Chapter 3 Avalanche

“No one is allowed to speak or even fart,” Fatty said to us in a very soft voice. “Look for any protruding rocks or ice crevices nearby—we’re in trouble.”

“Impossible,” a dumbfounded Lang Feng muttered. “I calculated the amount right…”

Monk Hua covered Lang Feng’s mouth and motioned for him to keep quiet—he could talk later. We were all covered in a cold sweat as we looked up at the snow-covered cliff above our heads, quietly put our equipment on our backs, and looked for a place to take refuge. The layer of snow above us wasn’t thick, so even if there was an avalanche, it would only collapse in a small area. But the place where we were standing wasn’t ideal since it was too close to the surface fracture—as soon as the snow collapsed and fell, we would get swept up in it and plummet down the steep slope below.

Since there was no place to escape, our best bet was to do as Fatty said and find a protruding rock to hide under, or find an ice crevice. But this idea seemed like something from the movie “Vertical Limit”,⁽¹⁾ so I didn’t know whether it would actually work or not.

The rock we were currently standing on was too flat, which meant that we would still be hit by the snow if we tried to hide under it. Fatty pointed to a huge walnut-shaped rock on the side, where we could see a small space underneath that should act as a more suitable shelter.

The snow that had previously been between us and the rock was all gone, leaving only the glacier’s icy surface. It was slippery as hell, but there was no time to put our crampons⁽²⁾ on so we had to make do with what we had. Fatty tied a rope around his waist, handed the other end to us, clenched his teeth, and then stepped onto the ice.

One step, two steps, three steps…he took every step like he was walking on eggs. I kept waiting to hear the “click” of the egg shell breaking and see the yolk go flying, but Fatty had a knack for impressing people sometimes—after taking those three steps, he finally made it to the rock on the opposite side. He climbed up, gripped the rope around his waist, looked at the cliff overhead, and then beckoned us over.

We grabbed the rope and took turns going over. Pan Zi and Poker-Face went first, then Lang Feng carrying Chen Pi Ah Si on his back, and then Ye Cheng carrying Shunzi, leaving me to go last. When I saw that they had all made it over safely, I felt a lot better.

At this time, a chunk of snow as big as a watermelon had already fallen from above, indicating that the crack in the snow layer wouldn’t last long. Fatty motioned for me to hurry up.

I smacked my cheeks, tied the other end of the rope around my waist, and then took my first step onto the ice.

My balance had been bad ever since I was a child, so I always ended up falling and getting bruises all over my body when I was learning how to skate and ride a bike. But this time, I felt even more panicked—I kept thinking that the ice under my feet would disappear at any moment, which caused my legs to start trembling.

Fatty, seeing that I would be the most difficult to deal with, said in a low voice, “Don’t overthink it. It’s only two more steps. You can make it in one jump.”

I looked at the distance separating us—sure enough, as long as I could fully exert my strength, I could definitely jump over. With that thought in mind, I clenched my teeth, took a step forward, and bent my waist, preparing to jump up.

But unexpectedly, when I tried to exert force to jump, my feet suddenly sank—it seemed the layer of ice I stepped on ended up shattering because too many people had stepped on it just now. My foot slipped on the slope, and then my whole body started to slide down.

I scrabbled for purchase with my hands and feet, but there was nothing on the icy surface that I could grab on to. I kept falling until the rope tied around my waist stopped my descent. As I hung there on the icy cliff, body straining against the rope, I suddenly heard the click of a carabiner. I looked down and saw that the carabiner’s latch had actually opened, and I was about to become unhooked.

I cursed to myself, this fucking knockoff good! Must have been produced in some basement!

The force of my body jerking to a stop almost pulled Fatty off the rock, but fortunately, Pan Zi grabbed his belt, and the others grabbed him, so it turned out ok. Once they regained their balance, they tugged on the rope hard and started pulling me up.

But every time they pulled, the rope’s knot got closer to that open latch. Feeling anxious, I tried to place my feet against the icy cliff in order to support my weight as I closed the carabiner’s latch, but the ice was so slippery that my feet kept sliding down every few seconds.

Seeing that the carabiner was about to fall off, I desperately pulled out my ice axe and slammed it into the cliff hard. After ensuring that it was firmly affixed, I placed my left foot on the ice, supported my weight, and hurriedly lowered my head to fix the carabiner. But before I could, a strange vibration suddenly came from overhead.

When I looked up, I saw that everyone was looking at me with dumb expressions on their faces. But before I could figure out what was going on, I suddenly saw a white, snowy fog explode in the air, blocking my whole field of vision.

It was an avalanche!

There was no time to scream or be surprised; I don’t even remember what I was thinking at that time. All I remember is hearing Fatty shout, “Grab your ice axe! Cling to the ice!” Then it suddenly became dark all around me, and I felt my body start to sink as if more than a dozen people had suddenly grabbed onto my clothes and were pulling me down violently. The rope around my waist suddenly dug into my flesh and air mixed with snow choked my lungs.

Then, I fell into what seemed like primordial chaos as forceful blows hit every single part of my body. I couldn’t even lift my head, and my throat soon began to tighten to the point that I felt like I was going to suffocate. I felt as if I had been thrown into a chestnut roaster—countless chunks of ice and other cold things pummeled me from all directions, and there was a brief moment where my mouth and nose were full of foamy snow.

It was only at this time that I remembered that ice was an excellent shock conductor, especially thick ice, which had extremely strong resonance. My ice axe just now had been the final catalyst for the avalanche to occur.

I almost wanted to slap myself, but it was too late to regret it now. My whole body was knocked around like a spinning top, and I tried to grab onto my ice axe, but I couldn’t even feel where my hands were.

Just as I was starting to feel overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, I suddenly felt the rope jerk, and then my body was lifted a little bit.

I was startled—were Fatty and the others trying to pull me up?—and then I immediately felt hopeful. Since I could feel the rope moving with their actions, it meant that the amount of snow coming down from the avalanche wasn’t very thick, and they were strong enough to pull me up against the flow.

I hurriedly began pushing my body up, trying to swim through the snow all around me. I was pushed back several times, but with the help of the others pulling on the rope, I suddenly heard a roaring in my ears and a bright light hit my eyes—I was free!

Fatty and the others were hiding under the walnut-shaped rock as the avalanche rushed overhead, flowing like a waterfall in front of them. Luckily, they were all safe and sound. Fatty and Lang Feng were the ones pulling on the rope, and when they saw me emerge from the snowy onslaught, they shouted, “Are you ok?!”

Busy gasping for breath, all I could do was nod. That endless wave of snow and fog was still pummeling me, so I tugged at the rope with everything I had and started to move towards them against the flow. But the flow was so strong that I couldn’t stand up at all, and my hands couldn’t seem to move no matter how hard I tried. In the end, Fatty had to maintain his hold on the rope to keep me steady as we waited for the snow to flow past.

The avalanche came and went quickly—in less than half a minute, the snow stopped flowing past me, leaving numerous chunks of snow behind. I looked down, saw the whole valley beneath my feet shrouded in white fog, and suddenly felt a belated fear—if I had been swept away with the avalanche just now, I would have definitely died.

The others dragged me under the rock, all breathing heavily from the lingering fear. Fatty patted me and said, “Kid, you’re really lucky. Fortunately, it was just a small collapse with a little bit of snow instead of a full-blown avalanche. Otherwise, I probably would have been pulled down with you.”

I didn’t know what I was feeling at this time, but I knew that I had lost my hat, my ears were red with cold, and I couldn’t hear anything clearly. Not knowing what else to do, I patted him on the back and turned to look at the glacier’s surface on the opposite side.

All the snow had slid down the slope to the bottom of the valley, revealing a huge glacier in front of us. From time to time, chunks of snow fell down from above, reminding us that there was still the danger of a second avalanche occurring.

A glacier’s surface was formed when layers of snow and ice were put under pressure for thousands of years. This was what we often called “glacial ice”.⁽³⁾ This kind of ice formed naturally, and in high-altitude mountainous areas, it would wrap around the whole mountain to form glaciers. It was generally found on snow-capped mountains, between the snow layers and the mountain itself. The ice wasn’t too thick, but there would be a lot of crushed snow on top of it.

With the exception of Fatty, none of us had ever seen an actual glacier before. In the light of the setting sun, seeing such a huge cliff of ice exposed in the snowy mountain valley below was like seeing a giant bar of Diao Pai soap.⁽⁴⁾ It shocked not only me, but everyone else as well—we all stopped and stared in stunned silence.

“Looks like Lang Feng’s explosion wasn’t totally useless,” Ye Cheng muttered from the side.

After looking at it for a while longer, we all gradually pulled ourselves together. Monk Hua turned on a flashlight and pointed it at the ice, trying to find traces of the tomb. The inside of the ice looked murky, chaotic, and so deep that it seemed bottomless. The average mountain glacier was only about ten to twenty meters thick, but this glacier seemed to be abnormally thick.

Fatty had excellent eyesight, so it wasn’t surprising to hear him let out an exclamation as if he had suddenly found something. He quickly grabbed the flashlight from Monk Hua’s hand and took a closer look at whatever had grabbed his attention.

Straining our eyes, we followed his gaze and saw that under the flashlight’s weak glow, a huge, looming shadow was lurking in the dark depths of the bluish-green glacier. It occupied nearly half of the icy cliff, and its shape looked like that of a big-headed baby curled up in the fetal position.

<Chapter 2><Table of Contents><Chapter 4>

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TN Notes:

(1) “Vertical Limit” is a 2000 American survival thriller film about a climber who tries to rescue his sister on top of K2, one of the world’s biggest mountains.

(2) Raw had ice skates but that seem weird in this context so I went with crampon, which is a traction device that is attached to footwear to improve mobility on snow and ice during ice climbing (usually has little spikes). Besides ice climbing, crampons are also used for secure travel on snow and ice, such as crossing glaciers, snowfields and icefields, ascending snow slopes, and scaling ice-covered rock.

(3) NPSS used the characters 重力冰, which directly translate as “gravity ice” but I wasn’t finding anything legit talking about that so I just went with glacial ice.

(4) Diao Pai is a Chinese brand of soap.