After finally struggling onto the ridge, we trudged like zombies toward the direction of the Dawengong Temple scenic area. The rescued little pheasant followed us the whole way, chirping and chattering incessantly.

　　Night had fallen. A biting mountain wind whipped around us, and a cold moon cast a sickly pallor on our faces. The intense standoff with the golden leopard had drained me. My back was soaked with sweat, my moisture-wicking base layer utterly drenched. Condensation had built up inside my hardshell jacket, and visible droplets of water dripped from its lining now and then.

　　"Hinson, you okay?" Mr. Egg glanced back, noticing something was off.

　　"I'm fine."

　　"Put your puffy jacket on. Now."

　　"Okay... in a minute," I managed through chattering teeth.

　　The boulder field left by the Quaternary glaciation was covered in frost and snow, making it impossible to tell stone from crevice. I had to probe each step with my trekking pole. But the Qinling's deep snow was deceptive. Sometimes the pole would meet resistance twice on its way down—meaning the snowpack had two crust layers. Even after testing, your foot could still plunge through. Fortunately, the experienced Mr. Egg took the lead, breaking trail. I just had to follow in his footprints.

　　Time dragged on. The temperature kept dropping. My body heat was vanishing at an alarming rate. A crushing drowsiness set in. My eyelids were heavy weights, fighting to close. My limbs grew clumsy, uncooperative. I even started showing signs of ataxia—my eyes would see the footprint ahead clearly, but my foot just wouldn't land in it. After several failed attempts, my boot finally jammed hard in a rock crevice. I couldn't free it. I watched Mr. Egg's figure grow smaller in the distance, but I didn't have the breath to call out. If the little pheasant hadn't flapped frantically into his path, he might not have noticed my predicament for a long while.

　　"Hinson! What on earth—?"

　　"Mr. Egg... help me..." Fighting against the overwhelming urge to just sleep, I managed to untie my bootlaces and pull my foot out of the trapped shoe.

　　"It's stuck good!" Mr. Egg pulled at my boot with all his might, but it wouldn't budge.

　　I looked down. There was a clear space beneath the rock crevice. The problem was the rigid polypropylene midsole of my mountaineering boot. The powerful downward force had bent it momentarily between the rocks, but the moment the pressure eased, the stiff sole snapped back to its original shape like a wedge, locking itself solidly under the crevice lip.

　　"So cold..." With the boot off, my right foot was clad only in a soaked sock. The biting wind stole the last traces of warmth from the wool, and each toe was going numb, losing all sensation. If I didn't get my boot back on quickly, even if I made it off the mountain alive, I'd likely lose my right foot to frostbite.

　　"Whoa! Good thing it wasn't wedged too deep!" Mr. Egg nearly toppled over backward the moment the boot finally came free. "Put it on! Now!"

　　My hands trembling violently, I took the boot. My frozen fingers fumbled, slowly re-lacing it. Mr. Egg half-collapsed nearby, breathing heavily, before turning to me, anger and worry in his voice. "Why the hell aren't you wearing your puffy jacket?!"

　　I didn't reply. My vision was growing blurry, my ears filled with nothing but the maddening roar of the wind.

　　"What's fifteen times three?" In a pool of clear, bright sunlight, a little girl with an indistinct face smiled and asked me a question.

　　"Lili... sis?" The long-unused term flashed through my mind, and the girl's face came into focus.

　　"What's two plus four?" Sister Molly was still smiling, but her tone grew urgent.

　　"Uh..." I strained to think, but my brain couldn't process even the simplest calculation.

　　"Hinson, after all these years, you're still terrible at math!"

　　I... I'm actually good at math. Almost aced Calculus...I thought the words, but no sound came out.

　　"Is that so?" Sister Molly's smile was dazzling, her words mingling with the sound of wind. "So you're in college now..."

　　"Yeah, in college... huh?" A vague sense of wrongness nagged at me, but my mind, now a tangled mess, couldn't piece any thoughts together.

　　"Sis Lili..." My consciousness dimmed further. Sister Molly's face suddenly shattered and fell away, dissolving into a blizzard of snowflakes...

　　When the snow vanished, all I could see was a vast, blank white world. Suddenly, the earth trembled, wind and clouds churned, and a majestic mountain range erupted before me, shaking loose a shard of blue ice. I looked up as the glittering fragment fell straight into my slightly parted mouth. I chewed it carefully. It felt strangely warm, its flavor rich and sweet. The texture was like jelly, yet firmer; the scent was mushroom-like, yet more fragrant—in short, it bore no resemblance to "ice" at all.

　　"Where is this?" I looked around in confusion. The sunlit peaks resembled the snow-capped mountains from last night's dream, but in an instant, they too were gone.

　　"Hinson! Wake up!"

　　"Mr. Egg?" My eyes snapped open, and I bolted upright. A sudden, unbearable heat washed over me. I frantically shrugged off my backpack and started pulling at my jacket.

　　"What are you doing?! Trying to die?!" Mr. Egg grabbed my hands, desperately trying to stop me from freezing myself to death.

　　"I'm seriously hot!"

　　"Hot, my ass! You have hypothermia!"

　　"Hypothermia?" Oh, right. We'd been talking about it this whole trip. But when it actually happened, why didn't I recognize the signs?

　　"Am I... paradoxically undressing?"

　　"Yes! That's exactly what you're doing! Now hurry up and put this on!" Mr. Egg dug my puffy jacket out of my pack and shoved it into my hands. "You were completely out of it just now, you know that? I asked you two basic math questions—the kind a kindergarten kid could answer—and you couldn't!"

　　"What kind of paradoxically undressing person is this coherent?"

　　"Well... that..." My retort left Mr. Egg momentarily speechless.

　　“I’m serious, I’m hot—sweating.” As I spoke, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and shrugged off both my shell jacket and my fleece in one go.

　　“For God’s sake, put them on!”

　　“Hot…” I ignored Mr. Egg, who was slumped on the ground exhausted, and turned to face the northwest wind, letting it wash over me. It wasn’t until after I’d finished stretching comfortably that I belatedly realized my strength seemed to have fully returned. My night vision had sharpened, too. In the bright moonlight, I could see what looked like shards of glass on a rock protruding from the snow.

　　“Broken glass? What’s that about?”

　　“Ask him,” Mr. Egg said, turning to glance at the unusually quiet little pheasant.

　　“Did you do this?”

　　“Coo coo!” The little bird tilted its head, ignoring me.

　　Seeing the pheasant’s clueless expression, Mr. Egg couldn’t help but curl his lip. “Fine, leave the explanations to the professor.”

　　From Mr. Egg’s account, I learned I had lost consciousness from the cold. Forget math problems—I couldn’t manage basic conversation. The few mumbled phrases I’d uttered were completely unintelligible. Mr. Egg recognized it immediately as a clear sign of severe hypothermia. In a wilderness setting like this, the odds of survival were practically zero. But to give up and do nothing was tantamount to abandoning a teammate—an act, in Mr. Egg’s words, “completely and utterly incompatible with the moral compass I, Li Gangdan, have spent decades cultivating.”

　　To keep his hard-earned principles from shattering, the utterly exhausted Professor Li Gangdan resolved to spend his last ounce of energy trying to light a fire and make a hot drink. But the mountain wind was fierce, and for a man pushing fifty, lighting a stove against that gale was no simple task. After a struggle, he not only failed to ignite the stove, but the wind also snatched away the aluminum foil pot lid.

　　“Wait, aluminum foil lid? I thought your pot setup was two titanium pots that doubled as lids for each other?”

　　“Well… you see… I was too lazy to take my pack off! So I just went through yours instead…”

　　“You’ve got to be—! Thank you so much.” I looked down at my precious cookware scattered in the snow and nearly took back my tears of gratitude.

　　“So what happened next?” I asked through gritted teeth.

　　“Well, I was completely spent. My legs gave out and I collapsed. Wouldn’t you know it, I landed right on the jar with the mushroom in my pack and smashed it! That crackjust about gave me a heart attack! I scrambled to get my pack off…”

　　Hah. Too lazy to take off your pack to save me, but quick enough when the mushroom’s in danger!

　　“Is that mushroom more important than my life?”

　　“Of cou— of course not! I just…”

　　“Just what?”

　　“Hey, stop interrupting!” Knowing he was in the wrong, Mr. Egg quickly changed the subject. “That little thief must have snuck over at some point. The moment I opened the pack, it snatched the mushroom!”

　　“Huh? And why isn’t it soup yet? Couldn’t get the fire going?”

　　“No, no. The little thief… stuffed the mushroom into your mouth.”

　　“What?!” What was going on? Did that mushroom actually save me? What kind of logic was that? I stood there for a good while, completely baffled.

　　“Can’t figure it out, can you?” Mr. Egg, noticing my confusion, muttered beside me, “I can’t either! But when you live long enough, you see all sorts of strange things. You stop being surprised by them. What a shame… if only we could have taken it back to study…”

　　Seeing his look of profound regret, I couldn’t resist goading him. “If you were that reluctant to lose it, why didn’t you stop the bird? And weren’t you worried the mushroom might be poisonous?”

　　“Look at you talking! That little devil was too fast for these old bones! Besides, you were practically a goner. What did it matter if it was poisonous or not? And hadn’t the little thief already taste-tested it for you?”

　　Hmm, he has a point, I thought. I turned and gave a respectful bow to the perceptive little pheasant, expressing my sincere thanks. Who would have thought the bird would just give me a haughty sidelong glance and strut off on its own.

　　“Hiss… what if the mushroom’s toxin only affects primates?” A serious new worry suddenly occurred to me.

　　“I get your point,” Mr. Egg shifted his weight with a grunt. “Some toxic mushrooms are ineffective against, say, small insects or grubs. But it’s highly unlikely they’d work on a pheasant.” The moment the conversation entered his professional domain, Mr. Egg transformed back into the professor. Even too exhausted to stand, he sat in the snow and launched into a passionate lecture.

　　“You see, the primary toxins in mushrooms fall into two major groups—amatoxins and phallotoxins. Their effects on humans and other animals are essentially identical, which is to say…”

　　“Alright, alright, already!” I cut off his lengthy explanation. “Let’s save the lecture for later. We need to get to Dawengong Temple! Unless you want to be the next one with hypothermia!”

　　“Right, let’s move.” As he got up, Mr. Egg carefully collected the broken glass fragments into a bag, saying he didn’t want any passing wildlife to get hurt.

　　“What a model outdoorsman!” I gave an exaggerated thumbs-up. “If you’re not a ‘Touching China’ Person of the Year nominee next year, I’m boycotting the show!”

　　“Pfft.” Mr. Egg waved off my mindless flattery with utter disdain.

　　The moon was bright, illuminating the pristine snow. According to the GPS, our route required a long, exposed traverse across a steep mountainside. I looked up at the towering mass of rock and felt as small and insignificant as a speck of dust, easily carried away by the slightest “breeze.”

　　The ridgeline trail was treacherously winding. Mr. Egg’s stamina was nearly spent. He walked with an unsteady sway, finally popping a piece of hard candy in a desperate attempt to trick his brain into releasing a precious burst of energy.

　　“Mr. Egg, watch out!”

　　Without warning, he lurched backward. I caught him just in time, nearly toppling us both over the cliff edge in the process.

　　“Can’t… go on…” Mr. Egg slumped down, practically sitting on my boots, refusing to take another step.

　　“Then tell me what it is!”

　　“Tell you what?”

　　“Your last words! And your home address. I swear I’ll deliver the message!”

　　“You wish!” Mr. Egg shot back weakly.

　　Maybe it was the mushroom’s lingering effect. My stomach ached with hunger, yet I felt no fatigue. If not for the treacherous boulder field, I might have even tried jogging with my heavy pack.

　　“Hinson, look! Dawengong Temple is right over there!”

　　Following Mr. Egg’s trembling finger, I spotted a row of buildings in the distance. I held up my thumb, closing one eye and then the other, using the thumb-jump method to estimate the distance.

　　“Last five hundred meters.”

　　“Let’s… go.” Gritting his teeth, Mr. Egg forced himself back onto his feet.

　　When we finally stumbled into the Dawengong Temple compound, I checked the time. That final half-kilometer had taken us two and a half hours. As I eagerly pulled the wire latch off one door, Mr. Egg simply dropped his pack and headed for a different building in the opposite direction.

　　Was he worried his snoring would keep me up, giving me my own room?Puzzled, I watched him go, then dragged both our bags inside. The scenic area was closed for the season; the buildings had no power or water. I switched on my headlamp to find the so-called “reception station” was just a room with a few bare bunk beds—mattress pads on plain wooden boards.

　　“Hinson, grab these!”

　　I turned to see Mr. Egg holding several buckets of instant noodles and bottles of soda he’d scavenged from somewhere. My mouth watered instantly.

　　Mr. Egg set a pot to boil for the noodles. I eagerly twisted open a bottle of soda, desperate for a drink. The moment the seal broke, the liquid inside—as if resisting—instantly crystallized from top to bottom into a slush of ice.

　　“A supercooled liquid!” It was the first time I’d ever witnessed the phenomenon in person. Tasting it, the fine, crunchy ice slush was surprisingly refreshing.

　　“Aren’t you afraid of brain freeze?” Mr. Egg gave me a look of utter disdain.

　　"I'm hot, I'm telling you!"

　　"Alright, fine." Seeing the genuine look in my eyes, he had no choice but to believe me.

　　While we ate, Mr. Egg pulled two sausages from his pocket. Between bites, he asked, "So, what did that mushroom taste like? Like jelly?"

　　"Pretty much. A bit tastier, though," I mumbled through a mouthful of noodles, giving a half-hearted reply.

　　"Ah, my poor Luminescent Gel Mushroom... ending up in either a bird's stomach or yours..." The thought of the mushroom, found and lost, filled him with such sorrow that even his "feast" became hard to swallow.

　　I kept eating, ignoring him.

　　...

　　"So how did you guys get down the mountain later?" Sven blinked at me with curious, wide eyes.

　　"Took the cable car the next day."

　　"The cable car? But you said the scenic area was closed for winter! They were running the cable car?"

　　I hadn't expected her to listen so closely. "It was closed, you're right. But they happened to be doing maintenance on the cable car that day. We hitched a ride down. Got lucky, I guess."

　　"Oh... what about the little pheasant?"

　　"It flew off. Took off right before we reached Dawengong Temple. Probably afraid we'd turn it into hot pot!"

　　Sven burst out laughing. "You're so heartless!"

　　"I didn't plan to!" I shrugged helplessly, glancing sideways at the clock on the wall. "It's really late. You should head back to your dorm and get some sleep."

　　"Okay..." Sven covered her mouth with a yawn. "Walk me back."

　　"You need an escort for thatlittle distance?" I groaned.

　　"Of course I do! It's the middle of the night, and after all your stories about hanged ghosts and golden leopards, you've got me terrified!" Putting on an exaggerated look of fear, she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door.