He reached back, snatched the rifle from his shoulder, and prepared to fire a signal shot into the sky.

Seeing his master pick up that loud thing again, Vajra, who was beside him, was so startled he scrambled into the cave. His head peeked out in a panic, his eyes glued to Fang Chenyi’s hand.

Fang Chenyi’s finger quickly found the trigger, but just as he was about to fire, he hesitated.

If it were Qi Xiaotian and the others, that would be fine. They knew he had a gun; upon hearing a gunshot, they might come looking for him.

But if it wasn’t them—just a ship passing by—they would probably turn around and avoid the area to steer clear of trouble after hearing a gunshot.

At this thought, he gently eased his finger off the trigger. His eyes, however, remained fixed on the distant sea.

"Sigh... Damn it all, why didn’t I put a pair of binoculars in the woven bag?"

Muttering to himself, he broke into a run toward the coast.

Seeing that his master didn’t make the stick sound like thunder, Vajra finally trotted closely behind Fang Chenyi toward the shore.

Gazing up at the sun, which was now climbing almost directly overhead, Fang Chenyi’s mood was simply beyond words.

He raised his wrist to check the time. It was 9:30 AM on September 19th. Nine whole days had passed since he first arrived here.

In those nine days, he had been swamped by the sea and chased by sharks. He had suffered through the rainforest and baked under the sun. And the island’s mosquitos and other insects had never, for a moment, stopped biting him.

He looked down at his expensive suit, now torn to tatters, and his scuffed leather shoes. A bitter taste filled his mouth.

But he also knew that if it weren’t for the woven bag he carried, he would have been a pile of bones by now.

’That’s just my situation,’ he thought. ’As for everyone back home... I wonder if my parents and Menghan know what happened to me. I pray Xiaojin hasn’t told them yet, or they’ll all be worried to death.’

But Fang Chenyi knew that with Xiaojin’s personality, she would never be able to keep it a secret; in fact, she wouldn’t even try.

He took a deep, steadying breath, forcing his uneasy heart to calm. ’I’ve survived nine days. What’s a little while longer?’

He just didn’t know if the approaching vessel was his own *Ocean Harmony*.

He stood on the shore, gazing out at the sea, but aside from the glittering surface of the water, there was no sign of any ship.

Even so, Fang Chenyi continued to scan the horizon without pause.

As for Vajra, he had long since propped himself against a large rock and was snoring soundly.

...

On the boat, after finishing breakfast, Bai Menghan once again stood on the deck, gazing into the distance. Meanwhile, Qi Xiaotian, who was checking their fuel consumption, suddenly received a message on his satellite mobile terminal.

He wiped the grease from his hands and opened the terminal. A moment later, a satellite map appeared before his eyes.

The message was the satellite map Demo Did had procured from the royal family. It was a huge map, covering the entire Indian Ocean. Every island and large reef on it was marked with perfect clarity.

Upon seeing the message, Qi Xiaotian didn’t hesitate. He immediately began inputting their current coordinates and cross-referencing them to identify nearby islands.

A moment later, the search yielded results. Within a two-thousand-nautical-mile radius of their current position, there were thirteen islands and twenty-one large reefs.

Within one thousand nautical miles, there were seven islands and eleven large reefs.

When he narrowed the search to within five hundred nautical miles, only one island and four large reefs remained.

Seeing this, Qi Xiaotian hurried over to Bai Menghan and handed her the terminal:

"Sister-in-law, Demo Did sent the satellite map. There’s only one island and four large reefs within five hundred nautical miles of our current position. And from what I can tell, the route that dolphin was leading us on seems to be heading directly for that island."

His voice trembled with excitement as he said this.

’This means Brother Fang might really be alive, and he’s likely on that very island!’

Qi Xiaotian realized this, and so, of course, did Bai Menghan. She took a deep breath.

"Haaah... What’s the exact distance to the island? And do we have enough fuel to get there?"

The question made Qi Xiaotian freeze. In his excitement, he had completely forgotten to check.

He immediately lowered his head and quickly began to check the terminal.

"Sister-in-law, the island is one hundred and seventy nautical miles away. It’ll take us three hours to get there. I just checked the fuel as well; we have enough for nearly three hundred nautical miles."

Hearing this, Bai Menghan breathed a sigh of relief.

"That’s good. As long as we can make it there, that’s all that matters. How much longer until the *Ocean Harmony* gets here?"

"At least three days," Qi Xiaotian replied without a second thought.

After hearing this, Bai Menghan simply told him to have them continue their normal search pattern for now, and not to rush to their position at full speed until after she had landed on the island.