Stranded on a Deserted Island—They All Started Plotting Against Me - Chapter 25 - Chapter 25

Qin Ruoshuang was right.

The fire was indeed about to go out.

Zhang Liu had thought things through carefully.

Before starting to drill for fire, he had set up the dry wood in a hollow structure.

His expectation was that all he needed to do was add the ember inside, and the fire should ignite.

After all, that was how they did it in the survival videos.

But when it came to reality, things changed.

The ember, which could burn his hand, didn’t ignite the set-up wood.

Maybe the wood was too thick?

Or perhaps it wasn’t as dry as he thought?

Maybe the ember’s flame was too weak?

But none of that mattered.

The biggest practical problem right now was that the hard-earned ember was about to go out.

It couldn’t go out!

Desperate, Zhang Liu quickly found a solution.

He used his fingernail to scrape off small, twig-like pieces from the dry wood and placed them into the fire to ignite.

Even though the hard wood fibers were cutting into his nails, he kept going.

Anya and Qin Ruoshuang, seeing this, followed suit, starting to break the nearby wood into smaller pieces and handing them to Zhang Liu, who was carefully maintaining the ember.

With their joint effort, a small fire pile finally appeared.

Then they ignited the hollow wood structure.

“It shouldn’t go out now.” Watching the thick wood burn in the flames, Zhang Liu finally breathed a sigh of relief and sat down on the beach, staring at the fire.

Only now did he feel somewhat dazed.

Did he really manage to drill fire on this island?

Looking back at Anya and Qin Ruoshuang, his gaze was complex.

He felt moved, but also confused.

Behind him, the two girls also wore expressions full of unspoken emotions.

Though it was scorching hot under the sun, fire usually adds to the heat, in this case, the fire made them feel warmth from deep inside.

“I… I’ll roast a coconut first?” Anya’s eyes lit up as she quickly thought of one way to use the fire.

“Do as you like. I’ll go outside and gather more wood,” Zhang Liu smiled and said. “When the tide goes down tonight, I’ll check the beach, and if any fish are stranded, the three of us can have roasted fish tonight.”

“Roasted fish!” Upon hearing those words, Qin Ruoshuang couldn’t help but show an excited expression.

She hadn’t complained like Anya about how the coconut meat tasted bad. But the thought of finally eating hot, cooked food was still incredibly tempting.

“Yes…” Zhang Liu nodded in agreement, but his gaze suddenly fell on Qin Ruoshuang’s chest.

Under the translucent shirt, the faint pink spots were not overly noticeable, but they were definitely attention-grabbing.

Zhang Liu was stunned. He clearly remembered that Qin Ruoshuang was wearing a purple bra.

What happened? Why would a girl like her take off her undergarment, the item meant to cover that important part of the body?

He wanted to ask, but when the words reached his mouth, he didn’t know how to phrase them.

After all, it involved a private area, and talking about it was awkward.

“Zhang Liu! What are you looking at?!”

Just as he stood there lost in thought, Anya came bouncing over with a coconut in hand. The moment she saw where his eyes were focused, she frowned and questioned him unhappily.

As for Qin Ruoshuang, who had been stared at by Zhang Liu, she was now shyly lowering her head and remaining silent.

“It’s nothing… nothing!”

Startled by Anya’s words, Zhang Liu scrambled up from the sand like he was escaping, then rushed toward the grove where he had earlier collected firewood.

……………………………………

After Zhang Liu left, Anya and Qin Ruoshuang exchanged glances, both falling into silence.

At this point, the sun had shifted. The area where they had been trying to start a fire, which had been exposed to the sunlight, was now in the shadows.

The fire’s glow appeared even brighter, vivid and clear, no longer just distorting the air with heat.

The bonfire crackled before them, but the two girls sat quietly on the sand, having been wordless for at least half the afternoon.

Anya, who had brought over the coconut for roasting, still hadn’t cracked it open.

Occasionally, Qin Ruoshuang would throw thicker pieces of wood into the fire to keep it burning. Then the two of them would watch as the wood’s surface caught fire, burned into char, and eventually turned into ashes.

“…You didn’t take off your bra on purpose, did you?” In the end, it was Anya who broke the dead silence.

She turned her head to look at Qin Ruoshuang, her eyes filled with concern.

Unlike science-loving Qin Ruoshuang, Anya preferred the humanities—and she’d read her share of survival novels set on deserted islands.

In those stories, the female characters like flight attendants, teachers, and the like always ended up becoming the male lead’s women, competing for his favor with no bottom line.

Before, she hadn’t thought much of it, but after seeing Qin Ruoshuang shyly lower her head, Anya suddenly had this terrifying thought.

Could it be that Qin Ruoshuang was planning to make some advances?

“It’s not!” Qin Ruoshuang quickly shook her head. The reason she hadn’t spoken for so long was simply because she was shy and didn’t know how to explain herself.

Now that Anya had brought it up, Qin Ruoshuang honestly shared her thoughts.

There would be a time when she might end up without proper clothing, so she had taken off her bra to prepare in advance. The sponge padding inside could also be used for cleaning their lower bodies.

“Really… really?”

After hearing Qin Ruoshuang’s explanation, Anya’s expression gradually relaxed, and then she saw Qin Ruoshuang nod seriously in response.

“That’s good…”

Anya nodded, then cracked open the coconut and poured the coconut water into two prepared coconut shells, one for herself and one for Qin Ruoshuang.

Next, Anya started scooping out the coconut meat with a metal piece and cutting it into small pieces. She threaded them onto newly broken branches.

She was preparing to roast the coconut meat.

And just like the coconut water, she prepared two skewers, one for each of them.

“Anya, actually… there’s another reason I didn’t say anything earlier.”

Qin Ruoshuang placed her skewer on the upper part of the fire where the heat would roast the food. Although she had no barbecue experience, she knew better than to hold it too close and risk the stick catching fire or the coconut falling into the flames.

Then, as Anya blinked at her in confusion, Qin Ruoshuang slowly spoke: “I was worried… that you liked Zhang Liu, and seeing him look at my chest might have made you jealous.”

Anya was speechless for a moment. She mimicked Qin Ruoshuang’s pose, raising her own skewer toward the fire. Then she replied in a very serious tone:

“I thought about it a lot that day, and I realized that the feelings I had for Zhang Liu before were probably just the ‘suspension bridge effect’ or something like that.”

“You’re right, there’s no way anything could happen between me and Zhang Liu.”

“As soon as rescue comes, or we manage to escape, he’ll still be that orphan who lost his parents and has to take care of two younger sisters, and I’m the heir to the An family conglomerate. What future does he think he could offer me?”

Upon hearing this, Qin Ruoshuang stared blankly at Anya for a long time.

Finally, she sighed softly and whispered, “You’re right.”

“But that’s not what I meant. What I wanted to say was that after we escape, if something does happen between you two…”

Before Qin Ruoshuang could clarify her real thoughts, suddenly, there came an awkward cough from behind them.