At 4 o'clock in the morning on April 8, when Zhang Helai's team officially set off from the fifth camp, there were only 12 people left in the team.
They set out in three teams. There should have been 20 people, but eight of them suffered serious physical discomfort during the rest of the fourth camp. They did not vomit blood or other serious symptoms, but lay lazily on the ground as if they were drunk. Confused, couldn't tell the difference between shoes and thermos, even if he tried - yes, there was a guy who picked up a boot and stuffed it into his mouth, wondering why there was no water.
In this situation, they could only stay in the fourth camp, waiting for the Kamiyas to escort them down the mountain.
Because they are on Mount Hyjal at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters, the oxygen here is only one-third of that on the ground. Even if they wear oxygen masks when they sleep at night, they can't stop the constant discharge in their bodies.
Compared with them, Zhang Helai is lucky, he can still keep his mind and continue to persevere; but unfortunately, his physical fitness has reached the limit, and he has to consume more oxygen to maintain his skills.
Even though they had rested for six hours in the fifth camp, which was as big as a football field, Zhang Helai felt extremely heavy when he woke up.
When they set off together, the team members next to him could also see that Zhang Helai was carrying more oxygen cylinders than they did—this was a very dangerous value. Someone patted Zhang Helai on the shoulder and pointed to the oxygen cylinder. Zhang Helai shook his head, so no one continued to persuade him.
They must cherish this power of speaking, and also fulfill their duty as human beings: to persuade others to cherish their own lives.
Those who dare to conquer Mount Hyjal must be responsible for themselves. Even though the summit process of Mount Hyjal has been set up to be very safe, they can see many corpses buried in snow and ice waterfalls along the way—except for some The corpses are difficult to collect because of their strange locations. The rest of the corpses are climbers who died on the road due to various reasons in the past two years.
Hyjal Peak is undoubtedly a natural ice coffin. The decay rate of death here is extremely slow, and because climbers are often fully equipped with cold-proof equipment, latecomers will not see rotting flesh and bones when they see the corpse. To the road sign corpse monuments standing on the snow-white glaciers.
This is the truth about Mount Hyjal, the mountaineering road above 9,000 meters: every road is stepped out step by step with the lives of countless climbers. Some are not even considered roads. In the nearly 90° cliff, you have to rely on veterans to nail the ropes and slowly climb over them. Then slowly climb over the 9,000-meter cliff. If you make a mistake, you won't even find the body.
At the beginning, they would have some complex emotions such as fear towards this kind of corpse monument, but in the end they were completely relieved, and when they passed by, they nodded slightly as a greeting—after all, they may also become part of it, and now it is an early meeting with the neighbors. say hello.
Either conquer nature, become nature, or give up. Dare to come here, no one has to be responsible for your life.
All climbers have their own desires, or they want to get an experience to show off, or for fame and fortune, or because of dreams, but at the top of the world above 9,000 meters above sea level, they only have one idea: to conquer it, Then live!
At around 8:50 on April 9th, they had already followed the mountain road to the road sign at an altitude of 9,810 meters. It would take at most two hours to climb to the peak of Mount Hyjal. You can go down the mountain and return to the fifth camp before 10:00.
The latest time to go down the Hyjal Peak is 13:00. If it is slower, the climbers will not be able to return to the camp before dark due to unpredictable weather, or even be trapped on the way. Zhang He came to the 9810-meter road sign they saw, and there was a corpse buried in the snow next to it—no one knew whether he died of freezing because he was trapped here by the weather.
At this time, Zhang Helai developed symptoms such as severe nausea, paleness, and cold sweat, and slowly fell behind the team, and his oxygen cylinder was exhausted—he had severe hypoxia symptoms.
Even if he can persist until he climbs the mountain, he will not be able to descend due to lack of oxygen. He had overestimated his physical strength, he had consumed too much oxygen during the climb, and now he was at the end of his rope.
It is impossible for him to return now, so he braced his body and walked with heavy steps, thinking that even if he died, he would die at a height of 10,000 meters—he had arranged for his family’s future life security before he chose to come to Mount Hyjal up.
No one will help him here. At most, they can only tell the Kamiya people the location of Zhang Helai's body after they go down the mountain, let the Kamiya people bring his body back, and notify his family to take the body back for burial.
The lack of oxygen made Zhang Helai's body even heavier, and the equipment on his body seemed to become chains extending from the mountain, trying to keep him in this natural burial place forever.
At that time, he didn't have many thoughts in his mind—ordinary people have a flashback before they die, and those who are hypoxic will gradually lose consciousness due to insufficient oxygen supply to the brain before they die, and they don't even have the extravagant operation of "recalling". exist.
Just when he was about to lose consciousness and close his eyes, Zhang Helai heard a strange sound coming from below amidst the howling of the cold wind.
It was the sound of sand and gravel produced by the collision of rock formations.
Something fell? Or did the wind blow the icefall
Zhang Helai barely opened his eyes, and in his hazy vision, he saw a figure appearing below.
Down below... figure...
Zhang Helai was walking on a mountain road, and below him was a slope of nearly 80°!
In a trance, Zhang Helai thought that he was hallucinating due to lack of oxygen, but soon the figure quickly approached him and lifted off his oxygen mask!
The air like a wind knife and cold sword covered his face in an instant, and he almost passed out with his eyes closed after losing the oxygen bottle. However, another oxygen mask was stuffed on his face in the next second, and Zhang Helai subconsciously took a deep breath. The full amount of oxygen instantly relieved his hypoxic symptoms, pulling him back from the brink of unconsciousness.
"Who saved me?" Zhang He came to regain consciousness, and immediately thought: "How could someone give me his oxygen cylinder?"
Everyone should bring at most one oxygen cylinder, otherwise the load would be too heavy to move. The oxygen Zhang Helai was inhaling now was naturally other people's oxygen. He opened his eyes and turned his head, only to see a face he didn't recognize.
The wind and snow covered her blond hair with frost, and her exposed fair skin was flushed red from the cold. The thin clothes were like useless armor in the harsh wind and sword, and only served as a cover. Although her delicate face was sluggish Thin, but the divine light in his eyes shone into the depths of Zhang Helai's heart like sunlight.
She blocked Zhang Helai's face with an oxygen mask in her right hand, an oxygen bottle in her left hand, and a rope wrapped around her waist, but nothing else.
A... blond girl.
A... climber without an oxygen tank.
A... climber who climbs rocks without taking the trail.
A... A climber who climbed in a mountain at an altitude of 9,000 meters without wearing cold-proof clothes, with bare hands, feet and face!
No winter clothes, no oxygen cylinders, what kind of concept is this
According to the concept of reducing the altitude by 6 degrees per 1,000 meters, it is now spring in the Taidamia flatland area, which is about 20°, and above 9,000 meters above sea level, it is at least minus 34°. In fact, when they set off at the fifth camp at 9,600 meters, The measured temperature was minus 40°.
What is the concept of minus 40°? Spit, the saliva freezes before landing; a normal person does not wear cold-proof relics at minus 40°, and within an hour, due to heat loss, the body temperature drops below 25°, and the function of the thermoregulation center fails, and breathing, heartbeat, etc. Inhibition, blood pressure almost plummets, various reflexes disappear, no response to external stimuli, and eventually lead to paralysis of the vasomotor center and respiratory center and death.
To put it simply, this blond girl should have turned into an ice sculpture, her hands and feet are as fragile and stiff as popsicles, it is impossible to move!
What's more, she doesn't have an oxygen tank!
Although among extreme mountaineering enthusiasts, some people think that human potential is unlimited. After all, many climbers can gradually adapt to the plateau climate after training at an altitude of 6,000 meters. The alveolar partial pressure of oxygen and arterial oxygen partial pressure of people in the plain area are 10 mm Hg, but the Kamiya people in the plateau area are 1 mm Hg. They need less oxygen on high mountains. will be higher.
Therefore, some people think that as long as someone has adapted for a long time on the plateau, he can climb the 10,000-meter peak on Mount Hyjal, where the oxygen content is less than one-third, without an oxygen cylinder!
However, this is illusory after all. Not to mention 10,000 meters, even the third camp at 8,400 meters, no one can climb without oxygen cylinders, not even the Kamiya people who have lived on the plateau for generations!
Then, the blond girl still did not take the usual way, climbing the cliff with bare hands on a cliff of nearly 70°~90°...
Countless complex thoughts kept colliding, and finally settled into a sentence in Zhang Helai's mouth: "Thank you."
He didn't think that he was so attractive that the blond girl sacrificed herself to save him, then the reason was very natural—the blond girl saw that he was going to die, and she just helped him.
The blond girl smiled, helped him remove the oxygen cylinder behind him, and put the oxygen cylinder in her hand on it.
Zhang Helai didn't stop it, and he didn't stand to stop it—worried that the blond girl gave him the oxygen bottle, causing her to die of lack of oxygen without the oxygen bottle
Shit, Zhang Helai could tell with his eyes that the blonde girl was in better shape than him!
"At that time, you should also know that the person in front of you..." the black vest asked: "It should not be an ordinary person."
"It's not too much to describe it as a superman." Zhang Helai laughed, "She is simply... the goddess of Mount Hyjal, an existence that mortals can only look up to."