“What’s all the noise over there? How’s the supply collection going?”
Wang Qiang’s vicious face instantly rearranged itself into a fawning smile. He shot Lin Fan a vicious glare and hissed under his breath:
“You just wait! When we get back to the company, I’ll deal with you slowly. By the time I’m done, you won’t even get a job clearing tables in some dive restaurant!”
“Right, blacklist him across the whole industry,” someone beside him chimed in.
Clutching the red wine, Wang Qiang scurried over to Su Qingxue. “Ms. Su! Look what I found! This is Romanée-Conti — just the thing to settle your nerves!”
Lin Fan watched Wang Qiang’s fawning, pug-like back and laughed coldly to himself.
Settle her nerves?
Drink up. The more you drink, the faster you’ll die.
Lin Fan hefted the heavy case of bottled water, his eyes locking onto the towering, barren mountain behind the beach.
In his field of vision, a pale gold prompt box floated behind a thicket halfway up the slope.
[Hidden rock cave: Roughly 8 meters deep. A natural wind shelter. The entrance is hidden by vines, but the interior is dry and well-ventilated. Relatively high safety rating.]
Out at sea, the weather could turn in a heartbeat. It might be blazing sun now, and a downpour the next minute.
“Hah…”
Lin Fan let out a slow breath, adjusted the luncheon meat in his arms, and started toward the pile of rocks.
As he passed Su Qingxue’s so-called “temporary camp,” mocking voices buzzed around him.
“Well, look at the intern, playing the Foolish Old Man moving mountains in this heat?”
Wang Qiang sat on a rock with his legs crossed, swirling that priceless bottle of Romanée-Conti in his hand, looking at Lin Fan like he was an idiot.
“What are you hauling that junk up the mountain for? Is that some feng shui burial plot? Planning to build your own grave up there?”
Several male colleagues nearby were busy stacking their scavenged designer bags and watches into a little mountain. At his words, they burst into laughter.
“Brother Qiang, that’s called vision! What if the helicopter lands on the mountaintop? He’s getting the water up there first, so he can bootlick the rescue team and maybe score himself a first-class seat.”
“Ha ha ha, born to serve — no matter where he goes, he can’t forget to wait on people.”
Zhao Na was touching up her makeup in front of a broken half-mirror she’d found somewhere. Despite the bruises mottling her face, she was still doing her best to maintain the poise of a society lady.
She glanced at Lin Fan, drenched in sweat, and pinched her nose in disgust. “You stink of sweat. Stay away! Don’t stink up the Hermès we’re taking back. Selling you wouldn’t even cover it.”
Lin Fan didn’t slow down. He didn’t even spare her a glance.
What was the point of arguing with a group of dead people?
Cold-faced, he skirted the crowd and climbed the rock pile, one step deep, one step shallow.
Just then, hurried, panicked footsteps sounded behind him, along with a distinctive, sweet fragrance.
“Lin Fan! Wait! Wait a second!”
Lin Fan stopped and turned around.
The sight made his breath catch slightly.
Running toward him was Song Ya, an intern from his own intake, and the sales department’s undisputed heartthrob.
Right now she was disheveled, but no less tempting for it.
Her fitted office skirt had been torn at the hem, exposing a stretch of pale skin on the outside of her thigh, and her knee bore a few red, swollen scrapes that made you want to look after her.
Because she’d been running so hard, her already slim white shirt had suffered, too. The tightest button at her chest had popped clean off, and the fabric strained hard against her.
As she panted, her chest rose and fell sharply, as if the cloth might give way at any moment.
Sweat traced the line of her delicate collarbone, glistening in the sunlight.
Song Ya.
In that cutthroat sales department, she was the only one who would secretly slip Lin Fan a milk tea when he worked late, and the only one who would step in and take the blame when Wang Qiang tore into him.
She was the one exception among all those cold elites.
“Something wrong?” Lin Fan’s tone softened a little. His gaze politely avoided her chest, but his body stayed tense.
Song Ya reached him, hands braced on her knees, breathing hard, her chest heaving with every breath.
She glanced at Wang Qiang and the others, still mocking them from a distance, then lowered her voice, her eyes reddening:
“Lin Fan, you… stop hauling all that. Ms. Su said the rescue team will definitely come. You’re wasting your energy like this, and they’re all watching you like it’s a monkey show.”
There was a kind of clear, foolish innocence in Song Ya’s eyes, and undisguised concern for him.
In her mind, Lin Fan had simply been scared out of his wits, and that was why he was acting so strangely.
“Whether they laugh or not has nothing to do with whether I live or die,” Lin Fan said evenly, his eyes sweeping over her sun-flushed cheeks. “And don’t be too optimistic yourself. If the helicopter doesn’t come tonight, remember to find somewhere sheltered to hide. Don’t stay too close to that bunch of fools.”
Song Ya froze, as if she hadn’t expected the usually meek Lin Fan to say something so hard-edged.
She bit her lip, then suddenly held out the small hand she’d been keeping clenched tight.
Her palm opened.
A exquisite women’s watch lay quietly in her hand, its dial encrusted with diamonds.
A Patek Philippe Twenty~4.
“This is for you.” Song Ya pressed the watch into Lin Fan’s hand without giving him a chance to refuse, her fingertips brushing his palm with a trace of warmth.
Lin Fan frowned. “What are you giving me this for?”
“Are you stupid!” Song Ya grew anxious, leaning slightly forward, her fragrance drifting straight into Lin Fan’s nose. “When we get back, the company is definitely going to have a big shake-up, and that bastard Wang Qiang will absolutely come after you.”
She paused, then looked up, her large, watery eyes full of sincerity and a trace of affection she couldn’t quite hide:
“This watch is worth at least three hundred thousand! Hide it well, take it back and sell it quietly, move to another city and start over… Don’t put up with it at Sheng Tang anymore. I don’t want to watch you get bullied.”
So that was it.
She was afraid that when they got back, Wang Qiang would destroy him, and she wanted to give him escape money.
At a moment when life and death were still uncertain, this watch was the greatest kindness she could think of for Lin Fan — and the most secret confession in a young girl’s heart.
Lin Fan looked at the watch in Song Ya’s hand.
The golden prompt popped up again, merciless as ever.
[Patek Philippe Twenty~4: Stainless steel, diamond-set, quartz movement. Current environmental value: 0. Cannot be eaten, cannot provide warmth, cannot be used for self-defense.
Aside from adding weight and burning calories, utterly useless. Hardness is decent, though — it might crack open a coconut, but it would probably numb your hand.]
Three hundred thousand?
In civilized society, it was wealth, status, a ticket into a class that countless people groveled to enter.
But here, it was just a slightly harder piece of scrap metal, not even as practical as a packet of sunflower seeds.
Lin Fan sighed inwardly.
Song Ya was a good woman — and a beautiful one. But in an environment like this, good people usually died fastest, because their heads were still full of civilized society’s rules.
“Song Ya.” Lin Fan didn’t take the watch. Instead, he looked seriously into her eyes. “Do you really think we can go back?”
Song Ya froze, the rise and fall of her chest stalling slightly. “Ms. Su said…”
“Su Qingxue is human, not a god,” Lin Fan cut in coldly. “Wake up.”
With that, he suddenly reached out and snatched the priceless Patek Philippe from her hand.
Song Ya’s face lit up with joy, thinking Lin Fan had finally listened. The corner of her mouth had just begun to lift.
The next second —