Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

The pond was four or five meters deep, and the thick layer of ice on top filtered out most of the light, making it very dark at the bottom.

Moreover, the large number of fish struggling in the net had stirred up the thick silt at the bottom of the pond, making the surrounding area dark and reducing visibility to less than a meter.

After Zhou Rui came down, he didn't move around immediately. He just stayed quietly in the water, letting himself slowly rise to the middle depth.

He needed to acclimatize to the water temperature first, getting his body into peak condition. Also, he needed to activate his senses. In this situation, his eyes weren't very useful.

Zhou Rui closed his eyes, and his senses instantly radiated outwards from his body.

In Zhou Rui's mind, his mental energy seemed to slow down as it passed through the particles in the water. After reaching its maximum, the distance between them was dozens of times greater than that on the shore, perhaps only a few dozen meters away.

That's enough. Zhou Rui has found Chen Huaishu, and his senses are even clearer than when he was on the shore.

About ten meters to the left, the sapling was still struggling. Zhou Rui spread his arms and swung out with all his might. The cold water stung his body, but it didn't seem too bad.

Zhou Rui ignored all of that, knowing only that there was nothing wrong with his body. He twisted his body and swam away like a fish.

Zhou Rui cut through the waterline and arrived in front of the little locust tree in three seconds. The little locust tree was still moving its hands and feet, but it was no longer as intense as before.

Zhou Rui had no time to think further; he didn't have much time left. The surface was covered in ice, preventing him from surfacing. Zhou Rui could only grab a small locust tree branch and turn around.

A few seconds later, Zhou Rui stopped. Damn it, he was going the wrong way; he hadn't seen the hole he'd jumped down from.

Zhou Rui pushed off with his leg, his body floating more than a meter upwards, landing below the ice layer, hoping that the light coming through would be brighter and he could see more clearly.

But it was useless; what blocked the view wasn't the brightness, but the murky muddy water. Perception could only locate living prey and medicinal herbs; it was utterly ineffective against the frozen, lifeless objects.

Zhou Rui only then began to panic, and kept swimming forward, touching the bottom of the ice.

Zhou Rui tried to push upwards with his elbow, hoping to make a sound so that the people above could hear him and give him guidance. However, the water pressure was too great and the ice layer was too thick, so hitting the ice with his elbow was completely useless.

Zhou Rui kept swimming forward, but having lost his sense of direction, he was just spinning in circles in a small area under the ice.

At this point, Zhou Rui was at a loss, and his lungs began to feel stuffy, so he could only mechanically move his arms.

Bang! His right wrist hit something. It was a soft thud, but to Zhou Rui it sounded like a booming bell.

Zhou Rui quickly twisted his wrist a few times and finally grabbed a stick-shaped object, about the thickness of a bowl. He immediately understood what it was; it was the long pole they used to set their fishing nets.

Zhou Rui gripped the long pole tightly and shook it vigorously a few times.

"There's movement!" One of the three villagers by the cave suddenly turned around and shouted in surprise. It was Zhao Dazhu.

"My cue moved a few times."

"Quickly, pull out the other two long poles first, don't block the hole. Dazhu, pull your long pole last, don't pull too fast, lest Zhou Rui loses his grip."

A change finally appeared on Gu Dayong's face; any movement was the best news.

The other two long poles were quickly pulled out. With nothing else blocking his way, Zhao Dazhu slowly backed away, clutching the pole made from a tree trunk as thick as a bowl. As he walked, he felt the changes in the pole in his hand.

Before the long pole was fully pulled out, with a splash, a head popped out of the water.

"Ruiwa, it's Ruiwa! Quickly pull him up!" Zhao Youzhi, who had been waiting at the cave entrance, called out repeatedly.

Gu Dayong hurriedly knelt down and lay down by the hole, trying to pull Zhou Rui's left hand, which was clinging to the ice wall.

"Wait, pull him up first." With that, Zhou Rui used his right hand to pull a foot out of the water.

At this moment, Chen Huaihua, who had been in despair, heard this and her dim eyes slowly brightened. Ignoring Zhou Ping who was still holding her, she crawled on the ice with all her might, trying to reach the edge of the hole as quickly as possible.

With a whoosh, Gu Dayong suddenly exerted force with his hands supporting him on the ground and then stood up abruptly. A human-shaped object was pulled upside down from the ice cave, and water instantly overflowed from the human-shaped body, falling onto the ice surface.

"Little tree..."

A heart-wrenching scream erupted from Chen Huaihua's mouth, drawing the attention of everyone nearby.

"They're up! They've been rescued! Come help!"

"Second brother, second brother." Zhou Ping ignored the locust blossoms that had slipped from his grasp and rushed toward the cave entrance on his own. His second brother hadn't come up yet.

Before he could even reach the edge of the cave, Zhou Rui pressed his hands against the long pole that Zhao Dazhu was still sticking in the cave, and with that push, he leaped out, his bare upper body covered in filthy mud flowing down.

At this moment, Gu Dayong had already laid Chen Huaishu flat on the ice, and Chen Huaihua climbed over, lay on the sapling, and cried loudly.

Gu Dayong shoved her aside: "Get out of the way, you're still breathing, don't cause trouble."

Gu Dayong acted roughly, showing no regard for Chen Huaihua being a girl. He first tilted the sapling to the side, then pried open its top, circling his fingers inside. Fortunately, there was nothing inside.

This was taught to him by his comrade-in-arms from the battlefield back then; that comrade was an educated student.

Then, he grabbed Xiaoshu's collar with both hands and tore it open forcefully. Xiaoshu's chest heaved, though weakly. His abdomen was swollen, indicating that he had drunk quite a bit of water.

Gu Dayong clasped his hands together and pressed hard on Chen Huaishu's belly, causing a stream of water to gush out like a spring.

"Cough cough... cough cough..."

"She's awake, she's awake."

"Towels, clothes. And has the sled arrived yet?"

Gu Dayong shouted as he pulled Chen Huaishu's clothes off. Someone nearby handed him a towel, the one the fisherman had used to wipe his sweat.

Since he had no clothes, Gu Dayong had no choice but to take off his own coat and wrap Chen Xiaoshu inside.

No one was paying attention to Zhou Rui; only Zhou Ping and Zhao Dazhu were by his side. Zhou Rui was fine when he first came ashore, but the north wind made his muscles shiver with cold.

"Quickly dry yourself off." Zhao Dazhu didn't have a towel, so he had to take off his dog-skin hat.

Zhou Rui didn't care about anything else. He took Zhao Dazhu's hat and wiped it on his body. He didn't care whether he was clean or not. He picked up the clothes on the ground and put them on.

Zhou Rui was a little overwhelmed jumping into the water without any preparation.

"Ah Qiu..."

With a sneeze, Zhou Rui's nose started running.

Just as I finished putting on my coat, I heard Gu Dayong shouting, "Zhou Rui, hurry up and get on the sled, we need to get to Changhai's infirmary as soon as possible."

Zhou Rui strode forward and slapped the mule's rump hard.

"You guys go first, I'm not going, I'm going home." Without saying a word to Zhou Ping, she pushed her way through the crowd and ran in another direction, her speed seemingly faster than a mule.