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The fire Chen Jian had lit had turned into a complete disaster.
The soaked, rotten wood and seaweed carbonized wildly under the high heat, releasing large amounts of pungent sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Thick smoke rolled out.
A dozen or so ragged men and women surrounded the fire pile, tears and snot streaming down their faces, coughing until their lungs felt torn apart — yet not a single person was willing to move even half a step.
Leaving that poisonous gas meant single-digit, extreme cold.
“What time is it… what time is it, exactly!” Su Qingxue clutched her hair tightly with both hands, her voice hoarse beyond recognition.
Her originally exquisite, icy face was now smoked black in some places and white in others.
No one answered.
Everyone’s watches were spinning wildly, the hands on the dials becoming a countdown to doom.
Wang Qiang and the others had been smoked until their lungs felt ready to explode, and in their hearts they had already cursed Su Qingxue’s ancestors eighteen generations over.
If only there had never been this team-building trip.
But thinking of her promised midnight rescue, and the tempting sales director position and bonus, everyone forcibly swallowed their anger back down.
As long as they could hold on until the helicopter arrived, the suffering they were enduring now would be their ticket to promotion.
No one dared to cross Su Qingxue at a moment like this. Even smoked into a daze, they had to endure in silence like scolded children.
…
“Why hasn’t the helicopter come yet! How long has it been?”
Extreme hunger and cold, plus the visual deprivation of darkness, had completely scrambled the group’s sense of time.
“Where’s the rescue… Ms. Su, didn’t you say rescue would arrive before midnight?”
“I’m looking at the time, and I’m afraid it’s already past one in the morning. Where’s the helicopter!”
Su Qingxue’s body trembled violently, her lips shaking, unable to get a word out.
She wanted to ask the same thing. Why hadn’t the helicopter arrived yet?
Those useless people at the company — when she got back, she was going to fire them all.
Liu Feifei curled up at the outermost edge.
Her sheer lace cover-up had long since become tattered, and one strap of her purple bikini had broken, barely holding together.
For a first-line star, this was a scene countless people would have wanted to see but never could.
The poisonous smoke had burned her throat raw, and her stomach was completely empty. She didn’t even have the strength left to vomit stomach acid.
She raised her head.
Her gaze pierced through the heavy black smoke and fixed on the mountainside.
There, there was no poisonous smoke.
Only warm, yellow firelight, and waves of roast-meat fragrance drifting down.
Liu Feifei swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, and her throat felt as if it were tearing.
She glanced at Su Qingxue, who was still in a frenzied state, then at the people fighting each other to grab a spot slightly closer to the fire.
This group was finished.
Following them, she wouldn’t survive the night.
She braced her hands on the sand and slowly stood up. While everyone was on the edge of collapse and going mad, she quietly slipped out of the crowd.
She turned and walked, one step deep, one step shallow, toward the rocky slope halfway up the mountain.
At night, she couldn’t see the road clearly. She could only walk toward the light. Gravel cut the soles of her feet, and vines scratched the face she had always prided herself on as a leading lady.
She didn’t care at all.
After years of struggling in the entertainment industry, she understood the law of survival all too well.
Dignity? Principles? A pure, wholesome image?
Those were luxuries you only deserved once you were fed and warm.
In this godforsaken place where even time was scrambled, whoever held water, fire, and meat called the shots.
And right now, those resources were sitting in that cave.
Halfway up the mountain.
Lin Fan leaned against the dry rock wall, idly playing with his pitch-black tactical straight knife.
The camphor in the fire pile burned quietly, releasing steady heat.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, and in front of him, a golden omniscient prompt box floated in midair.
[Current time: 21:05]
[Ambient temperature: 8°C]
[Beach target group status: Mass hysteria outbreak, time perception completely disordered. First case of hypothermic shock expected within three hours.]
Only nine o’clock.
Lin Fan curled the corner of his mouth.
These elites, who usually stood so high above everyone, hadn’t even survived the first half of the night on the island before going half-mad already.
Rustle…
A faint scraping sound came from outside the cave entrance.
Lin Fan’s grip on the knife instantly tightened. A beast?
He had just stood up when a fair palm, stained with mud and blood, grabbed the rock at the edge of the cave.
Then.
A pitiful face, marked with scratches, peered in.
Liu Feifei.
She panted heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
Her torn bikini barely covered her, much of her skin exposed to the air, covered in tiny scratches.
She saw Lin Fan.
She also saw the roaring campfire behind him, and the half-empty tin of luncheon meat beside it.
Liu Feifei’s eyes lit up instantly.
“Lin Fan…”
Her voice was hoarse. He couldn’t tell whether it was deliberately alluring or simply burned raw by the smoke.
Lin Fan looked at her coldly, the tip of his knife angled toward the ground.
Three words, without a trace of emotion.
Liu Feifei stiffened, and tears burst out at once.
She didn’t back out. Instead, she crawled into the cave on her hands and knees.
She knew men’s weaknesses all too well.
In the company, this Lin Fan had been nothing more than a bottom-rung intern who didn’t even dare raise his head to speak to her.
As long as she threw him a flirtatious glance, a sheltered little boy like him would lose his soul entirely.
“Lin Fan, I’m so cold… I’m really so cold…”
Liu Feifei cried as she crawled forward.
She deliberately slowed her movements, twisting her waist into an exaggerated curve.
Her already tattered cover-up slipped completely off, exposing a large stretch of smooth back and a slender waist.
She crawled to Lin Fan’s feet, reached out with both hands, and clutched his calf tightly.
“Please, let me warm myself by the fire… just for a little while…”
She raised her head. That face, pure and flawless on screen, was now undisguised desire and flattery.
She deliberately pressed herself close against Lin Fan’s calf, leaning in even more.
Lin Fan looked down at the woman at his feet.
Liu Feifei, the top star of domestic entertainment, the dream girl of countless men, the nation’s first love.
Back in civilized society, if Lin Fan had so much as glanced at her from afar at an annual party, black-clad bodyguards would have roughly shoved him away.
Billionaire bosses had to queue up and throw money around just to have dinner with her.
On screen, she was a cold, solitary fairy goddess, an untouchable flower on a high peak.
But now?
That flower on the high peak was lying without any dignity at the feet of a bottom-rung intern, wagging her tail and begging.
The strong visual impact, and the wildly exaggerated gap in status, shot straight from his calf up into his brain.
Lin Fan was a normal man.
Twenty-four years old, young and full of hormones, single his whole life.
Although his mind was terrifyingly clear, his body’s reaction couldn’t be completely suppressed.
He could clearly feel a surge of heat rising in his lower abdomen.
“Let go.” Lin Fan’s voice dropped.
Liu Feifei keenly caught that slight change.
She believed that, looking like this, she could make any man in the world lose control.
“I won’t let go…”
Liu Feifei not only didn’t let go, she ran her hands up along Lin Fan’s calf.
Her well-cared-for hands, though stained with mud and sand, were still incredibly soft.
“Lin Fan, it’s terrifying down there… they’ve all gone mad… only your place is safest.”
She raised her head, her eyes soft and longing, her voice so sweet it could drip water.
“As long as you let me stay, give me a sip of water… I’ll do anything you want.”
“Any…thing?” Lin Fan sneered.