"Wifе! Wifе!" Jiаng Аоhang criеd аnхiоuslу. Fu Yingtao alsо сrouchеd beside Fu Хingуuе, his fасе filled with terrоr. "What do we do! What do wе dо now!"
"Оxуgеn!" Diао Zhuo signаlеd tо Lu Jiаnуi, who immеdiately рullеd out аn oxygеn canistеr and plасеd thе mаsk оvеr her. Hе hаd no timе tо wоnder whу it was Fu Хingуue who hаd fаllen ill—sаving her was the рriority. "Onе оf уou аnd Pulan cаrrу hеr down. Соntасt bаsе cаmр and рreрare fоr treаtmеnt."
Fu Хingyuе wаs in аgоny. She nevеr imagined she would devеlop such а dangerоus symрtоm. Thеy were only halfway through—why was she the first to collapse? Could it be... fate?!
Da Qiang asked, "What medicine does everyone have?"
Hearing this, everyone rummaged through their bags and pulled out their medications—altitude sickness pills, oxygen tablets, aspirin—none of which were useful. Fortunately, Lu Jianyi's bag contained a box of dexamethasone. Da Qiang poured out four tablets and told Jiang Aohang to find a way to feed them to her.
Whether out of panic or shock, Jiang Aohang fumbled clumsily. Lu Jianyi stepped forward, took the medicine, and forced it into Fu Xingyue's mouth. "Pulan! You carry her down!"
"No problem." Pulan had encountered clients who suddenly developed pulmonary edema during ascents before. He lifted Fu Xingyue onto his back and looked at Fu Yingtao and Jiang Aohang. "Um... are the family members still going up? It's best if you help, taking turns carrying her."
Fu Yingtao actually hesitated. Jiang Aohang tugged at his sleeve. "Dad, there will be other chances. This time... let's give up on summiting!"
"We've come this far..." Fu Yingtao clicked his tongue. "You go down with him. I... I still..."
Hearing this, not only Fu Xingyue but even Bayunye felt her heart sink.
Fu Xingyue stared wide-eyed, a silent, furious laugh erupting inside her. Look! Just look! At any time! He only ever thinks of himself! He never treated her as a daughter, yet he demanded she see him as her real father! "Paternal love" weighed on her like a mountain, suffocating her. Her life! Was it truly like Sun Wukong unable to escape the Buddha's palm?!
She refused to accept it! She absolutely refused!!
"Dad..." she struggled to call out to him.
Fu Yingtao panted heavily, his chest heaving. How much affection did he truly have for this adopted daughter? She was nothing more than a tool to fulfill his own ambitions.
"Xingyue, since you're unwell, hurry down. There are so many people here; we can't stop because of you. I've told you since you were little—you must consider the bigger picture." He spoke with the full authority of a leader.
"I'll go down with you!" At this critical moment, Da Qiang, embodying a doctor's compassion, resolutely abandoned his summit plan to accompany Fu Xingyue down.
Fu Yingtao quickly added, "Right, you go down. You're a doctor; it's your duty to treat and save people. You must..."
"Hey! She's your daughter! Do you even know how dangerous this illness is if not treated in time?" The Tangshan Sisters, straightforward and outspoken, immediately spoke up in indignation, panting as they raised their voices. "And you're still thinking about summiting now! Are you even her real father? If you won't go down, we will! We'll give up the summit! We'll take turns carrying her!"
"You can't carry her; don't make things worse." Lu Jianyi stopped them. "If anyone carries her, it should be us men. You two don't have the strength or stamina. Don't end up needing rescue yourselves before we can save her. Both family members, you'd better go down with her."Though Fu Yingtao's expression was unclear, everyone could guess his mood must be extremely foul.
"You... you carry her down first. I'll try to talk to Dad." Jiang Aohang pulled Fu Yingtao aside.
"Forget it. I've already notified base camp. Pulan! Get moving now!" Lu Jianyi pressed the "SOS" button on his device, sending out the situation report. There was no time to waste. Pulan also didn't want anything to happen to the guests he was leading, so he quickly began descending.
"I'm going too!" Hippo chased after him—after all, he wasn't here just to summit.
Diao Zhuo turned to look at Bayunye. "Can you manage searching alone with Huzi?"
"You're descending too?" she asked.
"I told you before—if something happens on the mountain, I'll carry them down myself if I have to. I won't go back on my word." Diao Zhuo placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "Be careful." With that, he also hurried after Pulan.
Watching his retreating figure, Bayunye smiled inwardly. This man was reliable.
Lu Jianyi felt relieved. With several men taking turns carrying the patient down, including both a doctor and someone from the Rescue Team, the descent would be faster, and treatment would be more timely. As for the patient's family... He glanced at Fu Yingtao and Jiang Aohang whispering to each other and pursed his lips.
Fu Yingtao was still hesitating. Just 300 meters more, and he could stand at the summit of 6,178 meters. If he descended now and returned to the starting point in Golmud, he might have to wait until next year to try again. And would he have the time and energy to come back next year?
"Stop dawdling! If you're going down, go now!" Bayunye shouted at them.
"Even walking is a struggle for me. Even if I go down with you, I can't carry her. I think there are enough hands..." Fu Yingtao said. "You go down and take care of her."
"Dad, I'm definitely going down, but if you keep going for the summit, what will they say about you?" Jiang Aohang said anxiously.
Fu Yingtao's eyebrows furrowed, clearly angry. "Why care what others say? What do they know! If it weren't for me, she'd still be in that little village where my cousin lives, feeding pigs and doing chores! A girl like her, with two older sisters and a younger brother—what kind of life could she have in the village? At best, she'd finish junior high and go out to work! How have I treated her? Like an only child, providing her with good food and clothes! Without me, she wouldn't be where she is today! Forget about summiting or not—if I ever needed her to die for me, she'd have to do it! That's repaying a debt! Do you understand?"
Jiang Aohang had heard this kind of talk countless times at home. "Sigh, let's not talk about that now. She's having an episode, and it's serious! Let's come back next time!"
"There's a doctor and someone from the Rescue Team. What's there to worry about?"
"It's not appropriate... really, it's not!"
"Woof! Woof!!" Huzi seemed to have found something and suddenly barked.
Bayunye looked in the direction of the sound but couldn't see Huzi. She could only head that way based on instinct. After walking some distance, her headlamp finally illuminated Huzi. He was far ahead, jumping twice and scratching the ground with his front paws. Treading through the snow, she jogged determinedly toward him. Seeing her approach, Huzi wagged his tail even more excitedly and barked twice more."Is it here? You smell something?!" she exclaimed joyfully, pulling out an entrenching tool from her bag and swiftly digging downward. From April until now, who knows how many times it had snowed; each layer of snow was compacted tightly by the one above, making the digging almost as tough as digging through soil. As Bayunye dug, she thought that if she found the thermos here, she wouldn’t need to continue to the summit and could even go help Diao Zhuo and the others.
Even with gloves on, her hands were frozen stiff as stone, and gripping the entrenching tool made her joints ache as if pierced by needles. Panting heavily, she gritted her teeth and persisted, muttering to herself, "Huzi, if you pull off this big feat, I’ll buy you ten pounds of jerky when we get back!"
"Master Ba! What are you doing—" the Tangshan Sisters called from a distance.
"It’s nothing! I’m looking for Huzi! It’s a bit slippery here!" Bayunye dug away happily. She had come prepared; none of the others had brought a shovel, so they couldn’t help.
"We’re moving on!" they shouted again.
"You go ahead! I’ll catch up soon!"
Over there, a clamor erupted as they seemed to line up and set off again. Bayunye thought, if she found the thermos, why bother climbing to the summit at all?
It had to be said that the search and rescue dog, trained by the military, had an incredibly keen sense of smell. Layer by layer, the ice and snow were dug away. Bayunye spotted a white lid and nearly went wild with excitement. After digging a bit more, she pulled out a white thermos from beneath, plopped down in the snow, and hugged Huzi’s neck, praising him endlessly.
"Hey! What’s going on!" Lu Jianyi’s voice echoed from afar.
Bayunye was still lost in the joy of finding the thermos when Huzi, hearing his owner’s voice, darted off like an arrow and vanished into the darkness. She stowed the thermos, scrambled to her feet, and ran toward the light. There, everyone was gathered, as if something else had happened.
She squeezed through the crowd and was shocked to see Fu Yingtao lying on the ground, clutching his throat as if someone were strangling him from behind. His eyes were wide open, his expression utterly terrifying.
"What’s wrong, does he have pulmonary edema too??" the Tangshan Sisters exclaimed in alarm.
Acting on instinct, Huzi sniffed and nudged Fu Yingtao’s face and body, then looked up at Bayunye, barking twice as if asking for a reward and wagging his tail, as if to say, "What you told me to find is here too."
Diao Zhuo was right—Fu Yingtao’s allergen really was chocolate!
"How could he have eaten chocolate?!" Bayunye demanded loudly. Seeing everyone’s bewildered expressions, she felt something was off. After a moment, she slapped her forehead—someone was missing.
"Where’s Jiang Aohang?!"
"He went down to take care of Fu Xingyue," Dongbai replied.
"What did Old Fu eat or drink?!" Bayunye asked.
Unfortunately, no one seemed to have paid attention to Fu Yingtao’s actions earlier. "This is bad!" Bayunye exclaimed, seeing Fu Yingtao struggling to breathe. "Quick, go find Da Qiang and bring him back to check!"
"I’ll go find him. We might need to prepare for a full team descent!" Lu Jianyi, the fittest and most familiar with the route among those remaining, dashed off in an instant.
Hearing that the entire team might have to abandon the summit attempt, the group erupted into chaos, with voices of all kinds. It was understandable—everyone had spent money, time, and effort to persevere this far. For those whose bodies were still holding up, having to descend because two fellow climbers had encountered danger was undeniably disappointing.Fu Yingtao reached out, pointing not far away as if trying to say something. Bayunye turned to look and saw an insulated water bottle lying on the ground. Picking it up, she found it empty. "This is..." She paused, noticing a water bottle on the side of Fu Yingtao's backpack. Glancing at the one in her hand, she realized he must have poured someone else's water into his own bottle.
"Jiang Aohang's water bottle," Lu Jianyì said. "He left his backpack and water bottle here."
Bayunye poured out the water from Fu Yingtao's bottle and saw it wasn't hot cocoa. Tasting it, she found it sweet—glucose water. Huzi sniffed it and barked to tell her there was a cocoa scent in the water.
—She instantly understood. A small amount of cocoa powder had been added to Jiang Aohang's bottle at some point. Since both were sweet, it mixed with the glucose water, making it undetectable to human taste buds. In his rush to summit, Fu Yingtao had poured Jiang Aohang's water into his own bottle and consumed the allergen he couldn't touch.
Was it Jiang Aohang or Fu Xingyue who added the cocoa powder? Was Fu Xingyue's pulmonary edema an accident? Was Fu Yingtao mistakenly drinking Jiang Aohang's water a coincidence? Everything became murky yet seemingly twisted by fate.
"Where..." came Da Qiang's voice from afar, clearly out of breath from running. The intensity of these hours pushing for the summit was probably comparable to his days working in the emergency department rotation.
"Here! Here!" everyone shouted.
Fu Yingtao's condition was far more severe than Fu Xingyue's. He was already showing symptoms of laryngeal edema, obstructing his breathing, and couldn't afford a single second of delay. Upon hearing Da Qiang's diagnosis, everyone knew there was no hope of summiting this time—unless someone could reach the peak without a guide.
"Sigh! Saving lives comes first. Many hands make light work!"
"Right, we'll summit next time... next time, we'll definitely make it."
"Anyone feeling weak, speak up! The next person will take over!"
A few days ago, they were strangers, unrelated to one another. Now, they were united in saving a life, working together selflessly. Though darkness exists in the world, light always prevails.
"All men, follow me!" Lu Jianyì hoisted Fu Yingtao onto his back, while Da Qiang supported the oxygen tank. "Yunye! He can't afford any delay. We need to descend first! You take the two sisters down, follow our footprints. I'm counting on you!"
"Go quickly. I'll take care of them," Bayunye waved, urging them to hurry.
The mountaineering base received the rescue signal. While sending personnel to deliver medicine and assist in the descent, they contacted the local hospital in Golmud to prepare for further arrangements. At high altitudes, oxygen levels were already low. Under normal circumstances, running a few steps would leave one gasping for breath, let alone carrying someone on their back. There was a risk of straining their own cardiopulmonary function. However, time was life, and no one dared to pause. They took turns carrying Fu Xingyue and Fu Yingtao, each panting heavily.
Fu Xingyue's condition began to ease once they descended to the South Slope base camp, but Fu Yingtao remained in critical condition. By then, the sky had brightened completely. It was indeed a beautiful day, with the mountain's ice and snow shimmering golden in the rising sun. If not for the two falling ill one after another, the group would likely have already reached the summit.
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