CHAPTER 454: CHAPTER 452 SURVIVORS

Li Xi forcefully pulled the blanket around him, hoping to wrap it tighter.

However, no matter how tight it was wrapped, it was still ineffective against the dozens of degrees below zero temperature.

But this was the only thing Li Xi could do now.

The fire pit in front of him had only a few embers that hadn’t cooled, and although there were still some flames, he had nothing left to burn.

Moreover, not just fuel, he had finished the last bit of food he could find in the morning, and as for drinking water...

Li Xi reached out and picked up the kettle placed next to the fire pit, shook it a bit, but heard no sound of water, clearly indicating that the remaining half kettle of water inside had frozen.

This was the third day since the earthquake. Although Li Xi was lucky enough to escape from the half-collapsed shelter at the first moment, gathering some food and clothing and other items that could be used for warmth, and found a wind-sheltered place to start a fire, he was still about to freeze to death.

Li Xi had already despaired, even though he knew there were other survivors and the government should be organizing relief efforts, he felt he couldn’t hold on anymore.

Because it was unbearably cold, cold enough that he felt his blood was about to freeze, even his heart felt icy.

He was beginning to lose consciousness, his hands and feet had already lost feeling the day before; now, he felt even his thoughts were getting blurry.

"So hungry...so cold..." A few indistinct words floated out from his cracked lips, almost like his last groans, speaking of his final desires.

At this moment, Li Xi felt he was hallucinating, he seemed to see a roaring furnace, emitting warm light, and a table filled with mouthwatering delicacies.

On that table were the dishes from the last New Year before the disaster at home, with chicken! Fish! Meat! His favorite spicy chicken and pig trotters!

Beside the table was his deceased mother, who had passed away due to poor health after the disaster.

But in Li Xi’s eyes, his mother still appeared as her past kind self, smiling and waving at him, as if inviting him over to eat.

Just like countless times since he was young when he came home from school, his mother had dinner ready and invited him to eat.

"Mom!" Li Xi wanted to reach out to his mother, to grasp her, but couldn’t.

Just as Li Xi was about to stand up, a beam of bright light shone on his face, making him cover his eyes.

"Survivor found!" A voice seeming to be part of the rescue effort reached Li Xi’s ears, along with chaotic footsteps.

But Li Xi didn’t care anymore; he just wanted to sit down at the table as he did in the past and eat his favorite dishes with his mother.

Then, as Li Xi thought this, he felt something warm touch his face, not only breathing on his face but also something wet and soft brushing against it.

Li Xi wanted to reach out and brush it away, but his hands had long lost feeling, making him increasingly annoyed.

Because of this interference, the vision of his mother and the dining table increasingly drifted away from him. He must chase this thing away to seize the chance to eat with his mother.

So Li Xi gathered his last bit of strength and raised his hand, wanting to push the thing away from his face, only to see, upon focusing, a huge dog’s face.

A white German shepherd taller than Li Xi while sitting was sniffing at Li Xi’s face nonstop, perhaps too cold to stick out its tongue and lick him; the wet sensation Li Xi felt was just the dog’s nose.

"Why is there a dog?" Li Xi seemed to become slightly more alert at this moment, he turned his almost frozen head to the side, seeing two gray figures crawling through the tunnel the dog had dug and running quickly towards him.

"Wake up! Don’t sleep! Wake up! Hang in there!" Two people quickly reached Li Xi’s side, one hastily pulled out a thermos and fed warm drinks into Li Xi’s mouth, while the other hurriedly checked his condition, loudly urging him to hold on.

But Li Xi was too tired and too cold; as the warm drink flowed into his mouth, it briefly brought him back to consciousness, but he truly couldn’t hold on, and his head drooped as he fainted.

The two rescue workers, seeing this, dared not delay and used a harness to secure him onto the search-and-rescue dog they brought along, saying to the big German shepherd: "Quick, take him back!"

The German shepherd understood the command; although having someone strapped on was slightly hampering, the big dog quickly crawled through the tunnel it had dug and rushed toward the rescue point with the person on its back.

After the shepherd went out, the two rescue workers continued searching for other survivors in the collapsed ruins.

The two couldn’t help but be grateful they brought large search-and-rescue dogs this time; these dogs, as big as lions or tigers, were extraordinarily strong, capable of quickly digging through snow and ruins to find buried survivors.

Relying on these dogs’ ability, they had found quite a few survivors.

If it were before, they might have needed to dig through the debris to have a way to send people out, but these giant dogs could have people secured to them and taken out by the dogs.

"Good thing we brought these big dogs; the old search-and-rescue dogs didn’t have this capability!" One rescuer continued scanning the debris with an instrument, while lamenting.

"Yes, if they were small dogs, let alone rescue, they’d freeze to death in this weather." Another rescuer also lamented, obviously thinking of his previous partner.

But it’s unfortunate that after the disaster hit, he lost his old partner.

"Their burrowing ability is truly strong; before, digging through could take hours, but now with these big dogs, rescues are much faster!" The first rescuer seemed to have found another survivor, hurriedly patting his companion: "There’s someone alive down below! Quick, help out!"

The two saw the instrument indicating there were survivors below them and quickly each used tools to dig into the ground.

Though their digging speed wasn’t as fast as the dogs, with the assistance of the Exoskeleton, the digging tools quickly excavated the ground, trying to extract the survivor.

On the other side, the big German shepherd carrying the rescued Li Xi was already running onto the street.

The big dog hardly paused, sniffing the air, then sprinted in one direction, quickly reaching a temporary rescue point, barking loudly.

Noticing the big dog, the staff hurriedly ran towards it, unstrapping the person from it and taking him for treatment.