Trembling At A High Altitude

Fifteen minutes later, Li Teng arrived at the subway station.

By then, the water at the exit doors of the subway was waist-deep.

Staff and some male passengers were standing at the exit, using their bodies as railings and flood barriers, transferring passengers from the subway one by one to a temporary safe area.

Li Teng tried to rush in but was stopped.

"My wife and child are still in the carriage! I need to go down and save them," Li Teng explained to the staff.

"I heard everyone from the carriages is already out! Look for them here! You can't go down; it's completely flooded! It's very dangerous! You could lose your life!" the staff member stopped Li Teng.

Li Teng took several deep breaths and, while observing the crowd at the subway station exit, took out his phone and dialed Zhang Mengdi's number.

The call connected.

"Where are you? Are you out yet?" Li Teng asked.

"I'm still in the carriage," Zhang Mengdi replied.

"Why didn't you come out with the rescuers?" Li Teng was anxious.

"I don't know, there are still many people in the carriage, none have moved," Zhang Mengdi was a bit confused.

"There are still people in the carriages below! My wife and child are still inside! I must go in!" Li Teng handed his phone to the staff member.

The staff member was also confused upon hearing what Zhang Mengdi said.

Li Teng had no time to say anything else; he charged into the subway station.

People shouted to stop him, but he couldn't care less, forcibly rushing downward.

The water in the subway tunnel was deep and turbulent, and although there were many people at the exit, there were gradually no silhouettes as he progressed inward.

After turning a corner, Li Teng encountered a woman clinging to the railings, loudly crying for help; she appeared to have no strength left to hold on much longer.

Li Teng gritted his teeth and rushed over to the woman, planning to bring her to safety before continuing the search for Zhang Mengdi and her daughter.

"On the ground! There's another one on the ground!" the woman gasped out to Li Teng.

Only then did Li Teng notice a woman lying in the water on the ground, prevented from being washed away by the railing trapping her body.

Li Teng hoisted the woman lying in the water onto his shoulder and, with his other arm, encircled the conscious woman, escorting them against the current to the safety of the exit stairs.

"Do you know CPR?" Li Teng asked the conscious woman.

The woman collapsed on the stairs, shaking her head blankly.

"Who can come down and do CPR? I still need to go down and find people!" Li Teng roared.

A man in a white coat rushed down, knelt on the ground, and began performing CPR on the woman.

Li Teng didn't dare delay and once again plunged into the rushing waters.

Once Li Teng reached the lower tunnel and figured out the direction, he swam quickly, covering around two to three hundred meters, before finally seeing the train that had the accident.

Apart from the sound of the water, it was eerily quiet.

The submerged carriages were also strangely silent.

The water rushing outside the carriage was nearly as high as a person.

Clinging to the outside of the subway carriage, Li Teng peered in through a smashed window.

There was deep water in the first carriage, but no people.

Li Teng swiftly swam to the second carriage.

Still no sight of people.

In the third carriage, again no people.

The water in the third carriage was already much higher than in the previous ones.

He had left his phone with the staff, unable to call Zhang Mengdi.

The fourth carriage, still no sight of people.

The water in the fourth carriage had exceeded the height of a normal person; on the water's surface, there was still no sight of people.

Li Teng's heart sank.

Could it be that something had happened to her and her daughter while he was rescuing others just now?

Or had they been rescued by someone else?

When he reached the fifth carriage and peered in through a shattered window, Li Teng finally saw people.

There were about a dozen people standing on the subway seats, with only their heads above the water.

Because the power was out, the tunnel was very dark, and without looking closely from outside the window, it was impossible to see that there were still people alive inside.

"Daddy!"

Li Teng heard a familiar cry.

Looking in the direction of the voice, he recognized it as Nana's.

She was being held up by a man, both of her hands tightly grasping the subway's upper railings.

Next to her was Zhang Mengdi, with only her head showing, feet on the subway seat, both hands also tightly grasping the railings, with a cell phone in one of her hands.

"My husband has come to rescue us! I knew he would definitely come!"

Zhang Mengdi excitedly told the others.

"No one move, I'm figuring out how to save you all!" Li Teng shouted into the carriage.

It was easy to imagine that the people inside were already exhausted; in such deep water, moving recklessly could easily lead to disaster.

Also, the situation outside was not optimistic. The section of the carriage where they were located was in low-lying terrain, and the water outside the carriage had reached nearly two meters deep. Li Teng himself was clinging to the outside of the carriage, and a slight misstep could sweep him away, let alone rescuing the dozen or so people inside.

After pondering for a long while, Li Teng decided to first move everyone to the top of the carriage, and then think about the next steps. Otherwise, soaking in the water like this, they were in danger at any moment.

Just then, a large surge of water, coming from nowhere, rushed down the tunnel towards the subway carriage trapped in the floodwaters.

The subway carriage was lifted by the flood, shaking violently before falling back down.

A series of cries of alarm came from the carriage.

Clinging to the outside wall of the carriage, Li Teng was almost swept away by the force, but fortunately, he quickly grabbed onto the broken glass at the window to stabilize himself.

His hands were in tremendous pain, bleeding profusely, but he had no time to care about that now.

Li Teng shouted and struggled to smash the broken double-layer subway window glass with his legs, hoping to shatter it completely and then crawl in to rescue people.

But the glass, despite being broken, was still very sturdy.

In the midst of the chaos, someone inside the carriage passed out a fire extinguisher.

Swinging the fire extinguisher, Li Teng finally smashed open the glass after a fierce pounding.

Due to the previous jolt, the carriage had tilted to one side, which made one side higher than the other.

The rear half of the fifth carriage and the sixth carriage were both completely submerged below the water surface.

Some passengers swam over to the lower water level side, re-grasping the handrails, still in shock.

"Nana! Nana!"

Cries of despair from Zhang Mengdi came from inside the carriage.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I couldn't hold on to her when the flood came!" the man next to her kept apologising to Zhang Mengdi.

Zhang Mengdi plunged into the water, and Li Teng, who had been swept away, pulled her up.

"Don't move! I'll go find her!" Li Teng yelled at Zhang Mengdi and quickly dived into the rear half of the fifth carriage.

There was no visibility in the murky accumulated water. Moreover, with no electricity or lights in the tunnel, Li Teng couldn't see anything when he dived below.

After submerging, Li Teng could only fumble around, trying to find people with his hands.

It wasn't long before he touched someone.

But it was clearly not Nana.

The person hadn't been moving much, but when Li Teng touched them, they turned around and reached out to grab him.

Li Teng quickly avoided and moved behind the person, grabbing their collar and forcibly pushing them towards shallow water.

Not resisting any longer, the person was pushed back above the water by Li Teng, emerging with loud coughs and cries.

It was a young woman.

After rescuing someone, Li Teng quickly submerged again and continued to swiftly search through the deeper waters.

In a short while, he found two more people, barely moving, and brought them back up to the shallower area above, letting others hold on to them first.

After gasping for air a few times, Li Teng dove into the water once more.

Five minutes went by, ten minutes went by.

Li Teng had successively rescued eleven people from underwater.

But still, there was no sign of Nana.

"Nana!" Zhang Mengdi was crying so hard she could hardly make a sound anymore.

Li Teng was exhausted, his complexion pale, and he was unsteady on his feet.

Ever since he entered this world, he had been operating at high intensity.

His body was overdrawn again and again, his bodily functions already on the verge of collapse.

Just then, a bustle of noise came from outside.

A large number of rescue workers with ropes formed a human chain by holding hands and came to the outside of the carriage, starting to rescue the people inside.

Li Teng took in a few deep breaths and prepared to dive into the water once again.

"Don't go!" Zhang Mengdi grabbed hold of Li Teng.

"I must go," Li Teng said, trying to push away Zhang Mengdi's hand.

"It's too late, it's no use, if you go again, you too will..." Zhang Mengdi wept profusely.

"Don't stop me!" Li Teng forcefully pushed Zhang Mengdi's hand away and then dove into the water.

He knew too much time had passed, and even if he found someone, it would be pointless.

But...

He couldn't give up.

Just for that 'Daddy' she had cried out when he was on his way over, even at the cost of his life, he had to rescue her.

During the last mission, he and Aila had discussed what the meaning of life was.

Having lived for over a thousand years, he had long become indifferent to wealth, money, women, and such.

As for the truth about Film and Television City, he actually didn't care anymore.

He and Aila spoke eloquently about it, but in reality, he didn't know what the meaning of his own life was.

But, at the moment Nana had called him 'Daddy,' he suddenly knew what the meaning of his life was.

In this moment, he had to save her.

It was his indisputable responsibility.

...

Several minutes later.

With the help of the rescue workers, the people inside the carriage were one by one transferred to the top of the carriage.

Then, under the protection of the flesh-and-blood barrier formed by the rescue workers, they were handed over, one by one, out of the water.

"My husband and daughter are still in there! Please, save them!" Zhang Mengdi cried out hoarsely, held tightly by someone to prevent her from rushing back into the carriage.

The water inside the carriage was deathly silent.

Li Teng no longer emerged from under the water with people as he had before.

"It's been so long, the person is no longer there, with water so deep, nobody who goes in can come out, we all have families..." A passenger muttered softly beside Zhang Mengdi.

"I'll go in with a rope and take a look, watch out for me," a firefighter said as he tied a rope around his waist, preparing to crawl into the carriage through the window.

Just as he was about to crawl in, he was firmly grabbed by Zhang Mengdi.

"Don't go," Zhang Mengdi said with a blank expression.

"I'll go look..."

"I said don't go!" Zhang Mengdi sobbed.

...

After the last dive into the water within the carriage, Li Teng swam to the far end of the sixth carriage in one breath.

He felt nothing along the way.

He turned back and carefully searched every inch of the way again.

Still, he found nothing.

He had reached the limits of holding his breath.

His consciousness was starting to blur.

Was this mission going to end in failure, just like this?

Li Teng felt himself smile a smile.

Was the Invincible Golden Body really that important?

It was just a boring obsession after all.

Let it end!

Let it be over!

"Daddy!"

Underwater, Li Teng thought he heard Nana's cry.

He didn't know if it was an illusion.

He hadn't found her yet, how could it be over?

Li Teng made a final desperate struggle as if a light had returned, and he swam back once again, searching around with his hands.

At the junction between the fifth and the sixth carriages, his head suddenly surfaced, and he breathed in fresh air!

"Daddy! Daddy!"

A familiar voice rang out, and a small figure rushed towards him.

It took a while for Li Teng to realize that it wasn't his illusion.

Because of the impact of the water just now, the fifth carriage and the sixth carriage had become slightly disjointed, creating an angle at the connection, resulting in a small crack appearing above the protrusion.

Below the small crack, about a square meter of water surface was revealed, and it was only about a dozen centimeters below the carriage ceiling.

Nana happened to be trapped in this area!

She had somehow managed to stay afloat, so even though nearly half an hour had gone by since she submerged, she was still alive!

"Daddy, thank you for coming to save me," Nana hugged Li Teng's neck.

"Nana... how did you... do that..." Li Teng's tears flowed.

"Mom said that if you put your hands in front of your head and don't panic, you can float on the water surface without sinking," Nana answered Li Teng.

"So composed in the face of danger, you truly are my child!" Li Teng held Nana and kissed her again and again.

"I was really scared, I kept calling for daddy, I knew daddy would definitely come to save me! So I wasn't scared anymore!" Nana said proudly.

"It wasn't daddy who saved you, it was you who saved daddy," Li Teng thought back to the previous moments.

If it wasn't for her cry at the last moment, perhaps he would have given up first.

It was her voice that woke the last bit of strength in him, allowing him to persist and swim here, resulting in this miracle.

...

"Let's go! It's too dangerous here!"

Everyone had evacuated, the subway tunnel was silent.

Only two rescue workers remained with Zhang Mengdi, ceaselessly persuading her.

"I won't go, I want to stay with them," Zhang Mengdi shook her head expressionlessly.

"They... they're already... you're still young, you have parents, you have other relatives..."

"They are my everything. Where they are, is where I'll be. You go ahead, don't worry about me," Zhang Mengdi shook her head.