Su Chen first looked up at the top and found it to be a good forty or fifty meters above them, and the place they had fallen wasn’t the actual bottom either. Not far from them was a huge hole that, when peered into, seemed bottomless!
"Honey, sit here and don’t move, I’ll go take a look."
Su Chen stood up and said.
"Mm, hubby, be careful yourself."
Lin Ruoxue nodded.
Su Chen carefully surveyed their surroundings and noticed the fissure was several dozen meters long and about ten meters wide. However, there were many traps around, and Su Chen accidentally stepped onto one in the snow. He suddenly sank down, falling straight into it.
Fortunately, his cultivation was sufficient; he stepped on a support point nearby and leapt up.
"Alright, honey, let’s see what else we have in the bag."
Su Chen returned to Lin Ruoxue’s side and unzipped his backpack.
In this kind of environment, any item could be crucial for survival.
"It seems my bag is gone."
Lin Ruoxue muttered in dismay. She had been carrying her bag on her shoulders the whole time, not realizing when it had disappeared—who could bother about a backpack in such a tense moment?
"It’s gone, so be it. Fortunately, I still have mine."
Su Chen smiled slightly, not wanting to add more stress to her.
He quickly checked the contents of his bag: only half a bottle of water was left, a headlamp for illumination, and a long rope. Apart from water, he actually hadn’t planned to carry the rest; after all, they were only supposed to be out for half a day.
But the village chief was worried and insisted on stuffing them into his backpack. Now, it seemed like a blessing from the village chief!
Even with these things, Su Chen didn’t feel the slightest relief. If it were just him, he believed he’d manage, having faced far worse situations before.
But Lin Ruoxue was with him, and the cold, thin air, and air pressure—each was hardly bearable!
Moreover, they had no food at all, and only half a bottle of water remaining.
"Hubby, I feel so cold!"
After a while, Lin Ruoxue said, shivering.
Hearing this, Su Chen instantly regretted not bringing a kerosene lighter or windproof matches; they could have made a fire now.
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But regret was useless, he had to address the current situation first. Immediately, he took off his leather jacket to put on Lin Ruoxue.
"No, hubby, you’ll freeze like this!"
Lin Ruoxue, startled, frantically pushed Su Chen away.
Su Chen had not dressed warm to begin with, and giving his only somewhat warm jacket to her was like willingly courting death!
"Don’t worry! Your husband is in good health!"
Su Chen reassured her with a smile.
"Absolutely not!"
But Lin Ruoxue was not so easily persuaded and resolutely refused.
No matter how healthy he was, wearing such thin clothes, he couldn’t withstand the freezing temperatures that plummeted to tens of degrees below zero!
Even if it was a stranger, Lin Ruoxue didn’t believe it was right to let someone else sacrifice for her own sake.
Moreover, this was her husband, one of the most important people in her life. How could she possibly disregard his life and death?
"What do you mean, no! You must wear it! If you don’t, I’ll just throw it on the ground and neither of us will wear it!"
Su Chen no longer argued slowly with her and instead restrained her, forcibly putting the leather jacket on her.
Watching Su Chen in his thin clothes, Lin Ruoxue’s tears fell uncontrollably, her fists pounding on Su Chen’s body:
"Liar, you’re just a big liar!"
"How did I become a big liar?"
Su Chen asked jokingly, with a smile on his face; he hadn’t deceived her about anything, had he?
"That’s right, you! You deceived someone into being moved, deceived them into crying, stole their heart!"
Lin Ruoxue cried out, her eyes blurry with tears...
"All right, stop crying, or you’ll not be pretty anymore!"
Su Chen embraced her, whispering softly.
"Husband, we won’t die here, will we?"
After a while, Lin Ruoxue spoke gently from within Su Chen’s arms.
"We haven’t even truly become husband and wife. I can’t bear the thought of dying, and even more, I can’t bear the thought of you dying!"
There was a smile on Su Chen’s face as he said:
"Don’t worry, with your husband here, there’s no problem!"
"Mhm!"
Lin Ruoxue nodded her head.
"Okay, wife, you sit here, and your husband needs to get to work!"
Seeing that Lin Ruoxue’s emotions had stabilized somewhat, Su Chen stood up. They surely couldn’t just keep embracing each other here; they needed to hurry and find a way out!
"Okay!"
"Wife, don’t move around, just stay put here."
Su Chen advised her before he left. After all, snow covered everything here, and one could easily fall through it without noticing, hadn’t he just experienced that?
After he had finished speaking, Su Chen went to a nearby slope where the snow was thickest and began to dig with his hands, where the snow had formed a small hill.
Although he had given his coat to Lin Ruoxue, he knew that it wasn’t much help, given how low the temperature was here.
Therefore, he had to solve this problem quickly, or else if they caught a cold, it could lead to pulmonary edema in these conditions, followed by death.
And the best way to keep warm was to dig a snow cave.
Firstly, because it would provide shelter from the wind, and secondly, snow is a natural insulator, much like a down jacket, filled with lots of air pockets, and air is a poor conductor of heat, so the heat emitted by the body could be trapped inside.
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Of course, since the temperature of the snow is very low, the temperature inside the snow cave would never rise above 0 degrees Celsius.
Any heat sufficient to raise the temperature above 0 degrees would be absorbed by the snow, which is also the principle behind the snow houses of the Inuit people.
Although the maximum temperature is only 0 degrees, it is still much better than outside’s negative degrees, and with the clothes they were wearing, they wouldn’t feel too cold!
However, digging a snow cave was also something that needed to be done with care: the depth of the snow, the steepness of the slope, and the compactness of the snow all needed to be considered.
And the digging had to be done upwards, not downwards.
Of course, the entrance had to be dug from below to prevent wind from blowing in.
"Husband, let me come over and help you!"
Lin Ruoxue, watching Su Chen digging the snow with his bare hands from a short distance away, felt a deep pang of distress, even though she didn’t yet understand what he was doing.
"Alright, don’t move; I’ll come over and bring you here."
Su Chen thought for a moment and agreed, as keeping busy could help Lin Ruoxue generate some warmth, and it would also ease her worries and fears.
And with an extra person, the work would proceed faster.
Su Chen carefully walked over and then carried Lin Ruoxue back. Being carried like a princess by Su Chen made Lin Ruoxue feel both shy and happy.
By now, Su Chen had almost finished digging the entrance, and next, he needed to dig a small passage upwards.
"Wife, I’m going to dig upwards in a bit. You’ll need to take the snow I dig out and move it outside the cave," Su Chen instructed Lin Ruoxue.
"No problem!"
Lin Ruoxue immediately replied with excitement.
She was so happy because she had never done such a thing before and found it intriguing; moreover, she was glad to finally be of some help to Su Chen...