Desert Island Survival: A Hundredfold Improvement After Having a Baby?

"Does anyone have chewing gum or a cigarette pack? The kind with a foil lining."

The surroundings were deathly silent.

"I... I have some in my bag." A female colleague who usually handles administration shakily unzipped her deformed pencil skirt and pulled out a pack of chewing gum that had become slightly soggy from being soaked in seawater.

Chen Jian walked over in a few steps, grabbed the candy wrapper, roughly peeled off the outer green packaging, and twisted out the thin layer of silver foil inside.

A dozen or so people gathered around, deliberately suppressing their breathing.

No one could understand what was wrong with this usually timid and submissive gigolo.

Chen Jian walked behind a huge reef.

This spot perfectly blocks the biting cold wind blowing in from the sea.

He knelt on the sand, unbuttoned his shirt, and forcefully tore off a long strip of cotton fabric from the hem of his relatively dry underwear.

Rub the cloth vigorously with both hands until it becomes a fluffy ball of cotton.

Then he scraped some dried moss powder from a crevice in the nearby rocks and carefully placed it at the bottom.

After doing all that, he folded the foil in half.

He lowered his head and used his teeth to nibble along the edge of the foil, biting out an extremely narrow "hourglass" shape in the middle.

The width of the connection in the very middle is less than two millimeters.

Chen Jian pressed one end of the tin foil firmly against the positive terminal of the lithium battery.

Use your thumb to exert force.

At the other end, it pressed down very slowly and steadily onto the metal plate of the negative electrode.

The instant of contact.

"Sizzle!"

The short-circuit current can instantly break through the tin foil within a fraction of a second.

The narrowest part in the middle, with the highest resistance, could not withstand the pressure and was directly burned red-hot by the extremely terrifying high temperature, and then exploded into a dazzling bright yellow spark.

The remaining paper fibers attached to the back of the aluminum foil were ignited on the spot.

Chen Jian reacted quickly, pinching the faint flame and stuffing it into the prepared pile of shirt wadding and moss.

He lay face down on the ground, cupped his hands into a semi-circular windproof shield, puffed out his cheeks, and breathed in very gently and rhythmically.

"Huff... huff..."

A wisp of extremely thin white smoke drifted out leisurely.

Followed by.

"Take off!"

A cluster of orange-red flames, about the size of a fingertip, slowly lit up.

"Fire! It's on! It's really on!"

"Holy crap! Sister Lan, your husband is awesome!"

The beach, which had been under immense pressure, completely erupted in chaos.

Several grown men were so excited that they burst into tears on the spot, and they scrambled and crawled behind the rocks without regard for anything else.

Wang Qiang reacted the fastest. Taking advantage of his size, he shoved the person next to him aside with his shoulder and unreasonably occupied the core position closest to the flames, his hands almost touching the fire.

Su Qingxue's nerves, which had been taut to the point of breaking, finally relaxed.

Her legs went weak, and she slowly slid down the rock face to sit down.

Feeling that faint but real warmth, she looked at Chen Jian.

In this godforsaken place where even money is useless, knowledge has become the only hard currency.

The fire did indeed start.

But these people were too happy too soon.

There was absolutely no dry firewood that could burn properly on the beach.

The group of people hurriedly carried over loads of rotten seaweed and driftwood that had been soaked in seawater for years and were covered with thick layers of salt frost and seabed silt.

These things are thrown into the fire.

"Crackling and popping!"

The damp wood cracked violently from the heat. Thick, murky white smoke billowed out, like toxic fumes from a sewer that had been fermenting for ten years.

As the cold sea breeze blew in, the toxic smoke completely covered everyone's faces.

"Cough cough cough... Ugh!"

Su Qingxue was the first to be hit, choked so badly that tears streamed down her face. She covered her mouth tightly, her thin body convulsing violently, coughing so hard that even the last bit of bile in her stomach seemed to come up.

Liu Feifei fared even worse; her delicate face was blackened by the smoke, and she lay on the sand, crying and gagging.

The male colleagues around him weren't much better off; they were all covering their eyes and coughing violently.

but.

Not a single person retreated, not even a single step.

Retreating is like being frozen to the bone.

They could only weep and cough until their lungs felt like they were going to burst, while desperately clinging to the stinking flames.

Living in misery.

In the midst of this extremely brutal fumigation by poisonous gas, the direction of the airflow changed.

A gentle breeze cascaded down the rocky slope halfway up the mountain.

There was no suffocating smoke or fire in the wind.

There was only a rich, meaty aroma that was enough to drive someone crazy on the spot.

Luncheon meat is a product of heavy industry, high in starch, fat, and salt.

Under the intense heat of the open flame, the animal fat melted completely, mingling with the subtle fragrance of camphor wood, the finest kindling material, which wafted slowly through the air.

The smell penetrated the thick, foul smoke below without any obstruction, forcefully entering everyone's nostrils.

"Gurgle gurgle~"

A series of gurgling sounds erupted in Su Qingxue's abdomen.

She clutched her stomach tightly, her cheeks instantly turning bright red.

The queenly demeanor she once exuded in the company's conference room was now stripped bare by her primal physiological reactions, leaving her with nothing but her underwear.

hungry.

A fear more devastating than the cold began to backfire.

The fire dispelled some of the chill and allowed the group's metabolism to get back on track.

Since the cruise ship accident at noon, they have been exhausted from over ten hours of intense physical exertion and have not eaten anything.

The empty stomach begins to secrete gastric acid frantically, and the stomach walls rub against each other and corrode each other, causing waves of dizzying spasms and pain.

"Meat...he's eating meat..."

Zhang Tao collapsed on the outermost edge, furthest from the fire.

His eyes were fixed blankly on the mountainside.

He was completely unaware that long, murky strands of saliva were running down his cracked lips and dripping into the tattered shirt on his chest.

"Give me a bite... just a lick of that tin box that holds the meat, that'll do..." Zhang Tao mumbled incoherently, picking at the sand with his fingernails.

Inner circle of the fire.

Wang Qiang was blinded by the thick smoke, and his face was contorted in an extremely ferocious way.

He touched a sharp-edged piece of rock under his buttocks.

His five fingers gripped the edge of the stone tightly, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged out.

But then he remembered the terrifying force of Lin Fan's kick that sent him flying, and the chilling tactical straight knife pressed against his neck, which extinguished all the impulses in his mind.

To fight with a stone against a knife? To fight that madman who can break a person's ribs with one kick?

Wang Qiang loosened his grip, and the stone crashed onto the sand.

We can't beat them, and we can't afford to mess with them.

The intense, distorted hunger had nowhere to go. Wang Qiang stiffly turned his neck, his gaze sweeping over his colleagues.

Finally, it clung tightly to Li Bin's exposed, slightly chubby arm, which was not far away.

When a person is really starving, they can eat anything.

"Don't panic... don't panic..." Su Qingxue bit her lip until it bled, forcing herself to maintain the last bit of rationality through the pain.

"12 o'clock... I said the rescue would definitely arrive by 12 o'clock... Once we're on the helicopter, I'm going to book the entire Michelin-starred restaurant on the Bund... You can eat whatever you want..."

To prove her point, Su Qingxue raised her wrist and looked with great difficulty at the waterproof Patek Philippe watch.

That was her only source of emotional support.

but.

The moment her gaze fell upon the watch face, Su Qingxue froze.

On the dial.

The slender second hand didn't move clockwise at all.

It's gone mad.

It spun wildly on the left, almost a full circle, and then suddenly lurched backward several spaces on the right.

The hour and minute hands were completely out of control, with the hands fighting each other.

The geomagnetic anomalies in this sea area are so terrifying that they can destroy even the most sophisticated mechanical watches instantly.

"What time is it..." Su Qingxue's voice completely changed, "Wang Qiang! What time is it now!"

Wang Qiang was stunned for a moment, then quickly rolled up his sleeves to look at the Rolex.

"Mr. Su...this watch is broken! The hands are all flying around!"

Liu Feifei let out a piercing scream: "My Cartier isn't working either! The clock hand is spinning backwards!"

"Mine too! It's all a mess!"

panic.

An ultimate despair that transcended hunger and cold instantly shattered the psychological defenses of this group of people.

In civilized society, time is the foundation of order.

Now, the order has collapsed.

They had no idea how long they had endured that pitch-black night.

Is it 8 PM? Or 2 AM?

The illusory twelve o'clock that sustained everyone's survival has become nothing more than an empty promise without any scale.

Time was stretched out indefinitely.

Thick smoke, biting cold wind, and excruciating pain churning in my stomach. Every second felt like an eternity.

Beside this charred, foul-smelling fire, this group of people who were once at the top of the social pyramid have been reduced to livestock waiting to be slaughtered.

……

Halfway up the mountain, there is a karst cave.

The fire was bright, without a trace of smoky black smoke.

The burning camphor wood released extremely comfortable heat radiation, making the entire cave dry and warm.

Lin Fan finished chewing the last piece of luncheon meat, which was covered in brownish-red fat.

On the retina, the golden indicator of omniscient vision refreshed, revealing the extremely tragic and ugly scene unfolding on the beach below.

[Status update for the target group below.]

[Su Qingxue (President of Shengtang Group): Severe hunger, mild carbon monoxide poisoning. 85% breakdown of psychological defenses. Currently experiencing profound claustrophobia due to the loss of a sense of time.]

[Wang Qiang (Sales Supervisor): His sanity has plummeted. He is suppressing an extreme gluttonous urge. The target has developed an extremely dangerous predatory impulse towards its own kind.]

[Chen Jian (Structural Engineer): Gains temporary influence through technical skills. Extremely calm. Assessing the remaining value of everyone, with a particular focus on severely dehydrated women. Ready to instigate betrayal at any time.]

With a flick of his wrist, Lin Fan precisely sheathed the straight knife back into its scabbard.

He stood up, walked to the cave entrance, and asked, "Twelve o'clock?"

Lin Fan smirked and let out a sneer.

"On this island, there is no midnight, only the law of the jungle."