Darkness fell quickly. By the time Xi Xi reached the cave entrance, the last ray of light was being swallowed by the sea.

She was pretty sure there were people around, because the slightly muddy ground was covered with messy footprints of varying sizes.

To avoid alerting the enemy, she did not eat any luminous food, but instead used the most primitive head-mounted searchlight.

The beam of light was weak and thin, but just enough. The moment the faint light swept across the cave wall, a dozen pairs of reflective eyes suddenly lit up—it was the ravens that had been entrenched there.

Startled, several seabirds fluttered toward the cave entrance, their wings whipping up a stench of rotting flesh.

"Wait!" Chu Zhiqin suddenly grabbed her. The searchlight shone on a reflective object at the bottom of the cave; it was a car refrigerator half-buried in the gravel.

The refrigerator was very old and dilapidated, as if it had endured countless storms and ravages. Every scratch and every rust mark told a story of vicissitudes and ruthlessness.

Upon closer inspection, one can also find that in some places the paint has peeled off so badly that it is unrecognizable, revealing the rusty metal material underneath.

Xi Xi frowned slightly and quietly took out a multi-bladed sickle to hook the deformed cabinet door.

She pulled slightly, and with a soft metallic scraping sound, her pupils dilated. Inside the cryo-cell, a girl in a school uniform was curled up.

Chu Zhiqin was so frightened that she stumbled backward, almost losing her balance. She covered her mouth, trying her best to keep quiet.

"The time of death is not long, it should not be more than three days." Xi Xi thought to herself, and she appeared unusually calm, examining the rigor mortis of the body with almost no emotion.

The girl's body was in an unnatural, twisted position, with taut muscles and stiff joints, clearly indicating that she had been dead for some time.

Upon closer inspection, there were no obvious signs of external injury on her body, but her clothes were stained with a faint salt stain.

These salt deposits are unevenly distributed, with some areas being more concentrated, making them look as if they had once struggled desperately in the sea.

Could she have drowned? Xi Xi then looked at the girl's fingers: "There's black grease under her fingernails..."

Images of the asphalt surface of the bridge, seen during the bridge collapse, flashed rapidly through my mind...

Just as Xi Xi was pondering, a dull thud of falling rocks suddenly came from outside the cave.

The sound grew clearer and clearer as it approached, as if something was drawing near to them.

Xi Xi's heart tightened, and she immediately turned off the searchlight. The two of them held their breath and shrank into the shadows.

The sound of hurried footsteps accompanied an argument in heavy dialect: "...Damn it, there's nothing on this wretched island...that dark-skinned old farmer must have taken it all..."

Through the gaps in the rocks and wild grass, she saw two men searching for something by the bay.

One of the men, a burly man in oil-stained overalls with a full beard, suddenly raised a shovel and smashed it hard against the plastic sheet used to collect fresh water: "Damn it! That old farmer lied to me. What kind of garbage is this? All he collects in a day is this tiny bit of water!"

"Keep your voice down!" the helmeted companion whispered. "We should be grateful for any drink we have. We still have a fresh carcass in our cave, and if we can't shoot any seabirds, maybe..."

Xi Xi vaguely saw him make a cutting gesture.

Chu Zhiqin trembled in the darkness, her anger mixed with a hint of fear. Xi Xi felt her mother's body tense up and gently took her hand.

The two men walked away talking, and the sea breeze suddenly shifted, carrying their whispers into the cave: "It's a stormy place outside the island, that old farmer can't have gone far."

"...Find out where he's hiding, and when the tide comes in, throw him into the whirlpool...As for the shipwreck..."

Chu Zhiqin's breathing became heavy, and Xi Xi pressed down hard on her trembling wrist. Only after the two men disappeared into the reefs, cursing and swearing, did she release her already numb fingers.

Within the beam of the headlamp, a strange and tragic smile seemed to be frozen on the corner of the girl's corpse's mouth.

The distant cawing of crows sounded like fingernails scratching rusty iron.

A private message popped up on the screen. Xi Xi glanced at the figure that had disappeared outside the cave and breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Li Jinshao : "East side".

The two words seemed ambiguous, but Xi Xi quickly understood their meaning. She gently nudged her mother, signaling her to follow her.

After tiptoeing away from the cave for quite some time and walking a considerable distance, Chu Zhiqin cautiously looked around to make sure there was no danger before finally relaxing. She couldn't help but mutter to herself:

"Seriously, I don't want to stay in there a second longer! This cave is nice, but those two men don't look like good guys; they actually want to eat..."

Thinking of this, Chu Zhiqin couldn't help but shudder.

Xi Xi appeared remarkably calm. She carefully observed the surrounding road conditions while occasionally glancing down at the light screen map hidden inside her arm. Then she shook her head and said softly, "That's not exactly a good place."

"To escape an earthquake, an open and spacious area is of the best choice. That place, with its caves and bays, may seem fertile and peaceful, but it is not only unsuitable, but can even be described as quite dangerous..."

Standing on the high ground, Chu Zhiqin pointed to the distant sea, her face full of surprise, "Xiao Xi, look over there!"

Xi Xi quickly looked in the direction she pointed. On the western coastline, the tide, which had been surging and crashing against the shore, was now receding rapidly at an astonishing speed, as if an invisible giant hand was desperately pulling the sea back.

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