Magic Space: Struggling to Survive in the Apocalypse-Chapter 85: One Person’s Difficult Survival 9
"The little girl picking mushrooms, with a big bamboo basket on her back. Barefoot in the early morning, she roams the woods and hills..." Evelyn Ford hummed a song as she started to cook.
Days spent entertaining herself weren’t so bad. She didn’t feel lonely at all—just incredibly free and at ease.
"Whew, time for a taste... Ouch, so hot!" Evelyn Ford quickly gulped down some cold water to soothe her burning tongue. ’Goes to show, haste makes waste,’ she thought.
"Delicious! Absolutely incredible! Chef Ford has mastered another signature dish. I’m on another level!"
The taste was pretty good. Satisfied with her culinary skills, Evelyn Ford carried the pot over to the fireplace. She wanted to continue watching the show from yesterday.
"I wonder how much longer this snow will last. I’ll check the temperature."
Evelyn Ford took out a thermometer and went outside to take a reading. She saw the red line had stopped at negative eight degrees.
"It was only negative five last night, and it’s already plunged to negative eight this afternoon. What wretched weather."
Evelyn Ford shivered, pulling her head into her collar. She brought the thermometer back into the cabin. ’Best to eat first. Nothing is more important than a meal.’
After her meal, she needed to get back to crocheting her sweater. She had plenty of clothes in her dimensional space—more than she could ever wear in a lifetime—but Evelyn Ford preferred to stay busy. It was especially important in the cold, when the low temperatures could make one’s mind tired and body sluggish.
At times like these, it was all the more crucial to exercise her manual dexterity and not let her body and mind go idle.
It was important to talk to yourself when you were alone; it could help stave off dementia. ’And it’s not just a disease for the elderly,’ she reminded herself. ’The chances of young people developing it aren’t insignificant either.’
She also had a Rubik’s Cube in her space. It was one of the most practical tools for training one’s mind and adaptability.
She crocheted for two hours after dinner and managed to finish the shoulder section. Evelyn Ford stood up to stretch her limbs. A glance at the time showed it was only seven-thirty.
The snow outside was already very thick and had become so compacted that she no longer sank when she stepped on it. In a little while, she’d probably be able to glide across it on a board.
Evelyn Ford now practiced a set of Tai Chi outside every day. Though Mina and Lola couldn’t understand what she was doing, they always insisted on watching nearby whenever she exercised.
Evelyn Ford hadn’t yet explored the surrounding mountains. The thought of finding pheasants frozen in the snow was appealing, so she decided to take a look around tomorrow.
The next day, Evelyn Ford slung her crossbow over her shoulder, made sure Mina and Lola were settled in, then locked the door and left.
’I’ll head for the peak on the left,’ she decided. Looking at the dense fir forest up there, Evelyn Ford had a feeling she’d make a great find today.
The snow went CRUNCH, CRUNCH under her feet. It was pristine. When she looked back, her footprints were the only marks in the entire forest.
After walking for about twenty minutes, Evelyn Ford stopped for a short rest. She pulled down her mask, her breath forming puffs of white mist in the air. From her coat pocket, she took out a small flask containing liquor. A single sip would warm her up from the inside out.
Evelyn Ford uncapped it and took a sip, and a healthy flush immediately returned to her cheeks.
After resting for a few minutes, Evelyn Ford decided to press on. As she entered the mountain’s forests, she spotted some animal tracks and droppings. ’Looks like there are still plenty of animals that don’t hibernate.’
Just a few minutes after entering the forest, Evelyn Ford found a wild pheasant under a tree. She tapped its head. Its eyelids twitched—it was still alive. ’Another one frozen stiff, it seems.’
Evelyn Ford took out a styrofoam box. She dispatched the pheasant and placed it inside. Only inanimate objects could be put into her dimensional space, so she had to kill it first.
Evelyn Ford took out a trekking pole and continued her search.
’If only I had a hunting dog,’ she mused. ’A hound’s keen sense of smell would help me find these pheasants in no time.’
The fir trees on this mountain were exceptionally thick; she could just barely wrap her arms around their trunks.
"Ooh, another one!" Evelyn Ford quickly ran over and picked up the brightly-colored pheasant from the ground.
’This one seems to be dead already, but it’s still a little warm. It must have died just a moment ago.’
Icicles had formed on the dead branches scattered across the ground. Evelyn Ford picked one up and admired it for a long moment. It was crystal clear and beautiful.
"Whoo-hoo! This is amazing!" Evelyn Ford ran through the woods like a frolicking colt, stamping footprint after footprint into the vast expanse of white snow.
"I’ll make a rabbit!" Evelyn Ford began hopping around in the snow, arranging her footprints to look like rabbit tracks.
After hopping for a few dozen meters and leaving a trail of "rabbit" tracks, Evelyn Ford took out her phone. To her surprise, it took a full two minutes to boot up in the cold.
She took a picture of the snowy footprints, then switched to the front-facing camera and snapped a few selfies.
Once she was done, she turned the phone off again. Leaning on her trekking pole, Evelyn Ford resumed her search for pheasants.
It was difficult to hunt prey in the winter, and she wasn’t planning to, anyway. Scavenging for these frozen freebies was more than enough for her.
Deeper into the mountain, about halfway up the slope, Evelyn Ford discovered an unusually large cave. Or rather, it seemed more like a solutional cave than a regular one. A pungent odor wafted from the entrance, and the ground was slick and damp. One careless step could send a person tumbling inside. Evelyn Ford didn’t dare to venture in rashly.
"AHHH..." she shouted into the darkness. A long moment passed before an echo returned, the sound now muffled and deep.
’This cave must be huge.’
She remembered seeing news reports about adventure-livestreamers going missing on Broken Cloud Mountain. Gazing at the cave before her, she got down on her stomach and cautiously crawled forward. She took out a flashlight, wanting to get a look at how deep it was.
It was a high-wattage flashlight. When she switched it on, she could see white stone pillars in the distance. They were a type of stalactite formation. ’Logically, these should only appear in regions with karst topography. How can there be a solutional cave on Broken Cloud Mountain?’
Evelyn Ford didn’t have the mental energy to ponder that right now. She noticed that while the path just inside the entrance was slippery, it was also flat and wide. As long as she crouched down and shuffled forward slowly, she wouldn’t fall.
Evelyn Ford switched to a headlamp, stored her crossbow in her dimensional space, and decided to go inside for a look.
Just in case, she took a few antibiotic pills.
"Could this be an ancient tomb? Filled with gold, silver, and jewels... Hehe..."
The more Evelyn Ford thought about it, the more excited she got. ’Maybe I’ll trigger some unique ability or find a hidden power-up in here. Isn’t that how it always happens in the shows?’
The lone protagonist stumbles upon a hidden paradise, finds a secret martial arts manual, and trains to become an unrivaled master.
The ground felt a bit sticky. The white crystals clinging to her gloves looked like coarse salt. Evelyn Ford crouched, shuffling forward slowly. ’If those formations are really stalactites, I’ll have struck it rich. Stalactites are an ingredient in traditional medicine, after all.’
Water dripped from above. Evelyn Ford looked up and saw rows of stalactites hanging down vertically from the ceiling. Her breath caught in her throat with nervous excitement.
