Chapter 58: Withering

There was so much blood, and the person inside…

Seeing the blood dripping from the gap in the car, everyone had a terrible premonition.

A dark cloud appeared in people’s hearts.

Bi Fang glanced at the young man with determined eyes and came to the co-pilot’s seat.

The co-pilot’s door had completely vanished, and a man was lying horizontally on the seat, trying hard to suppress his screams. His breathing sounded like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth. Seeing Bi Fang, he immediately cried out for help.

As Bi Fang’s gaze moved downward, the drone automatically applied a mosaic blur, and the live broadcast audience could only see a large patch of crimson. Many imagined the scene and vomited.

Large bloodstains filled the car floor, and even the blanket couldn’t absorb it all.

‘What should we do? God, please save him! He looks to be in so much pain!’

‘Is it beyond saving?’

‘Can it be saved? Does God have a solution?’

Almost everyone was asking if there was any way to save the man, but Bi Fang never uttered a word, let alone moved.

He saw it clearly. The man’s legs were completely useless, with the jagged bones exposed. Even the blood had stopped flowing, as if running dry. It was too late for a rescue team to arrive.

The man was only hanging on to his last breath.

Bi Fang pulled a towel from the side and pressed it against the man’s relatively intact thigh, as if it could save a little more blood.

He looked into the man’s eyes, trying to keep his tone gentle.

“There’s too much blood loss. So much blood has flowed…”

“Save him, save him, please!”

Bi Fang turned to look at the pleading young man beside him but gently shook his head.

He was human, not a god.

“I can’t let any more blood flow, there’s so much blood everywhere. I’m so cold.” The man, suffering from blood loss, started hallucinating. He muttered, clutching Bi Fang’s hand with a pleading look in his eyes, “Save me, please.”

“Where am I injured? Is it severe? I don’t feel well… I feel…”

Bi Fang pressed down on the man’s wound, blood spilling over his entire palm. He looked into the man’s eyes, speaking in a low but sincere voice.

“Listen to me…”

“Where am I injured? I feel so cold… ah!” The man screamed again, “Something’s wrong!”

“Listen, listen to me!” Bi Fang put his hand on the man’s forehead, his eyes showing a seriousness he had never displayed before, “You’re dying, that’s the situation…”

The man was stunned. He tilted his head slightly, looking at the tearful young man beside him, then back to Bi Fang, his eyes dull as if he couldn’t believe it.

“No, no, no, it’s impossible, how could this be…?”

The man suddenly became emotional, his breaths coming in big gulps, yet he couldn’t catch his breath, as if his lungs were leaking and he couldn’t fill them with air no matter what.

Bi Fang held the man’s hand tightly and pulled a nearby blanket over him as if it could warm him up.

“Look at me, look at me, keep looking at me, don’t be afraid, don’t panic…”

Bi Fang’s voice was gentle, hoping to calm the man’s emotions with words.

“Think of spring, think of the sun, you’ll be bathed in sunshine, feeling warm and comfortable, it will be fine, everything will be fine, don’t be afraid.”

“Think of the beautiful moments, the memories that cross your mind, all the people you love and those who love you…”

The man’s pupils trembled slightly, as if Bi Fang’s words were really working. He wanted to cry, but couldn’t. It was as if all the fluid in his body had drained away.

Think of beautiful things?

What beautiful things were there? The entire day had been terrible. He had never regretted anything so much. He wanted a promotion, a raise, but his stingy boss would never agree. He hadn’t bought the shoes he’d promised his son, his wife had been complaining about their leaky house for a long time… He just wanted to go back and have a drink with his friends, just a small one, having narrowly escaped death, his wife should agree, right?…

Suddenly a lush, vibrant green appeared before him, like an endless forest. The sun shone through the leaves, illuminating the man’s eyes.

He saw the old house he’d lived in as a child again, the window covered with newly sprouted ivy branches; the sun filtered through the green leaves and granted only a warm and gentle light into the room…

Memories became jumbled. He seemed to be that little child again, waiting for his parents to return from work, and also seemed to have become a father himself, dealing with his rebellious, demanding son…

The man’s pupils dilated, his body shook as if being electrocuted, and tears suddenly flowed down his face, for reasons unknown.

It was a deep pain, as if he was weeping out his very soul.

“Who do you love?”

Bi Fang asked the question again, but no one answered him…

The man’s mouth gaped open, his face gradually turning pale.

The wind rustled, as if whispering a lament.

“We… we shouldn’t have come here. Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

A low sob came from a distance. The man with the injured thigh who had leaned against the tree earlier cried, tears and snot freezing on his face. After crying for a while, he started laughing, as if all this had been a nightmarish dream.

The young man closest to them clung to his rigid hand against his head.

The man just died like that.

Bi Fang silently rose, suddenly unsure about what to do – should he offer comfort?

He wasn’t a linguist; it was impossible to soothe these people’s pain and despair with just a few words.

The livestream room was unprecedentedly quiet.

No one sent bullet screen comments, no one gave gifts, but everyone felt a soul-shaking impact.

They had never seen a livestream like this before. They had just witnessed a living life leave right before their eyes. They watched the man mutter and saw the man’s dilated pupils…

However, this was not Bi Fang’s first encounter with this. A long time ago, just like the viewers, he watched his teammates leave, and he was in a daze, not knowing what to do. But he had made it through all of this.

He didn’t know why his livestream room wasn’t banned. Perhaps Wang Yongbo had resisted the pressure, or it was some other reason.

Bi Fang tightened the blanket on the man and then went to the back seat, where he found a man and a woman unconscious. The man was in his thirties with a big beard, the woman was probably in her early twenties, very young, seemingly of school-going age.

He checked both of them to make sure they were only unconscious and not critically injured before turning to the young man nearby.

“Is everyone here?”

“Everyone’s here.” The young man shivered and nodded.

Four people, four people still alive. Bi Fang counted them quickly and immediately started to take action. These people had been in the heavy snow for so long that they had already begun to lose their body heat.

The deceased had passed, and the living should try harder to survive!

Bi Fang used his hunting knife to cut open the car seat, ripped out a large piece of fiber fabric, swept away the snow on the ground, and took out a fire starter from his bag.

“We need fire. For this, we need to utilize everything we can – car seats, lines, wood. We can’t care about environmental protection at this time. Even if there are wild tea trees at the edge of Wuyi Mountain, we can chop them down for firewood!”

Bi Fang spoke quickly, time was pressing. He directly broke some wood and bark from a tree and gathered them with the cotton fabric. He rubbed the fire starter, and numerous sparks splattered.

“I didn’t expect to use the fire starter so quickly, it was supposed to be for emergencies.”

“Compared to the traditional flint, fire starters are mainly made of magnesium alloy and rare earth metals, so they have better performance. When rubbing quickly with a knife or saw, they can drop large amounts of metallic debris at a temperature of thousands of degrees, quickly igniting natural fuel like dry grass, dead leaves, and wood shavings.”

Did that person really die?

As the flame was ignited, some viewers finally came to their senses but still seemed to be in disbelief about what had just happened.

Bi Fang suddenly fell silent and added more firewood to the fire.

“Yes, he’s dead. I wanted to save him, but there was no way. He bled too much, and even if we stopped the bleeding, there was no saving him…”

It’s okay, Lord Fang, you did your best. Don’t blame yourself.

Yeah, Lord Fang, don’t blame yourself. We all know you tried your best.

It seemed very difficult before, but this is the first time it feels so dangerous… Has anyone called the police?

There’s no use, there’s a snowstorm, they can’t make it here on time.

This time, the audience finally experienced the cruelty of the wilderness firsthand.

Life here was as insignificant as ants.

Although they had felt the wilderness was dangerous and scarce of resources before, they gradually forgot the cruelty of the wilderness as Bi Fang managed to turn peril into safety every time – until this moment…

Seeing the fire getting more prominent, the young man finally came to his senses and put his hands near the fire. Under the firelight, he felt a tingling sensation in his hands, not on the skin, but deep in the flesh.

“Just warming up isn’t enough. If you don’t want your hands to go numb, you need to bear the pain and bend your fingers open.” Bi Fang cleared the snow around them.

“I’ll leave it to you!” The young man was straightforward and immediately offered both hands.

“Do you have frostbite cream?”

“Yes, it’s in the car’s armrest compartment.”

Bi Fang dug into the car, found the frostbite cream, and saw the young man crawl to the fire to keep warm. He immediately pulled the young man away from the fire.

“If you have frostbite, especially frostbite on your hands, don’t roast them over a fire. This will only cause your hand tissue to heat up too quickly and rot.”

“Because once you’re frostbitten, most of the cells in the affected area have already frozen, but they haven’t ruptured. If you heat them up quickly, it’s like putting an egg in a microwave, and the cells will just explode!”

The young man, who had just been pulled away from the fire, wanted to protest but stopped when he heard this.