Young Chen Yexun straightened up, gasping for air.
He knew what he had to do next.
His father had taught him many times.
The basement door sat at the far end of the hallway.
Just then— *Click.* The sound of the lock turning blasted in his ears like a clap of thunder!
Young Chen Yexun froze instantly.
A violent, icy terror wrapped around him, leaving him almost unable to breathe.
He panted heavily, his heart pounding hard enough to burst from his chest.
From the entryway came the slow, rhythmic sound of clapping hands.
*Clap.
Clap.
Clap.* Slowly, stiffly, he turned his head to look.
Standing in the foyer were a well-dressed man and woman.
Their faces bore smiles that were grotesquely twisted, brimming with deep euphoria as they clapped rhythmically, over and over.
The man stepped forward, his polished leather shoes tapping across the gleaming floor, and crouched in front of young Chen Yexun.
The smile on his handsome face stretched to an unnatural width.
He reached out and gently stroked young Chen Yexun’s smudge-stained face.
“Good boy…” Looking at that sickening, sickeningly familiar smiling face, cold sweat instantly drenched Chen Yexun’s back.
Just then, he felt as if an invisible force violently yanked at his brain!
…
“Gag—!” Chen Yexun snapped his eyes open.
A wave of intense nausea surged from his stomach straight to his throat.
He jerked his head aside and began vomiting uncontrollably.
What little remained in his stomach came up mixed with bile until there was nothing left to throw up, leaving him dry-heaving.
Tears squeezed from his eyes from the violent reflex.
That sickening memory lingered like a parasite, swirling wildly in his mind, refusing to leave.
Intense pain followed, spreading across his entire body—especially his chest and arms, which felt as if they had been brutally crushed.
Ignoring the pain, he forced himself upright.
He needed to figure out their situation first.
Before him was still the battered cable car, but its interior had been completely deformed.
The floor was buckled and dented into a grotesque, twisted mess.
Most bizarre of all, where the top and bottom windows had once been, a thick tree trunk now skewered the carriage vertically and brutally.
Its rough bark was scarred with freshly snapped branches, clearly having absorbed a massive impact during the fall.
Chen Yexun understood instantly.
As they plunged, they had miraculously crashed straight down through the canopy of a large tree.
The dense branches had broken their fall step by step, and this main trunk had caught the cable car at the end, leaving them suspended in midair.
Enduring the agony, he shifted his body with difficulty and looked past the tree at the wreckage behind it.
Li Chengyu and Chu Yao were both lying there, unmoving.
Chen Yexun’s heart sank.
He crawled over and checked their breathing first.
Thankfully, both were still breathing.
He quickly checked their injuries.
Chu Yao mostly had scrapes and bruises; nothing looked critical.
Li Chengyu was worse off.
Besides similar abrasions, a shattered piece of glass had sliced a deep gouge into one of his arms.
The blood had clotted, but what worried Chen Yexun most was…
Chen Yexun patted Li Chengyu’s face gently.
“Chengyu?
Bro?
Wake up!” No response.
He shook Li Chengyu’s shoulder harder.
“Hey!
Wake up!” Only when Chen Yexun was using nearly all his strength did a painful, wheezing rasp issue from Li Chengyu’s throat.
He began coughing violently, his eyelids fluttering as if trying to open.
Chen Yexun stopped.
Li Chengyu finally opened his eyes, but they were unfocused and vacant.
Almost instantly, he clutched his head tightly with his uninjured hand and let out a pained groan.
“It hurts…
My head…
hurts so bad…” “Where else does it hurt besides your head?” Chen Yexun asked hurriedly.
But Li Chengyu merely curled into a ball, clutching his head and repeating his cries of pain, completely unresponsive to Chen Yexun’s question.
*Did he hit his head?* Chen Yexun’s heart sank.
He immediately turned to the other side and began calling out to Chu Yao: “Chu Yao!
Chu Yao!
Wake up!” Chu Yao was in much better shape.
At his calls, she blinked open her eyes groggily.
Blank confusion filled her gaze at first, quickly replaced by horror as pain hit her and she registered her surroundings.
“Someone’s hurt!
Help me check on him!” Chen Yexun didn’t give her time to adjust, pointing straight at Li Chengyu on the floor.
“I think he injured his head!” Chu Yao was disoriented by the sudden situation, but the word “injured” seemed to trigger her professional instincts.
Struggling to sit up, she took a quick glance around at the uncanny sight of the tree skewering the carriage, gasped, and immediately crawled over to Li Chengyu.
She first asked in a soft voice, “Sir?
Can you hear me?
Where specifically does it hurt?” Li Chengyu gave no response, only groaning in pain.
Guiding herself by where his hands were clutching, Chu Yao carefully reached out and began pressing and massaging his scalp, trying to locate an injury or ease his pain, though her movements lacked confidence.
Chen Yexun frowned as he watched her.
“You’re…
not a neurology nurse, are you?” Chu Yao paused, a touch of embarrassment flashing across her face as she slowly shook her head.
“I…
I’m just an outpatient nurse.
I handle IV drips, change dressings…
Honestly, I don’t know if doing this helps at all…” Chen Yexun sighed inwardly.
*Figures I couldn’t rely on that.* But he had no solution either.
All he could do was lean back against the twisted wall of the carriage, watching the two of them with worry.
He pulled out his phone.
The screen was cracked in several places, but it still lit up.
Instead of browsing apocalyptic videos, he opened a search engine and typed rapidly: [Severe Headache] [Clouded Consciousness] [After Head Impact] The results that popped up pointed to a single conclusion: concussion.
He quickly scanned the first-aid recommendations: keep quiet, bed rest, close observation, watch for severe symptoms like vomiting or loss of consciousness…
“Tsk.” Irritated, Chen Yexun clicked off the screen.
Suspended in midair inside a wrecked cable car, “bed rest” and “close observation” sounded hollow and useless.
“Chu Yao,” he said, turning his head as his voice softened slightly.
“Stop massaging.
It’s no use.
Rest for a bit.” At his words, Chu Yao withdrew her hands, quietly shifted to the side, and sat down.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she buried her face in them, her voice coming out faint.
“…I’m sorry.” Chen Yexun blinked.
“What are you apologizing for?” “I…
I’m no help at all…” Her voice trembled with tears and deep helplessness.
“I’m a nurse, but…
I can’t do anything…” Chen Yexun looked at her.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke in an extraordinarily calm and firm tone.
“Don’t think like that.” “Your profession is one of the most valuable assets we have in an environment like this.” Chu Yao lifted her head slightly, revealing rimmed red eyes, and looked at him in confusion.
“In the wilderness, what kills a person isn’t usually a lack of food,” Chen Yexun’s gaze swept over the unconscious Li Chengyu and the quiet mountain forest below as he continued, “It’s illness.
A cold, an infected wound, dehydration from diarrhea…
any of those can sap your strength until you’re completely drained, dying before you even realize what happened.” He paused, locking eyes with Chu Yao, his tone growing even firmer.
“So don’t sell yourself short.
You know how to sanitize, how to bandage, and maybe even which herbs reduce inflammation or stop bleeding.
Your knowledge and these…” He pointed to the roll of gauze peeking out from her waist pouch.
“…will absolutely be key to whether we survive in the days to come.” Chu Yao stared at him numbly, seemingly moved by his words, but the immense pressure and fear still overwhelmed her.
Ultimately, she just buried her face back in her arms without a word.
Chen Yexun said no more, shifting his focus to how they might escape.
He crawled over to the window again to examine it carefully.
The carriage’s only exit, the window, was completely blocked by the lifesaver of a tree.
Though gaps remained between the trunk and the frame, allowing a view outside, they were nowhere near wide enough for a person to squeeze through.
He looked down.
The ground was roughly four or five meters below.
The dirt looked relatively soft, covered in fallen leaves and broken branches scattered from their crash.
Jumping from this height might not kill them, but the risk of breaking a leg was extremely high.
And in a world filled with lunatics, a broken leg was practically a death sentence.
They were safe for now—but just as surely, they were trapped in an iron cage hanging in midair.