“Water… why haven’t you found any water yet?” Wang Qiang irritably kicked the male subordinate beside him. “Are you pigs? This is a huge island, and you can’t find a single drop?”
The subordinate was Zhang Tao, the green-bezeled Rolex he’d just snatched still on his wrist, his face sickly pale. “Brother Qiang, there really isn’t any. Everything nearby is salt water. Anything drinkable was already hauled away by that kid…”
“Useless!” Wang Qiang cursed, his sinister gaze sweeping the beach.
Suddenly, his eyes locked onto the mountainside.
Lin Fan was stuffing the last case of bottled water into a hidden rock crevice.
In the sunset, row after row of clear plastic bottles caught the light, and Wang Qiang’s eyes turned green with envy.
“Are you blind? There’s ready-made water right up there!” Wang Qiang pointed at the slope and grinned viciously. “That kid’s hoarded so much. Why don’t you go take a few cases?”
Zhang Tao hesitated. “But… Lin Fan just now didn’t look like someone you could reason with…”
“Reason with?” Wang Qiang slapped him on the back of the head. “He’s just a bottom-rung intern! In the company, my word is law! On this broken island, it’s the same! I’m the supervisor. Coordinating resources is my authority!”
He turned to another male colleague with glasses, Li Bin. “You two go.
Tell him to bring the water down. Say it’s for unified distribution for everyone, and that Ms. Su is watching from below. If he dares hide supplies for himself, I’ll fire him when we get back!”
Zhang Tao and Li Bin exchanged a look. Greed finally won out over reason.
They were thirsty. So thirsty.
With Wang Qiang’s banner held up in front of them, their doubts vanished in an instant.
“Let’s go! Get the water!” Bolstering each other, they climbed unsteadily up the slope.
Lin Fan had just finished camouflaging the cave entrance with vines when he turned and saw two uninvited guests panting their way up.
He looked at them without expression.
[Zhang Tao (Sales Department): Extreme dehydration. Stamina remaining: 40%. Combat power: 0.5 geese. Inner thought: Drink all your water, then steal your luncheon meat.]
[Li Bin (HR Department): Extreme dehydration. Mild heatstroke. Combat power: 0.3 geese. Inner thought: This kid is usually meek. Scare him a little and he should back down.]
Less than one goose between them. Total pushovers.
Lin Fan sneered.
“Lin Fan!” Zhang Tao put his hands on his hips, doing his best to put on his usual senior air. “Brother Qiang says to bring the water down! Everyone’s dying of thirst, and you’re hogging all these resources for yourself.
Don’t you have any sense of the collective?”
Li Bin adjusted his glasses and chimed in sarcastically. “Exactly. Ms. Su is watching from below. What you’re doing is seriously selfish. If you know what’s good for you, bring it down now, and Brother Qiang might even put in a good word for you with Ms. Su.”
If they were still in civilized society, Lin Fan might have played along. But now, he couldn’t even be bothered to look at them properly. He simply spat out one word.
“Get lost.”
Both men froze.
The Lin Fan who had been so meek in the company — who would fetch tea and pour water without a second thought — actually dared to tell them to get lost?
“What the hell did you just say?” Zhang Tao felt his pride sting, stiffened his neck, and stepped forward. “Lin Fan, don’t refuse a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit! Believe me, when we get back, I’ll have Brother Qiang blacklist you across the whole industry!” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“There’s no Brother Qiang here, and no company.” Lin Fan’s eyes turned cold. “Want water? Go find it yourself. Take one more step forward, and I’ll break your legs.”
Zhang Tao flinched back half a step under that stare, but then he thought again — two of them against one skinny intern. What was there to be afraid of?
“Refusing the easy way! I’ll take it myself!”
Zhang Tao shot Li Bin a look. The two of them moved in from either side, reaching out to shove Lin Fan aside so they could force their way into the cave and grab the water.
Lin Fan stood his ground, motionless.
The instant Zhang Tao’s hand was about to touch his shoulder, Lin Fan suddenly lifted his leg.
Thump!
The kick landed squarely in Zhang Tao’s stomach. No fancy technique at all — just raw, brute force, and real damage.
“Ow —!”
Zhang Tao let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered and tumbled down the slope like a bowling ball.
He rolled seven or eight meters before slamming into a tree and stopping, clutching his stomach and dry-heaving violently, nearly bringing up bile.
Li Bin froze on the spot, his raised hand hanging in midair, neither able to advance nor retreat.
“You want to try, too?” Lin Fan asked coldly.
Li Bin let out a yelp, turned, and scrambled and tumbled his way back down the mountain.
At the foot of the mountain.
Wang Qiang was bragging to a few female colleagues about his past glories, all while leering at Liu Feifei’s exposed thigh.
Seeing the two men come fleeing back in disgrace, the smile on Wang Qiang’s face froze instantly.
“What happened? Where’s the water?”
“Brother Qiang… that kid Lin Fan has gone mad!” Li Bin panted, pointing up the mountain with a miserable expression. “He won’t give it! And he hit people! Zhang Tao got kicked until he threw up blood!”
Zhang Tao, who had just crawled back, added fuel to the fire, clutching his stomach and wailing. “Brother Qiang, that kid said… said you’re nothing! He said he’d feed the water to a dog before he gave you a single drop!”
“This is rebellion! Absolute rebellion!”
Wang Qiang shook with rage. That pushover he used to knead at will actually dared to walk all over him?
If he couldn’t even control an intern at a moment like this, how would he ever lead these people again? Su Qingxue was watching from not far away. If he lost face here, any hope of promotion later would be completely gone!
“Damn it, you ungrateful dog!”
Wang Qiang grabbed a thick wooden stick from the ground and brandished it viciously. “All you men, follow me! I want to see if this kid’s grown a death wish! If we don’t get that water back today, my name isn’t Wang Qiang!”
Several male colleagues who had been watching from the sidelines began to stir. Partly they wanted to impress their boss, and partly they really were desperate with thirst.
The group charged aggressively toward the rocky slope.
“Supervisor Wang! You can’t do this!”
She spread her arms, her eyes red with urgency. “Those are supplies Lin Fan found with his own hard work. What right do you have to steal them? Ms. Su said we should all figure out a way together, not fight among ourselves!”
“Get out of the way!” Wang Qiang was in a fury now, with no thought for chivalry. He roughly shoved Song Ya down into a pile of sand. “Wait until I get the water, and tonight I’ll teach you some manners properly!”
Not far away, Su Qingxue frowned. She wanted to speak up and stop it, but her cracked throat wouldn’t let her raise her voice very far.
And… as she looked at Lin Fan’s cold back, she felt a faint flicker of dissatisfaction herself.
Even in these special circumstances, hoarding fresh water like that really was too much. Letting Wang Qiang teach him a lesson might be good — as long as no one got killed.
“Ms. Su, it seems your company’s management leaves something to be desired,” someone remarked.
“He’ll be fired when we get back,” Su Qingxue replied coldly.
Halfway up the mountain.
Lin Fan watched the five or six men charging up at him. Instead of hiding, he pulled the magnesium rod from his tactical leg pack and wiped it casually against his clothes.
Wang Qiang led the charge, stopping three meters in front of Lin Fan and pointing the stick at his nose, spittle flying.
“Lin Fan! You think you’ve grown some backbone, huh? Hitting colleagues? Hoarding supplies for yourself?”
Severe dehydration plus extreme rage made Wang Qiang’s whole face look especially vicious. “I’m ordering you now — immediately! Right now! Hand over the water! Then get on your knees and apologize to Zhang Tao! Otherwise, don’t blame me for forgetting old times!”
Lin Fan stopped what he was doing and lifted his eyes.
[Wang Qiang (Sales Supervisor): Rage at MAX. Intelligence -50. Extreme dehydration has completely destroyed his judgment. The dead-wood stick in his hand is extremely brittle — it will snap under force. Threat level: Elite trash.]
“What if I don’t?”
“Don’t?” Wang Qiang laughed in fury, turning to shout at the crowd behind him. “You all heard him! This kid is asking for death himself! Get him! Grab the water! If anything happens, I’ll take responsibility!”
Before his words had even faded, he swung the thick stick down hard at Lin Fan’s head.
The wind whistled. If that blow had landed solidly, it would have split his skull open on the spot.
Song Ya, knocked to the ground, screamed in terror. “Lin Fan, watch out!”
Lin Fan didn’t move.
At the instant the stick was about to fall, he sidestepped slightly.
The stick, which looked thick but had long since rotted through, smashed hard against the rock beside him and snapped clean in two with a crack.
Wang Qiang couldn’t stop his momentum, and his body lurched violently forward.
Before he could steady himself, Lin Fan’s hand clamped around his throat.
And then.
A teeth-grating metallic scrape rang out.
Shing —!