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

"Could you please use your brain, the one that got caught in a door, before you speak?"

"What did I just say? Partial, random. Which ear didn't pick it up?"

Yang Ningcong raised a finger and pointed it in the air.

Not everything has that factor.

"Of the hundred trees on the island, only three may carry the virus. The remaining ninety-seven are exactly the same as the one planted in front of your house."

"Out of a hundred snakes, perhaps only one will turn into a giant python. The remaining ninety-nine will remain at their normal size."

"Do you understand?"

"There aren't that many mutations. The vast majority are normal."

Zhou Kai's neck thickened, and he wanted to speak again.

Yang Ningcong immediately pressed on: "And..."

"The report clearly states that the factor works differently in different species."

"There are one set of rules for plants and another set for animals."

"Towards people..."

Yang Ningcong paused for a moment.

"A large section of the report, the part about the human body, was crossed out with a black marker. I only saw a few scattered words."

"What word?" Lin Fan asked.

"The human individual is a mixture of everything... and the changes are uncontrollable and unpredictable..."

"The rest has been blurred out, so the specific content is not visible."

The cave was quiet for a few seconds.

Lin Fan lowered his eyes; the weight of those words was heavier than everything Yang Ningcong had said before combined.

"besides."

Yang Ningcong took another sip of water, his Adam's apple bobbing twice.

"Most of the report was redacted. But a few photos were not processed."

"What photo?" Xu Zhixia raised an eyebrow.

"Some towering trees on the island, and some... equipment wreckage."

"What equipment?"

"I can't quite put my finger on it; it wasn't made by humans." Yang Ningcong shook his head. "There are markings next to the wreckage, but they're neither in English nor Chinese."

"What script?"

"I don't recognize it." Yang Ningcong's fingers unconsciously traced the name on his knee. "It has very few strokes, but the structure is extremely complex. The construction of each character... does not belong to the writing logic of any human language."

The air inside the cave tightened even more.

"The last few pages of that report were largely blacked out. But one annotation, written in red ink, wasn't covered up."

"What did you write?" Lin Fan pressed on without pause.

Yang Ningcong looked up at him.

"Test site"

Four words crashed into the cave.

Zhou Kai froze for two seconds, and all the color drained from his face inch by inch.

"What do you mean?"

"The literal meaning." This time, Yang Ningcong didn't mock.

"That red annotation was a speculation; I remember the original text very clearly..."

"This area is highly likely a closed experimental environment set up by a non-human intelligent civilization."

The words landed.

Zhou Kai opened his mouth, but there was half an air stuck in his throat, and he couldn't utter a complete word for a long time.

"Non-human...intelligent civilization..." His throat tightened. "You mean...aliens?"

Yang Ningcong did not give a direct answer.

The report did not use the word "aliens".

"But those non-human scripts, those remnants of equipment not belonging to Earth's technology, an island that can drift on the ocean, unknown factors implanted in animals and plants..."

Yang Ningcong shrugged.

"You decide for yourself."

"What makes this island special, why it can float, and why it contains factors that alter the nature of living organisms..."

"It might not be natural."

"Made in China".

The cave was deathly quiet.

Lin Fan pressed his back against the stone wall, remaining completely still.

All the scenes in my mind popped up at once.

Floating islands, chaotic magnetic fields, mutated creatures, gray monsters, Su Qingxue refreshes her supplies, and she gains an impossible triple enhancement.

If these are all products of experiments.

What about those who were swept up?

An intruder who has mistakenly entered a restricted area?

Or are they new experimental samples?

"Wait a moment."

Xu Zhixia suddenly spoke, took a step forward, and stood directly in front of Yang Ningcong.

"You said that factors can change the properties of plants and animals."

"You also said that the direction of its impact on humanity is unpredictable."

"That thing that chased us last night..."

Her words ended there.

But everyone understood the second half of the sentence.

That thing had human facial features. A human nose, human eyelids, and human eyelashes.

But it has inhuman proportions, inhuman speed, and inhuman joint bending angles.

If the influence of the factors on the island on humans is unpredictable...

That gray monster.

Could it be that... he was once a person?

"I don't know...it wasn't mentioned in the report...those crossed-out areas...maybe..."

Lin Fan did not listen to him.

Of the second batch of military personnel who went to the island, those who returned alive had "various degrees of physical mutations."

What is the endpoint of mutation?

Gray skin clung to the bones. An extra bend appeared at the joint. Long arms hung down to below the knees.

A human face, a beast's body.

A clear mind, an alienated body.

After Su Qingxue became pregnant, she was able to refresh resources, and her body was strengthened three times.

So what happened next? Since they have superpowers, will these two people also turn into monsters?

If what Yang Ningcong said is true, then have he and Su Qingxue already been poisoned?

Xu Zhixia turned around and met Lin Fan's gaze.

Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and she didn't utter a single word. But her slightly hunched shoulders and tightly crossed arms betrayed her conclusion.

She had thought of that too.

No one in the cave spoke...