"You almost died."
Xia Yibing approached her and threatened her.
"How dare you escape from the team by yourself? Where's Rob? Where are your friends?"
"..." Esther's expression became confused, as if she couldn't understand what she was saying.
"She still has a fever."
Hitzfeld frowned.
"Don't ask so many questions at once."
It was her turn. She leaned over and touched the girl's forehead, and felt that the temperature had dropped a little compared to the beginning.
It should be getting better, right?
"Ester."
After thinking for a moment, she guided the girl to look at her.
"How did you get separated from Robbo?"
"Can you still remember those details now?"
Since they had checked her physical condition, they were also sure that Esther had no loose skin on her body, which meant that she was not a mutation of something else, but the real Esther herself.
Then the clues she provided are very important.
Perhaps they could learn about Robo's whereabouts from this, and then try to find him and save as many people as possible.
"White bears..."
Esther said with some trembling.
"I... I just remember a lot of white bears..."
"No...those aren't bears at all..."
"They are not normal animals..."
"They kill people...eat people..."
"Robo asked us to go into the forest..."
"He himself..."
Esther frowned hard at this time.
"It seems that he...fell into a hole..."
Chapter 36: Flat-toed People (Two in One)
Fell into a hole?
Rob?
When Xia Yibing heard Esther describe Robo's fate in this way, her first reaction was disbelief.
Although Rob Murphy did not give her a very good first impression, what happened later proved that he was a man who was willing to devote a lot of thought to his daughter and his wife.
Although he looks cold and rigid, he is willing to let go of Nightmare's egg case that is about to hatch for the safety of his stepdaughter Esther. Moreover, he was sent here to gather intelligence because he owed a favor to Year Ring, but he did not take the task assigned by Year Ring seriously at all. It can be said that he was only thinking about discovering the "God-given Road".
So why did he discover the "God-given Road"?
From his previous communication with them, Xia Yibing guessed that he hoped his wife would change her mind and wanted the woman to truly put her feelings back on him instead of just treating him as a substitute.
Of course, this was just her guess. In fact, no one knew what Robbo was thinking. But he really cared about Esther, so how could he let Esther and himself get separated?
He may not be experienced, but he had come back from the glacial wilderness alone. Was he so unprepared for such an emergency? How dare he let Esther leave him?
Instinctively, Xia Yibing felt something was amiss, but she could not rule out the possibility that the polar bears were putting too much pressure on Robo, leaving him no time to take care of his daughter.
There is also the collapse of ice caves.
Even many veteran hunters in Ice Lake Town couldn't quickly identify the terrain of the ice cave, so it didn't seem worth her being surprised that Robo couldn't tell the difference.
Esther was still running a fever and was weak, so Hitzfeld simply asked her some questions and let her go back to sleep.
"It's a pity that the conditions don't exist now." Hitzfeld said regretfully.
Otherwise she should be given glucose.
As time went by, the temperature in the tent got higher and higher. Although it was not high enough to reach zero degrees for them to take off their clothes and move around, compared to the "ice purgatory" outside, this place was already heaven.
Heidi went out for a while and came back with three polar birds, a snow fox, and some fern roots that she said tasted good.
Forget about the snow fox meat, as mammals that have not been castrated really don't taste good. They built a fire with branches that had been cleaned of snow, and simply prepared the three polar birds, sprinkling them with salt from the Xiayi ice pack. Not to mention, they tasted quite good.
Hitzfeld didn't eat much. According to Xia Yibing, she ate less and worked more - a typical example of "eating grass and milking". She only ate less than a third of the polar bird and stopped, but at Heidi's suggestion, she tried the fern root with a green cross section.
Her review was that it was just okay... very crispy and juicy, and if you only looked at the texture it was a bit like radish or crisp peach, but the taste was much worse, so for her it was considered "edible".
"In fact, we don't need to go through so much trouble." Heidi used a branch to stir the fire. "The same way I saved Robb back then, I can save you now... Can't I eat the fruit I produce?"
Of course it is possible.
Heidi did give some advice, but how should I put it... When you get to know a tree person and you both start to treat each other as friends, and then she suddenly invites you to eat the fruit grown on her body, it feels very strange...
It was like eating a friend's child, and neither Hitzfeld nor Xia Yibing would do such a thing.
"You should thank Lily." The Blood Crystal Crow was sleeping nearby. Seeing that they didn't answer, Heidi didn't care and reached out to stroke the big dog next to her. "The polar bird is very alert. If it hadn't lurked close to us, I think it would have taken a lot of effort to catch it."
Lily raised her upper body and looked at Hitzfeld, her mouth wide open and tongue sticking out, her expression looking very flattering.
"Thank you for your hard work." Hitzfeld knew what reward it wanted and handed it the remaining half chicken leg. "Here, don't keep staring at me."
Xia Yibing was a little jealous, as she was also eyeing the chicken leg.
Since she had nothing to do, she took Esther's big backpack from the side and planned to check those cumbersome little pockets to see if there was anything else inside.
Finally, she found several pencils, an eraser, two notebooks, a pencil sharpener hidden in the interlayer, and a book called "Elementary Study of Geological Knowledge" that looked like a professional textbook.
The little girl is very studious.
Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows when she saw the textbook.
She actually brought textbooks with her to this place. Damn, even in her life experience, this is one of the most incredible things.
She was not as respectful as Hitzfeld, who would ask for other people's opinions before looking at their work. She casually flipped through the two notebooks and found, as expected, that they were sketchbooks and class notes.
The sketchbook was used to draw people and landscapes, and almost half of the pages were already filled. It was obvious that the artist's technique was still relatively immature, because Xia Yibing remembered that Hitzfeld could draw such things directly with a fountain pen.
The class notes were from the book "Geological Research". She guessed that Robbo must have given lectures to students on the road because she found some snow-capped mountain scenery in the back pages.
It's not a diary...
Xia Yibing felt very sorry about this.
It's probably an occupational disease, but she's very interested in everyone's diary. She thinks if everyone keeps a diary, and writes down everything they've done in detail, many cases would be much easier.
Sadly, only abnormal people keep diaries.
These little brats are not normal... Children who have not stepped into society and do not understand the evil of human nature are all abnormal. They are naive and imaginative, and are undoubtedly the group that likes to write diaries the most, but Esther did not develop this habit.
Is she too precocious?
Or is it that there are some of her inner thoughts and secrets that she simply doesn't dare to write down in her diary?
It was at this moment that Xia Yibing remembered that Esther also had magical powers.
This is a girl who is afraid of heat but not cold. She is so afraid of heat that she will get sick even in the early autumn temperature like that in Trilled. She is not afraid of cold so much that she can keep warm with only thin socks in sub-zero temperatures.
No wonder she didn't suffer from hypothermia.
A normal person would have frozen to death long ago, but she just had a fever.
And the fever is getting better very quickly. I just took the temperature and it has dropped by two degrees.
...very suspicious.
If it wasn't for the full body examination that confirmed that Esther had no loose skin, Xia Yibing would definitely suspect that she was not a human.
The interest in literature and history here may be limited to various strange histories and unpopular languages. Geological research seems too boring. Xia Yibing threw aside the notes and books and began to appreciate the sketches carefully.
The first page of the sketch shows a woman with her hair tied up. You can see that the woman is a little bit plump - this should be considered "plump" in the eyes of men. She is wearing long sleeves and long pants, with the trouser legs rolled up to reveal her ankles, and the apron tied in front of her is half hanging down. It is obvious that she is doing housework.
This should be her mother?
The one who loves math, Maren Murphy, the first man to be a mathematician?
The maid shouldn't have such manners and temperament. The maid didn't dare to dress so casually at home. She thought this was the "legendary Maren Murphy". She didn't expect that their first meeting was in the sketchbook.
The woman in the picture is wearing slippers, and her feet are depicted very deliberately.
Larger than normal proportions.
This seems to be the technique that Aisuen told me... He said that when sketching people, it would look better if the hands and feet were a little bigger.
Xia Yibing didn't understand all this. She only noticed that Mrs. Murphy's second toe was longer than her big toe.
Then she also has Greek feet.
When I was checking just now, I also observed Esther. Esther has a relatively flat Roman foot.
Hmm... the inherited genes from that mathematician?
After thinking about a bunch of random things, Xia Yibing continued to flip through the books and saw some landscape paintings at the back, but most of them were sketches of people.
Esther drew many people, including the female students, her best friend Nate Watson, the two boys, Vera and Grande, and of course her beloved stepfather, the always serious Rob Murphy.
Xia Yibing felt that she was really idle and had nothing to do. She didn't pay attention to anything else but the shapes of these people's feet in their daily lives.
There is a slope from Nette's thumb to little toe, which is an Egyptian foot.
Vera and Grande are Roman feet.
Robbo also has Greek feet, with a protruding second toe.
Xia Yibing thought this was very interesting and felt that Hitzfeld had provided her with new ideas.
In the past, they always inferred the murderer's height and body shape based on footprints and shoe prints. Of course, there are also people who infer the murderer's height and body shape based on the length of the toes, but I don't think I have seen any papers summarizing these foot shapes.
That’s good. I can write a paper when I go back.
What's wrong with the director? The director also has to write a paper.
Someone nudged her from the side, and Xia Yibing looked down and saw that it was Hitzfeld who wanted to take a rest.
Heidi was standing guard with her back to them, the Blood Crystal Crow was sleeping soundly on her own backpack next to her, and Lily was sleeping next to Esther... It seemed that it also knew that the girl was sick, and might want to use its dog hair to keep her warm.
That means no one is paying attention to this side now.
Xia Yibing quickly glanced at the hiking boots on the girl's feet.
Pity.
That's why she doesn't like the Arctic.
Just as she was feeling depressed, Hitzfeld had already kicked off his boots and put his two slightly cold feet in black cotton socks into her arms.
"We take turns."
She heard the girl's lowered voice.
"Help me cover it first."
"I'll help you when I wake up."
"it is good."
Xia Yibing nodded, and felt more and more fond of Hitzfeld.
She understands it all.
She handed her foot over on purpose.
……
The howling wind and snow did not stop all night. Because they had to take care of Esther who had a fever, they stayed here longer than expected and did not plan to close the camp until almost 12 o'clock the next morning.
From the perspective of caring for patients, this progress was too fast. Hitzfeld originally planned to stay here for at least two days, but Esther's recovery speed was much faster than everyone expected. Only five hours after she was found and treated, her body temperature was already close to normal.
As her condition recovered, she regained consciousness. After waking up again, she realized that she was rescued. The girl thanked them and begged them, saying that she hoped they could go back with her to save other classmates - most importantly, to find Rob.
Other classmates, are you referring to the two boys or Nite?
