35: Chapter 35 This is Lin Fan's style of care

"There's food! There's food here."

A male employee's scream exploded across the entire coastline.

Wang Qiang stepped on the scorching sand as if he had no nerves, rushing in front of that male employee in two or three steps.

He shoved the person aside with one hand.

The sound of him swallowing his saliva was so loud that everyone nearby heard it.

"Six cans of pineapple... two packs of beef jerky..."

He raised his head, raising his voice to the highest pitch, "President Su! There are goods over here!"

Su Qingxue walked over quickly.

She didn't pounce directly like Wang Qiang.

But her gaze betrayed her.

Her pupils dilated involuntarily, her lips parted slightly of their own accord, and her throat bobbed quickly once.

That look in her eyes was identical to the one she had when she saw net profits surge by thirty percent in the annual financial report of the Shengtang Group.

It was the instinctive reaction of a capitalist smelling money, engraved in her DNA.

For the next half hour.

The eastern reef zone turned into an open-air flea market.

After the tide went out, the waves pushed more ship wreckage onto the shore.

Those boxes, buckets, and plastic bags that had been soaked in the deep water area for a day and a night emerged one after another from the sand and reef gaps as the tide receded.

The survivors went crazy.

They frantically rummaged, scraped, and dug in the gaps of the reefs and at the edges of the tidal pools.

Whoever dug out food and drink first and handed it over to Su Qingxue would be today's hero.

Someone dug out two bags of vacuum-packed salted duck eggs from under a pile of seaweed.

Someone found three pieces of chocolate and a pack of pistachios in a half-broken suitcase.

But what drove everyone completely crazy was a goose-yellow waterproof bucket.

When Li Bin dug it out from under a pile of broken wood planks, the bucket lid was still tightly sealed.

His hands were shaking like a sifting sieve.

His fingernails slipped against the edge of the bucket lid several times, and he didn't even feel the pain when one of his nails broke, using a tremendous amount of effort to pry the lid open.

Inside.

Twelve bottles of 330-milliliter bottled drinking water were neatly stacked.

The transparent bottle bodies, the blue caps, and the labels printed with some most ordinary mineral water brand.

Placed in civilized society, on the bottom shelf of a convenience store, priced at two yuan a bottle, something nobody would spare a second glance at.

At this moment, it was more dazzling than gold.

"Twelve bottles of water!!"

The cheers almost flipped the beach upside down.

Even Zhang Tao, who had been squatting in the corner playing dead, crawled over.

His two eyeballs were locked straight onto that bucket of water, his Adam's apple flying up and down like an out-of-control piston.

The sound of him swallowing saliva was so loud that everyone nearby heard it.

Wang Qiang immediately spread his arms, blocking in front of the waterproof bucket, baring his teeth at the surrounding crowd.

"Everyone fucking back off! Nobody touch it! President Su will distribute it!"

Su Qingxue stood in the center of the crowd.

The sunlight smashed onto her face.

On that face so dirty its original color couldn't be seen, the corners of her mouth finally showed the first trace of a smile since coming to the island.

"Four people share a bottle of water."

Su Qingxue opened her mouth, "Canned goods and beef jerky will be centrally stored, and dinner will be distributed uniformly. No one is allowed to hide anything privately. If discovered once, all rations will be deducted."

No one objected.

At this time, whoever objected would be the public enemy of everyone.

The moment the water poured into their throats, a sense of relief that I am still alive floated across everyone's faces.

Someone laughed out loud.

That laughter floated on the beach for a few seconds before being swept away by the sea breeze.

Liu Feifei sat down against a reef, fished out a wet wipe from somewhere, tore it open, and pressed it onto her face.

The minty coolness seeped in, and she closed her eyes, letting out a long breath.

That expression and posture would have zero sense of incongruity if placed in a five-star hotel's SPA room.

Placed on a Deserted Island, it was somewhat surreal.

Wang Qiang squatted next to Su Qingxue, lowering his voice to claim credit.

"President Su, look, what did I say."

He added, "There isn't nothing on this island; as long as people are of one mind, we can find anything."

"That Chen Jian only knows how to speak discouraging words. What storms, what shelters, it's purely messing around blindly."

Su Qingxue didn't reply—to be precise, it was too hot to talk.

She raised her head and glanced at the sky.

The sun was still hanging overhead, its light so viciously harsh it felt like it would steam people dry.

The air was stuffy and sticky, and inhaling it into the lungs carried a wave of damp heat.

The temperature on the beach was still climbing up.

Wang Qiang felt it too.

He stood up and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Just now he felt warm and comfortable, but now it was like being stuffed into a steamer.

"What kind of ghost weather is this, why is it getting hotter and hotter..."

He fanned his collar twice, and sweat droplets dripped from his chin onto the sand, disappearing with a "hiss" sound.

Someone nearby started looking for shade.

Five or six people suddenly crowded under a few dwarf trees. The tree canopy was pitifully small, not even able to cover half of their bodies.

The remaining people squatted on the shady side of the reef, like a group of wax figures melted by the sun.

The sun was still moving upward.

The temperature was still soaring up.

The sand burned feet, the reefs burned hands, and even the air was hot.

The little bit of water drunk just now had now all turned into sweat oozing out from the pores.

Someone began to pant heavily.

Someone squatted on the ground motionless, their face pale, lips chapped and peeling.

The precursor of heatstroke spread visibly among the crowd.

...

Halfway up the mountain, the Karst Cave.

Lin Fan stacked the last stone to the right side of the cave entrance, patting the dust off his hands.

A golden prompt box floated briefly on his retina.

[Current ambient temperature: 45.2 °C.]

Forty-five degrees.

Placed in Jiangcheng, this temperature could hit the number one spot on hot searches, and the whole city would be given high-temperature leave.

Placed on this island, this was just an appetizer at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Lin Fan turned his head to glance at Song Ya inside the cave.

She was squatting beside the rock ledge organizing supplies, her forehead full of sweat, the swelling on her cheeks hadn't gone down yet, but her hands didn't stop moving.

This girl had one advantage: when told to work, she worked, without asking why, without slacking off, and without complaining.

Like a donkey.

"Take a break." Lin Fan spoke.

Song Ya raised her head to look at him, somewhat surprised.

"It's forty-five degrees outside. If you get heatstroke and collapse, I'll have to free up a hand to save you. It's troublesome."

Song Ya: "..."

Alright, this was Lin Fan-style care.

He could always phrase I am worried about you as Don't cause me trouble.

Song Ya put down the things in her hand and sat down against the rock wall.

The Karst Cave was much cooler than outside, but the air was still stuffy and hot, as if wrapped by an invisible damp towel.

Lin Fan walked to the cave entrance and glanced down the mountain.

That group of people on the beach shriveled under the reefs and dwarf trees, looking from afar like a pile of sun-withered vegetable leaves.

No one noticed that the lead-gray sky on the western skyline had pushed a few kilometers further east.

The clouds pressed lower, and their color deepened.

Lin Fan withdrew his gaze with no particular expression.

...

Right at this moment, Chen Jian walked down from the southeast hillside and walked straight toward Su Qingxue. Wang Qiang was squatting beside Su Qingxue, saying, "President Su, it's too hot, otherwise why don't we also go soak in the sea..."

Before he finished speaking.

Chen Jian's shadow fell in front of him.

Wang Qiang raised his head, the smile on his face freezing.

"Why are you back?? Seeing that we found food and drink, are you coming back to admit your mistake?"

Chen Jian ignored him.

He bypassed Wang Qiang, walked up to Su Qingxue, and stopped.

"President Su, there is a place on the mountain."

Su Qingxue looked at him.

"Southeast direction, halfway up the mountain. It's about a five or six-minute walk up."

Chen Jian raised his hand and pointed behind him.

"It's a rock crevice. It's not deep, but it's long enough. It can spread out horizontally, stuffing dozens of people is no problem. It can't compare to Lin Fan's Karst Cave, but at least there's something blocking overhead."

"And being higher up, it's still relatively cooler."

Su Qingxue glanced at the people soaking in the sea. For her, a multi-billion-dollar CEO, to do such classless things with those people, she couldn't do it.

Therefore, she agreed to Chen Jian. Wang Qiang eagerly followed behind Su Qingxue, but was stopped by a voice...