Chapter 481: Chapter 342: Call for Help (Part 3)
"2..." The voice inside paused for a moment before slowly responding.
It took so long to figure out 1 plus 1. As I secretly mocked, I began to move the stones at the cave entrance. I removed a third of the top stones, revealing a small opening, and shone my flashlight inside.
If it were any other living creature, it would react intensely to the light stimulus, but humans tend not to.
I tiptoed and squinted to look inside, discovering a person lying not far from the cave entrance. Judging by her posture, she was crawling out from inside, but she might have run out of strength after reaching that position.
Her hair was tied in a ponytail. It seemed she had dyed it, with streaks of red and blue, only noticeable at the hair’s ends.
She lay face down, and I wasn’t sure if she even had the strength to lift her head. I shone the flashlight on her head, deliberately moving the light around to provoke a reaction.
But she did not react at all, as if she could not see the light shining on her.
I picked up a small stone and threw it, hitting her shoulder. In such uncertain situations, where it is unclear if the person is alive, I dared not fully open the cave entrance. I feared she might feign weakness, and once I opened it, she could leap out, especially since Miss Tang lay vulnerable outside.
The woman slowly raised her head, with great difficulty. Her appearance was grotesque, between human and ghost. I might even believe she was a zombie.
"Help... me..." The woman looked at me. Her nails were extremely long, with dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was rigid. It seemed like she was looking at me, yet not seeing me.
I suddenly realized she might be blind. When blind people look at others, they appear like this. She could roughly locate me through my voice but couldn’t precisely pinpoint me, like directly staring into my eyes.
"Is there someone?" Miss Tang indeed looked slightly better than before as she turned her head towards us.
"Not sure if it’s a living person." Or whether a person trapped in a cave could survive for months.
If enough food and water, along with sufficient medication and robust health, surviving a year might be possible.
"Didn’t she just cry for help?" Miss Tang looked at me puzzled.
"Tsk, crying for help doesn’t necessarily mean someone is alive."
"So, are you planning to let her die without help?"
"Why do you have so many questions? If we get her out and she kills you?"
"With you here, she can’t harm me."
Oh, my mental goosebumps were all over. "Can’t you avoid saying trustful words so nauseatingly?"
"You’re not just full of nonsense, but also meddlesome. Hurry and rescue her."
I didn’t argue with the patient. I moved the rocks at the entrance, put on gloves, and dragged the woman out.
This was something Doctor Du repeatedly instructed me before I came out. She insisted I wear gloves before touching anything because of her apprehension from a previous petrification infection incident.
The woman had been in the cave for quite some time, so it was uncertain whether she contracted some strange bacteria or virus. I didn’t mind getting infected myself, only fearing I might transmit it back to Doctor Du and the others.
I wrapped a rope around the woman, dragging her onto the open ground outside, just like how I dragged Miss Tang.
The air outside was fresh but uncertainly clean. I gave the woman a bottle cap of water; this water was pooled by Wang Le and the others for me, which I didn’t need.
The woman looked no better than a starving zombie for a year. A bottle cap of water was far from enough for her to drink, but it was meant to moisten her throat, not quench her thirst.
Miss Tang hadn’t brought water when she came out, so I had to conserve some for her. Now she lay on the sand, watching the foreign woman and said to me, "She looks so weak, not like she’d suddenly attack anyone."
"Oh, do you remember what Mike said? The notebook owner was poisoned and dying, and the team had only one female member who was the notebook owner, an entomologist."
My implication was that standing in front of us now was the notebook’s owner, someone who should have died long ago.
Her team entered this area well before Mike’s, so she’d been trapped for quite a while. Even without poisoning, survival seemed very tough.
Especially a poisoned person, giving her a sip of water was an attempt to hear what she had to say.
After drinking the water, the woman asked for food. I gave her half a cookie. It tasted decent, and Doctor Du said it contained the daily required vitamins and nutrients like iron, zinc, and calcium. In simple terms, it wouldn’t fill you up but would sustain life.
"If she can eat cookies, she must be human." Miss Tang continued.
"Ah, you’re too young," I said meaningfully.
