Tomb Raiding: My Family's Last Clan Chief is Little Brother

Chapter 479 The Thin Line of Life and Death

The burning pain and suffocation in his lungs spurred the fat man to swim forward with all his might.

Just as he was about to surface, a thick, sturdy, and enormous tail suddenly slammed down from behind, carrying a huge wave that sent the fat man flying out of the water. He crashed heavily onto the ice and then slid back into the water due to inertia.

The fat man was hit twice in a row. If it weren't for the backpack on his back cushioning the blows, his internal organs would probably have been knocked out.

The fat man, feeling dizzy, fell into a crevice in the ice and remained motionless for a long time, but the Mab Ningmu did not let him go.

With a flick of its long tail, Maburnim continued to smash its head against the ice slab next to the fat man.

The head of the Marponim leaped out from between the two ice slabs and smashed them, causing the two ice slabs, each three or four meters in diameter, to stand upright in the water, stuck together like playing cards.

The fat man was trapped in the gap between two giant ice blocks, swaying with the water, his life hanging by a thread.

The ice slabs standing on top were already teetering on the verge of collapse, and as if deliberately playing a trick, Marponim gently pushed one of the ice slabs with his head.

The ice slab collapsed with a crash, slamming heavily down on the fat man below, sending waves of water splashing dozens of meters high around it.

Marponim leaped joyfully out of the water with a long, clear whistle before plunging back in to catch its prey trapped beneath the ice.

Strangely, it swam around for a long time but found no trace of the living creature. All that remained under the ice plate was a backpack that emitted a smell that it found utterly repulsive.

Surprisingly, Marponim paid no attention to the vanished prey. Instead, he swam straight toward the backpack, grabbed the strap in his mouth, and let out a deep, drum-like cry. Then, he swam with the backpack into the dark abyss at the bottom of the lake.

The other Marponim, which were still floating on the surface, stopped crashing into the ice after hearing the roar. They let out several similar roars and then chased after the first Marponim that had left.

By the time the lake returned to calm, the sun had completely sunk behind the snow-capped peaks, leaving only a faint, shimmering band of light on the horizon.

Ripples appeared in the lake. Zhang Wuxun, with the fat man in his arms, emerged from behind a slab of ice. The fat man was still dizzy and unresponsive.

It turned out that Zhang Wuxun had already been waiting underwater before the ice slabs were knocked over and smashed down by Mapenim. In the critical moment, he swam up and pulled the fat man away from the area where the two ice slabs broke and fell.

The ice surface was just as dangerous, so he simply led the fat man to hide behind a small hill-like ice cap.

Fortunately, at that time, Maburnim's attention was focused on the backpack. The fat man's backpack was mostly filled with detonators and bullets. Zhang Wuxun took it off the fat man's back and threw it into the water to reduce the weight.

Although they didn't know why Maponim was only focused on the backpack, it was a lucky escape for them.

Zhang Wuxun led the fat man and quickly swam to the ice slab where Wu Xie was lying.

Wu Xie had a large gash on his head from hitting it in the water earlier, and it bled a lot. Now the blood was frozen solid on his face.

Just now, Mabinim almost overturned the ice slab he was on with his tail. He could only barely hold on by grabbing the protruding icicles on the ice surface and preventing himself from falling.

When the wind and waves subsided and he came to his senses, his wet clothes had frozen into a lump of ice and stuck to the ice. He was almost frozen unconscious.

Seeing the glowing fluorescent lights on Zhang Wuxun and the other man's collars swimming towards them, Wu Xie hurriedly ripped his clothes off the ice, shivering as he scrambled to his feet and knelt on the edge of the ice, whispering, "How are you? Are you alright?"

Zhang Wuxun remained silent, then grabbed the fat man under his arm and dragged him to the ice board.

Wu Xie quickly reached out to help, and the two of them, by lifting and pulling, finally managed to get the heavy, fat man, who was wrapped in a wet cotton coat, up there.

Wu Xie pulled Zhang Wuxun up as well, and just as he was about to speak to him, Zhang Wuxun swayed and fell onto the ice, blood flowing from his ear.

"..." Wu Xie's blood suddenly stopped, and his mind went blank.

"Wooden fish!"

He scrambled over and grabbed Zhang Wuxun's head to check his breath, but there was none. His hands, frozen stiff as stone, couldn't feel any air coming out.

He then reached for his pulse on the side of his neck with trembling hands; it was cold and he couldn't feel it beating.

"No...it can't be..."

He told himself that Muyu had just fainted and would be fine!
It must be that his hands were too cold, which reduced the sensitivity of his skin, so he couldn't feel his pulse.

But the scene of Mu Yu vomiting blood was still vivid in his mind, and Wu Xie became increasingly panicked.

When Maburnim unleashed that roar that combined shockwaves with ultra-low infrasound, Zhang Wuxun shielded Wu Xie and Fatty beneath him, taking the brunt of the strongest impact.

Thunder at such close range can cause tinnitus, and in more serious cases, it can even cause eardrum perforation.

The subsequent superimposed ultra-low frequency sound waves will resonate with the human body, causing muscle vibration and paralysis, which is why Wu Xie was unable to move when he fell into the water.

Infrasound waves cause the chest and abdominal cavities to resonate simultaneously, which can cause tremors in the limbs, shock, and fainting. In more severe cases, all internal organs with cavities can be stimulated and bleed, resulting in completely fatal damage!
Wu Xie couldn't accept that Mu Yu would get into trouble right before his eyes; he simply didn't dare to, and was unwilling to, even imagine that possibility.

The wooden fish has already "died" once, it has already "died" once...

Wu Xie's head began to spin, and the space around him seemed to start rotating. He slapped himself hard to wake himself up.

The wooden fish won't die; he won't let the wooden fish die!

Wu Xie's eyes hardened. He put his hands to his mouth and breathed on them, rubbing his hands together incessantly until his ten fingers felt like they were being stabbed with knives. Finally, he felt a slight warmth in his fingers.

He immediately placed his hands on Zhang Wuxun's neck, feeling the skin on his fingertips throbbing. He couldn't tell if it was his own blood flowing or the wooden fish's carotid artery pulsating.

With only one last option left, Wu Xie tore open Zhang Wuxun's windbreaker, which was gradually starting to freeze, and reached his hand inside the collar to feel his heartbeat against his skin.

Beneath his chest, through skin and bone, a faint throbbing told him it wasn't an illusion; the wooden fish was still alive.

Great! The wooden fish is really still alive!

Wu Xie felt a lump in his throat, his shoulders slumped, and the misty water obscured his vision.

"Damn, that scared the hell out of me." He was both happy and sad at the same time. After laughing, he looked at the scene in front of him and immediately wanted to cry.

The ice surface was bare, with not a single speck of snow in sight, so there was no way to rub them with snow.

Their equipment had all been washed into the water, and now the surface was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything and search for it.

If they can't find a fire source tonight, all three of them will freeze to death on this frozen lake.

"Wooden fish, wooden fish?" Wu Xie patted Zhang Wuxun's face, but didn't wake him up.

To prevent him from freezing, Wu Xie had no choice but to wrap him in wet clothes again, hold him in his arms to keep him warm, and then go and pat the fat man next to him.

The fat man's face was still warm, whether he had a fever or his protective body fat was working to keep him warm.

Wu Xie slapped the fat man twice, but failed to wake him up. However, there was no time to waste now; he had to find a way to start a fire.

What to do? If it were daytime, he could use a piece of ice as a convex mirror and shine the sun on it to light the dried clothes as a fire, but now it was night, and there was only a half-moon overhead, cold and clear.

Wu Xie looked around anxiously. It was pitch black all around, and fog had begun to rise on the lake. Soon, it was as if he had been blinded by invisible tentacles in the fog. His eyes were sore from staring, but he still couldn't see anything.

In the blink of an eye, the fog had thickened to the point where it looked like white smoke billowing from a chimney.

Wait a minute, a cigarette!
Wu Xie had a sudden inspiration. He suddenly remembered that Fatty, that old smoker, would definitely carry a lighter and cigarettes with him. To avoid them getting wet from the snow, he would definitely wrap them in waterproof oil paper.

Thinking of this, Wu Xie hurriedly rummaged through the fat man's clothes and found a hard lump on his chest. He quickly took it out and took a look. He was so excited that he almost burst into tears.

The fat guy not only hid cigarettes, but also several dried ginseng slices wrapped in an oil paper package.

He hurriedly picked up a ginseng slice, pried open Zhang Wuxun's mouth and fed it to him, and also stuffed a slice into the fat man's mouth.

Then, tear the oil paper, wrap a few cigarettes around a piece of the paper to make a simple torch, and then light it with a lighter.

The moment the flame ignited, the hope in his heart also ignited.

Wu Xie wasn't expecting to use the fire for warmth; he mainly wanted it for lighting and to search for the backpack he had lost near the ice plate.

Their backpacks are made of waterproof material, allowing them to float in the water like life jackets. Once the backpacks are found and the supplies inside are retrieved, they will be saved.

After a short while, Wu Xie noticed a faint glimmer of light in the fog not far away.

Could it be Zhang Haixing and the others?

Just as they were wondering what was going on, they heard three clear whistles from not far away—two short and one long. This was the rendezvous signal they had agreed on beforehand, and it meant that Zhang Haixing and the others were still alive.

Wu Xie was overjoyed and hurriedly whistled three times. The three whistles were very short, indicating that his situation was extremely critical and urgent.

Just a few minutes after sending the signal, something suddenly flew towards them with a whoosh from the dark fog. Wu Xie sensed something was wrong and quickly ducked to the side.

With a bang, a large black object slammed heavily onto the spot where he had just been, and the resulting gust of wind extinguished the small torch in Wu Xie's hand.

Wu Xie hurriedly rekindled the fire, and upon closer inspection, he realized it was actually his own backpack. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Heaven has eyes. After so many misfortunes over so many years, finally there was one time when he wasn't a complete idiot. God finally spared him a trick.

At this moment, Zhang Haixing's image became incredibly tall and magnificent in his heart. If conditions allowed, he would have loved to place Zhang Haixing on the table right then and there, and offer her incense and candles as a sacrifice.

Banishing the jumbled thoughts from his mind, Wu Xie hurriedly unzipped his jacket to retrieve the smokeless stove, only to find that the stove inside was gone, presumably used by Zhang Haixing and the others. However, there was still a considerable amount of fuel left, and half of the food was still there.

Wu Xie clasped his hands together and bowed sincerely to Zhang Shitai, or rather, to Miss Zhang, and said, "Amitabha."

Finally, they lit a fire. Wu Xie quickly set up the tent, took off Zhang Wuxun's and the other person's wet clothes, moved them into the tent, and wrapped them up tightly with blankets and thick sleeping bags. Then he nailed two hiking poles to the side of the fire, tied a rope, and hung the wet clothes on the fire to dry.

The water in the iron basin on the fire was boiling. Wu Xie threw in some brown sugar and ginger slices to keep it cooking. There was a set of dry clothes in his backpack, so he quickly changed into them. He moved around the fire for a while, and his icy limbs gradually warmed up.

Wu Xie responded to Zhang Haixing's inquiry with a whistle, then scooped two bowls of ginger soup from a can and brought them into the tent, carefully feeding them to the two of them.

Fatty was in better condition than Zhang Wuxun. After being fed hot soup, he groggily opened his eyes a little while later, clutching his chest and groaning in pain. Wu Xie put a hot water bottle in his sleeping bag, and he fell asleep peacefully again.

Zhang Wuxun's face remained deathly pale, as if he were about to shatter from the snow sculpture into snow dust at any moment. As his body gradually warmed up, the blood stasis caused by his severe injuries began to flow out, and he vomited out large clumps of black blood, which made Wu Xie's heart pound with fear.

Wu Xie had only learned the most basic first aid, thanks to the training Hei Xiazi gave him in the frozen underground river. He seriously suspected that Hei Xiazi was really able to predict the future and had foreseen his impending doom, so he taught him these skills in advance.

In the latter half of the night, Zhang Wuxun was still unconscious, but the bleeding from his ears and nose had improved and he had stopped vomiting blood. However, his whole body was burning hot, like an oven, and the tattoos on his face were burned through. He remained curled up and shivering.

Wu Xie gave him antibiotics and fever-reducing injections, but they didn't work. He then mixed the fever-reducing capsule powder into ginger soup and fed it to him.

Unfortunately, it was no use. The medicine was too bitter, and Zhang Wuxun wouldn't open his mouth at all. Even if you forced it down his throat, he would spit it out. If you tried to feed him again, he would hide his head.

Wu Xie was so anxious he could only stare helplessly, and he really couldn't do anything about it; he couldn't very well beat him up.

Wu Xie's biggest fear was that Zhang Wuxun's fever was so severe that it would develop into pneumonia. At such a high altitude with thin air, if it eventually caused emphysema, it would be a real problem. A series of cardiopulmonary and cerebral complications would follow, which could be fatal.

He gave Zhang Wuxun all the available anti-inflammatory injections, fed him water, used physical methods to lower his temperature, and also had to take care of the fat man's condition. He was so busy that he was practically running around on his feet.

Fortunately, although the fog was thick outside, there were no frightening screams or dangers.

Looking at the soft firelight outside the tent, Wu Xie's tense nerves were finally able to relax a little.

Happy Rice Festival, my dear readers! We share endless thoughts amidst the mountains and lakes, and journeys continue under the bright moon and gentle breeze. Those outside the book never cease writing, nor do those within it ever stop.

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(End of this chapter)