Chapter 5 (10) A Corpse (1)

  Xiao Bin's weak cries were ruthlessly blocked by the forest, and the search team passed by Xiao Bin without noticing him. Although Xiao Bin strained his ears, he couldn't hear any sounds again. Xiao Bin's heart sank to the bottom of the valley, wondering if he was really going to die here and slowly turn into a pile of white bones. He felt that the mocking eyes from earlier were surrounding him again, as if there were voices taunting him: "No one will come to rescue you here, give up..."

  No! No! Xiao Bin secretly encouraged himself, Old Wei was still waiting for him to find reinforcements, he absolutely couldn't die. Since he had already heard the horn sound, it proved that he wasn't far from civilization. Xiao Bin made an effort to gaze in the direction of the horn sound, judging that it came from the other side of the mountain range. Xiao Bin gritted his teeth and decided to abandon his current position on the mountain range, heading down into the canyon, then thinking of a way to climb up to the opposite mountain range, so he could see the road!

  Going up the mountain is easy, but going down is difficult. Xiao Bin almost rolled all the way down the mountain, and the original terrain couldn't be described as steep and rugged. With the rainwater's lubrication, the nearly 80° slope made it impossible for Xiao Bin to find a foothold, and the occasional appearance of a horizontal surface and small cliff made him focus all his attention on his feet, afraid that one misstep would send him tumbling into a cliff. But no matter how careful Xiao Bin was, his exhausted body still betrayed him, and he slipped again, sliding straight down the slope, staring at an approaching horizontal surface. His survival instincts made him frantically grab for something, and when he grabbed onto a vine, half of his body had already fallen off the cliff. Xiao Bin turned around to look, and suddenly broke out in sweat - this cliff was over 20 meters high! If he fell, he would definitely die! Xiao Bin adjusted his breathing, holding onto the vine with all his might, not daring to relax even a little. With one hand clutching the mud at the edge of the cliff, he tried to pull himself up, but his hands had no strength left. Xiao Bin struggled to twist his body, trying to inch his way up like a seal on ice, and after 15 minutes, he finally escaped danger.

  Xiao Bin sat on the edge of the cliff, panting heavily, with a layer of steam rising from his body due to intense exercise. Before long, the dampness on his clothes counterattacked, and a chill seeped into Xiao Bin's body, causing his joints to feel a dull ache.

  Xiao Bin strengthened his spirit, he could only think of a way to cross this broken cliff, and then find a road down into the canyon...

  Xiao Bin struggled until dusk to get down into the valley, the sky quickly darkened, and the temperature dropped sharply. Xiao Bin could no longer withstand the cold of the night, his injured head was now severely painful, and he had a recurring fever that reminded him that if he couldn't find a safe place to spend the night, he wouldn't make it through this night!

  Xiao Bin looked up at the sky of the canyon, except for the thick clouds and falling raindrops, nothing could be seen. Xiao Bin walked in the dark for a while in the canyon and found a cave.

  Xiao Bin didn't care about much, his survival instincts told him this would be his last chance! Xiao Bin hid in the cave, curled up into a ball, but wearing wet clothes, he couldn't withstand the cold of the night.

  Xiao Bin rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a lighter, rubbing it several times, but only sparks flashed for an instant, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it to light.

  "Fire! I need some fire!" Xiao Bin muttered to himself, taking advantage of the faint glow of the sparks. He saw that there were still some dry moss and twigs scattered around the cave, and as long as he had a small flame, he could ignite them to get through the night...

  But after dozens of attempts, the lighter still didn't ignite a spark of hope for Xiaobin. Frustrated, Xiaobin inadvertently applied more force to his hands, and all he heard was a "scrape" sound as the fire wheel got stuck. The last bit of flint had been used up! Xiaobin slumped against the cave wall, curling up his body to conserve as much heat as possible from his shivering self.

  Two hours later, the heat from the muscle tremors had almost been consumed, and Xiao Bin's muscles were already stiff, unable to maintain a curled up posture. He leaned back against the wall of the cave, half-reclining, and felt something hard digging into his waist. With trembling hands, he reached down and touched it - it was the handgun he had been carrying with him.

  Pistol! He still has a pistol! Xiao Bin regretfully blamed himself for forgetting to fire the warning shot when he heard the horn in the afternoon, but now the pistol is not redundant, he still has his last hope!

  That old hunter who had a one-sided friendship with him once told Xiaobin that taking the bullet head off and putting it into dry moss could start a fire! Xiaobin didn't know if this was true or not, but now he had no other choice.

  Xiao Bin ejected a bullet, and it took him nearly half an hour to disassemble the projectile. He fumbled in the dark, gathered a pile of dry moss and twigs, carefully spilled half of the gunpowder onto the moss, then stuffed a small handful of dry moss into the tiny cartridge case. With great care, he loaded the bullet into the rifle chamber, cocked the hammer, and muttered to himself: "Success! Success..." However, he hesitated for a long time before daring to pull the trigger. Several times, his finger had almost reached the bottom of the trigger, but he released it again. He couldn't afford any failure now; if this attempt at ignition failed, his last hope would be extinguished. Xiao Bin himself didn't dare imagine what that would be like...

  The chill on his body urged him to quickly pull the trigger, but fear of failure made his fingers stiffen on the trigger and he couldn't make up his mind. Finally, Xiaobin gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and with a fierce effort, pulled the trigger. Xiaobin's ears heard a crisp gunshot, he opened his eyes to see that the gunpowder had ignited the moss, but the small flame was too weak and might go out at any moment...

  Xiao Bin bent down, carefully blew a mouthful of air, and the flame seemed to come alive and swell a bit. Xiao Bin was encouraged, and again carefully blew another mouthful, then gently placed a piece of dry moss on top. The flame seemed to have been injected with stimulants, suddenly growing stronger and illuminating the cave.

  With the fire, Xiao Binh felt that his body was not so cold anymore. He carefully nurtured the flames and went outside to drag back a few large branches. The heat emitted by the fire quickly warmed up the small cave. Xiao Binh was really too tired, seeing that the flames would no longer go out, he fell asleep...

  Xiao Bin woke up to find the sky already bright, the fire had burned down to ashes, emitting a warm glow. His clothes, which had been dried by the fire, no longer felt cold. As he walked out of the cave, he saw that the clouds had dispersed at some point, and a few rays of sunlight lazily spilled into the valley. Xiao Bin checked his body and found that apart from the bruises all over, he hadn't suffered any other injuries. After resting in the cave and by the fire for a night, his fever was subsiding, and his headache wasn't as severe, but he still felt a bit dizzy.

  Visibility improved, Xiaobin roughly distinguished the direction, preparing to cross the canyon and climb up the mountain ridge on the other side to find the road where he heard the car horn yesterday.

  Xiao Bin spent almost the whole day climbing up that mountain range, and when he looked up with hope in his eyes, he was disappointed to find no shadow of a highway in sight! On the other side of the mountain range was still mountains, and below it was a canyon. Exhausted and parched, Xiao Bin had to think of ways to enter the canyon again to search for water...

  Although this mountain range is also a primitive landscape, it is considered to be quite easy to walk compared to the terrain of the past two days. The slope is not steep, and Xiao Bin arrived at the canyon in less than 2 hours. However, there was no stream in the canyon as he had imagined, only a ditch that had been washed out by the rain, with water accumulated from the previous two days' rainfall, somewhat murky. But Xiao Bin didn't care about that anymore, having gotten some water into his body, his spirit wasn't so wilted after all. However, what followed was that he hadn't eaten for many days, and after drinking a bellyful of cold water, he felt even hungrier.

  Xiao Bin sat by the ditch, wanting to rest for a while before continuing on. He looked up at the sky and began thinking about how he would spend the night. Xiao Bin took out his gun from its holster and carefully counted the remaining bullets - there were only 5 left. Even if he used one bullet per day to start a fire, he could only start fires for 5 more days! But without food, Xiao Bin had already made it to the third day, and if he couldn't find a way out soon, perhaps he wouldn't make it past three days.

  Xiao Bin used his rare rest to think carefully about the events of the past few days. If the villagers had escaped, they should have already reported it to the police. So, the horn sound he heard was likely the search and rescue team looking for him. He needed to think of a way to contact them. Xiao Bin looked at the gun in his hand again and came up with an idea. If he could start a big fire, he could use smoke to contact the search and rescue team. However, in the canyon, the smoke wouldn't rise, so he still had to find a way to get to higher ground.

  But what if the villagers didn't escape either? The horn sound heard yesterday was just a vehicle that happened to enter the mountain. He came here without notifying the anti-drug team and others, thinking of this, Xiaobin couldn't help but feel a little discouraged again, his dizzy head also joined in, constantly sending him signals - rest! Rest!

  Xiao Bin, didn't he want to rest? But he was afraid that once he fell asleep, he wouldn't be able to wake up. The half-white skeleton from yesterday's hallucination was now hovering in front of him, sternly warning him of the consequences if he didn't struggle to survive!

  Xiao Bin's head was splitting with a severe headache, and he felt somewhat dizzy. He thought for a moment, then carefully took out a bullet from the cartridge case and put it in his pocket. If he couldn't hold on, using this bullet to end his own life would be better than starving to death!

  "When everything seems completely hopeless, you must learn to find hope..." Xiao Bin's ears rang with Lao Wei's voice, as if Lao Wei was standing right next to him. Xiao Bin's eyelids, which had been stuck together, suddenly opened wide. He lifted his head and looked around, but all he saw were trees and vines, without any sign of a person.

  Xiao Bin smiled wryly and thought to himself that he was having another hallucination, which wasn't a good sign. He lowered his head, wanting to rest for a bit longer, as he was truly exhausted...

  "There's nothing in this world that you can rely on, if there is one thing, it's yourself..." Old Wei's voice sounded again, this time more clearly. Xiao Bin knocked his dull head and suddenly saw a shiny object, which was emitting a golden light...

  Golden yellow is not a color of nature! Xiaobin rubbed his eyes, no mistake, that thing was refracting sunlight, and it was indeed golden yellow! Xiaobin crawled over, dug it out from the gap in the rock, and took a look, it was a shell casing...

  Shell? ! Xiaobin looked around and tried hard to recall something. It seemed that he had been here before...