Ice Sledding

Song Weishi eased the knife back, forcing her expression to stay neutral. "Actually, I was just trying to dig snow. Grabbed the wrong thing, sorry."

Xie Yi's mouth twitched. When the other woman made no move, Song Weishi quickly tucked the knife into her pack and pulled out a shovel she'd swiped from the mall.

The two took turns digging in a hurry. The snow outside wasn't actually that deep—neither of them had ever seen an avalanche before, so they'd assumed it would be massive. But beneath the surface, there was only a single layer, not even knee-deep. The spectacle had just looked terrifying.

Breathing in the fresh air, Song Weishi relaxed a bit. Avalanches could be triggered by many things; her shouting might have been one of them. From here on, she'd need to stay on high alert and find a chance to shake Xie Yi off.

The two stumbled onward. Off the elevated highway, there were fewer dangers. The hills on both sides were small, though they'd have to go through a tunnel in the middle.

The snow made it impossible to keep sliding. By the time Song Weishi spotted the tunnel entrance, her legs had gone stiff from walking.

The heavy snow had buried the tunnel completely, leaving only the half-arc of its top visible. Inside was pitch-black, like a bottomless pit.

Scaling the hills above was out of the question. Xie Yi had decent stamina and agility, but with Song Weishi along, she couldn't climb up and then come back to haul the other woman up—that would waste too much time and energy, making the detour hardly worth it.

After weighing their options, they decided on the tunnel. Fortunately, Song Weishi still had the flashlight Manager Zhao had given her. They dug through a bit of the snow and found that the tunnel wasn't fully packed. Sliding down the snow slope, the light outside shrank until it was only a tiny dot.

Song Weishi's boot thudded against the floor. She clicked on the flashlight, and the beam was swallowed by the darkness, illuminating only a small patch before her.

Beneath their feet were densely packed vehicles. Their boots thumped across car roofs one after another, the emergency lane also jammed with cars lined up bumper to bumper.

The air below wasn't foul, actually almost odorless. Cold drafts drifted through occasionally. As the light swept across windshields, it flashed over countless sleeping faces.

Their expressions were peaceful, like they'd simply dozed off, frozen mid-slumber. In reality, they'd stiffened solid.

Some had not been so fortunate. A few had crawled out and frozen mid-escape, summer t-shirts layered one over another, wedged between cars.

Basically everyone in the tunnel was dead—quiet deaths. That was the fate of most ordinary people in this snow calamity.

It was the height of summer vacation. Families of three had come out with their kids, thinking it was just another traffic jam on an ordinary afternoon, and ended up losing their lives right here.

If Song Weishi hadn't transmigrated into this world, the original owner would have shared the same fate—dead in the snow, her parents and family left wondering if she was still alive.

Song Weishi sighed inwardly. She'd died in her original world too. Once all this was over, would she be able to go back? Or would she stay here forever?

Her future was as blank as everyone who'd died here. Every step led to an unforeseen outcome.

Song Weishi decided to keep her feet on the ground and just take it one step at a time.

The two squeezed along the emergency lane, one after the other. Song Weishi could hear the other woman's footsteps, but she grew more and more uneasy.

The tunnel was only five kilometers long, yet time crawled by unbearably.

The farther she walked, the more frightened she became. Maybe it was the corpses lining both sides.

Ice had formed on the emergency lane, making it treacherously slick. Song Weishi carefully pressed a hand against the wall. Xie Yi wasn't faring much better behind her. After all that walking, they'd barely covered a few hundred meters, and she was already exhausted.

She decided to stop and rest. Xie Yi halted too. Song Weishi swept the flashlight over and saw the other woman's body slightly hunched.

"Don't you think this is too slow?" Song Weishi asked, sucking in a breath of cold air. It was actually a bit warmer in here than outside, or maybe that was just her imagination.

Xie Yi nodded. Her boots kept slipping on this kind of ground.

Song Weishi pulled out the box they'd used to slide across the snow earlier—it fit perfectly in the gap between the lanes. A single board was too hard to steer; on this slippery surface, she'd likely slide right off. But the box was different. Song Weishi gave it a push and it glided a long way off. Her eyes lit up. She walked over and clipped the flashlight onto it.

How was this any different from a scooter? Well, the only downside was that she'd have to push it manually.

Song Weishi had Xie Yi ride in front—she'd be better at steering and could push harder.

The two of them packed themselves in like sushi rolls in a cart, fitting snugly. Song Weishi kicked off from the back while Xie Yi glided in front. One push sent them flying a good distance.

This was no different from ice sledding, except the place was full of dead people.

They hadn't gone far before the cart rammed into a corpse up ahead. Song Weishi was jolted from behind, her head smacking into Xie Yi's back. She caught her breath, then got out with Xie Yi to move the body.

The corpse's head had split open, all its contents frozen solid. Song Weishi didn't dare look, just listened to the crunching of ice underfoot and figured she was stepping on bits and pieces. Corpses were very different from living, warm people—the kind of thing that could put you off your food.

After offering a silent apology, she stepped over it.

The two made it through the pitch-black tunnel without much trouble. What would normally have taken over an hour took only thirty-some minutes with the cart.

The downside was that the cart's bottom had worn down under their combined weight. They'd need to take good care of it, or its lifespan would shorten drastically.

Crawling out of the tunnel, they slid down the highway on their boards. The descent was fast, and since most cars were buried under the snow, there was little resistance along the way.

They'd covered at least twenty kilometers today, far more than Song Weishi had estimated. She wasn't sure if it was because of Xie Yi's presence—she'd only planned to make a few kilometers as a token effort. But this far exceeded expectations. At this pace, another twenty days would get them to their destination.

A genuine smile spread across Song Weishi's face. The sun was setting quickly in the sky. They couldn't tell exactly where they were, but the general direction was right. Looking at the buildings in the distance, she guessed they were on the outskirts. The office buildings here wouldn't be far from a small commercial district. They packed up the cart, strapped on their skis, and headed toward the tall structures.

Survivors couldn't be limited to just the few they'd seen. Those people had survived in office buildings; this residential area was far denser, so there had to be plenty more.

Song Weishi walked behind Xie Yi, mulling over how to help the other woman stock up on supplies, then slip away on her own.

But soon, she stopped thinking altogether. The two came to a halt at the entrance of a large supermarket buried in snow, gripping their ski poles tightly as they exchanged glances. Neither of them could move another step.