Soul Patch

Chapter 196 Are there any survivors?

"I crawled and crawled until I was exhausted, then lay on the ground waiting to die."

At this point, the atmosphere became heavy, and the three people opposite her watched her silently.

Her husband pulled her into his arms and patted her back affectionately: "It's alright, it's alright, it's all over now, you're fine now!"

He had indeed heard his wife talk about that experience, but he didn't know that it contained such profound despair, a coldness that was even more cruel than facing death directly.

"And then?" Wenjie asked, staring intently at her.

She was obviously rescued later, but how exactly was she rescued?

"At that time, I didn't know where I had crawled to. I was lying on my back, desperately praying to God to save me. I didn't want to die. I hadn't lived enough yet. Then I passed out."

In the darkness, I seemed to hear a faint voice drift into my ears: I can save you, but there will be a price to pay!

I was already unconscious, and I thought I was hallucinating or dreaming.

Later, a government search and rescue team found me and quickly took me to a local hospital for treatment.

After she finished speaking, the three people in front of her remained silent for a long time. No one knew what to say, and the room seemed to still be immersed in an atmosphere of pain, despair, and a struggle on the verge of death.

"Then... how do you know this is related to Li Shiman's hysteria?" Wenjie asked first.

"After Li Shiman fell ill, I kept dreaming about the dangerous situation in Yunnan."

I remember after I was rescued, the rescue team told me that I was rescued from an ancient temple. They even joked that it must have been my prayers that moved the gods in the temple, which is why I was so lucky to be rescued.

I'm wondering if my failure to fulfill my vow after praying for blessings caused my daughter's unexplained illness?

After she finished speaking, she pursed her lips, wanting to give everyone a smile, but the heavy feeling prevented her from smiling.

As Wenjie listened, he suddenly seemed to realize something. He narrowed his eyes slightly, looked at her, and asked in a deep voice, "What do you mean? You mean, only you were rescued?"

Li Shiman's father sighed and said, "Yes, after hearing her tell this story, I specifically looked for the newspapers from that year. The newspapers recorded that, apart from her, no one from that expedition survived."

"what?"

Liu Qingqing had been listening intently to Li Shiman's mother recount that experience, so engrossed that she kept fiddling with her coffee in her hand.

After hearing the whole thing, she twisted open the bottle cap and was about to put it in her mouth when she was startled by the phrase "no one survived," and her hand trembled, spilling the coffee.

"Ugh!" Wenjie rolled his eyes at Liu Qingqing with disdain and handed her a tissue.

"What about the red mark on Li Shiman's chest? It's said she was born with it, but it disappeared when she fell ill at the age of five?" Wenjie asked.

“This…” Li Shiman and her husband exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with undisguised confusion.

“Let me tell you,” Li Shiman’s mother interrupted, “She has a red birthmark on her chest. She underwent a full physical examination when she was diagnosed with hysteria.”

When the doctor saw this birthmark, he said that this type of birthmark might be malignant. Since it was small, it could be removed minimally invasively, so we followed the doctor's advice and had it cut off.

How did you find out about the birthmark?

Wenjie swallowed hard. That made sense. When Li Shiman first told him about the birthmark with a palm-sized human face or a reflection, he thought it was all nonsense.

Wenjie pointed into the room and smiled without saying a word.

Li Shiman's father sighed heavily again, "Don't listen to Man'er. She's been talking nonsense ever since she got sick. Sometimes what she says is incomprehensible to us."

He glanced at his wife beside him as he spoke.

“Yes, yes, Man’er always said she wouldn’t live past six years old. We never believed her, but as her birthday approaches, her condition is getting worse and worse… I… I really suspect that I made those wishful prayers back then and harmed my own daughter!”

As she spoke, Li Shiman's mother wiped away tears again.

Speaking of making wishes, Wenjie actually has a friend who, when traveling in Japan, made a wish at a temple that he could win a car license plate in the lottery in Beijing.

Not long after returning to China, I actually won the lottery! I bought a car, got the license plates, and was overjoyed. I told everyone I met that I had wished to win the lottery, and I actually did! My luck was off the charts!

A friend advised him that since it was a fortune slip he had made, he should go and fulfill his wish.

He was displeased when he heard that. Japan? It's not some remote suburb. How can you just go there whenever you want?

As a result, when his wife was pregnant, he was driving that car to take her for a prenatal checkup when they had a car accident, and the baby was lost.

When Wenjie first heard about this, he was deeply saddened.

"So... do you want to go and fulfill your vow?" Wenjie asked cautiously.

Li Shiman's mother looked troubled and said, "I went there once, but I couldn't find the place. So many years have passed. I accidentally entered the no-man's-land back then and almost lost my life there. I wouldn't dare to step into the no-man's-land again even if you gave me the courage."

After that, there was another long silence.

Wenjie glanced at the wall clock in the living room; it was two o'clock.

"Who told you that finding someone born on the same day, month, and year as Li Shiman can cure her illness?" That was the key question he wanted to ask.

“It was Man’er herself who said it…” Li Shiman’s mother said timidly, “Then we remembered that there was another pregnant woman who gave birth at the same time as me in the maternity hospital, and she gave birth to a boy.”

Wenjie was speechless: "You believed what she said herself? You actually found out where that boy lived and kidnapped him?"

“You don’t have children, you don’t understand! We’ve tried all sorts of strange and unusual remedies for her. Let alone kidnapping a boy, I would have even used my flesh as a medicinal ingredient if she wanted to use it.”

I'd do anything for Man'er to get better.

As Li Shiman's mother spoke, she became a little agitated, stood up, rolled up her arms to reveal a section of her fair and delicate arm.

Ignorant, absurd, utterly ridiculous!

Wenjie looked helplessly at Li Shiman's parents, pondered for a moment, and asked hesitantly, "Are you sure everyone in the expedition team died back then?"

Li Shiman's mother looked at Wenjie with a puzzled expression, nodded, then shook her head, stroked her chin thoughtfully, and pondered:

"That's not accurate. I asked the rescue team that came to my rescue, and they only found me, not anyone else."

They saw a group of hikers entering the uninhabited area on the registration form, and the area had been hit by heavy rains for days, causing landslides and mudslides. So they organized this search and rescue operation.

Later, news reports came in that an expedition team had perished in a no-man's-land. Judging from the photos, it was my expedition team, and the number of people matched.

Why do you suspect there were survivors?

(End of this chapter)