"Besides, there are guard patrols on this Winter Extension Island, and various factions keeping tabs on each other. Avoiding every negative factor while trying to escape this place is nearly impossible. In the entire history of this island, the number of people imprisoned here must be in the billions at the very least, but the number who successfully escaped doesn't exceed ten. Do you have any idea what that means?"
The skinny man fired the question back at Jiang Chen.
Hearing this, Jiang Chen didn't believe it. He turned to the towering man in the iron tower build and asked, "Is what your skinny monkey of a brother saying actually true?"
"Pah! I don't have a brother like him — spineless, scared of his own shadow. On this Winter Extension Island, the ones who fear death are always the first to die!"
The iron tower man glowered at Jiang Chen with bloodshot eyes. "I'm not afraid of you. Kill me if you want — I've had more than enough suffering on this damned island!"
Jiang Chen said coldly, "You don't even fear death, and yet you're afraid of speaking the truth?"
The iron tower man froze. "What?"
Jiang Chen frowned. "I'm asking you — is everything he said the truth?"
The iron tower man sneered mockingly. "Are you really out of your mind, trying to escape this place? Let me tell you — give up on that notion right now. The skinny monkey exaggerated, sure, but most of what he said is true. In tens of thousands of years, the number of people who escaped from here absolutely doesn't exceed ten!"
This iron tower man, despite his unsettling preference for male company that had given Jiang Chen goosebumps all over, didn't seem like the type to speak without thought. He was far more credible than that skinny monkey.
Jiang Chen nodded and released the iron tower man at once. "You can go."
The iron tower man was stunned. "You're letting me go? Aren't you afraid I'll turn on you? Or go and inform on you?"
Jiang Chen shrugged. "That's your business."
The iron tower man stood there dazed. On this Winter Extension Island, someone was actually sparing his life? That went completely against the island's logic of survival.
Here, the rules were simple — either you die, or I do.
He almost wondered if this young lord was deliberately toying with him, planning to hunt him down once he fled, or perhaps he had some peculiar hobby of chasing prey? Letting him go was just so he could play the role of quarry?
"What's wrong? Don't want to leave?" Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow. "If you really don't want to go and prefer to end things yourself, I won't object."
Jiang Chen looked perfectly at ease.
The iron tower man stood there speechless for a long moment. "You're really letting me go?"
"By the way, you can deal with this skinny monkey too. In principle, I don't want to kill him, but he's truly disgusting. I can't stand him."
Without a second word, the iron tower man strode over.
The skinny monkey shrieked desperately, "My lord! My lord! I've told you everything — just let me go, let me go! Don't kill me, I'll get on my knees and lick your—"
Jiang Chen felt a wave of revulsion. Even the iron tower man's eyes flashed with fury. "You've completely disgraced me, you bastard."
With that, he raised his massive palm-sized foot and brought it stomping down.
Crack!
The skinny monkey's head burst open like a watermelon.
Jiang Chen smiled faintly. "Well done."
The iron tower man stared at Jiang Chen. "You're really not going to kill me?"
"Do you want me to that badly?" Jiang Chen replied with a half-smile. "If you're still uneasy, maybe share a bit more of the information he didn't cover. Perhaps in a good mood, I'll let you live even longer."
The iron tower man let out a long sigh. "Fine then. You young lords — you probably offended someone in your clan and got exiled to this place. Perhaps you still don't know just how terrifying this island is. If you truly understood, you might not be smiling anymore. Let me tell you plainly — the three of us are nothing but the bottom rung of Winter Extension Island. My strength is barely enough to scrape by in the outer fringe zones, and even then I have to watch my back every single day. Those exaggerated titles we gave ourselves, the way we talk and act — it's all just bluff, trying to intimidate people with sheer bravado before anything else."
The iron tower man was, in his own way, remarkably honest.
He didn't conceal a thing about their status as the island's lowest tier.
"If the three of you are the bottom rung, then what level is the strongest on this Winter Extension Island? Celestial Realm?"
"Celestial Realm is a given. I've heard that the strongest might even be at the Greater Celestial Realm. But those are just rumors — nobody's actually seen a Greater Celestial Realm expert. Still, this island is absolutely not as simple as it looks. Your chances of leaving are virtually zero. Instead of thinking about that, you'd be better off figuring out how to survive here smoothly. Survive first, and there'll be opportunities later. If you're dead, even if they were choosing men for a suicide mission, it wouldn't be your turn."
The iron tower man seemed to have been moved by Jiang Chen's mercy, a spark of gratitude stirring in him. People who had lived here long enough had mostly turned to stone. But when it came to life and death, even a flicker of thanks could surface.
Coming from the iron tower man's mouth, these words carried far more weight than anything the skinny monkey had said.
"So are there really many factions on this Winter Extension Island?"
"There are! But exactly how many — with our standing, there's no way to know. Because the outer factions won't even give people like us a second glance!"
The iron tower man looked somewhat dejected. Clearly, the three of them had not fared well on this island. Put bluntly, they were just a ragtag band of stragglers.
Jiang Chen could see that the iron tower man had nothing more useful to offer.
He waved his hand dismissively. "Go on, then. You're more pleasant to look at than the other two. I'll let you off."