Chapter 132: Avalanche

"No one speak, not even a single fart." Fatty said to us in an extremely low voice. "Everyone find some protruding rock or ice crack nearby—we're in trouble."

"Impossible." Lang Feng stood there dumbfounded. "I calculated the charge exactly..."

Monk Hua covered Lang Feng's mouth, signaling him to talk later. Everyone was drenched in cold sweat, glancing at the ceiling while tiptoeing to shoulder their gear, searching everywhere for shelter. The snow layer above wasn't thick, so even if an avalanche happened, it would be a small collapse, but our position was terrible—too close to the fracture surface. When the snowslide rushed down, we'd easily be swept away, and below was an extremely steep slope with nowhere to escape.

The best course now, as Fatty said, was to find a protruding rock and hide under it, or find an ice fissure. But this was probably something learned from the movie *Vertical Limit*, and I didn't know if it would actually work.

The bare rock where we stood was too flat; hiding beneath it would still leave us directly hit by the snow. Fatty pointed to a huge walnut-shaped rock nearby—there was an angle between it and the cliff face that should be more suitable.

The snow slope between us and that rock was completely gone, leaving only glacial ice that was treacherously slippery. There was no time to change into crampons, so we had to tough it out. Fatty tied the rope around his waist, gave us one end, and gritted his teeth as he stepped onto the ice.

One step, two steps, three steps—each leg movement felt like stepping on eggs, and I braced for that "crack" of yolk splattering. But Fatty always managed to surprise you from time to time. After three steps, he had already climbed steadily onto the opposite rock, tugged the rope around his waist, checked above, and waved us over.

The rest of us grabbed the rope: first Panzi and Poker-face, then Lang Feng carrying Chenpi A'si on his back, then Ye Cheng carrying Shunzi on his back. I was last. Seeing that they all crossed safely, I felt much more at ease. By then, snow chunks the size of watermelons were already falling from above—that snow crack couldn't hold much longer. Fatty waved for me to hurry.

I slapped my own face, tied the other end of the rope around my waist, then took the first step and steadied myself.

Ever since I was a kid, my balance was terrible. I could only learn to ice skate or ride a bike by falling and getting covered in bruises. Now I was even more panicked, feeling like the ice under my feet could disappear at any moment. Involuntarily, my legs started shaking.

Fatty knew at a glance that I was the toughest case. He said in a low voice, "Don't think so much. It's only two steps. You could even jump over."

I measured the distance from Fatty to me. Sure enough, if I could exert enough force, I could definitely jump. With that thought, I gritted my teeth, stepped forward, twisted my waist, and prepared to leap.

But to my surprise, just as I exerted myself, the ice under my foot suddenly caved in. The piece of ice I had stepped on, because too many people had stepped on it already, shattered instantly. My foot slipped on the slope, and then my whole body slid down.

I flailed my arms and legs, but there was nothing to grip on the ice. I plummeted straight down until the rope snapped taut, hanging me on the ice cliff. I heard a click from the carabiner. Looking down, I saw that the locking mechanism had come undone, and my body was about to unhook.

Cursing inwardly, I thought, Damn knock-off gear—it must be made in Yiwu!

The jerk from me nearly pulled Fatty right off the rock. Fortunately, Panzi grabbed his belt, and several of them held him back. They pulled hard on the rope, hauling me up.

But with every pull, the rope slackened a little. I was frantic. I tried to kick a foothold to re-clip the carabiner, but the ice was too slippery. Every time I got a foothold, it lasted only a few seconds before I slid off, giving me no leverage at all.

Seeing that the carabiner was about to come off, with no other choice, I yanked out my ice axe and slammed it hard into the ice cliff, planting it firmly. Then I stepped on it with my left foot, finally finding a support point. I quickly bent down to replace the carabiner. Before I could lock it, a strange vibration came from above my head.

I looked up and saw the people above staring at me like I was an idiot. Before I could figure out what was going on, in an instant, a white plume of snow exploded into the air, almost blocking my entire field of vision.

Avalanche! No screams, no time to be shocked. At that moment, I didn't know what I was thinking. I only heard Fatty yell from the side, "Hold onto the ice axe! Press against the ice!" Then everything around me went dark. My body suddenly sank, as if a dozen people were grabbing my clothes and yanking me downward. The rope around my waist immediately bit into my flesh, and then a huge amount of snow gas choked my lungs.

Then I was plunged into chaos. The tremendous force battered every part of my body. I couldn't even lift my head. Soon my throat tightened, and an extreme suffocating sensation came from my lungs. I felt like I had been thrown into a chestnut-roasting machine, with countless freezing things pressing in on me from all sides, smashing me. In an instant, my nose and mouth were full of the taste of snow powder. That was when I remembered: ice is an excellent conductor of vibrations, especially very thick ice with extremely strong resonance. That one swing of the ice axe had finally catalyzed the avalanche.

I almost wanted to slap myself, but regret was useless. My whole body spun like a top as it was knocked around. I tried to grab the ice axe, but I couldn't even feel where my hands were.

Just as my mind went blank and I didn't know what to do, suddenly I felt the rope being pulled upward. Then my body was lifted a little.

My heart leaped—that was Fatty and the others pulling me from the other end. Hope flared up in me. If the rope could still respond, that meant the snow volume from the avalanche wasn't too thick. Their strength could still reach me.

I quickly paddled through the snow around me, trying to burrow upward. After a few lurches, with the help of the rope's pull, my ears suddenly rang, light burst before my eyes, and I broke through the surface of the snowslide.

Fatty and the others were huddled in the angle of the rock beside them. The snowslide rushed past above the rock, forming a snow waterfall in front of them. Everyone was safe. Fatty and Lang Feng were pulling the rope. Seeing that I had been pulled out, they shouted, "You okay?"

I gasped for breath and nodded. Snow and mist were still crashing down on me from all sides. I pulled hard on the rope, trying to work my way toward them against the snowslide, but the force was too great. I couldn't stand up at all. No matter how hard I tried with both hands, I couldn't move an inch. Fatty had no choice but to hold the rope and wait for the snowslide to pass.

The avalanche came fast and went fast. In less than half a minute, the snowslide poured past me, leaving only loose snow behind. I looked down below—the entire valley below was shrouded in white mist. I felt a lingering fear: if I had been swept down, I wouldn't be alive now.

I was pulled under the rock. Everyone was panting heavily, still shaken. Fatty patted me and said, "You really lucked out, kid. Fortunately, it was just a small collapse with little snow. Otherwise, not only you, but I probably would have been dragged down too."

I didn't even know what expression I had on my face. My climbing hat had fallen off, my ears were red from the cold, and I couldn't hear anything clearly. I just patted him and turned to look at the glacier surface.

The entire snow slope had all cascaded down into the valley below, exposing a huge, steep glacier in front of us. Loose snow was still tumbling down from above from time to time, reminding us of the danger of a second avalanche.

The surface of the glacier was made of compressed snow ice formed under thousands of years of snow layers—what we often call "gravity ice." This kind of ice forms naturally and, in high-altitude mountain regions, wraps around the entire mountain, creating glaciers. It's common on snowy mountains, located between the snow layer and the mountain body, and not very thick. There was still a lot of loose snow on top of the ice layer.

Except for Fatty, none of us had ever seen an actual glacier before. Seeing such a huge ice cliff exposed in a snowy mountain valley, glowing under the setting sun like a giant carved bar of Diao brand super-energy soap, was truly awe-inspiring. We all stared, a bit dazed.

Ye Cheng muttered, "Brother Lang's cannon shot wasn't completely fruitless after all."

After staring for a while, everyone gradually came to their senses. Monk Hua turned on a few flashlights and shone them down into the ice, trying to find traces of the accompanying burial tomb. The ice was murky and bottomless. Ordinary mountain glaciers are only ten to twenty meters thick, but the thickness of this glacier seemed a bit abnormal.

Fatty had sharp eyes. Suddenly he let out a "huh," as if he had found something. He grabbed the flashlight from Monk Hua and shone it.

We strained to follow the beam. In the faint light penetrating the ice, beneath the area Fatty was illuminating, deep within the translucent dark-blue glacier, I saw a huge, indistinct shadow that occupied almost half the ice cliff. Its shape looked like a curled-up, big-headed baby.