A heavy weight tugged at the other end of the rope, swaying as it pulled.
The muscles in Su Wei's arms immediately tensed. He leaned back, lowered his center of gravity, and dug both feet into the snow.
So heavy.
Emily's weight, plus her half-soaked gear, was far more than he had expected.
The rope dug into his palms, burning with pain.
Su Wei gritted his teeth and braced his core, veins bulging in his arms as he steadily pulled her up inch by inch.
The rope scraped against the walls of the pit, sending ice and frozen earth pattering down.
Emily did her best to help, pushing against the wall with her uninjured right foot to ease Su Wei's burden.
"Don't rush. Stay steady!" Su Wei growled, his voice low with exertion.
He couldn't afford to let his attention wander.
The worst thing in a rescue like this was losing the rhythm. One slip, and the person below could very well be hurt again.
If it came to that, things would truly go from bad to worse.
The sweat had barely appeared on Su Wei's forehead before the cold wind dried it, carrying away his body heat as it evaporated.
Su Wei felt as though his lungs were burning. Every breath came out in a great cloud of white mist.
He gulped in the cold air and exhaled in great lungfuls.
At last, a pair of hands gripping the rope appeared at the edge of the pit.
Then came Emily's face, smeared with mud but still stunningly beautiful.
Using the last of her strength, she let Su Wei yank her up in one pull, then collapsed onto the snow, gasping for breath.
Su Wei also released the rope, staggered back two steps, and landed on his backside, his chest heaving.
Cotton Candy came over and rubbed his arm with a small head, a worried whine coming from the little one's throat.
"I... I'm fine." Su Wei waved a hand. Only after resting for half a minute did he feel back in control of his body.
He looked over at Emily, who was curled up a short distance away, clutching her injured left leg.
Without delay, Su Wei got up, went over, and knelt on one knee beside her.
"How's your ankle?"
"It hurts... I can't move it for now." Emily's voice trembled, and her forehead was covered in cold sweat.
Su Wei asked no more questions and reached straight out to grasp her ankle.
Emily's body stiffened sharply, and she instinctively tried to pull away, but Su Wei held her firmly in his large hand.
His hand was cold, yet full of strength.
"Don't move. Let me take a look." Su Wei's tone was calm, but after touching her soft ankle, his heart wouldn't stop stirring.
He quietly took a deep breath to ease his nervousness.
Su Wei carefully undid the laces of Emily's expensive outdoor boots and took off the boot.
Her thick wool sock was soaked with melted snow and clung to her skin.
Su Wei pinched the top of the sock and rolled it down bit by bit.
When her ankle was exposed, they both sucked in a breath.
The once slender ankle was badly swollen, with a large patch of purplish bruising beneath the skin.
"It's a serious sprain. You might have injured a ligament," Su Wei said.
He quickly rummaged through his assault pack for his first-aid kit and took out a roll of elastic bandage and a small bottle of spray.
"This will hurt a little. Bear with it."
With that, he aimed the cold spray at the badly swollen area.
"Hiss!"
Emily shuddered as the icy medicine hit her, but she only bit her lower lip without crying out.
Su Wei worked with practiced skill, wrapping the bandage in a figure eight from her foot to her ankle to secure the injury.
Throughout the process, his attention was entirely focused on the injury, every movement of his fingers precise and steady.
After the pain subsided, Emily looked at him and found herself staring.
The Su Wei before her and the slightly shy boy she remembered, who used to follow her to the docks to watch the fishing boats, were like two completely different people.
His profile was sharply defined, no longer bearing the youthful spirit she remembered.
Instead, he had acquired a ruggedness unique to Alaskan men, a quality honed by Alaska's wind and snow.
The eyes that had once been clear were now deep and calm, their emotions no longer easy to read.
His focus and composure while treating her injury, in particular, settled her own jumbled heart.
Su Wei seemed to have become completely different from the person she remembered.
He's become... more mature...
"All done." Su Wei tied the final knot and looked up. "It's secured for now, but you can't put any weight on it. You'll need to take good care of it while it heals."
Only then did Emily come back to herself. She looked away, a little flustered, and said softly, "Thank you, Su Wei."
"It was no trouble." Su Wei put the first-aid kit away, stood up, and looked around.
The sky had gone completely dark, and the shadows of the spruce forest stretched long, like twisted monsters.
"It isn't safe here." He pointed at the snowmobile, which was still belching black smoke. "What happened to you, anyway? What brought you to a place like this alone?"
A wry smile appeared on Emily's face.
"I was doing fieldwork for my thesis, studying the distribution of wolf packs and fox populations in this area. Everything was going smoothly, but when I passed through here, the snowmobile's track suddenly got caught in a crack between some rocks. I was thrown off and fell into that pit."
A thesis?
Only then did Su Wei remember that Emily had always gotten excellent grades. Everyone in town praised her as a clever girl.
"What are you studying now?"
"A master's in animal behavior at Anchorage University," Emily answered. Then she looked at Su Wei, her beautiful blue eyes full of confusion. "What about you? Su Wei, what are you doing here? And you've got a gun... You look like you're here to hunt."
And you've changed.
She quietly added the last thought to herself.
Su Wei was silent for a moment.
He turned away from her and looked at the distant mountains swallowed by the night.
"My parents... They went out to sea this year and never came back."
Emily's breath caught.
"The house and land were the only inheritance they left me. But there's still a hundred and sixty thousand dollars owed on a bank loan. If I can't pay it back within a month, everything will be auctioned off." Su Wei spoke without inflection, as though stating a fact.
"So I came here to see if I could make some money."
He didn't say that he had killed a deer, nor did he mention the Devil's Claw.
In the wilderness, he had to keep three parts of himself hidden from everyone, even a childhood friend.
Emily didn't speak for a long time.
She looked at Su Wei's back. It wasn't particularly broad, but he stood straight, looking a little lonely in the cold wind.
She couldn't imagine what this man her own age had been through.
Both parents dead, saddled with an enormous debt, risking his life alone in a wilderness at twenty below zero for a faint glimmer of hope.
"I'm sorry, Su Wei... I didn't know..." Her voice trailed off.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. This is my own business."
Su Wei turned back, his face calm again.
"Now isn't the time to talk about this. Can you still move? My camp is on the other side of the ridge. There's a tent and a fire. We have to get there right away."
Emily struggled to stand, but the moment her left foot touched the ground, a piercing pain made her grunt, and she nearly fell again.
Su Wei caught her.
Her body was soft, and even through her thick shell jacket, Su Wei could feel her trembling.
"Looks like you can't walk." Su Wei frowned.
Carry her on my back?
In snow that gave way unevenly underfoot, carrying an adult several hundred meters would take too much energy. It simply wasn't realistic.
Emily understood that too, and a trace of panic entered her voice. "Then... what do we do?"
Su Wei didn't answer.
He glanced at Emily, then at the snowmobile nearby, and quickly came up with an idea.
"Wait here. Don't go anywhere." Su Wei helped Emily sit down beneath a rock sheltered from the wind. "Cotton Candy, watch her."