Not only him, but the expressions on Xia Chuan and the other two's faces were also quite spectacular.

"I finally understand why I saw such a bizarre scene..." Dennis said with a mouthful of blood, struggling to squeeze out this sentence from his throat, "Is this God's way of messing with us?"

Xia Chuan knew that Dennis didn't like children. He had heard Dennis complain more than once: "If they could just sit there quietly and play by themselves all day, without making trouble or dragging me to play illogical and unenjoyable games with them, I might be able to tolerate being with them."

Xia Chuan himself had no particular feelings towards children, neither liking nor disliking them. To be precise, he was not good at getting along with such little things, so he avoided them whenever possible. As for Shen Lan... he turned his head and looked at Shen Lan's face that looked like he had swallowed a fly, and felt that he wouldn't be much better than himself and Dennis.

Among the four of them, perhaps only Professor Linton would chuckle and tease children when he saw them, but definitely not in this situation.

Even the most child-loving person, upon hearing this series of descriptions about doomsday at such a critical moment, would inevitably take a healthy step forward to stop it. In fact, Professor Linton did just that - when the little boy was about to open his mouth to continue, he hurriedly raised his hand and covered his mouth.

"Hmm?" The little boy looked at him blankly, full of questions.

The slightly plump woman sitting next to him was very surprised by Professor Linton's actions and asked with wide eyes, "What's wrong?"

Being asked like this, the old man realized that he had done a stupid thing - what happened outside was related to what people were thinking in their minds, so just covering his mouth was useless!

Just as he rushed to the little boy's face, Xia Chuan beside him reacted. He grabbed the flashlight from Dennis's hand, dangled it on his fingertips and swung it around a few times, sweeping the cold white light around the eyes of those few people, attracting everyone's attention.

He really didn't like to talk much. Many topics he was too lazy to engage in, and even when he did speak, it was always short sentences of one or two lines, which was considered abnormally talkative compared to Shen Lan.

But now, he unprecedentedly took the initiative to start the conversation: "The few of us are indeed passengers on the same cruise ship as you, and our experiences after the ship sank are generally similar to yours, or even more thrilling. I'm not very clear about where you first woke up, how far you walked to get to this area, how you discovered this stone cave, and how long you have been hiding here, but-"

When Xia Chuan grabbed the flashlight and was about to speak, Dennis and Professor Linton were stunned. They had known Xia Chuan before and naturally knew his temperament, so they found his actions very surprising. What was even more surprising was that he actually said such a long paragraph as soon as he opened his mouth.

Dennis and Professor Linton looked at him in a daze, their jaws almost dropping.

But in such an urgent situation, was it really appropriate to lay out such a long preamble? The two were puzzled while being surprised, after all, Xia Chuan didn't seem like someone who couldn't distinguish between the important and the trivial.

"What's going on..." Dennis lowered his voice and poked Professor Linton's shoulder with his finger.

"How would I know..." Professor Linton was equally puzzled. But after running around for the past few days, the two of them had developed the habit of "following Shen Lan and Xia Chuan basically can't go wrong", so although they didn't understand, they didn't interrupt.

But Shen Lan was different. He basically had the most say along the way. If it were someone else rambling on like this, he would have slapped them back long ago. But even if it was Xia Chuan, after listening for a few sentences, he couldn't hold back anymore.

This overlord was seen raising his hand to pat Xia Chuan's shoulder, hooking him and pulling him back a step, leaning to his ear and saying, "Why are you saying so much, just get to the point." After saying that, he was about to speak to the crowd.

"Hey-" Xia Chuan seemed to want to stop him, but Shen Lan's hand that was hooking his shoulder lifted and conveniently covered his mouth. Then he said to the crowd in a decisive manner: "Most of the things in your mind will come true. If you don't want to die, don't think about anything unnecessary!"

Simple and crude, cutting straight to the key point!

That's what Shen Lan himself thought, and even Dennis and Professor Linton had the same thought at that moment. But Xia Chuan, whose mouth was covered by him, seemed quite speechless.

He could feel Xia Chuan sighing the moment he finished speaking, very lightly, but the breath swept over his palm.

Hiss - it tickled.

Shen Lan moved his fingers a little uncomfortably, thinking this way.

His straightforward words obviously had a significant impact - the people huddled in the stone cave were stunned at first, as if they didn't understand what he was saying. A few seconds later, they gradually understood, and then everyone's eyes widened, showing an extremely frightened expression.

At that moment, Shen Lan subconsciously raised his other free hand to scratch his cheek, feeling that something seemed wrong. Immediately after, he reacted with wide eyes: "Wait!"

He finally understood why Xia Chuan was so abnormally talkative - to gradually let these people slowly approach the truth, so that when they heard the final sentence, their acceptance would be much higher and their panic level would be relatively lower.

If Shen Lan told them the facts directly without any preamble like this, normal people would have a period of reaction in shock and disbelief - they would subconsciously recall the various things that happened outside, then recall the brain holes they had opened and the words they had said before, find the same parts, and then exclaim "Oh my God, it's really like this!" After that, they would remember in a panic "Oh, I should shut my brain!"

Even if such a reaction period may only last a few dozen seconds, the combined brain holes produced by so many people in their recollections would be enough to make the outside world even worse!

"Heavens-" The first to speak was the bald man, "It seems, it seems to be true..."

Shen Lan lowered his head, and the hand that was scratching his cheek silently wiped his face. At the same time, he felt the hand covering Xia Chuan's mouth being removed by someone. He peeked out from between his fingers, only to meet Xia Chuan's expressionless face head-on.

Xia Chuan: "Is covering your face useful?"

Shen Lan quickly shook his head, closing the gaps between his fingers.

Xia Chuan: "..."

He had just swatted Shen Lan's paw off his shoulder when a huge boom resounded, shaking the entire stone cave. The sharp stone swords on the cave's ceiling were shaken loose and came whistling down. Everyone scrambled to avoid them, screams erupting all around, the noise making Shen Lan's head ache.

He and Xia Chuan moved almost simultaneously - after swiftly pulling away several people who were nearly skewered by the falling stone swords, they cleanly used their hands as blades, knocking out four people in the blink of an eye, one after another.

Just as Shen Lan's hand chop was about to land on the chubby woman's neck, he felt both his legs being hugged tightly.

He paused, lowered his head, and saw the little blond boy hugging his right leg, looking up and saying softly, "I'll behave, don't hit my mom."

Shen Lan's mouth twitched. Who wants to hit her? If he doesn't knock everyone out, they'll all be done for. As he hesitated, the one on his left leg also spoke up. The big-eared man said earnestly, "My imagination is extremely poor, it makes no difference if I'm unconscious or not, really..."

Shen Lan: "..."

Dennis, who was rolling on the ground hugging his black backpack, lifted his head to sense for a moment and said, "The shaking has stopped."

The big-eared man had an innocent look of "See? I told you it has nothing to do with me." The chubby woman also carefully said, "I won't let my thoughts run wild, and I'll make sure Allen understands too."

As she spoke, she glanced at the little blond boy. Seeing that Shen Lan had no intention of knocking them out, she quickly pulled the little guy back into her arms.

"If we cause any more problems, don't just knock me out, you can beat me to death and I won't resist," the big-eared man immediately vowed. The woman hurriedly nodded in agreement, and even the little boy softly said, "Won't resist."

"..." Xia Chuan and the others felt like they had inexplicably experienced what it was like to be a bully.

Shen Lan swept an unhappy glance at the little boy, thinking what does this little thing even understand about not resisting.

But he wasn't really a bully. Since the shaking had stopped, leaving the three of them conscious for a while shouldn't be a problem. Thinking this, he withdrew his hand and patted Xia Chuan's hand holding the flashlight. "Let's go take a look."

Without Shen Lan spelling it out, Xia Chuan also knew he meant to investigate the source of that huge boom just now.

He nodded, signaled to Professor Linton and the others, then picked up the flashlight and followed Shen Lan out of this side passage, one in front and one behind.

But as soon as they walked into the main passage of the cave, they discovered a problem - the faint light from the cave entrance was nearly gone, with only a thin crescent-shaped sliver remaining.

"It hit the entrance." Xia Chuan swept the flashlight and saw the area in a mess. Obviously, the fallen meteorite not only blocked the entrance, but also knocked down a pile of rubble, causing the entrance to nearly completely collapse.

"That gap is too small even for a child to crawl out." After walking some distance, Shen Lan crossed his arms and said this, then turned his head and pointed his chin towards the third side passage. "Going out that way is the same."

As he spoke, Xia Chuan shone the flashlight around each corner. But he must have illuminated somewhere, because a black shadow about the size of a monkey suddenly lunged at Xia Chuan. The shadow seemed to have wings and moved extremely fast. Xia Chuan reacted immediately, stepping back and to the side to avoid it.

But because it was too fast and he wasn't paying attention to his footing, he tripped on a protruding hard rock. He staggered back two steps, his back colliding with Shen Lan's chest, slamming the already wall-leaning Shen Lan against the wall with a "smack".

Xia Chuan felt a bit awkward, but also puzzled. With Shen Lan's physique and strength, even if he took a running leap at him, Shen Lan should be able to stand rooted like a tree. How could just staggering back a couple steps be enough to slam him against the wall?

Then he heard Shen Lan let out an exaggerated "ouch" and shamelessly point to his chest and back, saying, "Gravely injured."

Anyone who believed him was an idiot.

Xia Chuan didn't even bother lifting an eyelid as he made to stand up straight and walk back. But Shen Lan hooked an arm around his neck, immobilizing him in his unbalanced position.

"Look how you slammed me against the wall, that makes us even for when I covered your mouth earlier," Shen Lan said.

Xia Chuan: "...Are you in elementary school?!"