no longer any driving force for it to gush out.

That incision was still wide open, and the wound edges had already started turning white—a normal reaction after tissues lost their blood supply.

She reached out and closed Zhou Kai's eyes.

Then she stood up and walked into the Karst Cave.

Xu Zhixia rummaged through the corner to find a small bundle of thick thread, and then took out a very thick needle.

Zhou Kai had lived in the countryside, and this needle was something he had ground out from a piece of iron wire to sew clothes when he was bored.

Never had she expected that this needle would ultimately be used to sew up his body.

Xu Zhixia walked over to Zhou Kai's side and squatted down.

Yang Ningcong shrank into the innermost corner, hugging his knees as he watched Xu Zhixia's movements, and blurted out a sentence: "The person is already gone, what's the use of sewing that thing up?"

Xu Zhixia didn't raise her head.

The needle tip pierced into the flesh on the left side of Zhou Kai's abdominal incision, and the thread was pulled tight.

"He deserves a decent afterlife."

Yang Ningcong shut his mouth.

Song Ya squatted beside Xu Zhixia, helping her pass the thread and cut it.

Her hands kept shaking, but she never stopped.

Su Qingxue leaned against the stone wall and watched.

With every stitch sewn, that shocking incision closed up by a fraction.

From the left ribs to the right hip, a few dozen stitches were sewn in total.

When finishing off the last stitch, she cut the thread end and wiped her fingers on the hem of Zhou Kai's clothes.

It was done.

That incision disappeared beneath the stitches. Although blood seepage could still be seen, at least it was no longer wide open.

Xu Zhixia stood up, took two steps back, and kept her head down in silence. She truly didn't know how to console them.

Right at this moment, Su Qingxue spoke up.

"Lin Fan, bury him."

Everyone looked at her.

"Those monsters might come out at any time." Su Qingxue's chin tilted slightly toward the dense forest direction. "If we leave him outside, in less than a day..."

She didn't finish the second half of her sentence.

There was no need to finish; everyone present knew clearly that the mutated beasts on the island were never picky eaters, let alone those snakes that had come out initially just to scavenge corpses to eat.

Lin Fan nodded.

"Bury him up above."

He pointed to the top of the rock wall above the Karst Cave, and no one raised any objections.

Lin Fan dug around up there by himself for not very long before he dug out a pit.

Lin Fan came back down and walked over to Zhou Kai's side.

He bent down, passing one hand under Zhou Kai's shoulder blades and supporting the bend of his knees with the other.

Zhou Kai's body had already stiffened, but he wasn't as heavy as Lin Fan had imagined.

Lin Fan picked him up.

Blood seeped out a bit more from the sutured incision, dripping onto Lin Fan's forearm, already cold.

Holding Zhou Kai, Lin Fan climbed upward step by step along the narrow crevice on the side of the rock wall.

The arm strength from the Triple Enhancement didn't make Lin Fan feel strained.

After climbing up, he placed Zhou Kai directly into that pit.

Zhou Kai's head tilted to one side, his mouth lacking three teeth half-opened, but because his muscles had stiffened, it instead locked into the arc of a smile.

It was worlds apart from the flippant, smiling appearance he had when he was alive, yet it also seemed no different at all.

Lin Fan squatted at the edge of the pit, staring at Zhou Kai's stiff face for a few seconds.

Then he spoke, "Kaizi."

There was no response; of course there wouldn't be a response.

"That Suit Man."

Lin Fan's hand grabbed a handful of gravel. When his fingers loosened, the pebbles fell onto Zhou Kai's chest, making a crisp, faint sound.

"I will dig out his heart."

"Just like how he dug out your stomach."

"Dug out while he's alive, and then brought here to be buried with you..."