After a series of babbling, Dennis finally realized that no one in the cave seemed to pay attention to him. He awkwardly shut his mouth and stared eagerly at the huge ammonite that Shen Lan was processing in his hands.

He was already used to Xia Chuan's reticence, after all, it wasn't the first day he knew Xia Chuan.

Three years ago, when Wes Company needed to deal with a batch of important experimental embryos, they had spent a lot of money to hire Xia Chuan. At that time, Dennis was only an assistant researcher.

He always remembered what Xia Chuan looked like when he first met him--

His skin was strikingly white among the other two Asians. When the sunlight shone on him, it seemed to be able to penetrate through him. His features were very good-looking, but because he always kept a straight face, he looked cold and aloof, exuding a strong "stay away from strangers" aura.

His 1.83-meter height was not very tall among a group of Europeans and Americans, but because of his good proportions, he looked tall and straight. He was dressed in a smoke-gray shirt and straight trousers, which was refined and neat, without any extra decorations.

In short, no matter how you looked at him, you couldn't tell that he was a person with high combat power. He looked more like someone who came out of an actuarial firm in the financial district across the street. Whenever he was there, Dennis's several female colleagues were particularly abnormal.

At that time, Dennis would go to the gym every week to put on a show, and also developed a set of muscles that looked pretty good. At first, he was very skeptical that Xia Chuan, whose "arms were not as thick as his", was a paper tiger. When his brain-dead disease attacked, he ran to test Xia Chuan several times, and each time ended with a dislocated wrist.

It was crisp and clear, making Dennis almost cry. And the duration never exceeded two seconds, the process was so straightforward that it was very predictable--

It was always Dennis who sneaked over to launch a sneak attack. Before he even touched a hair, he would jump up holding his wrist and howling. Before he could jump twice, his wrist was reconnected in seconds. The gap was simply that Xia Chuan unilaterally "beat up a kid", as if playing.

After several times, Dennis finally heard the only comment from Xia Chuan's mouth, who was as precious as gold. It was concise and to the point--you're sick.

It must be said that this comment was not wrong at all. Dennis was probably really a little sick, not something else, just a little cheap.

Of all the things he could believe in, he believed in an oriental proverb--"You can't make friends without fighting". He didn't care that other people's fights were evenly matched and well-matched, while he was unilaterally beaten up. He stubbornly felt that Xia Chuan's personality was particularly to his liking, and he was eager to make friends with him.

It had been three years.

In fact, in these three years, Xia Chuan had always been like a dragon, showing his head but not his tail. His contact with Dennis was not much. Nine out of ten times, it was Dennis who went to find him, and the remaining one time was a chance encounter. For Xia Chuan, they were more like casual acquaintances, but in fact, even if it was only to a casual degree, he had saved Dennis's life several times.

Moreover, with Xia Chuan's personality and invisible whereabouts, his so-called "casual acquaintance" had basically reached the top.

It's just that having an iceberg in your life circle is quite refreshing and cooling, but having one more makes you feel a little frozen...

Dennis quietly glanced at Shen Lan, who was sitting against the rock wall. This guy seemed to be half a pound and eight ounces with Xia Chuan, and also seemed to be a guy who was unwilling to pay attention to people. His eyes paused for a moment when he swept over the white cloth wrapped around Shen Lan's waist, feeling a little familiar for some reason.

He looked at his own bare upper body while touching it, feeling that he had fallen into such a miserable state, and even had a piece of clothing robbed, which was simply miserable and inhuman...

But when he looked from Shen Lan's fierce-looking eyebrows and eyes, all the way to his solid and full pecs and chocolate bar-like abs, he could only touch his own belly that had emerged in the past two years, and silently admitted his cowardice.

After drooling over the fragrant ammonite for a long time, he finally discovered something was wrong--

He originally thought that it was Xia Chuan who had dragged him to such a cave where he could temporarily stay. He had drowned in the water and consumed a lot of energy, and was a little overworked, so he had been lying down and was too lazy to move. In addition, under the illumination of the firelight in the cave, everything was a warm yellow, and it was not easy to see whether a person's complexion was pale or not.

But when Dennis came back to his senses from the temptation of food, he thought about it and felt puzzled. Xia Chuan had always been very vigilant. In such a godforsaken ghost place, would he lie down at ease and watch a stranger process food? Would he eat what was processed?

So he shuffled over to Xia Chuan's side and looked at him with some concern, saying, "Are you not feeling well, Chuan?"

At this time, Xia Chuan's throat was dry and astringent, and full of a bloody smell. He was too lazy to open his mouth, so he nodded his head meaningfully, then raised his right hand with three fingers, waved them, meaning "go back to where you came from, don't block the light".

Dennis subconsciously did as he was told. As soon as he turned his head and moved a step, he seemed to remember something and stopped, turning his head to look at Xia Chuan, "By the way! Before I passed out, wasn't there a Mosasaurus floating very close to us?! How did you drag me into this cave? Could it be that the Mosasaurus wasn't hungry, floated up to bask in the sun, and after getting enough sun, it sank back?"

At the mention of the Mosasaurus, Xia Chuan felt the pain in his back intensify, and couldn't help frowning. He was about to wave his hand again to drive away Dennis, who was "bringing up the unmentionable", when he heard two crisp "click" sounds coming from beside him.

The two of them looked in the direction of the sound and saw that Shen Lan had already broken the hard shell of the ammonite with his bare hands, neatly and cleanly, without even a drop of blood, and pulled out the flesh hidden in the shell of the ammonite in one go.

Xia Chuan had only seen fossilized ammonite shells in museums, and had never seen what an ammonite actually looked like inside the shell.

Now, when Shen Lan pulled out a whole ammonite flesh, the first thing he saw was a bunch of tentacles clustered underneath...

Because it had been roasted by the fire for a while, those tentacles had curled up, circling and entangling together, shortened by a section, making the head above look particularly large, somewhat out of proportion--overall, it looked like a close relative of an octopus or cuttlefish, and even the smell after roasting was somewhat similar.

Dennis silently wiped the corner of his mouth, "I've only seen the restoration diagram of ammonites, and haven't seen what they look like after being roasted..."

Xia Chuan took another look at the ammonite flesh, then silently turned his face away.

Shen Lan picked up the grilled cuttlefish and looked around to confirm it was cooked properly. He then stood up and strode over to Xia Chuan.

Despite there being plenty of space to stand, he purposefully and unabashedly squeezed himself between Xia Chuan and Dennis, essentially isolating Dennis behind him as if he didn't exist at all. He then held up the large grilled cuttlefish in front of Xia Chuan and waved it around.

Xia Chuan had a look of exasperation on his face.

Shen Lan was too tall and muscular, leaving Dennis helplessly stuck behind him. Dennis could only crane his neck out and stare longingly at the cuttlefish.

He explained on behalf of Xia Chuan, "This guy is superficial. He doesn't eat ugly-looking things, especially squids and octopuses with their big heads, tentacles, and a mix of cunning and stupidity..."

Shen Lan paused the waving motion of the cuttlefish in his hand upon hearing this.

Dennis continued, "Most importantly, those little suction cups on the tentacles really creep him out. If he looks at them for too long, he wants to slice them all off..."

Shen Lan: "..."

He grabbed a tentacle, pulled it straight to examine it, then quickly flipped it around a few times. Xia Chuan wasn't sure what he did, but when he turned to look, he saw Shen Lan holding a smooth tentacle without any suction cups, waving it in front of him as a sign to eat it.

Where did the suction cups go?

Just as Xia Chuan was puzzled, he noticed Dennis behind Shen Lan staring with a dumbfounded expression.

Following Dennis' gaze, he saw Shen Lan holding a pile of sliced off tentacles, all with the suction cup side facing up...

Xia Chuan: "..."

"How...how did you do that...do you have a blade hidden in your hand?" Dennis gaped as he picked up one of the tentacles, noticing the sliced surface was smooth and clean as if cut by something extremely sharp.

Unsurprisingly, this question was once again met with no response from Shen Lan.

Dennis was no longer bothered by being ignored. Rarely did his highness bestow him with food, and he was starving. Without being picky about hygiene or seasoning, he immediately picked up a tentacle and started eating.

This guy had a special trait - no matter what he ate, he always made it look delicious, making those around him feel a bit hungry too.

Xia Chuan watched for a bit, then lifted his heavy hand to take the much more appealing suction cup-less tentacle from Shen Lan. He took a small bite.

He had thought something so casually grilled would taste awful, but it actually wasn't bad once he put it in his mouth. Perhaps it was due to expending so much energy and being hungry for a long time.

Seeing that Xia Chuan was finally willing to eat something, Shen Lan quickly sliced off the remaining suction cups, leaving them for Xia Chuan and Dennis. He then took the cuttlefish head and walked around the fire towards the cave entrance.

Xia Chuan watched as his silhouette was mostly obscured by the firelight. Then with a leap, he jumped out of the cave entrance, followed by a loud splash.

But the splashing sound seemed a bit strange...it felt like a normal person diving into the water shouldn't make such a big splash, let alone Shen Lan, whose swimming ability was undoubtedly excellent, making it even less likely for him to cause such a commotion.

Dennis stood there dumbfounded with a grilled tentacle in his mouth. After a while, he scrambled to his feet and ran to the cave entrance. After looking around for a bit, he retreated back inside with a pale face, patting his chest in lingering fear.

He said to Xia Chuan, "Heavens! Outside the cave is the sea...a boundless sea. The moon is huge, and everywhere I look it's all glimmering. I can't even see where the shore is. How did you drag me here? And who was that guy just now? Is he mute? He doesn't seem to be able to talk...Is it really okay for him to jump into the sea like that? Will we see a floating corpse tomorrow?!"

Xia Chuan: "..."

As it turned out, they wouldn't be seeing any corpse, because a while later, just as the two were about to finish the large cuttlefish tentacles, a soft splash was heard and Shen Lan's familiar dark brown hair appeared at the cave entrance again.

He had made himself look like a drowned ghost again, dripping wet from head to toe. He walked around the fire, leaving a trail of wet footprints, and casually tossed a black object in front of Xia Chuan and Dennis.