The words had only just left his mouth.

The double cabin, which had been ascending toward the heights at a steady pace, abruptly ground to a halt. Inertia caused the two men inside to sway uncontrollably. Shi Linchuan instinctively whipped his hand back to scoop Xie Jinghe into his embrace, while simultaneously lifting his head to look above them, his expression exceptionally grim.

Fortunately, the cabin was completely transparent, leaving their line of sight entirely unobstructed.

Because of this, Shi Linchuan saw it with absolute clarity—

The two cables suspended above the cabin should have been taut. Now, however, the cable on the left had gone unnaturally slack, causing the cabin’s center of gravity to shift.

The left half dipped slightly.

It was exactly the side where Xie Jinghe was sitting.

The cabin swayed left and right in midair. The two exchanged a rapid look, their faces fraught with tension.

Shi Linchuan scanned the area back and forth twice, voicing the observations he gathered: “The entire ropeway has jammed and stopped. I don’t know if the staff paused it manually, but if it’s an accident, it might only be a matter of minutes before this cable snaps completely.”

“It’ll be even more dangerous when that happens.”

The underlying implication: the cabin could plummet from the sky.

Due to the unique terrain and topography of the forested snow mountain, the cabin was suspended very high up—about twenty meters from the ground. Converting that into building stories…

It was roughly as high as a six to eight-story building.

Shi Linchuan lowered his eyes to look down.

The snow below was a vast, blinding expanse of white.

In a few scattered patches, the cold, stark gray of mountain rocks peeked through.

The moment disaster struck, the nature scenery that had originally been relaxing and soul-soothing transformed in the blink of an eye into a terrifying, fatal hazard.

Xie Jinghe could no longer spare any thought for taking photos. With one hand thrown back to wrap around the man, his other hand flew to verify the safety buckles around their waists. He then tightly gripped the handrail beside them, offering up his own observations.

“Our camera PD is right behind us. I can see them holding up their phones—they should have already called the police for rescue. I just don’t know if the emergency response will be fast enough. Right now…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a piercing, terror-stricken shriek suddenly erupted ahead of them. Subconsciously following the sound, they discovered the source of the noise was a father and son who had boarded the cabin just ahead of them.

The one screaming was a young boy who looked to be only thirteen or fourteen years old.

The boy was highly agitated, shouting continuously as he pointed at the slack cable. The father beside him held a hand up to his ear; by the looks of it, he was also making a call for help.

The voices drifted over along the wind.

Shi Linchuan and Xie Jinghe were the only ones completely devoid of communication devices. They had no choice but to remain trapped in the transparent cabin in silence, vigilantly monitoring the situation ahead and behind them while waiting motionless for rescue.

The tourists at the ski resort halfway down the mountain seemed to have noticed something was amiss as well. One after another, they stopped their recreation, gathering in small clusters of threes and fives to look up into the sky, their body language highly exaggerated.

The air was filled with a chaotic din.

Panic was spreading.

Yet, at this tense juncture, a light snow began to lazily drift down from the sky.

Each flake was incredibly light, as if an invisible hand were cradling them, allowing them to float and flutter serenely. Like spirits in the wind, they swirled and descended around the two men.

Shi Linchuan found it strangely ironic.

Xie Jinghe was pressed tightly against him, his slightly unruly hair brushing ticklishly against Shi Linchuan’s chin. Shi Linchuan’s lips suddenly twitched, and a soft laugh squeezed out from his throat. “Xie Jinghe, it looks like you’re about to be killed by me.”

A silence of a few seconds followed.

The man responded in a muffled tone, “Don’t jinx us. We’ll be able to get down very soon.”

It was a mystery who the real jinx was. The very next instant after Xie Jinghe finished that sentence, a collective scream suddenly erupted from the crowd at the ski resort in the distance, interspersed with a few words spoken in a heavy local accent.

But Shi Linchuan no longer had the luxury to pay attention.

“Screeech—!“

Accompanied by the boy’s terrified scream, the left cable finally snapped completely. Unable to bear the burden alone, the remaining right cable sagged slightly under the collective weight of the cabins and passengers on the entire ropeway, resembling a necklace hung with amber pendants.

Trapped inside the pendants were living beings unable to escape, every single face written over with shock and horror.

Shi Linchuan thought he would be the exception.

However, in a flash—

The cabin carrying the father and son ahead of them lost control without any warning. As if given a gentle nudge by the hand of fate, it violently slid downward, slamming into his and Xie Jinghe’s cable car cabin with terrifying speed and mass!

“BANG!“

Screams echoed from every direction, rising and falling in waves.

But Shi Linchuan heard none of it.

He only heard a sharp ringing in his ears rising from deep within his body. The scene before his eyes felt as though it had been subjected to a time-dilation spell; every second was sliced into long, uneven frames, like a slow-motion shot in a movie.

He saw the snowflakes suffer the impact, turning around in unison to flee.

He saw a corner of the transparent protective shield shatter, the door frame warping from the collision, and the entire glass door falling from midair. Xie Jinghe’s waist buckle snapped from the force, his blank expression flashing past Shi Linchuan’s eyes before his entire body plunged downward without warning—

Gravity caught his feet, tugging violently!

Shi Linchuan did nothing.

He thought he did nothing.

Until a split second later.

A sharp, agonizing pain tearing through his arm jolted him awake.

“Hold on to me.”

Shi Linchuan’s thoughts went blank for a second. Because of the sheer overexertion running through his entire body, veins bulged across his temples and the side of his neck, making it difficult even to speak. He had to grit his teeth tightly to force the words out from the seams of his lips.

“Don’t let go!”

Yet, the actual situation was the exact polar opposite of what he was saying. Xie Jinghe was suspended in midair in a highly perilous manner; his expression was frozen, his pupils contracted sharply. Meanwhile, Shi Linchuan was using one hand to grip the handrail to stabilize himself, while his other hand was locked firmly around Xie Jinghe’s forearm, his knuckles white.

Droplets of blood splattered down, their source unclear.

Everything just now had happened too fast.

The shattered glass shards had acted like highly lethal blades, stabbing indiscriminately into both of them. Fortunately, the weather was freezing and they were wearing thick clothing, but their faces had no protection whatsoever—

Xie Jinghe had only seen a blade-shaped shard of glass plunging toward the exposed side of the man’s face. He had instinctively released his arm from around the other’s waist to block it for him.

Arriving even faster than the pain was the sensation of freefall.

In just a single second, Shi Linchuan caught him.

The man’s glasses had fallen off during the impact earlier, leaving his facial features completely uncovered, laid bare to Xie Jinghe’s eyes.

Probably because his muscles were generating an unbelievable amount of explosive power, the man’s current expression was hideous. There wasn’t a trace of his usual coldness or indifference left; it was almost distorted. His narrow eyes were wide open, his eyeballs looking as if they were about to pop out.

The capillaries in his eyes had ruptured.

Very quickly, the whites of his eyes were flooded with bloodshot lines, resembling exploded red threads.

He held his breath, spitting out his words one by one.

“Look at me. Don’t look down.”

Xie Jinghe’s gaze brushed past a long, thin gash on the side of the man’s neck. Beads of blood welled up frantically from the cut, only to be frozen by the icy mountain air a moment later, condensing into a bloody fissure upon the man’s skin.

The father and son further ahead were also injured, crying together in a panicked huddle.

The father’s voice was gruff, cursing repeatedly with the F-word, the trailing tones of his voice trembling.

The silver lining in this misfortune was…

The cabin collision wasn’t a chain reaction; it didn’t trigger an even worse scenario.

However, right now already seemed to be the worst possible scenario.

Thinking this, Xie Jinghe shifted his gaze upward inch by inch, while simultaneously raising his other arm with extreme slowness, trying to reach for a spot where he could gain leverage. However, the edge of the cabin’s breach was too far from him; even with his fingertips stretched to their absolute limit, he was still nearly a centimeter short of touching it.

Even if he touched it, it would be useless.

The edge was jagged and sharp; he wouldn’t even be able to grip it.

And Shi Linchuan…

Likely had no way to hoist him up from midair.

He was too heavy.

Whether a few seconds or a few minutes passed, he couldn’t tell.

Xie Jinghe couldn’t feel the passage of time, but he suddenly felt a faint yet continuous tremor traveling through the fabric of the man’s palm into his forearm, and finally, following his pulse, burrowing into his own heart.

“…”

The man above him was like a bow strung to its absolute limit; even the strands of his hair seemed to be exerting force. Relying solely on the strength of a single arm, he was physically holding up a suspended adult man. But human physiology has its limits, and his overextended body was screaming in frantic protest at its master.

Exhausted, in pain, on the verge of being unable to hold on.

The temperature was horrifyingly low, yet the man was covered in sweat.

Beads of sweat fell downward along the pull of gravity; with no one to catch them, they vanished in the blink of an eye.

Xie Jinghe tried his best to maintain his composure, not wanting to add any more burden to the man. Yet out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the base of the safety buckle around the man’s waist—it had also sustained a certain amount of damage during the impact earlier. Perhaps due to the heavy weight it was bearing, that damaged fracture was widening bit by bit.

Next, disobeying the man’s order, he lowered his head to look toward the foot of the mountain.

Everything was pale and pristine.

The rescue team members dressed in bright orange uniforms had finally arrived.

Over a dozen orange figures were rushing over carrying catch nets and uninflated rescue mats, but there was still a considerable distance between them and the two in the most critical condition.

They were too far away.

Xie Jinghe lifted his face, hearing nothing but the man’s incredibly heavy breathing. His gaze swept over the increasingly deformed safety rope buckle around the other’s waist once more—it looked like it wouldn’t hold out much longer.

“Wheeze, wheeze.“

Shi Linchuan’s face and neck were flushed crimson, his eyes bloodshot.

Time lost all meaning.

He only felt as though his body and soul were about to be ripped apart. It was painful and exhausting; every single cell was loudly urging him—

Let go.

Just let go!

Shi Linchuan turned a deaf ear to them, betraying his basic instincts.

He said to Xie Jinghe, “Don’t let go.”

He said to himself again, “Don’t let go.”

Suddenly.

He seemed to hear Xie Jinghe saying, “It’s okay. You can let go.”

This person had finally learned to be obedient, his eyes locked onto him, no longer glancing around wildly. His mouth was slightly open as he exhaled a puff of warm mist, speaking as if casually complaining, “I’m too heavy.”

Shi Linchuan glared at him, his vocal cords seemingly strained to their limit.

“Shut up!”

Xie Jinghe was considered lucky.

Only because Shi Linchuan didn’t even have the energy to scold someone right now.

But this fool still refused to rest. His expression was dazed as he stared intently at him, his gaze not wavering for a single second, as if wanting to remember something, or perhaps wanting to say goodbye to something. Then, he spoke some more inconsequential nonsense.

Or maybe it wasn’t nonsense.

But Shi Linchuan didn’t catch a single word.

Because the ringing in his ears was simply too piercing.

An unknown amount of time passed once more.

Several chaotic shouts drifted up from below, English mixed with a few awkward Chinese words. Plunged deep into a vast, empty trance, Shi Linchuan seemed to hear Xie Jinghe bringing up his old words again.

This time, his volume was very loud.

“Linchuan!”

“Linchuan, let go! There’s an air mattress underneath!”

“…”

Like a stray ghost whose soul had been called back, Shi Linchuan shifted his eyes with great difficulty. He discovered that a large net had been propped up on the snowy ground below, and beneath the net was a thick, inflated mattress. A circle of people stood around it, tilting their heads up and waving at him.

Shi Linchuan slightly suspected this was a hallucination produced by his brain.

Xie Jinghe called out to him with a sob in his voice, “Let go! Your eyes are bleeding so much!”

“I’ll be fine!”

Shi Linchuan thought this person was truly too noisy. Finally losing his patience, he released his hand—the one gripping the handrail. The safety rope buckle, which had long been on the brink of collapse, let out a tearing screech as it released his waist, allowing him to plunge downward.

If it was a hallucination…

It didn’t matter either.

With a heavy thud, the two slammed heavily onto the air mattress.