Su Qingxue and Liu Feifei stood where they were, faces flushing green, then white.
Su Qingxue most of all. She had been proud for more than twenty years, worth tens of billions, and she was used to men circling her like dogs, racking their brains to please her.
But today, she had not only set aside her CEO’s dignity to speak first, she had even offered a sky-high price — and a bottom-rung intern had trampled her dignity into the dirt without mercy.
She was completely broken.
“Fine… Lin Fan, you’ve got guts.” Su Qingxue bit down so hard she split her cracked lip.
Clinging to her last shred of pride, she said it word by word: “When the helicopter arrives tonight, let’s see how arrogant you still are!”
Liu Feifei also glared at him with venom. If looks could kill, Lin Fan would already have been cut to pieces a thousand times over.
She covered her sun-reddened chest and trailed after Su Qingxue, still cursing under her breath: “What a piece of work… once we’re back inland, I’ll have you blacklisted, you poor loser…”
Lin Fan didn’t spare them an extra glance.
[Su Qingxue: Anger 80%, fear 60%. Burning through her last stamina to maintain her dignity. Suggestion: Ignore her. After tonight, she’ll cry on her own.]
[Liu Feifei: Jealousy 90%, extreme thirst. Plotting how to fabricate a lie to get you jailed. Suggestion: Watch out for her pillow talk — though she doesn’t have a pillow right now.]
Lin Fan pulled his gaze back and turned into the cave to enjoy his luncheon meat.
Down on the beach, the temperature was already approaching forty-two degrees.
Wang Qiang and the others hid in the shadow of a huge rock — the only shady, sheltered spot on the beach — all of them so thirsty they were seeing stars.
When they saw Su Qingxue and Liu Feifei return empty-handed, a wail went up from the crowd.
“Ms. Su… even you couldn’t get through to him?” Wang Qiang asked in disbelief.
Su Qingxue walked to the center of the shade. Wang Qiang immediately kicked a male subordinate aside to make room for her in the widest spot.
Su Qingxue sat down and glanced at the black satellite phone in her hand.
“Save your strength. The sun is almost down. Keep your mouths shut and hold on until midnight.”
Helicopter. Rescue team.
Those words gave the crowd another shot of adrenaline.
Right, they could go home tonight! Once they were back, they would be superior people again, and Lin Fan would still be a bottom-rung workhorse.
A dozen meters away from the main group, beside a pile of sand, Song Ya’s face was already white as paper.
She had just protected Lin Fan and been shoved down by Wang Qiang, who had then ordered her isolated, forbidding her from approaching the shaded rock area.
Thump —
A dull sound came from beside the rock pile.
Lin Fan turned his head to look.
Song Ya had collapsed onto the scorching sand.
Baked by the high heat and severely dehydrated, the girl had completely worn out.
She was curled into a ball, her face an unhealthy flush, her breathing rapid and shallow.
Several male colleagues around her looked at each other, and not one of them dared to step forward and help.
Wang Qiang shrank back in the shade and sneered sarcastically: “Pretending to be dead? Weren’t you so capable just now?”
Human coldness had reached this point.
Lin Fan frowned.
A golden prompt box flickered above Song Ya’s head:
[Severe heatstroke: Core temperature has exceeded 40 degrees. Accompanied by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Without timely cooling and hydration, multi-organ failure will begin within 30 minutes. Mortality rate: 90%.] This chapter was copied from NovelPing without permission.
[Note: This silly woman stayed out in the sun because she blocked a stick for you.]
Lin Fan rushed straight to Song Ya’s side.
He touched her forehead. It was hot as a furnace.
Then he scooped her up in his arms.
She was very light. The girl looked like she had curves where it counted, but her frame was actually tiny.
Her white shirt, its button already popped, was soaked through with sweat and clinging to her body.
His arm inevitably brushed against her, but Lin Fan’s mind was only on the system’s ticking countdown.
[Time remaining before organ failure: 28 minutes.]
Carrying her, Lin Fan strode toward the cave halfway up the mountain.
“Hey, everybody look, here comes the shameless one.” Wang Qiang, emboldened by Su Qingxue sitting beside him, heckled from below. “Lin Fan, you’re taking advantage of someone in trouble! When we get back, I’m calling the police on you!”
Lin Fan paid him no attention and stepped into the cave.
A wave of cool air instantly wrapped around him. The temperature here was at least ten degrees lower than outside.
He laid Song Ya flat on a smooth rock.
[First-aid plan: Physical cooling. Loosen restrictive clothing. Keep air circulating. Feed water in small, frequent amounts.]
Lin Fan kept it simple and direct. Without a moment’s hesitation, he tore Song Ya’s restrictive office skirt off along its slit.
Riiip —
The sound of tearing fabric was especially sharp in the cave. Then came the soaked shirt.
A moment later, Song Ya was left in only her underwear.
Her skin, flushed pink from the fever, was exposed to the air, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to breathe.
Lin Fan picked up a bottle of mineral water, took a large mouthful himself, pried Song Ya’s jaw open, and fed it directly into her mouth.
She was unconscious. This was the only way to get water into her.
One mouthful. Two mouthfuls.
The cool water slid down her throat, and Song Ya’s painfully furrowed brow finally relaxed a little.
With the remaining water, Lin Fan poured it into his palm and, without hesitation, patted it onto her forehead, the sides of her neck, and her armpits.
After more than ten minutes of this, the prompt box finally changed color.
[Status update: Temperature beginning to drop. Dehydration symptoms easing. Consciousness about to return.]
Lin Fan breathed a sigh of relief, sat down beside her, and casually picked up the unfinished luncheon meat and took a bite.
“Mmm…”
The woman on the rock let out a soft moan.
Song Ya slowly opened her eyes. Her vision gradually sharpened from blur, and the first things she saw were inverted stalactites, then Lin Fan’s profile as he chewed his meat.
Her memories flooded back at once — the capsized cruise ship, the tsunami, Wang Qiang’s shove…
“Lin… Lin Fan?”
She looked down and let out a short, startled cry, clutching her chest tightly with both hands.
“You’re awake? If you’re awake, drink some water yourself.”
Lin Fan tossed her the remaining half-bottle of water, his tone noticeably softer than before. “You blocked a stick for me earlier. This water repays that favor. Drink slowly.”
Song Ya held the bottle, her face red as a ripe tomato.
She looked at the torn clothes scattered on the ground, then at Lin Fan’s open, frank gaze, and understood.
In a godforsaken place like this, with heatstroke, no one but Lin Fan would have cared whether she lived or died.
The clothes must have been removed to cool her down.
“Thank you…” she murmured softly, unscrewing the cap and sipping the water in small mouthfuls, her cracked throat finally getting some moisture.
After a few sips, Song Ya’s mind cleared a little. Looking at Lin Fan’s silent profile, her workplace habits and that “good office girl” way of thinking bubbled up again.
She bit her lip and couldn’t help advising him: “Lin Fan… actually, you really shouldn’t have offended Ms. Su that badly just now.”
Lin Fan paused. He turned to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Ms. Su is still the CEO, after all.” Song Ya’s voice was soft and sweet. “When the rescue helicopter comes tonight, Ms. Su will definitely be the one directing who boards first. You held a knife to Supervisor Wang today, and you publicly embarrassed her… what if, when the rescue team arrives tonight, they join forces and leave you alone on this island? What will you do?”
The cave instantly fell silent except for the sound of wind.
Lin Fan looked at this woman, disheveled yet still worrying about his “company future,” and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He slammed the luncheon meat container down hard on the rock, his eyes instantly cold as ice.
Song Ya flinched in fright. “I… did I say something wrong?”
“Put your clothes on, then go down.” Lin Fan pointed mercilessly at the cave entrance. “Go back to your main group.”
“Lin Fan!” Song Ya panicked, her eyes instantly reddening. She scrambled to pull the torn shirt over her chest. “Why are you driving me away! I really am doing this for your own good!”
“I don’t need it!”
Lin Fan’s face was cold as he stared down at her. “After we get back, don’t say I saved you. Tell Wang Qiang that I plotted to drag you up here by force. With Su Qingxue’s need to look magnanimous, not only won’t she blame you, she’ll have people comfort you.”
Song Ya’s tears fell in drops, as if a flood of words were stuck in her throat.
Thinking that this girl might be the only kindness this company had ever shown him, a bottom-rung intern, Lin Fan grabbed her wrist and forcibly dragged her to the cave entrance.
“Lin… Lin Fan, you…” Song Ya struggled.
“Shut up. Look at the sky!”
Lin Fan gripped her shoulders and forced her to look toward the distant horizon.
The sun had completely sunk into the sea. But the sky that should have been covered in night now looked like an overturned palette, twisted and eerie with aurora colors, radiating a suffocating sense of foreboding.
Song Ya froze. “Th-that… what kind of cloud is that?”
“That’s a geomagnetic anomaly.”
“The magnetic field in this sea area is completely disordered. Even a compass would fail here, let alone a radio signal. That satellite phone Su Qingxue is carrying around like a prop has been a piece of scrap iron since the moment it hit the water.”
Song Ya went rigid, her voice trembling uncontrollably. “You… you mean…”
“Yes.”
Lin Fan let go of her, shattering her last workplace fantasy.
“We’re not on any known route at all. There’s no satellite positioning at all.”
“The helicopter is never coming. We’re not going back.”