76: Chapter 76: Insults are acceptable, but this level of utter lack of boundaries is unacceptable.

"Do people eat first, or do dogs eat first?" Lin Fan continued to ask.

Song Ya blinked, and surprisingly started thinking about it seriously.

"Our family... " She tilted her head slightly, a hint of nostalgia in her tone, "raised a native dog named Doudou."

"Every time we ate, it was definitely the humans who ate first, and only at the very end would we mix some vegetable soup into the leftover rice and pour it for Doudou."

As she spoke, a faint smile unconsciously curled at the corners of her mouth.

"My mom always said that humans are humans and dogs are dogs, the rules can't be messed up. Once, when nobody was paying attention, Doudou jumped onto the dining table and stole a chicken leg, and my dad chased it with a slipper for a full three streets... "

"Then why aren't you eating yet?"

Lin Fan interrupted her family anecdote and motioned toward the pot with his chin.

"Later, the dogs are going to come up and snatch the food."

The smile on Song Ya's lips froze for half a second.

She turned her head to glance at Zhang Tao and Xiaozhou squatting in the distance, and then looked at Lily and the few others standing by the pile of supplies.

She understood.

The "dogs" in Lin Fan's mouth were referring to them.

The air grew quiet for two seconds.

Song Ya lowered her head, reached out to pick up a crab from the pot, and placed it on the stone slab in front of her.

But she didn't break it open to eat.

She hesitated for a moment, raised her head, and looked at Lin Fan.

"Lin Fan."

"Mm."

"I think you shouldn't call them that."

Lin Fan didn't stop what he was doing; with the tip of his knife, he picked out the meat inside the crab leg and put it into his mouth.

Song Ya bit her lip, as if organizing her words.

"Zhang Tao and the others... helped a lot last night."

"When Wang Qiang brought people rushing up, if it hadn't been for them throwing stones down, we wouldn't have been able to defend this platform at all."

Song Ya looked intently at Lin Fan's profile.

"They were also risking their lives, and since you promised them instant noodles, they really fulfilled their part. One thing is one thing, you can't... you can't call them dogs to their face."

"Everyone is a colleague at Shengtang. Back in the company, Zhang Tao even helped me before. He's not actually a bad person, he's just cowardly and follows whoever is stronger... "

"So he is a dog."

Lin Fan swallowed the crab meat in his mouth and picked up the mineral water to take a gulp.

"Wagging its tail at whoever gives it a bone—if that's not a dog, what is?"

You could insult people, but you shouldn't be completely devoid of a bottom line like this.

Under normal circumstances, if anyone dared to curse at him like that to his face, he would have thrown a punch at them long ago.

But now, he didn't even dare to let out a fart, and could only lower his head a few more inches.

Song Ya was choked up.

She opened her mouth, wanting to retort, but couldn't find the right phrasing for a moment.

After a long while, she spoke again, "What you're saying is unfair." Song Ya furrowed her brows, "In this kind of environment, being afraid is an instinct, and wanting to survive is also an instinct. Not everyone can be like you... "

She paused, carefully choosing her words.

"Like you, not afraid of anything."

"I'm afraid too." Lin Fan bit open the last crab leg, "I'm afraid of starving to death."

"That's why I go catch crabs instead of squatting in place waiting for someone else to feed me."

Lin Fan handed Song Ya a green crab, "Eat up quickly, it tastes fishy when it gets cold."

He didn't care about Song Ya's words; reality would teach her a lesson later on anyway.

Song Ya didn't take it. She bit her lower lip, her fingers twisting the corner of her clothes.

In her logic, everyone was supposed to survive together on this island.

Only sincerity could be exchanged for sincerity.

If people were only held together by fear, once they were driven to desperation, they would do anything.

"Lin Fan, you're right, being afraid of death and following whoever is indeed an instinct of a dog."

"But Zhang Tao and the others went with you to catch crabs today, and the two of them carried the box all the way back. Xiaozhou's hand was pinched and bled by a crab, and he continued working without even frowning."

"You told them to move stones, and they moved them; you told them to smash people, and they smashed them; you told them to carry crabs, and they carried them."

"If they haven't made contributions, they've at least put in hard work, right?"

Zhang Tao shrank back three meters away, and upon hearing these words, his eyes instantly turned red.

In his entire life at the company, he had been cursed as an idiot by Wang Qiang, treated as air by Su Qingxue, and mocked for wearing cheap street market clothes by Zhao Na.

Never once had any woman spoken a single good word for him in front of the boss.

Song Ya's words were warmer than the birthday red envelope his mom sent him.

Song Ya didn't stop, "Look at what you're saying yourself?"

"Only fit to do hard labor? Dogs? They are living, breathing human beings. You can distrust them and guard against them, but you can't insult them to their face like this."

"Human hearts are made of flesh. If you step on people to death, sooner or later it will bite you back."

Lin Fan stopped all his movements.

Zhang Tao didn't even dare to make a sound with his breathing; he could feel the temperature in the air dropping.

"Song Ya."

Lin Fan raised his head.

His tone didn't rise; if anything, it was even flatter than before.

But this flatness was even more terrifying than violent rage.

"Do you think you're especially kind?"

Song Ya's body stiffened slightly.

"Do you think that in this lousy place, as long as everyone holds hands and joins hearts, everyone can sing Unity is Strength together and wait for rescue to arrive?"

Song Ya opened her mouth, unable to say a word.

"Last night."

"Wang Qiang brought over twenty people rushing up to smash my head in, and this morning Chen Jian brought twelve people over to raid our home."

"Do you think that after they rush up, they will sit down with you and calmly chat about how human hearts are made of flesh?"

"The first thing they'll do when they rush up is stab me to death. The second thing is to pin you women to the ground."

"Guess what the third thing is?"

Song Ya's face turned pale.

"Divide the supplies. The food and water here, this bite of crab you ate for noon today—all of it will be gone."

"Then you can roll back down into that rock crevice below and live a life even worse than theirs."

Song Ya's eyes instantly turned red, and her fingers tightly clutched the pants on her knees.

"I'm not saying not to guard against them... I just fel—"

"You feel?" Lin Fan interrupted her, "Great Saint Song, you don't feel a damn thing."

"When you helped Zhang Tao move printing paper at the company, Zhang Tao turned around and told Zhao Na in the pantry that you were a bootlicker, did you know that?"