On How To Defeat Dr. Qing Leng Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Avalanche

The speaker was Xiao Yu, the daughter of the Xiao family. As the only woman on the team, she naturally had her own strengths.

The air stilled for a moment, and everyone turned their gaze toward Pei Yan.

Pei Yan slowly set down his cup, stood up, and walked step by step toward Wen Yelan. He was nearly half a head taller than Wen Yelan, exuding an invisible sense of pressure. “It is indeed saffron tea, but thank you for your kindness.” His gaze swept over Wen Yelan’s face with intense scrutiny, moving from his soaked eyelashes to his pale, frozen lips, and finally to his fingers, which were unconsciously trembling from the cold.

“Borrowing something, huh…” Pei Yan drew out his words playfully. “I can, but when you ask for a favor… shouldn’t you show the proper attitude?”

Wen Yelan’s fingertips dug sharply into his palm. He met Pei Yan’s gaze without flinching. “I am asking for your help, but I am not begging. If it is inconvenient for you, then I apologize for the intrusion.”

With that, he turned to leave without hesitation.

“Hey, wait!” Pei Yan hadn’t expected him to be so unyielding and actually laughed. “It was just a joke, why are you so sensitive?” He quickly stepped forward and grabbed Wen Yelan’s shoulder.

What met his hand was cold, soaked fabric covering thin, rigid bones underneath. For some inexplicable reason, Pei Yan felt a strange pang in his heart, as if something had scraped against it.

Wen Yelan’s body stiffened. He violently shook off Pei Yan’s hand, his eyes finally showing a clear flash of anger and disgust.

Pei Yan withdrew his hand and shrugged, the smile on his face receding slightly, his tone becoming much more serious. “I have the equipment, and I can lend it to you. I can even have my mechanic go with you to help take a look, free of charge.”

Wen Yelan looked at him suspiciously, not believing he would suddenly be so kind.

“What’s the condition?”

“No condition,” Pei Yan looked at him. “Just an introduction. My name is Pei Yan.”

Wen Yelan paused briefly, then regained his composure. “Thank you. The power source and tools?”

Pei Yan raised an eyebrow, seemingly disappointed by his reaction. He waved his hand and instructed the person next to him, “A Jie, go get the number two backup power source and that set of German tools. Also, call Old Chen and tell him to prepare to go with this… scientist.”

Only then did Wen Yelan realize he hadn’t given his name, and he truly didn’t want to tell them his real name. After a moment of thought, he said, “My name is Wen Ming. Thank you, Mr. Pei.” After speaking, he didn’t spare Pei Yan another glance and plunged back into the wind and snow outside the tent.

Pei Yan stood rooted to the spot, watching the thin, resolute figure instantly swallowed by the blizzard. The tent flap fell, separating the two worlds. The noise inside the tent seemed unable to reach his ears anymore.

He slowly walked back to the sofa, picked up the glass of iced tea again, but didn’t take a sip for a long time.

“Tsk, that’s really cold,” someone mumbled softly, whether referring to the weather or the person who had just left.

“It is,” Pei Yan murmured to himself, a deep curve forming at the corner of his mouth. “Excitingly cold.”

…

Using the borrowed power source and equipment, Wen Yelan and his team survived the most difficult night. In the morning, they received news from below that their vehicle had arrived, and all systems were pressurized. Once they finished organizing their gear at Advanced Base Camp (ABC), they could officially begin the project. Wen Yelan considered the situation and decided to seize the brief lull in the weather to move to a higher camp as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, as soon as the weather improved slightly, Pei Yan’s team chose a more thrilling and dangerous non-traditional route, attempting to explore the Khumbu Icefall/Crevasse.

“They’re crazy! It just snowed heavily over there, and snow is sliding down the mountain. The risk of avalanche is extremely high!” An elderly Sherpa Guide on the team shook his head and sighed.

Wen Yelan was organizing his crampons when he heard the news. His movements paused for half a second. He pursed his lips, then continued what he was doing without speaking.

However, nature’s judgment came swiftly and cruelly.

In the early evening, just as Wen Yelan’s team arrived at ABC and set up the weather station, a dull, massive sound, like the earth sighing, echoed from the ridge. Even from a great distance, they could feel the slight tremor of the ice beneath their feet!

“Avalanche!” Almost simultaneously, everyone in the scientific expedition team realized what had happened.

The walkie-talkies instantly erupted! Exclamations, calls, and cries for help in various languages were chaotically intertwined!

Fortunately, it was only a small-scale avalanche. Wen Yelan quickly calmed down and instructed his team to take inventory of their equipment. News soon arrived: Pei Yan’s team, while attempting to cross a steep slope of the glacier, had indeed encountered an avalanche! Preliminary reports indicated that some people were buried, others trapped, with specific casualties unknown! A distress signal had already been sent out.

Rescue forces from Base Camp were already mobilizing, but in this weather and terrain, rescue would be extremely difficult, especially for those trapped at high Altitude.

Wen Yelan’s group was one of the teams relatively close to the accident site.

“Dr. Wen, should we…” A team member’s voice was hesitant and fearful. Everyone understood what going out for a rescue in these conditions meant.

Wen Yelan stood outside the tent, looking toward the direction of the avalanche. The area was still shrouded in clouds, and nothing could be seen, only the wind howling past.

He recalled his original motivation for choosing geology: not just to explore the earth’s mysteries, but also to understand its wrath, so he could protect the lives that seemed so small and ignorant before it.

Reason told him that waiting for professional rescue was the optimal solution; rashly going out might cause greater losses. But another, deeper, instinctual human impulse screamed wildly inside him.

Wen Yelan could not stand by and watch, even if it was for someone he didn’t particularly like, and miss the best rescue window due to his hesitation.

“Ling Yue, bring me our first aid kit, spare oxygen, high-energy food, and hot water.” Wen Yelan’s voice was surprisingly calm and resolute.

“Doctor! You’re going yourself?! It’s too dangerous!”

“I have a rough idea of the avalanche location. You stay here, keep communication open, and wait to rendezvous with the Base Camp rescue team.” Wen Yelan was already rapidly packing things into his backpack, his movements quick and steady. “I can’t just leave people who might still be alive to die, especially since they lent us a generator yesterday.”

His reasoning was somewhat strained and willfully stubborn. Only he knew that what drove him was the shadow of his childhood, the unwillingness to owe anyone even the slightest thing again.

He ignored his teammates’ attempts to dissuade him, hoisted the heavy backpack, checked his ice axe and harness, took a deep breath, and resolutely stepped toward the area that had just experienced the avalanche and was still fraught with danger.

His figure looked so thin and small against the backdrop of the massive, gray-white mountain.

The search process was more difficult than expected. After the avalanche, some crevasses were covered by a layer of loose snow, and one wrong step could lead to a fall. Wen Yelan struggled forward, relying on GPS and his memory of the topographical map, occasionally shouting Pei Yan’s name. His voice echoed in the empty valley, quickly dispersed by the wind.

Finally, in a depression in an ice wall, he heard a faint response! Wen Yelan quickened his pace and reached the vicinity. The sight before him made his heart clench.

In the depression, Pei Yan and another person were sitting together. Pei Yan seemed relatively okay; aside from his pale face and blue-tinged lips from the cold, he appeared to have no obvious external injuries, though he was clearly exhausted. The young man, however, although without obvious external wounds, was clearly injured somewhere, his face contorted in pain.

Seeing Wen Yelan appear, an incredibly complex light burst forth in Pei Yan’s eyes—surprise, elation, confusion, worry… all emotions intertwined. His gaze was fixed tightly on the newcomer.

“Wen… Ming?” Pei Yan’s voice was dry and hoarse. “Why are you here?” He never would have imagined that the first person to find them would be this scientist whom he had assumed was cold-blooded and physically weak.

Wen Yelan didn’t have time to answer that worthless question. He quickly knelt down, first checking the young man’s injuries and providing simple treatment, then handing them water and food.

“Can you walk?” he asked Pei Yan, his voice slightly breathless but still calm.

“I’m fine,” Pei Yan felt better after drinking a bottle of water and taking some oxygen. He struggled to stand up but found his body stiff from the cold. “Lin Mo can’t. He rolled down the mountain and probably crushed something. He needs support.”

Wen Yelan frowned; the situation was worse than he had imagined. He took out the satellite phone and tried to contact Base Camp, but the signal was extremely weak and wouldn’t connect.

They had to leave here quickly and find a safer place with a better signal to call for help.

“Help me get him up. We need to move,” Wen Yelan told Pei Yan.

Pei Yan assisted him. He watched Wen Yelan’s slender body exert astonishing strength, saw his jaw clenched from the effort, and noticed his arms slightly trembling from the extreme strain.

His heart felt tightly squeezed by an invisible hand, and an unprecedented, surging emotion nearly overwhelmed him.

As they carefully navigated around a pile of chaotic moraine, the accident still happened.

Wen Yelan stepped into a small ice pit covered by snow. His entire weight and burden were on that foot, and he had no time to react. A sharp, intense pain instantly exploded from his ankle, shooting straight to his brain!

Wen Yelan let out a muffled groan, his face instantly turning pale as paper, large beads of cold sweat immediately breaking out on his forehead. His body went limp, and he, along with Lin Mo whom he was supporting, fell heavily to the side!

“Wen Ming!” Pei Yan cried out in alarm, quickly grabbing Wen Yelan’s arm and forcibly stabilizing both of them.

Wen Yelan stood on one leg, the intense pain making it almost impossible to breathe. He bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from crying out.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Pei Yan asked anxiously, his voice distorted.

“Ankle… twisted,” Wen Yelan squeezed the words out through gritted teeth, his voice trembling slightly from the agony.

Pei Yan immediately looked down and saw Wen Yelan’s left ankle twisted at an unnatural angle, rapidly swelling before his eyes.

In this environment, any minor injury could be fatal, and a sprained ankle leading to frostbite was particularly dangerous.

Wen Yelan put his foot down and tried to step on the ground. Perhaps because the temperature was so low, the pain had already begun to dissipate, turning into numbness.

“Don’t move!” Pei Yan’s voice was hoarse with urgency. “Do you want to ruin that foot?!” He helped Wen Yelan set Lin Mo down, then pulled Wen Yelan into a sitting position. Wen Yelan was very light, lighter than he had imagined. Even through the thick layers of clothing, he seemed to feel the other man’s frailty and coldness.

Wen Yelan didn’t struggle. Being held tightly and protectively in such a broad, warm embrace was a strange feeling he had never experienced before. Wen Yelan shifted slightly, feeling a little uncomfortable.

Pei Yan looked down at his watch. Nearly an hour had passed since he sent the signal. Fortunately, the accident site wasn’t too high, and the rescue helicopter should arrive soon. Only then did he feel slightly relieved. He took water from Wen Yelan’s backpack and gave some to both him and Lin Mo.

Wen Yelan kept his head down, feeling somewhat self-reproachful. He felt like he hadn’t helped much and had only managed to injure himself. He didn’t speak another word until the helicopter landed nearby.

Pei Yan’s voice rang out low and deep. The wind came from all directions, scattering his words, yet they clearly reached Wen Yelan’s ears: “Don’t be afraid, Wen Ming. Thank you for coming to save me. I’ll take you down.”