Chapter 6 A drone
At an altitude of one thousand meters, it was truly difficult to see the ground conditions with the naked eye.
Even if there was a rescue, Li Teng could do nothing right now.
He could only wait.
Wait for the rescue or investigation personnel below to discover this stone pillar, to find him atop this stone pillar.
He believed that as long as rescue or investigation personnel arrived, it would be impossible for them to overlook this stone pillar.
Just wait.
...
The entire day had passed, and no helicopters or drones had come.
Li Teng lay on the broken bed, his body becoming weaker and weaker.
Long without water, his lips had cracked and bled.
The prolonged hunger made it impossible for him to remain fully conscious.
All sorts of illusions made him think from time to time that rescuers had come, that they had saved him from the stone pillar and taken him back to his warm home.
But the next moment, he would be pulled back into harsh reality.
Night fell once more.
As night descended again and Li Teng prepared to sleep once more, he felt he might never wake up if he fell asleep this time.
If rescue didn't come, he didn't think he could last until sunrise tomorrow.
But he still didn't have enough courage to leap from the edge of the bed.
He still didn't want to give up his last hope.
This horrific air disaster was shocking enough to the world, so many victims could not possibly be left unattended here, right?
There must be a rescue coming.
...
In a daze, Li Teng began to dream again.
He dreamt of an earthquake, trapped amid the rubble, surrounded by utter darkness.
Suddenly, a beam of light shone through, so bright that he could barely open his eyes.
After a moment, Li Teng suddenly woke up.
There was indeed a beam of white light in front of him!
And a buzzing sound.
Shielding his eyes from the light and after adjusting for a bit, Li Teng finally saw it clearly.
It was a drone!
A drone! The drone was shining the white light on him!
There was a gimbal under the drone, and on the gimbal was mounted a camera, its lens pointed right at Li Teng.
"Hey! Hello! Can you see me? I... I..."
After Li Teng was certain that all of this was not a dream, he became so excited that he was almost incoherent.
The drone had to be operated by someone, and its flight to the top of the stone pillar indicated that someone had discovered the pillar.
Now, the drone must be transmitting his image, trapped on top of the pillar, back to its operator, and after finding out he was stranded, it was possible for them to send a rescue!
His days of suffering were finally about to come to an end!
"You must see me, right? I'm stranded here, I don't know who brought me here, thank you for calling the police for me, have them arrange a helicopter to come save me! Thank you very much!"
"Oh, my name is Li Teng, my ID number is XXXXXXXX..."
Li Teng tried to calm his emotions and described his request for help in detail to the drone.
The drone hovered in the air motionless, as if listening to Li Teng's description.
After Li Teng finished describing, the drone began to fly up and down in the air, only stopping after a good while.
Then it once again quietly hovered not far in front of Li Teng.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Can you pass on my request for help?"
Li Teng once again made his request to the drone.
The drone repeated the flipping motion it had done just before, then hovered again not far in front of Li Teng.
"Just now... Oh... do it again; let me see..." Li Teng seemed to have caught on to something.
The operator of the drone apparently heard what Li Teng had said and performed the flying routine a third time in the air.
"I understand now, you're drawing some numbers... Should be 4359, right?" Li Teng guessed based on the drone's flight path.
The drone rocked up and down for a while before it flew away, swiftly vanishing into the night.
It seemed Li Teng had guessed correctly, so the drone's owner had made it nod with the movement.
"Why did it take off?"
"4359? Tell me, what does this number mean? Does it have any special significance?" Li Teng was somewhat bewildered.
After the drone left, Li Teng leaned over the bed and looked down at the base of the pillar.
Below the pillar, the night enveloped everything in darkness.
Previously, when night fell, the town too was engulfed in darkness, which Li Teng attributed to the town's remoteness and lack of electricity.
Now, after the crash, if there were any rescuers coming, there should be lights on the ground, right?
Why then was it still pitch dark?
The drone had limited endurance, so its operator should be nearby, but why was there still not a single light?
The drone had probably sent out his SOS message already, right?
Rescue should be arriving soon, right?
After sitting quietly in the dark for over half an hour, the extremely weakened Li Teng collapsed back onto the bed.
If the drone refused to relay his call for help, there was nothing he could do.
If the drone had sent out the SOS, and someone was indeed coming to rescue him, it wouldn't really matter whether he was lying down or sitting up.
Best to sleep then, to conserve energy and be ready for rescue.
So thirsty...
So hungry...
Just sleep.
He didn't know how much time passed in a daze.
In his sleep, Li Teng felt his legs suddenly dropping.
Instinctively sitting up, he shifted his body forward and his feet touched solid ground!
Joy surged in Li Teng's heart.
Had he returned to his own bedroom?
Struggling to open his eyes, everything before him was indeed the scene of his own bedroom!
In a groggy state, Li Teng stood up and took a step forward.
This was... the desk by the bed?
His mobile phone was even on it.
Li Teng reached out for his mobile phone, but grasped at thin air.
It seemed... too far away, and he missed.
Li Teng instinctively took another step forward.
But before that step could land, he suddenly sensed something was terribly wrong.
Amidst a desperate struggle in his consciousness, Li Teng finally came completely awake.
He then realized he was still on top of the pillar.
The falling sensation in his legs was because the plane's tail had smashed the bed, and as he rolled over on the bed, his legs had unintentionally landed on the broken part of the bed, resting on the surface of the pillar's top.
Now, having stepped forward, he had reached the edge of the pillar.
The foot he had raised was already hanging over the side of the pillar!
If he had stepped down in that last stride, he would certainly have found nothing but air and would have fallen from the kilometer-high peak of the pillar to his death!
Having grasped the situation, Li Teng was so frightened that his whole body shuddered, and he hurriedly scrambled back onto the bed.
This illusion was too dangerous, right?
He was about to be rescued and nearly leapt to his doom in his haze!
If he died from a fall before rescue arrived, it would be a grievously unjust death!
After lying back down on the bed, Li Teng didn't dare to sleep anymore.
He was worried that he would experience that same illusion once he fell asleep.
But in the night's darkness, the incredibly weakened Li Teng found that wanting to stay awake was not within his control as soon as he lay down.
Soon Li Teng fell back into sleep... or rather a semi-comatose state.
Would his body hold out until dawn?
Would he wake up again tomorrow?
Would rescue come?