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Several female colleagues who had been crying until they could barely breathe had noticeably smaller sobs.
Someone raised her head and looked at Su Qingxue with red, swollen eyes.
Not because she believed her.
Because she wanted to believe her.
Su Qingxue saw that look, and her heart steadied a little.
That was enough.
She kept pushing forward.
“But…” Her tone suddenly sharpened.
“All of this is premised on us going back alive.”
Someone in the crowd let out a cold laugh.
Su Qingxue didn’t even look in that direction.
“Our cruise had its accident at noon yesterday. All of Sheng Tang Group’s business itineraries were reported to the maritime department and the insurance company before departure. If the cruise loses contact for more than six hours, the company’s emergency procedures start automatically.”
“My satellite phone activated its automatic distress mode before it hit the water. The signal has already been sent.”
She paused, then raised a hand to point at the strangely empty sea around them.
“You’ve all seen it too. This sea area isn’t normal. Watches spin wildly, compasses fail, and even the timing of day and night doesn’t match the outside world.”
“What does that tell us? That there is extremely strong magnetic interference in this area.”
“A search-and-rescue helicopter’s navigation system, radar, and communications equipment all depend on electromagnetic signals. In a magnetic disturbance of this level, even if the rescue team received our location, they wouldn’t be able to lock onto our exact coordinates.”
“They’re not refusing to come. They just haven’t found our precise position yet.”
She spoke very slowly, word by word.
Not to drag out the suspense, but to give everyone enough time to digest it.
“Especially at night. Entering a strong magnetic field area at night to carry out a rescue is no different from sending people to die. So they will definitely wait for daylight.”
Su Qingxue stretched out a hand and pointed at the unnaturally blue sky above.
“Now, it’s daylight.”
“The search-and-rescue window has opened.”
The beach fell quiet for a few seconds.
Several people’s chests visibly rose and fell more slowly.
When people are in complete despair, they don’t need the truth.
They just need an explanation that sounds plausible.
Su Qingxue understood this principle all too well.
She had survived in the capital markets by exactly this trick.
When a stock price crashed, retail investors didn’t need you to open the financial report and read the data line by line.
They just needed one sentence: “A pullback is just setting up a bigger rise.”
Confidence was like money.
Print it, get people to believe it, and it had value.
“But… what if the rescue team can’t find this sea area at all?”
A voice came from the outer edge of the crowd.
Liu Feifei had come down from the mountainside at some unknown point.
Her complexion was far better than last night’s.
Having eaten, drunk water, and slept somewhere warm — those traces were written on her face, and among this group of survivors who had gone hungry all night and nearly frozen to death, they stood out like high beams in broad daylight.
Several female colleagues’ gazes stuck to the dry coat on her body.
Their eyes gleamed green.
Not envy.
Jealous hatred.
The instant Su Qingxue saw Liu Feifei, her pupils contracted.
The scene from the cave last night flashed through her mind.
The image of Liu Feifei, naked, lying in Lin Fan’s arms, brought a wave of physiological nausea surging up.
She forcibly pushed it back down.
“Besides the satellite phone, the cruise ship also has a black box.”
Su Qingxue didn’t answer Liu Feifei’s question. Instead, she threw out her next reassurance.
“The black box’s emergency positioning beacon has an independent power supply. It’s not on the same system as the satellite phone. Its waterproof rating is IPX8, designed to operate normally twenty thousand meters underwater.”
She wasn’t sure whether that data was correct or not.
But her tone was absolutely firm, leaving no room for negotiation at all.
After so many years in capital circles, she understood one principle all too well: the data didn’t matter. What mattered was the confidence with which you said it.
“Even if the cruise ship sinks to the seabed, the black box will keep sending signals for at least thirty days.”
“The rescue team has a signal and a direction. All that’s left is breaking through the magnetic interference to lock onto precise coordinates. That’s just a matter of time.”
“So,” Su Qingxue looked around the circle, her gaze slowly sweeping across every face.
“What we need to do now is not cry here.”
“It’s to hold on until the moment they find us.”
The crowd’s emotions visibly steadied.
Several female colleagues stopped screaming and squatted on the ground, sobbing quietly.
The male employees’ faces were still ugly, but at least no one rushed up to point at her nose and curse anymore.
Su Qingxue secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
This hurdle, at least, had been papered over.
Then she heard a voice.
“Hold on until rescue?”
“How are we supposed to hold on?”
Chen Jian stood at the back of the crowd, arms crossed, his lenses reflecting light so his expression couldn’t be seen.
“Ms. Su, what you just said is logically flawless, but there’s a premise,” he walked forward two steps. “We have to live until then.”
Chen Jian calmly held up three fingers.
“Right now, there are three fatal problems in front of us.”
“First, fresh water.” He raised his index finger.
“From yesterday until now, apart from Ms. Su and Director Wang, no one present has found drinkable fresh water. In a high-temperature, dehydrating environment like this, an adult who goes seventy-two hours without water dies.”
“We’ve already used up nearly twenty hours.”
“Without protein and carbohydrate intake, the human body’s ability to maintain its core temperature drops off a cliff. Of the five people who died last night, three didn’t freeze to death.”
He paused.
“Their bodies burned through their last reserve of heat and couldn’t produce any more. Like an engine out of fuel — no matter how you turn the key, it won’t start.”
“Third, fire.”
He pointed at the pile of ashes with only residual smoke left.
“Last night’s fire went out. Even if I can light another one, if the fuel problem isn’t solved, tonight will end the same way.”
“Either breathe poisonous smoke and endure it, or freeze to death alive.”
“Pick one.”
The three fingers folded back down.
The beach fell deathly quiet.
Even the sound of the waves seemed to have been choked off.
The corner of Su Qingxue’s mouth twitched.
The paper she had just barely pasted over the cracks had been poked full of holes by Chen Jian’s three fingers, one by one.
Su Qingxue’s lips moved, but she couldn’t answer.
She really had no answer.
She had never imagined a day when she would have to survive in the wilderness, and she knew just as little about it.
Fresh water, food, fire.
She couldn’t conjure a single one of those three things.
Back at the company, things like that only took one phone call. “Secretary Wang, arrange it.”
Seven words, done.
But now, her secretary was either dead, or squatting on the beach chewing her cuticles.
Chen Jian didn’t press her. Instead, he turned to the crowd.
“Let me explain something to everyone.”
He pushed up his crooked glasses, the lenses covered in salt stains, making everything look blurry.
“On the African grasslands, when a herd of antelope is chased by lions, they don’t scatter in a panic. They automatically follow a lead animal.”
“The lead animal isn’t necessarily the strongest, or the fastest, but it’s definitely the one most familiar with the terrain, with the sharpest sense of danger.”
“Why? Because when you’re running for your life, a hundred brains thinking at the same time is worse than one brain making a quick decision.”
He paused.
“We are that herd of antelope right now.”
“Five people died last night. If tonight everyone still looks out for themselves and grabs for themselves, when the sun comes up tomorrow, there will only be more bodies on the ground.”
No one on the beach spoke.
The sea wind whistled, sand stinging their faces.
“So I suggest we choose one person to take unified command.”
“All water, food, fire, and manpower will be centrally allocated. Whoever obeys will live. Whoever doesn’t obey…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
But everyone understood.
Su Qingxue’s brow was almost twisted into a knot.
Chen Jian’s argument was logically flawless.
But the problem was, who should be chosen?