九死一生
Meaning
A narrow escape; surviving against very long odds.
In a sentence
The climb was 九死一生, but they reached the summit.
Usage note
Describes survival after extreme danger, not ordinary difficulty.
Where you see it in Brain Challenge
This idiom appears in the picture-idiom levels as a picture or number clue. When the clue shows numbers, the digits usually become the first characters of each half of the idiom — that is why so many chengyu start with 一, 三, 五, 七, 九 or 十.