Rescued

When Zhuang Xiaolin opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the slightly bumpy airplane cabin.

Looking around, the icy wind battered Zhuang Xiaolin's somewhat slender body. As an urban office worker, he had never had much time to hit the gym. Running around every day was already enough to leave him mentally and physically exhausted.

Pulling his suit tighter around himself, Zhuang Xiaolin felt for the first time just how useless such formal clothing was.

Zhuang Xiaolin slowly rose to his feet and surveyed his surroundings. Everything around him was blanketed in snow, with vast stretches of forest standing tall and blocking the wind and snow. He exhaled a breath of warm air, which was instantly swallowed by the frost and snow. Vapor that was usually invisible stood out especially clearly in this blizzard.

Zhuang Xiaolin patted the pockets of his suit and looked around again, only to find the place completely empty. He was the only one standing there alone. For some reason, he suddenly felt a little afraid.

Having lived in human society for so many years, Zhuang Xiaolin had long grown accustomed to the way it operated. Every social class had its own people, and the comprehensive services available had allowed him to devote all his time to work over the years without wasting a moment.

Of course, that had also brought Zhuang Xiaolin quite a few downsides—for example, he had never learned any useful survival skills.

Zhuang Xiaolin walked into the forest. His thin clothes were clearly not enough to support him living on this freezing snowfield. After carefully searching the ground around the forest, he luckily found several fallen dead branches.

Zhuang Xiaolin gathered the branches. Lighters and similar items had originally not been allowed on planes, but ever since electric lighters appeared, restrictions on them had loosened. Besides, with smart technology assisting, planes had dedicated monitoring for such things. If someone tried to do anything bad, the lighter would immediately fail and turn into a useless piece of scrap metal.

He fiddled with the electric lighter and found that it still worked. Zhuang Xiaolin hurriedly built a campfire. The slightly warmer temperature calmed him a little, and he stretched out his hands, wanting to quietly enjoy this brief warmth.

However, cruel reality immediately taught Zhuang Xiaolin a lesson. In winter, besides quickly starting a fire, one also had to prepare to keep it from going out. Zhuang Xiaolin, who had lived his whole life in the city, obviously lacked such survival skills. After warming him for only a few minutes, the campfire suddenly went out.

Zhuang Xiaolin tried to light it again, but the heavy snow soon made the dead branches soggy. No matter how he used the electric lighter, he could not get them to catch fire.

Left with no choice, Zhuang Xiaolin was forced to get up and search for new dead branches or somewhere that could temporarily shelter him from the wind and snow.

After searching for a while, Zhuang Xiaolin found a tree hollow. It was not large, but it was just big enough to fit one person.

Before entering it, however, Zhuang Xiaolin deliberately checked the area around it for traces of human habitation. He was no fool. If such a large tree hollow was unoccupied, that was fine—but if someone did live there, it was most likely a trap.

After confirming that there was no one around and that the tree hollow had indeed formed naturally, Zhuang Xiaolin finally chose to crawl inside. Once he entered, he felt incomparably warm and spent the short day within it.

The next day, once the wind and snow had stopped, Zhuang Xiaolin left the tree hollow and went outside to look for something to eat. On his first day, he had not eaten anything, and he was not the sort to keep snacks in his suit pockets. Naturally, there was nothing edible for him to pull out.

After searching for half the day, Zhuang Xiaolin still had not found even a single thing he could eat. His consciousness began to blur. Thin clothing and a body without any energy intake were extremely dangerous for an urban office worker like him. High-intensity work had drained much of his body's functions. Lasting seven or eight days like he had when he was younger was probably impossible now. Zhuang Xiaolin estimated that if he could not find food, he would likely die right where he stood on the third day.

Fortunately, Zhuang Xiaolin came across a group traveling through the snowy forest. They wore heavy coats and carried lanterns, speaking a language that sounded somewhat like Russian. Zhuang Xiaolin had never encountered it, so naturally he could not understand them. After learning programming, he had rarely dealt with language-related things.

The group brought Zhuang Xiaolin back with them. He could not understand what they were saying, but this group of unknown origin was the only thing he could rely on now.

The group took Zhuang Xiaolin to a village settlement and gave him some hard black bread.

Although the food was difficult to swallow, Zhuang Xiaolin forced himself to gnaw down a little for the sake of replenishing his body's energy.

Those people talked among themselves, discussing him. Some even leaned close to his face, staring at him and pointing with their fingers. Zhuang Xiaolin did not react much to this. In such freezing weather, if people encountered someone outside wearing such thin clothing, they would generally point and talk about why he was there and why he was dressed like that.

The people there said a great deal to Zhuang Xiaolin, but he could not understand a single word. Helplessly, both sides could only begin communicating through gestures. After gesturing for most of the day, they both gained something from it. At the very least, Zhuang Xiaolin conveyed that he was homeless and urgently needed help.

The people there also replied that they were willing to provide Zhuang Xiaolin with temporary lodging and some food. But it was winter, and the villagers themselves did not have much food, so naturally they could give Zhuang Xiaolin even less.

Zhuang Xiaolin was already very satisfied with that. At least his life had been saved for the time being.

Zhuang Xiaolin lay in the room the villagers had prepared for him. The flimsy wooden bed was truly uncomfortable, but the exhaustion of the past few days had left him unable to endure much longer. Before long, Zhuang Xiaolin fell into a deep sleep.