Oh no! I've been kept as a pet by a stray killer whale!

Upon hearing the words "hadn't eaten," Jiang Che's stomach immediately rumbled loudly, as if in perfect unison.

"Gurgle—!!!"

The sound was so loud that it even traveled through the water, scaring away several small fish in the vicinity.

An intense, almost burning hunger swept over Jiang Che's entire body in an instant. The dizziness and weakness caused by low blood sugar made him stumble and almost fall into the sea.

"I can't do it anymore... Brother, I really can't rub it anymore."

Jiang Che waved his hand, not caring whether Da Pang understood or not, and turned around, dragging his legs as if they were weighed down with lead weights, and moved with difficulty toward the beach.

"Huh? They're leaving already?"

Big Fatty snorted in dissatisfaction, but after hearing the strange "gurgling" sound, it seemed to realize something and didn't forcefully stop it, only muttering something like:

"This pet has no stamina; it gave up after only two minutes. It's lucky it found a good-natured owner like me; otherwise, it would have been abandoned long ago."

……

Jiang Che, who had climbed back onto the beach, no longer possessed the composure he displayed during the live broadcast.

Right now, only two words are on his mind: making food.

As a seasoned researcher in the field, he knew the priority of finding food on a desert island.

First, coconuts.

Jiang Che looked up at the towering coconut trees behind him, their green coconuts hanging from the treetops, some over ten meters high, swaying precariously in the sea breeze.

"In the past, climbing up wouldn't have been a problem..."

Jiang Che tried to hug the tree trunk, but his arm muscles cramped up. He gave up with a wry smile, knowing that with his current strength, he would fall and die before he could climb halfway up.

Then we'll have to go beachcombing.

Jiang Che lowered his head, like a human radar, and began searching the intertidal zone's sandy beaches and rocky crevices.

Crabs? No. This beach is ridiculously clean.

Shellfish? There were only some pitifully small hermit crabs, not even enough to fill a tooth gap.

The area where the shipwreck occurred appears to be too barren, or perhaps it had just been battered by a storm that swept away all the marine life on the shallows.

"No way..."

Jiang Che bent over, turning over stone after stone under the scorching sun, but found nothing. Sweat dripped down his cheeks, and his vision began to blur.

Hunger makes people lose their minds.

He even started staring blankly at a clump of withered seaweed on the beach, wondering if eating it raw would give him diarrhea.

This scene of "desperate treasure hunting" was witnessed by a pair of eyes in the sea not far away.

That was the smallest, most active, and most peculiarly brain-trained "whimpering monster" in the orca pod.

It had been floating on the surface of the water since the beginning, tilting its head and observing the "two-legged creature's" every move with great interest.

From its perspective, Jiang Che's behavior was very strange:

He bent over, his butt sticking out, and dug and dug in the sand, then shook his head in disappointment; he took two more steps, dug and dug again, and shook his head again.

"Huh? What's he doing?"

The little whimper blinked its big eyes, its tiny brain starting to work at high speed.

As the "intelligence basin" in the orca family, it quickly mobilized its meager knowledge base to try to analyze the logic behind the pet's behavior.

"Is he... bored?"

"Yes! They must be bored!"

The whimpering monster suddenly realized.

In its logic, when it's bored, it goes to the seabed to burrow in the sand or finds something to balance on its head. This bipedal creature's current actions are exactly the same as when it's bored!

"Oh dear, how pitiful."

The whiny girl's heart instantly melted as she watched Jiang Che's dejected figure disappear into the distance.

"It must be because his older brother made him work too hard and he's exhausted. Now he wants to find a toy to relax, but he can't find one."

"As the most cherished daughter in the family, I have to help him!"

Thinking of this, the whimpering monster excitedly flicked its tail.

Toy?

I have it!

This sea area is its secret treasure trove!

"Wait a minute, little one! Big brother has found you a wonderful treasure!"

The whimpering monster took a deep breath, then executed a graceful duck dive and disappeared into the deep blue sea.

……

On the beach, Jiang Che was still desperately flipping over stones.

The viewers in the live stream felt a pang of sympathy as they watched his staggering figure.

[The streamer looks really weak; he must be really hungry.]

[Such a big island, and not even a single crab? That's incredibly bad luck.]

[Oh no, I saw him staring at that piece of rotten seaweed for ages, is he really going to eat it?]

[Where are the orcas? Weren't those orcas so impressive? Why don't they catch a fish for the streamer?]

Just then.

Whoosh—!

The surface of the water suddenly exploded less than five meters from Jiang Che.

Jiang Che was startled, thinking that a big fish had come ashore. His eyes instantly lit up with a green light, and he turned around abruptly.

"fish?!"

However, what caught my eye was not a delicious fish.

Instead, it was a black and white orca head.

It was the smallest orca. Jiang Che remembered its voice, that boyish voice that was always full of a million "whys".

This thing had most of its body above the water, with something firmly dangling from its mouth...

A dark, rotten piece of wood, as thick as a thigh, covered in green moss and white barnacles.

This piece of wood had obviously been submerged in the sea for a long time; its surface was rotten and emitted a strong, fishy stench, but in the orca's mouth, it looked like some rare treasure.

"puff!"

The whimpering monster suddenly shook its head.

The heavy, rotten log drew an arc in the air and landed with a "thud" precisely on the wet sand in front of Jiang Che, splashing mud all over his legs.

Jiang Che was stunned.

He looked at the rotten wood on the ground, then at the orca in the sea with a "please praise me" expression.

What's going on?

Is this... food?

Although Jiang Che was so hungry he was seeing stars, he knew that orcas were carnivorous.

Could there be some special seafood hidden inside this piece of wood? Like ship maggots?

He crouched down, suppressing his nausea, and poked at the rotten piece of wood with his hand.

There are no fish.

There are no crabs.

This is just a piece of marine debris that has absolutely no edible value.

"this……"

Jiang Che raised his head blankly and looked at the whimpering monster.

Before he could even ask, the whiny girl's proud and boastful inner voice echoed in his mind:

"Here you go! Take it!"

"This is a treasure I've kept for so long! Look at these barnacles, how neatly they've grown! Look at the curve of this wood, it's perfect for wearing on your head!"

"This is my go-to for 'playing with my prayer beads'! It feels amazing! I saw you digging in the sand for ages and didn't find anything, you must not have found a suitable toy, right?"

"Take it and play with it! Don't be shy! This is a reward from your older brother!"

Jiang Che: "..."

His newly ignited spark of hope was extinguished like a bucket of urine by these words.