Ji Ting was jolted awake by the bitter cold.
By the time he regained consciousness, his entire body had almost gone numb, and even his clothes had frozen stiff.
The cold storage room was pitch-black. There was no light at all, and what little oxygen remained was rapidly thinning.
Ji Ting drew several forceful breaths and tried to sit up, only then discovering that his right hand had frozen to the floor.
There was nothing here he could use to melt the ice. He could only grit his teeth and tear his palm free of the frozen surface.
A violent bout of palpitations and pain swept through his chest. He did not even dare take a deep breath, and could only curl up, trembling.
The only consolation was that the pain of tearing the skin from his hand had cleared his head somewhat. Ji Ting sat quietly for a while, as though trying to confirm something.
Without any light, he first located the refrigeration unit by its sound. Then he struggled to his feet, wrapped his sleeve around his hand, and began knocking on the walls.
When he reached the second wall, the sound suddenly became much duller, and the surface felt distinctly different. Once he confirmed that it was the door, Ji Ting immediately began feeling along it, trying to find the safety release on the inside.
The temperature kept dropping. After groping around for a while, Ji Ting suddenly felt as though the pain in his body had vanished. Impaired judgment and hallucinations were clear symptoms of hypothermia. Before long, his heart and lungs would probably begin to fail.
Ji Ting held his breath. Still unable to find the release, he decisively abandoned the search and turned toward the refrigeration unit.
His eyes were useless. He had to