Zhou Xuan had always been a man of few words. But once he voiced this opinion, most people felt more favorably toward him. It was clear that Zhou Xuan wasn't a skilled fighter, unlike them. After all, it wasn't easy for an ordinary person to have such thoughts. Better to live a wretched life than die a good death, right? And how many people aren't afraid of death?
Fu Tianlai remained outwardly calm, but his opinion of Zhou Xuan had indeed changed significantly. At least in the face of death, Zhou Xuan hadn't shown any cowardice. Secondly, he had dealt with Ying Meidao's siege with fierce fire. After Zhou Shang was about to be wounded, he managed to hold off the smaller targets in front of him. However, even if they were close, no one could afford to worry about him and Gao Yuzhen at that moment. Those who turned back were practically risking their lives to save him.
Even after Zhou Xuan fell to the ground, he still struggled to drag Gao Yuzhen backward. But just then, someone in the woods two hundred meters away suddenly opened fire. Although no one could be seen, the firepower was intense.
Brooklyn and Thomas were startled and immediately lay down on the spot. They didn't dare to rush forward until they figured out who was in the woods ahead.
But Zhou Xuan immediately realized that the fire from the woods was directed at the pirates on the sea behind them. The pirates, caught off guard by the sudden attack, panicked and quickly turned to retreat.
The firepower directed at Zhou Xuan's beach area weakened considerably. Zhou Xuan then spotted a graceful figure darting out of the woods, firing a semi-automatic rifle as she crouched and ran towards him.
Zhou Xuan was stunned for a moment, then stared wide-eyed at the person who rushed out of the woods. It was Fu Ying, his Yingying!
Zhou Xuan suddenly felt a surge of heat in his chest. His eyes welled up with tears, and he cried out, "Yingying!"
Fu Tianlai also saw that it was Fu Ying, and quickly told his bodyguards to turn around and shoot at the pirates to cover Fu Ying. More than ten people also rushed out of the woods.
After the pirates' fire weakened, Thomas immediately hoisted his rocket launcher, adjusted his firing point, and fired a shot. The shot was highly accurate, obliterating the leading motorboat that had been attacking them. The two people on board were also killed instantly; after the sparks subsided, only a few pieces of cloth remained on the sea surface.
Now that the enemy outnumbers us, and the pirates are not as strong or numerous as us, we quickly turned back and retreated when we saw that things were not going well. This time, we really retreated!
Fu Ying rushed over without hesitation, feeling that the short distance of a hundred meters seemed extremely far. She finally reached the spot where Zhou Xuan lay, knelt down, and desperately hugged him.
Zhou Xuan felt that the warm, soft little thing in his arms was real again; it really was Fu Ying in his arms.
He cuddled her tenderly for a while before gently pushing Fu Ying's head away. He looked at her carefully.
Fu Ying's face was covered in tears, her expression a mix of crying and laughing, her hair somewhat disheveled.
Zhou Xuan gently wiped away her tears with his finger, then said with a stern face, "Yingying, when I'm in danger, you insist on following me and never leave my side, but when you're in danger, you abandon me. How can you do this?"
Fu Ying choked back tears as she said, "I'm sorry, you...you're hurt!"
As she spoke, Fu Ying quickly let go of his hand and lowered her head to check Zhou Xuan's injuries.
Zhou Xuan's shot hit his thigh. The bullet lodged in his leg bone, which should have been a serious injury. However, just as the pirates retreated, Zhou Xuan transformed the bullet, absorbed it with his icy energy, and then used the same energy to quickly heal himself. Although he appears to be covered in blood, the injury has actually been reduced to only a few external wounds; the internal damage has healed by 90%.
When his life was in grave danger, there was no need for politeness. To treat oneself badly was to harm oneself, so Zhou Xuan wouldn't hesitate!
Fu Ying, of course, didn't understand, and quickly tore off a piece of her clothes to bandage Zhou Xuan's wound.
The pirates had vanished without a trace by this time, and Li Junjie and his squad came out to meet and talk to Fu Tianlai.
Gao Yuzhen woke up at this moment. Seeing that Zhou Xuan and Fu Ying were still in a daze, she realized that Zhou Xuan had saved her when she fainted during the most dangerous moment.
Gao Yuzhen hadn't figured out what was going on. Who was this stunningly beautiful girl in front of her? But judging from her actions with Zhou Xuan, she was clearly Zhou Xuan's lover. Gao Yuzhen had always found Zhou Xuan's identity mysterious, but from New York to here, she always felt that Zhou Xuan had a kind of approachable quality.
Fu Tianlai only learned about their situation from Li Junjie.
It turned out that Fu Ying's rescue team encountered the most powerful pirate group, Somali sailors, in the Gulf of Aden. After a fierce battle, their ship was blown up, and their satellite phones and other communication equipment fell into the sea. Fortunately, they were not far from the seabird and managed to escape to the island, where they held out for four days. However, with no ships passing by, they had no way to escape.
In the fierce battle with the pirates, six people died. With Fu Ying and Li Junjie, a total of sixteen people were left. Apart from their weapons, everything else was left in the sea. However, because they had weapons, the pirates who had fought with them and suffered heavy losses dared not come to this area when there were few people.
These past few days, Fu Ying and Li Junjie and their group of sixteen have truly suffered. There's no fresh water, no rain, no water source on the island, and no food. For the first two days, they managed to catch a few fish in the shallow waters, but later they couldn't even catch small fish and shrimp. Due to the terrain and currents, there are practically no fish in the shallow waters near the island, and no animals on the island. They can't hunt with guns, and with no food or water, no boats pass by. Twice, boats have passed by, but they were pirate ships.
Until today, when they encountered Zhou Xuan and his group, they initially mistook them for pirate speedboats. Because the designs were similar, they didn't dare run onto the beach to shout, fearing it would attract a large group of pirates and cause trouble. Later, seeing the people on the speedboat exchanging fire with several speedboats chasing after them, they finally realized they weren't Hai Ru Liu.
Then, as the yacht sped towards the beach, Fu Ying spotted Zhou Xuan and Fu Tian in the woods. Overjoyed, she was shocked to find Zhou Xuan had been shot. In a panic, she rushed out, but fortunately, the pirates were few in number and caught off guard, causing him to flee in disarray.
Upon hearing Fu Ying say she hadn't eaten or drunk anything for days, Zhou Xuan quickly turned back to the yacht to retrieve food and water, then rushed back. The others, seeing Zhou Xuan's swift movements, realized he seemed completely unharmed. They guessed the gunshot wound had only grazed him. Otherwise, even the strongest physique wouldn't have allowed him to appear so unscathed.
Zhou Xuan took out the food and distributed it to Fu Ying, Li Junjie, and the fourteen mercenaries. This group of elites was really starving, and they wolfed down the food.
Brooklyn frowned. This gluttonous eating and drinking meant they only had enough food for this one meal. They had enough water for about three days, but the yacht couldn't possibly carry so many people if they wanted to leave. They arrived with six people, and could only take five more at most—that was the limit. There would be eleven people left. If they ate all the food now, how would those left behind survive until rescue arrived?
Still worried about being spotted by pirates, they dared not light fires during the day, but at night they would build a fire in the woods, as there were still quite a few trees on the island. There were also many dead branches and decaying wood. Firewood was not in short supply.
Brooklyn and Thomas then called a few more mercenaries to tow the yacht to the beach, then secured the mooring lines. Two men were to stay on watch that night, taking turns during the first and second halves of the night, while the rest of the men retreated into the woods.
Before meeting Fu Ying, Zhou Xuan kept thinking about what he was going to do, but when he met her, he couldn't even say anything harsh. Fu Ying took his hand and sat down far away from the others by a big tree.
After cuddling for a while, Fu Ying said softly, "I knew that if you had known I left for this reason, you would have followed me. That's why I left those words, but you still came!"
"Fool!" Zhou Xuan said angrily, "If anything were to happen to you, do you think I would still be doing well?"
Fu Ying didn't speak, burying her face in Zhou Xuan's chest. Tears simply dripped down her cheeks.
Zhou Xuan sighed, and this time he didn't wipe it with his hands, but licked it with his mouth.
Fu Ying burst out laughing. Turning her head to wipe her tears, she muttered angrily, "Getting more and more shameless!" But though she said that, there was no real anger in her voice.
Zhou Xuan straightened his expression and said, "Yingying, your cousin's negotiations with the pirates in Somalia have confirmed that your parents are in a group of Somali sailors, but he doesn't know the exact address. I've been worried about you, but now it's all good. As long as we can find out where your parents are being held, things will be much easier!"
Upon hearing her parents mentioned, Fu Ying became extremely worried again, saying, "We've spent a lot of money gathering information, and we're basically certain that my parents aren't on any mainland in Somalia. If they're on an island in the Gulf of Aden, I suspect this group of pirates has a secret base on one of those islands, a base that no one outside the pirates knows about. The hostages they kidnap are blindfolded when they pass through certain places; if anyone sees them, they're immediately executed!"
Zhou Xuan also became worried, but not about the safety of Fu Ying's parents. The pirates had sent a negotiator to negotiate with Johnny, and if the hostages lost their lives, the negotiations would be meaningless. Usually, during negotiations, the hostages' relatives would demand evidence proving the hostages were alive. Zhou Xuan was worried about the lives of ordinary crew members, such as Gao Yuzhen's father. If the pirates wanted to intimidate the shipowners and force them to raise the ransom quickly, they would execute some ordinary crew members as a warning to others.
However, Somali pirates have a rule: they are very trustworthy. As long as the ship owner and the hostage's family are willing to pay, they will not harm the hostage, and once they receive the ransom, they will release the hostage safely.
The hostages are almost certainly being held by the Somali sailors, while the cargo ship belonging to the Fu family's freight company has been abandoned forty miles west of the Somali port. Johnny has ordered the ship to leave the Somali port and is currently anchored in a Kenyan port.
Gao Yuzhen walked gracefully over to Zhou Xuan and said, "Mr. Zhou, Mr. Fu asked me to invite you over, saying there's something he needs to discuss!"
Zhou Xuan nodded, got up and pulled Fu Ying up, and the three of them returned to the bonfire.
Fu Tianlai waved his hand at Zhou Xuan and Fu Ying and said, "Sit down and talk slowly."
After sitting down by the fire, Fu Tianlai looked at Zhou Xuan again and said, "Liu Wang Johnny called again. The negotiations with the Somali sailors have made great progress. A preliminary agreement has been reached to redeem the crew of the ocean liner for two million US dollars. Except for the captain and Yingying's parents and six other senior executives, the transaction will take place at noon tomorrow."