The heavy rain continued all night.
The cave was damp and cold, making it hard to sleep.
The group decided to just snack, chat, and play games to pass the night, planning to leave the mountain as soon as the sky brightened and the rain lessened.
Around six in the morning, Zhao Yutong let out a big yawn.
“It sounds like the thunder has stopped, but the rain is still so heavy. Should we go or not?”
Qiu Ran leaned out to look, then stretched his arm out to test the rain.
Large raindrops stung his skin.
“The rain’s too heavy. Maybe we should wait a bit longer? It just got light; the driver probably can’t get here right away to pick us up.”
“Will this rain ever stop?”
Wu Meng was getting a bit agitated.
She checked her phone for the weather forecast but couldn’t refresh it.
She asked the others, “The signal here is terrible. Yesterday afternoon I could still send WeChat messages, but today I can’t even refresh the weather. Do any of you have a signal?”
Hearing her, the others quickly checked their phones and realized their signals were gone too.
The signal bars just showed ‘E’.
Qiao Nan tried sending a WeChat message to Pei Xu, and the dialogue box showed a red exclamation mark.
“The message won’t send.”
He looked at Old Li.
“Can you still get through to the driver?”
Old Li was already trying to contact the driver.
He put his phone away and shook his head, his expression becoming serious.
“It keeps saying ‘not in service area’.”
Hearing his words, the others began to panic a little, asking frantically, “Then what do we do?”
“Should we just keep waiting here?”
“But my phone is about to die.”
Old Li looked at the weather outside, thought for a moment, and said, “Someone come with me to check it out. The signal might be bad in the mountains because of the heavy rain; we might be able to reach someone if we go out.”
Qiao Nan volunteered to go with him.
The two found raincoats and put them on.
Just as they were about to leave, a tremendous, earth-shattering roar suddenly echoed, followed by violent shaking.
Zhao Yutong was shaken so hard she fell onto the ground, exclaiming in a panic, “What’s happening? An earthquake?”
In their panic, the others instinctively ran towards the open area outside the cave.
Seeing this, Old Li immediately shouted, “Don’t get separated! You won’t find anyone in the mountains!”
His startled shout reminded the others, and a few students who had run further quickly rushed back to gather with the rest.
By then, the ground tremors had greatly subsided but continued steadily.
Old Li felt it wasn’t like an earthquake; it seemed like something else.
He told the others to wait in place and walked further away himself, finding a high point to observe the situation.
Some of the braver ones followed him up to the high point and saw that half a mountain peak had slid into the valley an unknown distance away.
That earth-shattering roar must have been the sound of the landslide.
Violent rainwater, carrying mud and碎石 from the mountain, rolled in all directions, almost instantly washing away trees in its path.
The scene was both shocking and terrifying.
“It’s a landslide,” Old Li murmured to himself.
The rain had been continuous and heavy since yesterday, and before that, it had rained for many days straight.
A landslide in the mountains was not unexpected.
But the problem was that they were trapped in the mountains.
The cave they were in was located in a mountain hollow, with the vast mountains behind them.
If the heavy rain continued for another day or two, no one knew if their current location would be next.
Old Li rushed down from the high point with uncharacteristic agility, his expression grave as he told the others, “Everyone, pack your things immediately. We’re leaving the mountain now, without waiting for the rain to stop.”
Realizing the seriousness of the situation, no one joked around anymore.
They quickly packed their belongings, put on their raincoats, and grabbed their rain gear.
Hand in hand, one person pulling the next, the group walked out through the heavy rain and muddy terrain.
A journey that had taken an hour to arrive now stretched into two hours due to the heavy rain and mud.
They arrived at the mountain entrance around eight or almost nine in the morning.
Everyone was soaked and exhausted; those with less stamina had already collapsed onto the road.
Qiao Nan barely held on, pulling out his phone to check.
Still no signal.
He tried calling Pei Xu again, but a mechanical voice repeatedly told him he was out of the service area.
“Still no signal, what about you all?”
The others pulled out their phones, only to shake their heads in defeat.
Seeing this, Old Li tried dialing the emergency rescue number.
When it still didn’t connect, his expression grew even more serious.
Normally, even with poor signal in the mountains, emergency calls could usually go through.
The fact that even the emergency rescue number wasn’t connecting meant only one thing: there was a problem with a nearby base station.
Only a couple of situations could affect a base station like that, and neither was good news for them.
Fearing he’d alarm the students, Old Li suppressed his suspicions and said, “The rain’s too heavy; the phones still aren’t working. Let’s find a relatively safe place to shelter from the rain. I arranged with the driver yesterday that he’d pick us up as soon as the rain eased. It’s still early, and the rain is heavy, so he probably isn’t here yet. We’ll leave a mark here, so he waits for us, and we’ll come back to check in a while. We shouldn’t miss him.”
His reasoning was sound, and the students perked up.
They each found stones and branches, spelling out a message by the roadside instructing the driver to wait for them, then went to find another place to shelter from the rain.
Fortunately, their luck hadn’t completely run out. After searching for about a kilometer, they finally found another cave that offered shelter from the wind and rain.
Everyone eagerly scrambled inside, finally able to catch their breath.
Although they wore raincoats, their clothes underneath were still soaked from trekking in the heavy rain for so long.
The boys could take off their shirts to dry them, but it wasn’t as convenient for the girls.
They discussed dismantling their easels and finding thin branches to makeshift a fire and dry their clothes.
The drawing boards, being in bags, weren’t as thoroughly wet, and a fire was quickly lit.
A group of people huddled around the fire, drying their clothes and warming themselves, the relaxed and cheerful atmosphere of the previous night long gone.
Qiao Nan looked at his phone, which had only ten percent battery left, and tried sending WeChat messages to Pei Xu again.
But no matter how many he sent, the dialogue box only showed red exclamation marks.
He had just chatted with Pei Xu last night.
At the time, he didn’t want Pei Xu to worry, thinking he’d be back the next day, so he hadn’t told him about spending the night in the cave.
He figured it wouldn’t be too late to tell him when he returned.
Now, he wanted to tell him, wanted to hear his comfort, but the messages just wouldn’t send.
Chin resting on his knees, Qiao Nan forcefully poked Pei Xu’s profile picture, suddenly missing him terribly.
***
Nanjing had been experiencing heavy rain for two consecutive days.
Pei Xu looked at the rain curtain outside the floor-to-ceiling window and switched the weather forecast city to Ziyun.
He found that Ziyun had also been experiencing two days of heavy rain, and the meteorological bureau had already issued a red rainstorm warning.
Frowning, Pei Xu sent a WeChat message to Qiao Nan, “[Heavy rain in Ziyun City, don’t go into the mountains these days. Wear more clothes and be careful not to catch a cold.]”