Chapter 146
Chapter 146
The three of them continued climbing through the mountain forest.
This part of the forest had once been partially developed. Faint traces of human activity remained, including a short stretch of crumbling concrete steps, but they ended after barely a dozen meters.
None of them spoke. The only sound was the crack of branches as Wu Wujie snapped them up ahead. Following Qingshui’s directions, Big Guy took the lead and broke off any branches blocking their way.
Qingshui walked at the rear, her gaze constantly sweeping their surroundings.
She had thought she would be on the verge of breaking down. Yet at this moment, she instead felt a strange… resolve. There was nothing left for her to lose.
About three hours passed. Before Qingshui could discuss their route with the others, the sky overhead suddenly darkened.
The clouds hung so low they nearly brushed the treetops, instantly transforming the already dim forest into a shadowy abyss.
The air filled with the thick, oppressive scent of damp earth, making it difficult to breathe.
Qingshui frowned and looked up at the pitch-black sky. “We can’t let ourselves get soaked out here. We need to find somewhere safe to shelter from the rain.”
Getting drenched meant hypothermia. Hypothermia meant death. At this time of year, once their clothes were soaked through, they wouldn’t last more than a few days.
Ye Que and Wu Wujie’s expressions turned grave.
Just then, Ye Que abruptly stopped. Qingshui and Wu Wujie immediately looked toward her. Following her gaze, they spotted a broken sign.
It was so badly rotted that it had collapsed crookedly into a pile of fallen leaves. Most of the lettering had peeled away, but the words were still barely legible:
“Cliff Ahead. No Entry.”
The three of them stared at those words and suddenly found them absurd.
No entry.
There was no such thing as a forbidden path in this world anymore. You could go anywhere, and you could die anywhere.
Without hesitation, they stepped over it.
The slope beneath their feet grew steeper. With every step, they had to grab the nearby tree trunks to steady themselves. Qingshui clung to one of the trunks as she climbed.
At last, the view opened up before them.
They had reached a dead end. A green wire fence blocked their path, and beyond it lay a cliff.
There was nothing behind the fence but empty space. A sheer drop plunged dozens of meters straight down before disappearing into the darkness.
The three of them stood at the edge of the fence and peered down.
Below them lay a dark lake, its waters black and seemingly bottomless.
Qingshui’s gaze lingered on it for a moment before quickly shifting to the mountainside diagonally across from them.
There was an abandoned… shack over there?
It was tiny, wedged between the steep mountainside and several large trees. Its gray exterior almost blended into the rock, making it impossible to spot without looking closely.
“There.” Qingshui raised a hand and pointed. “There’s a… shack. We’ll take shelter from the rain there for now.”
“But stay alert.”
Ye Que followed the direction of her finger. Her eyes lit up, only to dim again a moment later. The shack didn’t look far away, but several ridges stood between them and it. Reaching it would take at least another hour, and the downpour would probably arrive well before then.
“We need to hurry,” Wu Wujie said in a low voice as he began circling around the cliff. “Looks like the rain will start any minute.”
The three of them followed the cliff’s edge toward the shack.
The air grew increasingly stifling, and the damp scent of earth became so thick that it almost seemed to drip with moisture. The dark clouds overhead sank even lower, close enough to touch.
They had to reach the shack within an hour, or they would be caught in the rain!
After about forty minutes of walking, the first drop fell.
It landed softly on Ye Que’s forehead, cool against her skin. She looked up, but before she could say anything-
A second drop fell. Then a third.
And then-
Whoosh!
The downpour struck.
It was as though a massive hole had opened in the sky. Rain came cascading down, soaking the entire forest in an instant. The dead leaves rattled beneath the pounding rain, while thorny bushes and vines thrashed wildly behind the curtain of water like countless writhing snakes.
“Hurry!”
The three of them quickened their pace through the torrential rain. Qingshui immediately moved to the front, taking the lead and guiding the other two onward.
The ground beneath their feet turned to mud in an instant, too slick to stand on. Ye Que slipped and fell, smashing her face into the muck. Wu Wujie hauled her back up, and they kept moving!
The rain was deafening. They couldn’t hear anything over the thunderous roar, their eardrums numb from the relentless pounding.
Ye Que could barely keep her eyes open against the rain. Whenever the wind gusted, the cold raced up her spine to the top of her head. The roar of rain hammering the leaves and earth filled her ears, drowning out even the breathing of those beside her.
The figure ahead suddenly stopped. Ye Que pulled up short as well and stared forward.
There it was. The shed.
It looked like a shed from a distance, but up close, it was more like a tiny house. Its outer walls were made of dingy gray concrete, overgrown with moss and vines. A pitch-black hole gaped in one wall, while an irregular wooden board served as a makeshift door over the entrance.
Qingshui moved the board aside, and the three of them rushed in.
Rainwater streamed off their bodies, quickly pooling on the floor.
Qingshui stood in the doorway and glanced outside. Rain poured down in sheets.
The entire world had vanished behind a curtain of rain.
She closed the wooden board.
The walls inside were cracked in places. The room was nearly empty, apart from some trash and a disorderly pile of wood in one corner.
There were traces of an old fire on the floor, though time had nearly erased them.
A large hole in the wall served as the “window” they had seen from outside. Wind howled through it, carrying rain and bitter cold into the room.
Qingshui pointed to the corner at the back. “Shelter over there. Take off your clothes.”
The corner was tucked between two walls, shielded from the wind blowing through the hole. The three of them crowded into it, sat down against the icy wall, and began stripping off their clothes.
Layer by layer, they took them off and wrung them dry.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
The sound of water pouring from their clothes blended with the rain outside.
All three of them were in a sorry state. Their hair clung to their scalps in wet strands, droplets trickling from the ends as they shivered uncontrollably.
Ye Que’s teeth began to chatter. Her lips had turned purple, an early sign of hypothermia.
Qingshui studied her for a moment before saying, “We need to start a fire. It’s too cold. We have to keep our body temperatures up.”
“But…” Ye Que’s voice trembled. “It’ll draw the Madmen here.”
“Would you rather freeze to death now, or risk being killed by the Madmen later?”
Qingshui rose and walked over to the pile of wood. Crouching down, she picked through it for thin, dry pieces that looked easy to ignite. She gathered an armful and carried it back to the others.
She found a relatively straight dead branch and a piece of wood about the size of her palm. Using her knife, she carved a small hollow into the wood, sharpened one end of the branch, and fitted it into the hollow.
She was going to start a fire by friction.
Qingshui took a deep breath and began spinning the stick between her palms, grinding its sharpened tip against the hollow in the wood.
Ten minutes passed without any result. She worked faster and faster. The stick rubbed her palms raw and red, but at last, a wisp of pale smoke rose from the hollow.
She stopped, carefully lifted the piece of wood to her lips, and blew gently.
Whoosh.
The wisp of smoke quivered.
She blew again.
Whoosh.
A tiny flame sprang from the hollow.
At last, the fire caught.
All three of them breathed a sigh of relief.
The embers began to glow, their blue-green light quickly blossoming into orange flames. Acrid white smoke rode the wind out through the hole in the wall and into the rain, where it soon dispersed without a trace.
Before long, the flames settled, leaving only a faint haze of nearly invisible white vapor. Firelight danced across the walls as warmth slowly spread through the room.
The three of them huddled closer around the fire.
Ye Que eagerly stretched out her hands toward the flames. They were frighteningly pale, the blue veins clearly visible beneath her skin. Bloody crescent marks marred her palms where her nails had dug in.
Firelight washed over her face, finally restoring a hint of color to her pallid cheeks.