Preparing to Leave the Island

Gingerbread—bah, no, that was wrong. It was Jiang Huan.

Jiang Huan got up, dusted off the dirt and sand, and checked the surroundings. Finding no more apes, she dragged out the person who had been captured.

The man was terrified. After Jiang Huan splashed a flask of water onto his face, he gasped for air and sat up.

He was about to scream, but when he saw Jiang Huan sitting right in front of him, he swallowed the cry back down. "I'm saved?"

"Yes. Can you walk on your own?" If possible, she didn't want to carry someone across the mountains.

"Yes, yes, I can walk." Although he had numerous scrapes and bruises all over his body, escaping with his life already made him fortunate. What did a little pain while walking matter? Even if he had to roll, he would roll his way back.

Not far away, the scattered body parts of the apes bore witness to a fierce battle that had just ended. Looking at Jiang Huan's slender figure, the man felt as though his worldview had been shattered.

Though to be fair, the current world could hardly be described as normal anyway.

Jiang Huan took the small captive ape with her when she left. Of course, before departing, she didn't forget to head inside and toss a massive amount of anti-radiation stones and those crystal ores into her spatial dimension.

Along the way, she appeared lost in thought, but she was actually testing the crystal ores' exchange value.

For someone whose hoarding had become practically second nature, it was inevitable that she would want to give it a try.

As a result of that test, Jiang Huan immediately wanted to turn back.

She had no idea what the crystal ores were composed of, but the exchange rate was five times higher than that of gold.

Moreover, a single palm-sized piece of crystal was worth thousands of points. The ones she had brought out from the cave—even the ones she couldn't manage to pry loose—added together meant she would instantly become wealthier than an entire nation.

Right, she should also check if her spatial dimension had any room for further upgrades.

Walking and stopping intermittently, she finally returned to the gathering place in the stone forest by dusk.

Jiang Huan didn't eat the food they offered that night.

Aside from safety considerations, she simply didn't dare eat it herself. The fish they pickled were processed in a manner similar to the legendary surströmming, and Jiang Huan figured that if she ate any, explosive diarrhea was guaranteed.

Therefore, she politely declined.

While she was eating her compressed biscuits, a few women sitting nearby asked Jiang Huan about something: they had seen an iron box the other day and went to check it out, but the moment their companion got close, she collapsed. Yet, no matter how they searched just now, they couldn't find the box anywhere. "Where did you hide it?"

Jiang Huan simply explained that their companion had been shocked by electricity—just a very ordinary self-defense trap. As for the iron box, they must have seen wrong; she only had a square tent, and she wasn't even sure if the tent was still where she had left it.

Regretfully, the group dropped the subject and instead began asking about the outside world. When they learned that a group of soldiers and engineering personnel on the sea were risking their lives to guard the maritime boundaries and prevent sea beasts from easily spreading into coastal cities, looks of admiration appeared on their faces one by one.

Jiang Huan, watching the leader Jonny—who looked desperately anxious—finally said what the other party had been longing to hear: "Where we are, citizens can live under the protection of safety bases. Everyone is required to put in corresponding labor, but at least you can afford two or three meals a day. By the way, what was that secret you were talking about?"

Jonny pursed his lips.

Actually, he had already made up his mind, but leaving like this felt so disheartening, as if he were about to lose something vital.

Yet the storms of the past two days told them that if they stayed any longer, the moment this island sank would be the day they died.

"We have a boat—a very big boat. If you can cooperate with us and extract a bit more oil, we'll lend the boat to you to drive so you can leave, or something like that."

Oh, what a wonderful suggestion.

"You want to leave here too, right?" Jiang Huan refused to let his use of the word "lend" confuse the primary and secondary priorities of the matter.

It was clearly: *Please drive the boat and take us away to a safe place.*

Listening to his phrasing, she was apparently expected to help them extract oil as well.

"You've been trapped here for so many days; haven't you ever thought of leaving on your own?"

Jonny stammered for a moment before saying, "Actually, we have two people who know how to drive a boat, but they don't have much experience. Plus, there's no signal anywhere now. The lookout towers, the satellites—nothing of the sort exists anymore, and we don't even know the direction. Even if we knew the direction, it probably wouldn't be much use. So, we might as well go check out the place where you live."

Jiang Huan was left speechless. Where on earth did he get the confidence to talk about "lending" it to her and acting like he was bestowing a favor just a moment ago?

This was a radioactive island; Jiang Huan couldn't let them keep pretending to be oblivious to reality, so she broke the illusion directly: "I can drive the boat, and I can drop you off near a safe place. But we need to take a lot of those stones with us, and you must obey orders."

"Alright, alright, alright. We'll be obedient. We promise to listen."

Jiang Huan demanded to see the boat, and Jonny and the others led her halfway around the island to a recessed shallow cove, where they discovered a medium-sized leisure vessel capable of holding thirty people.

Jiang Huan: ......

She really shouldn't have held her hopes too high.

Jiang Huan let out a stifled breath. "The two people who can drive the boat, come over here and do an inspection with me."

Two men, who looked almost like skin and bones, walked over and cooperated with Jiang Huan to perform an inspection.

The condition of the hull wasn't too terrible. At the very least, once fueled up, it could still run.

However, there was one piece of data she needed to figure out clearly: "How many of you are there? Everyone added together."

With a rather grim expression, Jonny said forty-five, including newborns. "Children, women, and a few elderly people—altogether twenty people weighing under ninety pounds each, and the rest fluctuating around a hundred pounds. Do you think we can squeeze them in? Or should we only take the stones needed to secure the safety perimeter of this boat?"

Jiang Huan had already stepped off the boat and was standing on the damp ground. "I've inspected this vessel. If you're going to carry basic food and daily necessities, assuming the weather at sea is decent, it can accommodate thirty-five people. After reorganizing the interior and factoring in what you said—even if most people are on the slender side and you only bring food—forty people is the absolute limit."

Could it be that they would have to abandon a few people?

Immediately, the complexions of several individuals turned sour.

They were the ones in poorer health and of advanced age.

They probably subconsciously felt that if someone truly had to be abandoned, they would be the optimal choice.

Instead, Jiang Huan spoke up, "Fortunately, I have a submarine. You can assign one woman and two or three children to me, but no one is allowed to cause trouble in my submarine. I also hope all of us can leave."

As for the matter of operating the boat: "The two of you should get a feel for the controls over the next couple of days. I will lead the way for you, so that's not a major issue. Alright, if there are no objections, everyone can start packing your luggage. Remember, it's best if it's just food and absolute essentials—the kind of necessities you can't live without. Organize another group of people to gather those large stones. My submarine doesn't have room for more people, but it has a dedicated cargo hold where some stones can be stored."

With everything arranged and no objections from anyone, everyone entered full preparation mode for leaving the island.

Jiang Huan didn't participate. Instead, she returned to the previous cave, deploying explosives, an excavator, and a cutting machine all at once. She successfully harvested the crystal ores, set half of them aside for exchange, and obtained 100,000,000 points, while keeping the other half in reserve to decide how to use them later.

Looking at the seemingly endless string of zeros in her point balance, Jiang Huan almost wanted to roar toward the sky.

With this kind of wealth, founding her own country would be an absolute breeze.

However, she didn't have that ambition at the moment.

Stretching lazily, Jiang Huan loosened her joints and continued to explore the yet-unexplored parts of the island.