Actually, he had been hungry for a whole day and night.
As the saying goes, a growing child can starve their father, and at his age, his appetite was indeed increasing. Skipping a single meal made him incredibly hungry.
Cheyenne maliciously tempted him with food, and the boy eventually compromised.
“I can tell you, but you have to give me two pieces of bread! No, three!”
“As long as you answer me, I will give you three.”
Cheyenne indeed took out three pieces of bread and handed them to him.
The boy couldn’t wait to tear into one, wolfing it down.
He ate so fast that he almost choked.
Seeing this, Cheyenne also threw her water bottle to him, kindly advising, “Slow down, be careful not to choke.”
“Cough, cough… Thank you, thank you, Miss.”
The boy politely spoke, and after swallowing the food in his mouth, he began to answer her questions as promised.
“First tell me, who are you, and why are you on this island?”
“I, I’m Mike, from a nearby fishing village.”
It turned out that there were indeed people living on the island.
They were indigenous residents who had always made a living by fishing.
Before the “Natural Law” was enacted, people also came to the island to catch snakes for money, and they managed to scrape by.
However, just over a year ago, the nearby sea area suffered from severe water pollution, along with various natural disasters leading to a massive die-off of fish.
At the same time, the snakes on the island became much more ferocious than before, with more than a dozen villagers killed by venomous snakes.
Naturally, with their livelihood gone, people moved away.
Only some incapable elderly and children stayed behind.
They chose to continue barely surviving here, unwilling to leave the land their families had lived on for generations.
And more terrifying things followed.
The people who stayed began to show signs of a strange illness, suddenly transforming in appearance and becoming irritable.
They started attacking each other, with frequent clashes.
Those who once relied on each other for survival instantly turned against one another until one of them died.
“My grandfather was injured by my uncle while trying to protect us; he broke his leg because we had no money to seek medical treatment, so he could only lie in bed.”
“Miss, I didn’t mean to steal your things; I was just too hungry.”
After hearing his story, everyone felt he was just a pitiable child.
“By the way, where are your parents?”
Mike gloomily hung his head and said morosely:
“My dad was trying to earn tuition for my sister and me, but he was accidentally bitten and killed by a Blue-ringed serpent.”
“My mom saw that our home was too poor, so she took my youngest brother and remarried, and she wouldn’t let us see her.”
“That’s one of the deadliest snakes in the world, your dad was really brave to even touch it,” Old Bray said.
Hearing this, Mike’s eyes reddened, and with tears in his eyes, he said reproachfully.
“It’s all my fault, it was my tenth birthday that year.”
“Dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said I wanted to go to school.”
“To gather tuition for me, he heard that Blue-ringed serpents were very valuable and risked his life to catch one.”
If time could be reversed, he would never have made that request, so his dad wouldn’t have died.
Cheyenne, feeling very sympathetic, patted his shoulder and then took out two pieces of chocolate from her bag for him.
“Final question, are there any other people on this island besides the people from your village?”
Mike stared straight at the chocolate in her hand; he had seen this thing in the hands of foreign tourists before. They said it was expensive.
“If I answer that, can I have this…?”
“Yes, it’s all yours,” she said with a smile.
“Actually, I don’t know either. It’s too dangerous on the island, most of the time my grandpa doesn’t let me go too far.”
“But over a month ago when I went out to gather herbs, I vaguely saw monsters in the woods.”
“Monsters?”
Cheyenne would rather believe there were ghosts in this world than monsters. Old Bray, on the other hand, became interested and asked, “Did you really see monsters? What do they look like? You might as well tell me about it.”
Mike also saw them at night, but the night was too dark for him to see clearly.
“Those monsters are very tall, all dark green, with eyes bigger than bullfrogs, and they make clanging noises when they walk.”
“When I went back and told grandpa, he said they might be dark spirits in the forest, specialized in eating people, and forbade me from going there again.”
About dark spirits, they were like ghosts but not ghosts, with their own bodies but unable to speak. This was just a local legend.
“Where is that place you’re talking about, take us there.”
Mike, frightened, turned pale and kept shaking his head.
“No, I won’t go, grandpa said the dark spirits will eat me.”
“Don’t worry, if there are any, they’ll eat us first. I’ll protect you.”
Still hesitating, Mike was grabbed by the collar by Iker and carried away.
“That’s settled then. If you don’t go, I’ll take you to the police station for punishment!”
“Let me go, you bad person. I didn’t steal anything, didn’t I return the bag to you?”
Under the coercion and threats, Mike reluctantly led them back to the village.
They lived by the water, with houses built on boats, and usually ate, drank, and relieved themselves on board.
Due to the strange disease, people scattered away.
Only a broken boat remained ashore, giving the scene a desolate and barren look.
They seemed very exclusive; seeing their group, they all showed a defensive posture, brandishing knives.
Fortunately, Mike stepped forward and explained to them, so they put away their knives and retreated to the cabins.
Kelvin and the others met Mike’s grandfather.
The old man was stooped with white hair, leaning on a cane, standing on the deck watching them.
And standing beside him was a little girl who looked only seven or eight years old, dressed in rags, with a thin face.
It seemed obvious that she suffered from malnutrition due to long-term lack of nutrition.
The little girl’s name was Baylee. She fell seriously ill at the age of three and has not been able to speak since then.
Shy, she hid behind her grandfather. “If Baylee became deaf and mute due to illness, maybe I can help. I’m a doctor.”
Mike had long wanted to take his sister to the hospital on the other side.
Unfortunately, he had no money, and even if he went ashore, he could not afford the huge medical expenses.