Famine 37: The Snow Mountain

The Snow Mountain

As for the true power of the Skeletal Ferry, Sha Tong left them with one sentence.

“From what I’ve observed, Gu Haoping is at least able to control a third of the Skeletal Ferry.”

That single sentence made cold sweat break out on everyone’s backs.
In the heart of the Sea of Blood, beneath countless curses, Gu Haoping needed do nothing at all. If he were to tear open a rift in the bones, everyone on the ferry—thousands of people—would become his hostages.

Some surreptitiously cast glances at Si Zhiyan. But Si Zhiyan did nothing. He was fully aware that saving those dozens of service players that day was already his limit; he could not possibly protect so many.

This was an almost unbeatable adversary, unless…

“Unless we can contact Commander Nie!”
Sha Tong’s gaze was unwavering. “As long as Commander Nie can revoke Gu Haoping’s power, this problem will be solved.”

The voices of discussion around them grew louder; the resistance members were plunged into a clamor.

The remainder of the debate was all about how to contact the Sacred Tomb, but Si Zhiyan did not pay close attention.

He sank into deep thought.

For Si Zhiyan, achieving this would have been simple enough; thus, it was another question that now confronted him.

—Could Nie Du really be trusted?

There was always something subtly incongruous about Nie Du.
It wasn’t that he was not a good person; rather, he was almost too selfless. Caring for and saving others seemed so completely natural to him, as if simply trying to understand “what is he thinking” was itself an absurd notion.

Even with Si Zhiyan’s powers of observation, he still could not see through what Nie Du was truly thinking. No, it went further than that. It was as if…

…as if he were a machine operating strictly according to pre-programmed orders.

Yet the farm’s identification of aberrant beings was always precise, and Si Zhiyan was utterly certain: Nie Du was human.

Should he contact Nie Du, and if so, to what extent?

There was another issue.
Si Zhiyan was acutely aware of the impression he gave: an enigmatic Divine Beast haunting the Sacred Tomb, mysteries woven about him.

Would Nie Du actually believe accusations about Gu Haoping, coming from someone like him?

This must be decided with the utmost caution. If Nie Du chose to side with Gu Haoping instead, then what they faced would not be just Gu Haoping—but the entire Skeletal Ferry.

When the meeting dispersed, Si Zhiyan watched as Tang Qinghuai exited the farm owner’s cabin, then stood and walked toward the black hole.
He had long since exchanged for a new small wooden house, sealing off the cave mouth entirely. Now, with the room at a comfortable temperature, Si Zhiyan lit the fireplace, poured a cup of hot milk, and settled on the sofa, watching all that was unfolding on the other side of the cave, in Team Xu Bei’s experience.

…………
……

[Day Eleven / 11:25 PM / Sacred Tomb – Seventeenth Level / Current Farm Satiety: 45%]

Only six hours remained until the last batch of winter clothing had to be delivered.

The wind and snow were growing ever fiercer.

A gale, burdened with hailstones, lashed down on them. Shi He, caught unprepared, slipped and nearly fell, saved only by the climbing rope at his waist. He gave it a violent tug, averting disaster. His heart hammering, he clamped his lips together, shivering, and drew his cotton coat tighter about him.

“You okay?!” Nie Du’s voice came faintly from behind.

Shi He raised a hand, signaling that he was safe.

This level of the tomb was a snow mountain.

The loose, powder-like snow was half a person deep, rendering ordinary movement impossible. The steep slopes were barren, save for the faint, multicolored glow flickering at the distant summit.

As the team’s scout, Shi He specialized in visual enhancements and was immune to snow blindness. He found a precipitous mountain path leading toward the top.
To call it a path was generous—it was little more than a track along the cliff’s edge. On one side loomed a sheer wall of ice, on the other a bottomless black abyss. The trail was barely more than half a meter wide, passable only sideways, steep in many places, slick with ice and snow.

One misstep would mean plunging into the endless icy chasm.

Team Xu Bei brought out their climbing ropes, securing them around each waist, linking themselves in a line. Shi He broke trail at the head, hammering a piton every few hundred meters, preventing a disastrous fall.

Night and day here seemed reversed from the world outside. The main god’s wristband indicated it was deep night, yet the sky above glowed with the pale light of day. When true day arrived, the world would become pitch-black, not a hand’s breadth visible. Thus, Team Xu Bei was forced to go against their circadian rhythms, setting out in the dead of night.

Luckily, they’d bartered coffee from that deity’s domain; otherwise, such a treacherous journey would overwhelm their spirits and bring disaster.

That deity was practically their savior, Shi He thought in a rare moment of abstraction.
The spiked shoes on their feet, their winter clothing, the pitons and climbing ropes—all had been exchanged from the one calling themselves the Contract-holder.

It wasn’t surprising. The main god’s shop, for all its purported variety, revealed upon inspection not a single piece of snow or mountaineering gear, not even a rope long enough for climbing.

Without that deity, they’d have died a hundred times over by now.

The air echoed emptily.

…an inch at a time, bodies tense, legs trembling.
Face pressed toward the mountainside, eyes squeezed shut, Nie Du carefully steadied each behind him, guiding their way forward.

For all its terrors, the route held no true dangers; with faces to the mountain, a little caution was enough.

But the heavens seldom cooperate with human plans.

—Suddenly, he stopped.

“What is it?!” Nie Du called. In such a storm, even shouting through an earpiece was barely enough for Shi He to make out the words.

Shi He’s reply came swiftly: “No path.”
“This trail ends here.”

Zhong Yanqing: “Do we turn back?”

“No. I’ve checked many times. I’m certain this is the only way.”

Shi He shook his head, then looked up.

Following his gaze, Zhong Yanqing looked to the towering wall of ice before them.

The vertical ice face went straight up, with only a few hundred meters between them and the source of that colorful light at the summit.
But it was only a few hundred meters.

Shi He’s voice, calm as ever, came through the earpiece: “Just like this.”

Zhong Yanqing’s face turned utterly pale.

……

Half an hour later, they were climbing the ice wall.

Shi He, wearing tactical gloves, gripped the frozen rocks, driving his ice axe into a crack, securing it, and hauling himself upward.

Crack!

A frozen stone, loosened by the blow, tumbled free. Shi He’s body dropped a little, but he kicked hard at the wall, steadying himself.

Crackle, crackle… shards of ice bounced down the cliff, tumbling into the bottomless dark below.

A dozen seconds later, the sound of shattering finally reached them.

Climbing was a supremely technical extreme sport; brute strength alone could not guarantee success.

Xu Bei’s team were all outstanding warriors, neither weak nor unskilled. Shi He found a triangular crevice as a foothold, dusted the route above with colored grip-chalk, marking the path. Even so, most could only drag themselves along awkwardly, barely managing not to fall, needing help from the rope time and again.

Only two could truly hold their own on the wall: Shi He in the lead, and Nie Du midway up the line.

These two were essentially serving as living anchor points, one at the front and one in the center, hauling the others up.

Zhong Yanqing’s leg was injured; though the deity’s help had stanched the bleeding, the wound still cut through the muscle. Now, his face was as white as a corpse. Clinging to the rope, he forced his attention elsewhere, mustering a strained smile:
“How’re you both so good at this? Come on, you must have bought a few annual passes to a climbing gym before doomsday hit, right?”

Shi He’s voice, indistinct: “I never went to any climbing gym.”
“Free climbing—I was taught by my family.”

“Your brother again,” Zhong Yanqing laughed. “Alright, alright, your shooting was your brother, echolocation was your brother, climbing too, all your brother… Is he some kind of Hawaiian private coach?”

Shi He, perplexed by the Conan reference, answered “Hm?” and began earnestly explaining, “My elder brother isn’t American.”

Unable to resist, Zhong Yanqing stifled his laughter, unwilling to tease the kid further. He pushed higher, looking for the next handhold, but suddenly, pain lanced through his leg—the old wound had split open again. Behind him, his magic circle flared, hissing with steam, and he forced himself upward, barely catching the handhold. His body trembled; he took a deep breath, swallowing back a bloody cry.

Steadying himself, he changed the subject with a laugh, “What about you, Commander Nie?”

“Who taught you your skills?”

Nie Du’s reply came quickly: “Part of my regular training.”

Zhong Yanqing brightened: “Oh? Military man?”

Nie Du gave a gentle, good-humored laugh. “Not after the transition in ’18.”

“I was a firefighter.”

Suddenly, Zhong Yanqing thought of Nie Du’s ruined, melted face—his heart gave a lurch, unable to speak for a moment.

In that instant of silence, disaster struck!

A freezing wind slammed into them; Zhong Yanqing flinched and kicked upward. His reaction was swift, but his reopened wound couldn’t take the strain and suddenly gave way, stalling him an instant.

A shadow shot from the crack in the rocks, striking like lightning and sinking its fangs into Zhong Yanqing’s arm.
An ice serpent!

“Hss—ah!” Zhong Yanqing cried out in pain.

“Not good!” Shi He jerked his head down.

He’d dislodged that stone with his ice axe—awakening the serpent from its winter torpor. But the creature had chosen to lie in wait here, for those coming after!

The serpent bit into Zhong Yanqing’s arm, its icy venom spreading. He held on for two seconds before his grip finally gave out and—

Crack!

He plummeted, the climbing rope yanking him as icy winds howled, his body swinging like a pendulum before slamming against the rock face like a cannonball.

Thud!

Zhong Yanqing’s head rang; blackness swallowed his vision as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

—Free climbing always meant placing pitons; a fall didn’t mean certain death. But being roped in didn’t mean you could fall with impunity. Once you left the wall, you lost command over your body altogether.

“Little Zhong!!” Nie Du cried out.

The climbing party had left plenty of slack between each member to prevent interference; but that same distance now made rescue all but impossible.

Zhong Yanqing reached for a handhold, but his head was spinning, his arm on fire, unable to catch himself before the tension in the rope snapped him back, swinging him through the air.

Thud!!

Once more, Zhong Yanqing’s body slammed hard against the cliff.

“Wait—wait, ahh!!”

This time, the teammate below him, jerked by the swinging force, could not hold on—their hands slipped, and they too fell.