SDIWD - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hua Mu sat in a daze, her mind blank, mechanically using the stalk she'd used to drink the coconut water to poke at the flesh and stuff it into her mouth.

Bai Zhen seemed to want to say something, but ultimately remained silent and began to work on the other half of the hollowed-out coconut shell. She hadn't had a drop of water since the disaster, and her lips were already chapped and white. The atmosphere grew heavy, broken only by the sound of her small knife scraping against the shell.

Hua Mu suddenly turned her head to look at Bai Zhen, a thought that terrified her flashing through her mind.

In other words, from this moment on, her survival depended entirely on this Sentinel. If Bai Zhen abandoned her, she wouldn't even be able to open a coconut on her own.

Sentinels have keen senses. Bai Zhen immediately noticed Hua Mu's gaze and thought she had another order.

"Miss?"

Hua Mu's heart tightened, and she quickly averted her gaze.

Putting aside her past attitude, her words and actions just now had been bad enough. Would Bai Zhen suddenly remember all this, realize how awful she was, and then abandon her?

Or would she simply take revenge, get even, and beat her up?

This unprecedented situation made Hua Mu's mind race with wild thoughts.

Although the Sentinels from the Tower were highly loyal, and a guard assigned to an heir to the throne was one in ten thousand, nothing was certain in a situation like this. Even if she killed her, no one would ever know when she got back!

"Miss, are you feeling unwell anywhere?"

The more Hua Mu thought, the more uneasy she became. She even felt that Bai Zhen's current behavior was very strange.

She used to avoid speaking unless absolutely necessary, so why was she now taking the initiative to ask after her?

In truth, Bai Zhen was quite worried about Hua Mu. Forget a Grand Duke's daughter like her; even a Sentinel from the Tower like Bai Zhen rarely encountered such a helpless, isolated situation. But she had never been good with words and was especially nervous around Hua Mu. At this moment, she had no idea how to comfort her.

"…" Hua Mu suddenly handed the half-eaten coconut to Bai Zhen, turning her face away as she said, "You don't seem to have eaten anything yet…"

She felt she should show some concern, or at least soften her tone, but the moment she saw Bai Zhen's face, any gentle feelings vanished.

Did she really have to curry favor with her? To be subservient to a face that had never even smiled at her?

She was just her guard, her shadow. Weren't loyalty and obedience supposed to be in her nature?

A torrent of thoughts rushed through Hua Mu's mind, and her previously wavering tone suddenly became firm and confident.

"I can't finish this. You eat it."

Bai Zhen was taken aback, staring hesitantly at the coconut shell Hua Mu offered. Half a day had passed since their arrival, and out of concern for Hua Mu's safety, she hadn't yet had time to survey the island. With no guaranteed long-term source of food and water, she had to save enough supplies for Hua Mu. As a Sentinel, she could maintain over eighty percent of her combat effectiveness for a week without water and half a month without food. That was sufficient for most situations, so she had to conserve whenever possible.

"Miss, I… I'm not hungry. If you can't finish it, why don't you set it aside for now? Is there anything else you'd like to eat? How about fish?" It was rare for her to say so much at once. Hua Mu, already fuming at Bai Zhen's obvious hesitation, grew even more annoyed at her words.

Sometimes, she didn't even know what she was angry about. She just felt angry whenever she saw Bai Zhen.

"What? Are you disgusted because I've already eaten from it? I'm not going to eat it after it's been sitting out. If you don't eat it, I'm throwing it away." As she spoke, she made to throw the coconut on the ground, startling Bai Zhen into quickly reaching out to catch it.

Every bit of food and water was precious now. Moreover, coconut flesh was rich in fat, protein, and vitamins; of course, none of it could be wasted.

"That's not what I meant… Thank you, Miss." At that moment, Bai Zhen truly hated her own clumsy tongue. She understood Hua Mu's anxiety in this situation perfectly well but had no idea how to comfort her.

Seeing her take it, Hua Mu said no more. She felt a little relieved that Bai Zhen was willing to eat, but also uneasy about her own less-than-kind attitude.

Did that count as buying her off?

Bai Zhen didn't use the stalk Hua Mu had used, instead scraping the flesh out with her small knife. She ate extremely quickly and cleanly, finishing it in just a few bites.

Watching her eat the flesh she had half-eaten without a moment's hesitation, Hua Mu felt her cheeks grow warm. She had to turn her head away and speak to distract herself.

"So, what should we do now?"

Bai Zhen had actually already thought it through, but since Hua Mu had seemed to be in a bad mood, she had wanted to give her some time to adjust first.

"For now, we can only hope for a rescue party and try to make obvious signals with rocks and smoke." That was the plan, but as she had thought before, the question was how long it would take the guards to realize they were missing.

Plus, this area was already the Shipwreck Anomaly Zone, so the difficulty of a search and rescue mission was easy to imagine.

"Then we need to start a fire?" Hua Mu frowned, slightly resentful that she was only mentioning it now. She'd heard that starting a fire by drilling wood took a lot of time, and it was already mid-afternoon.

"I have a fire starter." Although Bai Zhen wasn't good with words, she wasn't incapable of reading expressions. As she spoke, she took out a black, iron-rod-like object from the small pouch on her waist.

Only then did Hua Mu remember that she was, after all, a Sentinel, and would naturally carry some useful items on her person—unlike herself, who was empty-handed save for a necklace and a tattered dress.

She looked at Bai Zhen again and noticed that her guard uniform was almost completely undamaged. Black trousers, heavy leather combat boots, a sky-blue shirt with a black tank top peeking out from underneath, and a small but fully packed satchel at her waist.

"Ahem, well then, let's take out everything we have on us and then figure out a plan for the future." Hua Mu said it grandly, but she really just wanted to see what other useful things Bai Zhen had on her.

She was very aware of her own limitations. She was not cut out for manual labor and would never survive alone on a deserted island. She could only pin all her hopes on Bai Zhen, but she couldn't fully trust her right now, so she had to both try to win her over and be on guard.

Bai Zhen, suspecting nothing, obediently began to take things out.

Not to mention the military combat pouch on her waist, there was a dagger in her boot, a mini-grenade in a side pocket, and various blades and small gadgets hidden in the seams of her pants. After taking off her shirt, she revealed a lean but powerful body, and three guns in a holster at her waist.

Hua Mu stared, dumbfounded. Even her earlier embarrassment and annoyance at seeing her undress vanished. She pointed at the pile of things on the ground and asked, "Did you know we were going to be shipwrecked?"

Bai Zhen was baffled by the question and shook her head subconsciously.

"Then you carry all this stuff with you every day?"

She was practically a walking armory, wasn't she? Putting aside how heavy it all must be, how on earth did she hide so many things under such thin clothing?

Even though Hua Mu had watched her take everything out with her own eyes, she still found it incredible.

Bai Zhen nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Hua Mu took a deep breath, telling herself not to overreact as she took inventory of the items Bai Zhen had produced.

Three standard-issue pistols, each loaded with eight rounds. In addition, there were three portable twenty-round magazines.

A mini palm-sized pistol, no bigger than half a pen, with a single, non-reloadable bullet. Two mini-grenades, no bigger than walnuts, a dagger, and a multi-purpose military knife.

There were also several small items like blades, a compass, a whistle, a watch, and a few other things she couldn't name.

Next was the main event: the pouch Bai Zhen unfastened from her waist. The pouch was divided into many small pockets. Besides the fire starter she had just taken out and the multi-tool knife she had used earlier, there were also quite a few medical supplies and a roll of something that looked like thin steel wire.

"What's this?" Hua Mu, feeling a strong sense of crisis, asked about anything she didn't recognize.

Bai Zhen patiently explained the use of each item.

"What's in here?" The various emergency medical supplies finally put Hua Mu a little at ease. Her gaze finally landed on a special little metal box. The small metal box was only slightly larger than a business card holder. Inside was a blister pack of white pills, a mini-syringe, and several pills in foil packets.

Most of the other emergency medicines were just one or two pills, but the contents of this box seemed particularly plentiful.

Hua Mu picked up the blister pack of white pills and counted. She saw that a third of them were already gone, leaving only sixteen.

Was it a medication she took regularly?

She looked at Bai Zhen, only to find that the other woman was blushing, looking as if she found it difficult to speak.

"What is this?" Hua Mu had been considering whether to adopt a gentler approach with this Sentinel, but her question still carried the tone of a superior.

"They're… the Little White Pills… issued to Sentinels by the Tower."

The so-called Little White Pills were artificial Guide-hormone.

Sentinels' five senses were extremely acute, which gave them a huge advantage in many operations. Of course, this also brought them immense trouble. Without a barrier in place, any slight sound or touch could make them irritable and frantic, even causing fugue states.

The probability of Sentinels and Guides appearing was extremely low. As the nation's precious assets, they were sent to the Tower upon awakening to receive guidance and training. In the past, these Sentinels and Guides would later be assigned to the military or other institutions to serve the country.

However, as it was now a time of peace and human rights had further developed, the Tower was divided into inner and outer sections. Sentinels and Guides from the Outer Tower could have other options after passing through their critical period.

But Sentinels like Bai Zhen, who came from the Inner Tower, were still assigned high-difficulty missions.

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