The screen lit up. It was exactly three in the afternoon.
At this hour, with the wind and snow growing stronger, trying to get down the mountain before dark would be suicide.
He would very likely die in the worsening storm before he made it down.
The original owner's memories flashed through his mind.
There was a hunter's safe house along the route down the mountain.
The Alaska Hunters Club had funded its construction to give unlucky souls caught in accidents a fighting chance.
It also provided a place for hikers and hunters to take a short rest.
All they had to do was clean up before leaving. It was completely free.
Of course, the club also hoped people would pay some membership dues to help maintain it.
Su Wei knew perfectly well that his best choice now was to go to the safe house. It was his only way to stay alive.
Otherwise, in his current condition, his fate was practically nailed shut.
He had little food, no tent, and nothing on him to keep warm, only a gun and a few simple tools.
And now he faced a growing storm. Su Wei had already died once.
This time, Su Wei had no desire to try dying a second time.
He had to make the best decision!
Right away, immediately, he had to go to the safe house and rest!!
Su Wei hesitated no longer. Braving the wind and snow and relying on his hazy memories, he struggled toward the safe house's approximate location.
He didn't notice that over a hundred meters behind him, the little white figure was following his every step, its small nose twitching constantly in the storm as it sniffed the scent he had left behind, which the heavy snow would soon bury.
No one knew why the little creature was so persistent.
The wind grew shriller, its howl piercing his ears.
The snowflakes had long since turned into hard pellets of snow that swept against his jacket, striking it with a rapid patter.
Su Wei's lungs burned fiercely. With every breath, icy air poured into them, burning all the way from his windpipe to his chest.
His stamina wasn't good, and on top of that, he had only woken up in the blizzard yesterday and hadn't rested well that night.
Today he had encountered that damned brown bear, run at full speed, and then met another storm.
His body had long since been utterly exhausted.
He moved his legs mechanically, driven almost entirely by an instinct to survive, his mind a complete blank.
Only one thought echoed over and over.
Stay alive.
I have to stay alive, pay off that damned debt, and keep the cabin and the land.
That was the only place he could call home now.
It was also his hope of surviving in this place!
Time passed as he trudged on.
Just as Su Wei's eyelids grew heavy and he was about to collapse,
a blurry black dot suddenly appeared at the far end of his snow-white field of vision.
His spirits surged.
Closer.
Closer still.
It was a cabin built entirely of logs, its roof and walls covered in thick snow, looming in and out of sight through the storm.
That's it!
A desire to survive surged through him, giving his nearly exhausted body another trace of strength.
He scrambled and stumbled toward the cabin, the snow swallowing his knees in an instant.
He reached for the door with hands so cold they were almost numb. The cold of the iron handle nearly tore a layer of skin from his hand.
His trembling hands tried several times, but he couldn't pull the latch open.
"Fuck you! Come on!!"
Su Wei cursed in anger, his tone furious.
It was panic at the brink of life and death.
He slammed his shoulder against it, then used every ounce of strength to wrench at the latch, which had nearly frozen in place. With a piercing sound, it slowly slid open.
"Creeeak-"
The wooden door opened a crack.
A dry but icy smell of wood hit him in the face.
Su Wei plunged inside, then used the last of his strength to shut the heavy wooden door behind him.
"Bang!"
As soon as the door closed, the sound of the storm outside was cut off, and the world fell quiet.
Only his own heavy panting remained.
With his back against the cold wooden door, Su Wei slid weakly down it until he was sitting on the floor.
He had survived.
For now.
It was dark inside, with only a little pale daylight coming through a small window.
The window was badly broken, and it was only held tightly shut by wire wrapped around it.
Even so, cold wind blew in through small gaps.
But now Su Wei had no mind to worry about those damned gaps.
Su Wei took several minutes to catch his breath before pushing himself up against the rough wall and looking around the cabin that had saved his life.
The cabin was small enough to take in at a glance.
There was a crude wooden bed with hay spread over it.
Several wooden boxes sat beneath the bed. Inside were a dust-covered quilt that looked moldy and some old, worn clothes.
The clothes, unlike the quilt, had probably been left by previous users.
Though they were worn and smelled bad, they were good news for Su Wei right now.
Beside the bed was a small portable tin stove, with a small pile of split firewood neatly stacked next to it.
There was also a locked wooden box in the corner, its contents unknown.
There were small gaps around both the window and the door, constantly letting in cold wind.
But there was nothing to be done about that. The cabin probably hadn't been maintained in a long time.
The fact that it was still usable was already good news.
Su Wei couldn't worry about that now. His teeth were chattering from the cold, and his body shook uncontrollably.
He put down his backpack and staggered over to the stove. He pulled out the dry wood shavings and birch bark inside for tinder, then deftly drew his magnesium rod and military knife.
"Scrape!"
The shower of sparks landed squarely on the tinder. A wisp of smoke rose, and soon a cluster of orange flames danced in the firebox.
The orange flames burned, and the heat they gave off made him feel alive again.
Su Wei hurriedly stripped off all his nearly soaked outer clothes and boots, along with his socks, and laid them out one by one in the empty space beside the stove to dry.
Wearing only a layer of close-fitting, quick-drying clothes, he was so cold that goosebumps rose on his skin in the firelight.
He quickly took the quilt and the ragged clothes from the wooden box under the bed. After cleaning them up a little, he wrapped himself in the clothes first, then the quilt.
He waited for his body to gradually warm up and for the numb feeling in his limbs to fade.
Only then did he get moving again.
Su Wei set his camping pot on the stove and grabbed a large handful of clean snow from the doorway to melt in it.
The water boiled.
He took out his last packet of compressed biscuits, broke off half, and tossed it into the pot, cooking it into a steaming mush.
The scalding mush slid down his throat and into his icy stomach, and a current of warmth quickly spread through his body.
His nearly frozen body finally came back to life.
Su Wei leaned against the wall, watching the flames dance in the stove and listening to the increasingly fierce storm outside. His tense body finally relaxed.
Without this safe house, he would have been a corpse turning stiff by now.
He touched the backpack beside him. Inside were sixteen pounds of chaga.