She probably knew herself that this was unreasonable. After saying it, she shifted uncomfortably and straightened her back, then spoke in a haughty tone:

“I’ll pay you money at most — our family has plenty. Twenty million — is that enough?”

Du Lai looked at her and said nothing.

When he stared at someone like that, with no expression on his face, he looked somewhat unnerving.

The young miss bit her lip, and her attitude finally softened somewhat. “…My legs are genuinely hurting. My feet too — I can’t walk. Besides, if you leave me here alone and there’s a snake, what then? If I die, you won’t get your money.”

Du Lai looked at her for a moment, then suddenly smiled, gave a nod, and said: “Alright. Twenty million.”

The young miss: “……”

Du Lai crouched down in front of the young miss.

……

It was nothing.

Just carrying her a ways — one more million, which was quite a good deal.

People say a man’s knees hold gold — and he hadn’t even knelt, yet the gold was already in hand (provided, of course, that they could get off this island alive).

Du Lai carried her on his back and had her hold the cage, then set off into the jungle.

The vegetation near the coast wasn’t particularly dense — mostly low shrubs. But going deeper in, the trees pressed tightly together, and the path became increasingly difficult.

Du Lai didn’t push through recklessly; he’d walk a stretch and rest a moment, taking the opportunity to stop and mark trees as he went.

The young miss nervously scanned the surroundings, finding the jungle dim and gloomy, stuffy and damp. The hanging vines looked like slippery snakes, and the branches and leaves that occasionally brushed against her skin made her startled from time to time.

She kept worrying that some animal or insect might suddenly leap out…

While Du Lai marked the trees, she didn’t dare stray too far. She stayed close behind him and asked quietly: “Where are we heading right now? I’m so thirsty…”

Du Lai gripped a flat stone he’d picked up on the beach, pressing it firmly against a tree trunk and dragging it across, leaving an arrow-shaped mark.

This way, if a rescue team found the “SOS,” they could follow these marks to find the two of them.

“Heading to higher ground lets you survey the terrain. Heading to lower ground makes it easier to find water sources,” he explained. “The area near a water source is usually the most dangerous place — because creatures in the jungle also need water and may congregate there.”

The young miss was frightened hearing this. “Let’s just go back to the beach. I’d rather grit my teeth and drink seawater.”

Du Lai: “……”

He discovered this young miss was not only willful, domineering, unhinged, and unreasonable — she also had an extraordinary lack of common sense.

Seawater wasn’t something one could drink.

“The salt concentration of seawater is four times that of the human body’s fluids — it will only make you thirstier the more you drink. And the concentrations of various substances are very high; besides potentially causing human dehydration, in severe cases it can lead to poisoning,” Du Lai explained.

The young miss’s eyes grew red. “Then how long will it take us to find water?”

Du Lai: “I don’t know.”

Genuinely didn’t know.

Maybe a few more steps and they’d find a spring. Or maybe another few hours would still leave them wandering in this jungle. He had no way to offer any assurance.

Du Lai carried her on his back again and continued: “Even if we find a water source, it may not be drinkable. Spring water and streams in this kind of jungle are full of bacteria and parasites.”

The young miss was even more despairing. Lying against Du Lai’s back, she asked: “Then are we completely out of options?! Think of something! I can raise the price! Thirty million, forty million, fifty million! Giving you one hundred million is fine too!”

Du Lai nearly laughed out loud.

He understood now — talking to this young miss, one couldn’t take it seriously.

Taking it seriously would lead to anger. But if you simply treated her as someone foolish and ignorant, then listening to whatever she said left only amusement.