A Prophecy Fulfilled

Dawn.

Su Bai was jolted awake by the biting chill seeping through the tent.

To be precise, it wasn’t just him who got frozen awake.

When he opened his eyes, Chen Yusheng in his arms was curling up tighter against him, her icy feet rubbing against his calf through the sleeping bag as she mumbled drowsily,

“Cold…”

Su Bai glanced down and couldn’t help but smile. The girl slept quietly, but the temperature had plummeted in the dead of night. Even the down sleeping bag couldn’t ward off the cold. Her usually aloof, stunning face was now scrunched up in discomfort, the tip of her nose red from the chill, looking like a wronged little animal.

“Stop shrinking—come here.” Su Bai pulled her fully into his embrace, using his 170-point physique as a heater. “My body temperature works better than any furnace.”

Chen Yusheng didn’t hold back, either. She pressed herself against him, burying her face in his chest, and let out a long sigh of relief. After a while, her eyes slowly blinked open.

“How… how much snow fell outside?” Her voice was still thick with sleep, soft and uncharacteristically sweet.

Su Bai reached over and pulled open a corner of the tent.

A blinding white light flooded in.

The entire valley had been transformed overnight into a world of silver.

The branches of the pine forest were laden with heavy snow, the distant mountain peaks blended into a vast expanse of white, and the green meadow from yesterday was now covered by snow deep enough to submerge an ankle.

The sky had cleared, and sunlight sparkled off the snow, dazzling the eyes.

“Wow.” Su Bai let out a whistle. “This snow came down harder than the forecast predicted.”

Chen Yusheng leaned over to peek outside, her cool eyes filled with awe. “I slept so soundly that I didn’t hear a thing… This must be at least twenty or thirty centimeters thick.”

“About that,” Su Bai said, pulling the tent flap back down to keep the cold wind out. “Good thing we didn’t charge into the mountains. Just think about it—with this much snow last night, visibility would’ve been near zero, the trails would’ve been pure ice. One wrong step or getting lost…”

He didn’t finish, but Chen Yusheng understood.

She shrank her neck, relieved, and patted her chest. “You’re really steady. If it had been anyone else, they might’ve gone up just for the snow view.”

“What’s the point of seeing snow if you lose your life?” Su Bai chuckled and tapped her nose. “Alright, let’s get up and grab some food. I’ll check what’s going on outside.”

It took them a while to crawl out of the warm sleeping bags. Chen Yusheng bundled up in a thick down jacket, pulled on a hat and gloves, fully armed, with only her reddened little face exposed. Su Bai, on the other hand, just threw on a fleece-lined shell jacket, looking unbothered in the subzero temperatures.

He lifted the tent flap, and a wave of cold air hit him.

Quite a few people were already up in the campground, all hunched over, stamping their feet, their breath puffing out in white clouds in the frigid air. Last night’s blizzard had clearly thrown everyone’s plans into chaos.

Su Bai had just lit a portable stove to heat up some leftover hotpot base from yesterday and boil noodles when he heard engine roars coming from the campground entrance.

He looked up.

Several off-road vehicles, their bodies painted with striking orange-red stripes, were rolling slowly through the thick snow into the campground. Flashing police lights blazed on the roofs, and bold letters on the vehicles read: Mountain Rescue Team.

“Rescue team?” Su Bai raised an eyebrow.

At that, the entire campground buzzed with commotion.

As soon as the vehicles stopped, the doors swung open, and over a dozen team members in professional orange rescue suits jumped out. They carried large packs, ropes, stretchers, detection equipment—all looking grim and moving hurriedly.

A middle-aged man who seemed to be the team leader shouted at the campers, “Attention, hikers! Something happened up on the mountain last night. We’re heading in for a search and rescue. Cooperate—stay put and don’t go up the mountain right now!”

His words caused an uproar.

Campers who had been gathered around fires in small groups immediately crowded around.

“Captain, what happened?”

“Is someone trapped up there?”

“Wasn’t there a blizzard last night? Who was reckless enough to head into the mountains?”

Su Bai set down his noodles, took Chen Yusheng’s hand, and moved closer, mingling at the edge of the crowd to listen.

The rescue leader, while directing his team to organize their gear, replied irritably, “You bet! Yesterday afternoon, the weather bureau issued a warning, and the camp broadcast had been shouting for people not to go into the mountains. But some self-proclaimed veteran hiker with decades of experience insisted the snow was nothing and took a group up in the dark!”

“Now they’re stranded halfway up the mountain at a wind-sheltered cliff. Their phone signal keeps cutting in and out. They called for help last night—lost, someone showing signs of hypothermia. It’s bad!”

The crowd erupted.

“My god, who goes into the mountains in that kind of weather?”

“Hypothermia? That’s life-threatening! The temperature up there all night…”

“Some people just have to tempt fate. They couldn’t just stay put at camp; they had to push their limits.”

Standing among the crowd, Su Bai listened and felt a jolt of realization.

Decades of hiking… insisting the snow was nothing… going up in the dark…

Those keywords clicked together, and a familiar figure popped into his mind.

He whipped his head around to look at the high-end tent where yesterday’s “Know-it-all” had been set up.

The tent was still there, but empty—the sleeping bag and gear were gone. Outside, a trail of footprints wobbled unevenly toward the mountain, half-covered by fresh snow, barely visible.

Su Bai’s eye twitched.

Chen Yusheng followed his gaze, her cool eyes widening. She grabbed Su Bai’s arm tightly and whispered, her voice full of disbelief, “Su Bai… that hiker who’s trapped… could it be the one from yesterday…”

“Ten to one.” Su Bai took a deep breath.

The scene from yesterday evening was still vivid in his mind. That middle-aged man had stood with his trekking pole and GPS around his neck, brimming with superiority, gesturing at the distant mountains and spouting his “Know-it-all” manifesto:

“Snowfall? This little bit scares you?”

“I’ve been hiking for over a decade. I’ve seen far worse—I’ve camped in minus twenty degrees.”

“The true essence of outdoor sports is to challenge limits and conquer nature! If a bit of snow stops us, why even bother coming to the mountains?”

“Entering the mountains in snow? That’s the real deal, the real challenge!”

Back then, his buddies had cheered him on, talking about their professional gear and braving the snow, dismissing others as “influencer tourists” who’d just stay huddled in camp.

And now?

In less than one night, he was stranded halfway up, hypothermia looming, bringing an entire rescue team down.

A self-fulfilling prophecy, indeed.

Su Bai shook his head, momentarily at a loss for words.

A young hiker who had also been present yesterday and personally heard the bold claims muttered under his breath, as if just remembering: “I recall him saying yesterday that hiking in the snowy mountains is the real deal. Well, looks like the real deal caught up with him.”

“You’re telling me,” another hiker chimed in, a mix of emotions in their voice. “He had such an air of authority, he almost convinced me. Good thing I’m a coward and didn’t follow.”

The rescue team leader’s face darkened even further as he listened to the chatter around him. While signaling his team to gear up, he couldn’t help but grumble: “Most accidents every year come from this kind of Know-it-all—the ones who think their experience makes them invincible and that even nature has to bow to them. But can one person truly predict the whims of the wild? We send out warnings, broadcast advisories, but they just ignore them, only to drive themselves into a corner. Then we have to drag dozens of people into the blizzard to clean up their mess!”

His words were blunt, but no one there dared to argue.

Su Bai, holding Chen Yusheng’s hand, quietly withdrew to their campsite.

The water on the stove had boiled. The blue, heart-shaped flame still flickered softly, radiating warmth. He cooked her a bowl of noodles, topped with an egg and some leftover beef from the day before, and placed the steaming bowl before her.

Chen Yusheng cupped the bowl, warming her frozen hands, then glanced back toward the rescue team preparing to head into the mountains. She let out a soft sigh.

“Yesterday he mocked us for being clueless influencers playing at camping,” she said, blowing gently on the noodles, a hint of reflection on her composed face. “But now here we are, warm in our tent with a hot meal, while he spent the night freezing on the mountain, waiting to be saved.”

“Exactly,” Su Bai said, serving himself a bowl of noodles and sitting down beside her. His tone carried no schadenfreude, but rather a note of insight. “True experience isn’t about fearing nothing—it’s about knowing when to push forward and when to pull back. The mountain isn’t going anywhere. When the snow clears and the roads thaw, we can go up and enjoy the beautiful views. But you only get one life. You can’t gamble with it.”

Chen Yusheng nodded. Looking at Su Bai’s calm profile, that deep sense of security within her grew even stronger.

She understood all too well. For all his extraordinary strength and skills—ought to charge recklessly into the mountains without a care—he was a picture of caution. Whether it was installing surveillance at home or choosing a campsite based on terrain, he decisively changed plans the moment a warning came through, never risking anyone’s safety unnecessarily.

It was this steadiness that made her feel completely safe, no matter where she followed him.

“Good thing I listened to you,” Chen Yusheng said, slurping a noodle and smiling at him. “Otherwise, we might have been the ones being carried down right now.”

Su Bai chuckled and reached over to ruffle her hair.

Not far away, the orange-suited rescue team had shouldered their gear and, step by step through the thick snow, headed deep into the mountains. Their figures quickly vanished into the vast, white snow-covered forest, leaving behind only a trail of footprints and the lesson of the Know-it-all.

They exchanged a glance. Neither spoke, but both silently felt grateful—

Last night’s seemingly “cowardly” decision now seemed nothing short of brilliant.