370: Chapter 370 A person? Who is it?

Xu Zhixia turned around and continued walking forward. "Lin Fan, you really know how to take advantage of others."

She pushed aside the blocking branches of the bushes in front of her without looking back.

"We women are the ones who suffer and bear the hardship—morning sickness, fevers, and aches in our bones so bad we can't sleep. Song Ya is running such a high fever in the cave that she's practically risking her life."

"And you?"

Xu Zhixia's footsteps paused for a moment.

"In just two minutes, you can have a child, and along with it, your entire bodily functions get upgraded to another level. Muscle density, bone strength, sensory sensitivity—everything gets boosted severalfold in every aspect, with no side effects at all."

She turned her head, and there wasn't any real hatred for Lin Fan in her eyes; she was just feeling a sense of injustice for women.

"How can there be such a good thing in this world, where you get to take all the benefits by yourself."

Lin Fan looked at Xu Zhixia. Did he only have two minutes? It was clearly two hours, okay?

A streak of sunlight shone on Xu Zhixia's chest, and Lin Fan's gaze unconsciously slid from Xu Zhixia's chest down to her waistline.

If Song Ya weren't still burning up in the cave, he would really have wanted to make Xu Zhixia swallow every single word she just said.

Let her experience what a body enhanced sixfold actually feels like.

But with Song Ya still in that state, Lin Fan could only suppress the thought.

"I didn't want this either."

Xu Zhixia turned her head back, her mouth twitching slightly. She wanted to say something, but swallowed it back down.

She couldn't be bothered to argue with him about this kind of thing. Arguing was useless anyway; all men were cut from the same cloth.

The two of them continued walking deeper into the woods.

The soil underfoot was getting wetter and wetter, and every step kicked up mud.

The sound of water came from the right, and just a few rows of trees away, the splashing of a stream could be heard.

Xu Zhixia's gaze kept sweeping across the vegetation on both sides.

The types of herbs she needed liked shade and moisture, and mostly grew among the piles of gravel by the streams.

After walking less than a few meters,

Xu Zhixia suddenly stopped.

She squatted down and brushed aside a clump of fern leaves, revealing a patch of low-growing plants hugging the ground underneath.

Lin Fan lowered his eyes to look. That patch of low-growing plants formed a row along the edge of the ditch, numbering at least twenty or thirty.

It was enough.

Xu Zhixia used both hands to pull the entire plants up by the roots, shook off the clumps of mud on the root systems, and brought them up to her nose to sniff.

"This is it."

She looked back at Lin Fan. "Gather some more. Song Ya's fever won't go down, and it might keep recurring later on."

As she spoke, Xu Zhixia rinsed the herbs pulled out from the water in the stream a couple of times, shook off the mud, and stuffed them into her bamboo basket.

She stood up and pointed at a particularly lush cluster of plants ahead.

"There's more over there. Go pull them out, dig them out with your hands, and don't damage the roots. Song Ya's high fever isn't breaking, and the consumption of this herb is huge. Considering the sin caused by that thing in your pants, you should at least put in some effort."

Lin Fan stood in place without making a move.

Xu Zhixia looked at Lin Fan, and that nameless fire in her heart flared up rapidly.

"Are you deaf?" Xu Zhixia turned her head, just about to curse him out, when she noticed the tense muscles on Lin Fan's profile.

Lin Fan's ears caught a sound coming from the southwest, piercing through layers of leaves and damp air, drilling into his amplified hearing.

A woman's voice.

"Sister Qian... Sister Qian..."

That tone, that form of address, was exactly the same as the one shouted by the short-haired woman in the Karst Cave a few days ago.

Wu Hui.

Lin Fan's gaze swept toward the direction the sound was coming from.

His eyes, enhanced sixfold, could see the legs of an ant on a leaf fifty meters away clearly, but piercing through the dense forest to see the people hiding behind the tree trunks was something he couldn't do.

"What is it?" Xu Zhixia stood up holding a large bunch of muddy herbs. Noticing Lin Fan's abnormality, she swallowed the words she was about to spit out.

"Someone's here."

Xu Zhixia immediately put the herbs into the bamboo basket. "People? What people?"

"Those two women from the Karst Cave last time." Lin Fan tilted his head, slightly adjusting the angle of his ears to follow the direction of the sound. "Wu Hui is calling out to Xiao Qian; the one surnamed Xiao must be injured."

"Let's go take a look and ask a few questions along the way."

Xu Zhixia walked up. "What do you want to ask?"

"That fire on the island," Lin Fan said. "If they set it, it means they have a grasp of the stronghold of those people at the Island Center, and we'll have a guide once we go in."

"If wasn't them..."

Xu Zhixia picked up the end of his sentence. "Then someone else set the fire, and things are more complicated than we thought."

Lin Fan nodded.

Xu Zhixia quickly finished gathering the last few herbs and prepared to run to catch up with Lin Fan's pace.

"Get on."

Lin Fan squatted down in front of her, turning his back to her.

Xu Zhixia was stunned for a beat.

"Your speed can't keep up with mine." Lin Fan turned his head to glance at her. "Song Ya is still burning up in the cave, and we can't afford to waste time."

Logic was logic, so Xu Zhixia didn't act coy. She stepped forward in two strides, placed her arms over Lin Fan's shoulders, and pressed her body against his back.

Lin Fan still paused for a second. There seemed to be something pressing against his back, preventing Xu Zhixia's entire body from pressing flatly against him.

"Dr. Xu, I mean, can you not always stuff things into your chest for no reason?!"

Xu Zhixia pinched Lin Fan hard. "What time is it, and you're still acting like a jerk?"

"You're being irresponsible to Song Ya by doing this."

Lin Fan was left speechless by her retort. He reached back with both hands and firmly supported the backs of her thighs.

The next moment, his soles pushed off the ground.

Xu Zhixia only felt the tree trunks in her field of vision turn into horizontally stretched blocks of color. The wind poured in from both sides, whipping all her hair back behind her head.

Her eyes could only see alternating flashes of green and brown, and the ground beneath her feet was retreating at lightning speed.

Fast.

She had experienced sharp turns at over a hundred yards per hour in an ambulance, but the sense of impact brought by this kind of speed was second to none.

Subconsciously, she tightened her arms resting on Lin Fan's shoulders, pressing her cheek against the back of his neck.

A few minutes later, Lin Fan landed.

The speed dropped abruptly, and the wind stopped.

Xu Zhixia slid down from his back, her feet stepping onto the muddy ground. Her knees went soft for a second before she managed to steady herself.

She leaned against a nearby tree and gasped for breath twice, her scalp still tingling.

Before her was an even lower-lying dense forest, with shallow black water pooling on the ground and a few crooked trees slanted into the mire.

There was the smell of blood in the air.

Lin Fan had already squatted down, his gaze piercing through the interlocking bushes ahead, locking onto the source of the sound.

Over twenty meters away, two figures leaned behind a collapsed piece of dead wood.

Xiao Qian was half-lying down, her head tilted to one side. The entire left arm of her black combat uniform was soaked in blood, seeping all the way from her shoulder down to her elbow.

Wu Hui was squatting beside her, one hand pressing against Xiao Qian's wound while the other hand rummaged through the items in her waist pouch.

Her mouth was still moving. "Sister Qian, don't fall asleep... Sister Qian..."

She was injured.

Lin Fan stood up without deliberately lightening his footsteps.

He stepped out from the cover of the bushes, trudged across the puddle-filled muddy ground, and approached the two people.

Wu Hui's reaction was faster than he had anticipated.

Behind the dead wood, a dark shadow sprang up.

A short dagger was scooped up from the ground, its blade still stained with dark red blood. Wu Hui vaulted over the tree trunk and charged toward Lin Fan and the others to attack...