The ship, which seemed to have spawned out of thin air, anchored near the beach. Crew members tossed three yellow lifeboats tethered with ropes onto the sea.
A few fair-skinned young men rowed the rafts toward the shore.
On one of the rafts stood a man who looked like a reporter, a camera hanging around his neck. He frantically snapped pictures of the stranded cruise ship, the flash strobing rapidly. He kept pressing the shutter, and upon reaching the beach, he excitedly pointed the lens at Bai Mu and the grass tent he had built on the sand.
"Oh my God!"
"Oh my God!"
The man ran urgently toward Bai Mu. Out of pure habit, Bai Mu drew the spear from his waist. This sudden charging motion instantly reminded him of those frenzied Mutants.
In the apocalypse, seeing a shadow suddenly sprinting toward you was absolutely not a good sign.
Normally, he would draw his shotgun without a second thought and aim the muzzle right at the guy's head.
Most of the time, life and death were decided in a split second. The price of hesitation was death.
If it were not for the fact that the person in front of him could speak, had a rich array of facial expressions, and carried the undeniable aura of a living human, Bai Mu was certain that his spear would have pierced right through the guy's skull.
After thoroughly scavenging the sunken ship, his stone spear had been upgraded to an iron one. He also carried a pocket knife and a crowbar; he was practically armed to the teeth.
He tried his best to control his restless hands, but even so, his palms gripped the spear tightly.
He was used to remaining hyper-vigilant against everything around him. If this person did anything even slightly suspicious, he would draw and hurl his spear in one fluid motion.
At the same time, he was observing the composition of the group before him.
A total of nine people had arrived on the beach: eight young men in sailor uniforms and one half-bald middle-aged man with a camera.
These young men wore very thin clothes. It was summer, after all, and the temperature was scorching. Their pockets did not look like they concealed any weapons. If they were carrying firearms, there would be a noticeable bulge at their waists, but they were all traveling incredibly light.
Bai Mu could not smell any gunpowder. It seemed they had not brought any firearms at all. At most, they might have a small fruit knife, a wrench, or a lighter tucked in their pockets.
If he had to eliminate them, starting with the middle-aged man would be the most tactical approach.
This reporter-like man was slightly plump. In terms of strength and constitution, he was clearly inferior to those young sailors.
Bai Mu was confident he could subdue him in a single second. By wrapping an arm around the man's neck and using a sharp piece of iron to draw a little blood, the man would likely be too terrified to move a muscle.
After that, slicing the man's carotid artery would cause blood to gush out like a fountain. These young men, who had clearly never seen real bloodshed, would definitely freeze in shock, completely unable to react.
He could then use his spear to take out three of them right off the bat, then hurl the reporter's corpse into the crowd. The morale of these people would crumble instantly.
In a world where order had completely collapsed, he had encountered many lawless groups who tried to rob him of his food and his combat vehicle.
Yet the one who always survived in the end was Bai Mu. Without exception.
He instinctively mapped out an attack route in his head. He even assessed who among the nine had the highest status and most backing, based purely on their attire, grooming, and skin condition.
He perfectly envisioned a scenario where he held these people hostage.
After surveying the situation, he decided he had a fairly high chance of taking over the ship. Unfortunately, he did not know how to sail. If things truly escalated to a hostile takeover, he would not be able to pilot the ship away by himself.
The ignorant and completely defenseless demeanor of this group eventually made Bai Mu abandon the thought of launching an unprovoked attack.
He remained alert and watched quietly. When the reporter reached him, the man began snapping pictures from every angle, continuously muttering oh my God, as if he had just witnessed a genuine miracle.
Bai Mu found the reporter's accent very familiar. Was this not the exact same guy who had just spoken to him over the radio?
"Who are you?" Bai Mu asked, slightly hesitant.
"It's me!" the man replied with excitement after a brief pause, lowering his camera and pointing directly at his own face.
"Okay! Okay!"
It was as if the two had just exchanged a secret code. The young men finally caught up, their mouths hanging wide open as they looked around at Bai Mu's grass tent and the wooden pole rigged with an antenna.
...
Ten minutes later.
Bai Mu finally figured out who these people were. The reporter stood in front of the grass tent, communicating with Bai Mu in heavily accented but barely understandable Mandarin.
"Friend, my name is Stephen, a Reporter for The Times." Stephen enthusiastically extended a hand. "The rescue team has been searching the ocean for twenty days!"
"I really cannot believe you are still alive, oh my God!"
Seeing that Stephen did not mind the awful stench and mud covering his body, Bai Mu went ahead and shook his hand.
From the Reporter, Bai Mu learned that this group was a maritime rescue team sent specifically from Country A.
Twenty-five days ago, an extreme storm had battered this area of the ocean, and they received a distress signal. That stranded cruise ship apparently belonged to a wealthy heir and carried a high-premium rescue insurance policy. Thus, the rescue team was immediately mobilized to search the vicinity.
"Friend, that red button is the GMDSS satellite distress alert. Oh, right, GMDSS stands for the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System," Stephen said, pointing at the sky.
Stephen explained the exact function of that button to Bai Mu. Just as Bai Mu had guessed, it was indeed an automated alarm device.
Pressing it would connect to a satellite, automatically alerting ground radio stations and all nearby vessels.
According to Stephen, the rescue team had received a high-priority distress signal twenty days ago. The signal came from their VIP client, who paid an exorbitant insurance premium every single year.
According to the contract, they had to find the person if they were alive, and salvage the ship if they were dead. However, despite sweeping the surrounding area for twenty days straight, they could not find a single trace of the wreck.
It was not until the moment Bai Mu repaired the walkie-talkie and connected to the ship's radio that they were able to track the transmission signal and finally locate this Deserted Island.
What made Bai Mu feel a bit strange was that the rescue ship seemed to have searched the nearby waters numerous times, yet they were never able to find this incredibly conspicuous Deserted Island.
It was as if, right up until the moment Bai Mu fixed the radio and contacted them, this island simply did not exist on the ocean's surface. And Bai Mu had not been able to see their rescue ship either.
It felt like the so-called observer effect. To use a somewhat crude example, it was like how a child is only diligently doing their homework when a parent opens the door to check on them. Once the parent leaves, the reality of the child doing homework completely ceases to exist.
Only after Bai Mu repaired the radio did he finally establish a true connection with the rest of the world.
'Perhaps some kind of power from Paradise isolated me from the world,' Bai Mu mused quietly.
About twenty minutes later, the ship's doctor, wearing a white coat, also arrived on the sandy beach.
He brought along some simple instruments to measure Bai Mu's blood pressure, weight, and other basic vitals.
Stephen stood to the side, acting as a translator. "Bai, do not be afraid. The doctor is just giving you a standard physical checkup."
Bai Mu cooperated calmly. His special abilities as a Player allowed him to identify the exact functions of these instruments. They were indeed just ordinary medical equipment.
After reviewing Bai Mu's various basic vitals, the initially composed doctor started frantically exclaiming his own series of oh my Gods, just like Stephen.
"Is there something wrong with me?" Bai Mu asked.
Stephen translated, "No, Bai, you are healthy, incredibly healthy! He is asking if you are a professional athlete!"
"An athlete?" Bai Mu replied. "I do not think so. I have never participated in any sports events."
Stephen turned his head and relayed the message to the ship's doctor in a foreign language. "Doctor, he says he is not an athlete. He has never competed in any sporting events."
"I understand," the doctor said solemnly. "He must be a retired special forces soldier. SWAT team, rat-a-tat-tat, you know?"
A look of sudden realization washed over Stephen's face. He suddenly gave Bai Mu a vigorous thumbs-up, his expression full of profound admiration.
Afterward, Stephen took many more pictures of Bai Mu's tent, food reserves, and the improvised fish pond, declaring that he would definitely put Bai Mu's miraculous survival on the front page of The Times. This was going to be massive news.
The sailors followed Stephen around as well. The more they looked, the more amazed they became, and soon even more people came down to the beach to join the spectacle.
They acted like tourists visiting an exotic zoo, absolutely astounded by the equipment and structures Bai Mu had built from scratch on a Deserted Island.
When they learned that Bai Mu had manually repaired a waterlogged radio all by himself just to contact the rescue team, Stephen's jaw practically dropped to the sand.
"Oh my God!"
"You are practically Superman!"