Chapter 316

Chapter 316:

Wendy shook her head. She had only watched Fernanda descend the cliff but hadn’t seen how the fire had started.

Jeff frowned, glancing at the flustered woman as he began to piece everything together. The woman and her grandson’s tent was a short distance away from theirs. The boy suddenly fell off the cliff in the dead of night, suggesting that the fire might have had something to do with him. How could a child have such a cruel streak?

It was two in the morning, and the cold had left everyone numb, but no one was willing to leave the cliffside.

Around three-thirty in the morning, they finally heard something from below.

“Fernanda, is that you?” Wendy’s voice shook violently, barely recognizable.

“Yes, it’s me…”

Fernanda’s voice was weak, but Wendy could hear it.

The group hurried to the edge, switching on their phone flashlights to peer into the darkness below. Their hands were so numb from the cold that they fumbled, dropping their phones more than once.

The woman heard the sounds too. She rushed to the cliff’s edge, crying out, “Sweetie, are you there? Can you hear me?”

Then, they heard the unmistakable sound of the boy crying.

In that moment, the sound of his crying gave the woman reassurance. It was as if a heavy weight had finally been lifted from her heart.

“Oh thank God, thank God,” she whispered repeatedly, her hands clasped together in a prayerful gesture as she spoke to the moon with a sense of deep gratitude. It was as if she was offering thanks for a blessing she could hardly believe.

A few minutes passed, and then, through the quiet stillness, they finally spotted Fernanda. She was making her way up a slope about ten meters to the right, carrying the boy on her back. With both hands and feet, she climbed steadily, determined and focused on her climb.

As she made her way up, Wendy and the others reached out to help pull her to safety.

Fernanda had unhooked the little boy’s suspenders and wrapped them around her own body, securing him so he wouldn’t slip as she climbed.

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As soon as the boy saw his grandmother, his cries grew louder. The woman rushed to him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and the two of them sobbed together, unable to stop.

Fernanda sank to the ground, too drained and cold to say anything. Her body was stiff with exhaustion, her face drained of color, and her limbs felt so numb she could hardly move.

Bobby and Jeff rushed to help her back to the tent, while Bonita and Sloane gathered all the heat packs they could find and laid them across Fernanda’s body.

Her hands were grimy, swollen, and purple from the cold, covered in cuts and bruises, with several nails broken—an utterly heartbreaking sight.

Roughly an hour later, the rescue team made it to the site. They had hauled heavy rescue gear up the mountain, arriving much quicker than expected.

With the boy safe, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. The medical team wasted no time, quickly examining both Fernanda and the boy.

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