Chapter Eighteen: The Luckiest

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“Ah Jing, be careful!”

Knowing that I was going to search the area again, Qu Xiang expressed her concern when she saw me carrying the loop of vine rope I had just woven.

“Don’t worry. Whether I find anything or not, I’ll be back soon!”

To be honest, seeing Luo Wei’s condition in the river had shaken me deeply.

Hearing Qu Xiang’s words and thinking of how she had looked after me during this time, I did not want her to worry too much. The waterfall roared ahead of us. Even though I had not the slightest confidence in what lay before me, I absolutely could not let Qu Xiang or Lan Fang see a trace of my unease.

“Be careful. We haven’t encountered any major danger so far, but Brother Wen’s warning at the beginning certainly wasn’t baseless.”

Seeing Lan Fang slumped weakly against the rocks, I quietly reminded Qu Xiang to be cautious. No matter what danger I encountered, I still had some understanding of my own limits. But when it came to Qu Xiang and Lan Fang, I had not the slightest certainty that I could protect them.

Even so, I did not want Qu Xiang to think too much. I knew that indecision was part of my nature, and in an environment this cruel, it could prove fatal. Though I still had more to say, I realized that this was not the right moment. Without looking back again, I moved on.

Fortunately, the sun had not yet completely set. The winding rays of the evening light streamed through the leaves. In another setting, it would have been a beautiful sight.

This time, I merely glanced at it before my thoughts and gaze returned to reality.

What Qu Xiang and Lan Fang thought no longer mattered. The most urgent thing was to find a way to stay alive. Only then would anything else be worth discussing.

In the past, if someone suddenly found themselves stranded outdoors, they might have felt utterly hopeless. After all, loneliness and anxiety were enough to destroy anyone. Yet I remained clearheaded. Even if the future held more twists and turns, at least there were three of us now.

After encountering Brother Wen and the others, and remembering how Peng Qian had abandoned us at the beginning, I understood the reality of being trapped in a desperate situation. The others were unwilling to approach us because, in their eyes, the three of us were merely three more mouths to feed—useless people.

Under ordinary circumstances, such a thought would have been infuriating. But I knew that anger solved nothing. Besides, those people were complete strangers to us; they had no obligation to take responsibility for our survival.

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As long as we knew that other people existed nearby, some of them even people we knew, it meant that we were not completely alone!

Whether those people might swallow us up at any moment, or whether I watched them sink into despair just as we had, at least I knew that Brother Wen and the others were there. To Qu Xiang and Lan Fang, their existence represented a standard to measure survival against.

No matter what had happened to them or what they had endured, Brother Wen and his companions had managed to hold on for several months in this place that seemed like an utter dead end. I did not believe they could have survived this long on meat alone. They must have found some other way.

The thought of enduring here for so long sounded frightening, but having experienced the process myself, I at least knew one thing: this place still contained the means to survive. So no matter what happened, I had to find a way to stay alive first.

I did not want to sit around waiting for an opportunity. Since I was still capable of moving, I had to take the initiative!

In this world, only those who took the initiative had any chance at all.

I did not even dare turn around to look at Qu Xiang. I did not know whether I would achieve anything, nor whether danger might draw near while I was away from them.

I remembered how, on the first day, I had clung to a faint hope, waiting for someone to come rescue us, waiting for someone to discover us. Later, there was not only no communication whatsoever—we did not even know where we were. Yet I had still refused to lose hope.

But after seeing Luo Wei’s fate, I suddenly realized that life and death could be separated by nothing more than a single thought.

Perhaps because evening was approaching, the water splashing down from the waterfall seemed even colder.

I wiped the droplets from my face and felt my mind grow sharper. Spray danced through the air, and I could barely hear anything else over the roar.

I had already surveyed the surrounding area at the beginning, so this time I ignored the other possibilities and made my way to the middle of the waterfall, where the drop and the force of the falling water were relatively weaker.

I had noticed several stones jutting out beneath the waterfall, including some at different heights. Even though the curtain of water crashing down in front of me made it impossible to see the details clearly, I still wanted to try my luck.

After all, if we had been swept from the river above, carried over the waterfall into the pool below, and then washed farther downstream, some of the things we had been carrying might have ended up anywhere along the way.

They could be on the bank, beside the waterfall, or even in the pool itself. All of those possibilities remained.

I knew perfectly well that the odds were vanishingly small. But perhaps when a person reached the end of their hope, even a single straw could become something to pray for. So although I did not truly expect anything, a cry of hope still echoed in my mind.

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When my eyes suddenly caught sight of what appeared to be a black backpack hanging from a protruding square stone, I thought I must have been mistaken.

The stone itself had been darkened by the water washing over it. Without bothering about the pain spreading through my body as the waterfall battered me, I hurried toward the backpack.

“Damn it! It’s real!”

Standing beneath the waterfall, I actually began to laugh almost hysterically.

Had Heaven finally taken pity on me? Had I really stumbled upon a backpack?

But just as my hand was about to touch it, a shiver of unease ran through me. Brother Wen had told me that this entire area belonged to him, which meant he must have come here before. So why had he never found this backpack?

I desperately wanted to see what was inside, yet that thought made me hesitate. In the end, the desire to know won out. I knew that even the greatest disappointment would be better than finding nothing at all.

Once I had convinced myself of that, I pulled open the backpack.

The first things I found were two bottles of water, tucked near the zipper. The sight of them immediately filled me with excitement.

And it seemed the bag would not disappoint me. There were snacks inside—quite a lot of them, in fact.

Judging by the amount, there was enough to support the three of us for a long while. A feeling of relief washed over me. I hurriedly twisted open one of the bottles and gulped down nearly half of it.

An emotion unlike anything I had ever felt overcame me. I leaned against the rocks beneath the waterfall, my eyes growing moist. With the spray from above splashing across my face, I could no longer tell whether the wetness came from the water or my tears.

Ever since I realized that I and the others had been trapped here, I had never felt the relief of surviving a disaster. Instead, an uneasy terror had remained faintly pressed against my heart.

Perhaps those who had never experienced it could never understand the anxiety.