“That was more than ten years ago. Xiaoxue and I were both five or six—childhood friends, innocent as can be, running around and playing together every single day.”
Jiang Ran looked out over the sea, feeling the wind slowly turn cold.
“That year, sothing happened. I almost died.”
“Or you could say I did die—at least 99.99%.”
Pff—
Qin Feng sprayed a mouthful out.
“Sorry.”
He wiped his mouth, caught between laughing and crying.
“I know this is a serious mont and I shouldn’t laugh, but this death percentage is just… What is this—so quantified taphor that’s impossible to keep a straight face through?”
But Jiang Ran shook his head.
“That isn’t exaggerated at all. Under normal circumstances it would’ve been certain death. But I’m still alive. So I’m calling it 99.99%.”
“Back then, it was pretty similar to jumping into the river a few days ago to save those kids.”
“Six-year-old was a hero once too. Except back then, the one who fell into the water wasn’t anyone else. It was… six-year-old Xiaoxue.”
Qin Feng’s expression tightened.
He could vaguely guess where this was going.
“Back then, we were running around on a small hill. Xiaoxue slipped, lost her footing, and fell into the river.”
“Of course she couldn’t swim, so she imdiately flailed and sank under the surface. And of course—six-year-old couldn’t swim either.”
Qin Feng blinked.
“Don’t tell you…”
“Yes.”
Jiang Ran nodded.
“I didn’t even think. I ran straight to the riverbank and jumped in.”
“It wasn’t really bravery or anything. It was just the fearless ignorance of soone who doesn’t know any better. And during kindergarten, my parents were always in my ear, telling I had to take care of Xiaoxue at kindergarten, protect her, make sure she didn’t get bullied.”
“A kid doesn’t understand that much. They said it to every day, so I started treating protecting her like it was my responsibility. If she fell into the water, of course I had to jump in.”
“And you can guess what happened next. After I jumped in, my feet couldn’t touch the bottom. I choked on water imdiately. But I forced my eyes open, with everything I had, I pushed Xiaoxue toward the shore.”
“Luckily, she grabbed onto a drainage pipe and climbed up. And I got swept away by the current. I asphyxiated fast, blacked out, lost consciousness.”
Qin Feng’s brows were knotted tight.
He truly hadn’t expected the two of them to have a past like this.
No wonder… that day, when Cheng ngxue saw Jiang Ran jump in to save soone, she reacted with that kind of abnormal, crazed panic.
“Then what?” he pressed.
“What happened after that is all stuff other people told .”
Jiang Ran kept his gaze on the sea.
“I already said it—I’d drowned and passed out. Of course I don’t rember what happened after.”
“They said that after Xiaoxue got to shore, she ran along the river like crazy, screaming for help as she ran.”
“Adults nearby heard her yelling. Soone kind jumped in and pulled out… but by then, it was already minutes later.”
“Apparently, I wasn’t breathing anymore. My face had turned purple from holding my breath. My heartbeat had no response either. The adults started rescue breathing and chest compressions—CPR—but it didn’t do anything.”
Qin Feng clenched his palm, tension rising in him too.
Only now did he truly understand what it ant to be dead at 99.99%.
Asphyxiating in water, cardiac arrest, CPR not bringing you back, nearly ten minutes without oxygen to the brain… calling that 99.99% dead wasn’t exaggerated at all.
“Then…”
He looked at Jiang Ran.
“What was the 0.01%?”
“What kind of 0.01% brought you back?”
Jiang Ran smiled.
Facing the sea wind, he stretched lazily.
“[A coincidence.]”
“A coincidence?”
“Yeah. An ultimate coincidence.”
Jiang Ran went on.
“Honestly, when I get to this part, I want to laugh too. Those adults were doing CPR on , right? I wouldn’t wake up no matter what, so their compressions got stronger and stronger. They even pressed hard enough to break a rib. My head kept bouncing up and down, slamming into the ground.”
“And right then, there happened to be an elentary school kid walking past on the hill with a backpack. They slipped, the backpack fell and burst open, and stationery bounced out—pencils, erasers, rulers—scattering everywhere.”
“And by so ridiculous stroke of luck, one pencil just… bounced and rolled down the hill, and landed exactly under the back of my neck.”
He subconsciously rubbed the back of his neck.
“And the adult doing CPR on happened to be pressing down hard at that mont, so…”
“Eugh!”
Qin Feng sucked in a sharp breath. A bloody image flashed through his mind, and phantom pain burst across the back of his neck, like a sharp pencil point being driven in with force.
“The pencil tip stabbed straight into the back of my neck.”
Jiang Ran scratched at the scar with a fingernail.
“You know that little dark spot I have there. You even asked about it.”
“I rember.”
Qin Feng opened his left palm.
“I got stabbed by a pencil in my palm when I was a kid too. I’ve still got a black dot. It’s basically the sa principle as a tattoo.”
“I rember I asked you why you had a dark dot on the back of your neck. You said it was from a pencil, and I didn’t think much of it. After all these years in school, who hasn’t been stabbed by a pencil?”
“But I never imagined that tiny dot on your neck ca from this. So… that pencil that just happened to fall—was that the 0.01% that saved you?”
“Exactly.”
Jiang Ran gave a small laugh.
“It went in pretty deep. My whole body went rigid, my legs kicked, and all the water in my lungs sprayed out at once. While I was coughing violently… my heartbeat ca back too.”
“Insane.”
Qin Feng was stunned.
Reality really was more outrageous than fiction.
That pencil must’ve hit so nerve. Like electric shock therapy—triggering full-body muscle contraction and accidentally restoring heart and lung function.
Internal stimulation like that was way more effective than external chest compressions.
“When I woke up, I saw Xiaoxue—she’d scread herself hoarse. The corners of her mouth were bloody. She was holding and bawling her eyes out.”
Jiang Ran turned his head, looking toward the second-floor window.
That was Cheng ngxue’s room. The sleeping beauty was already deep in dreams.
“After that, she dragged into signing up for swimming lessons with her.”
“I went there purely to splash around. But Xiaoxue practiced seriously every ti—seriously to the point of being a little too intense.”
“So yeah. You saw it—she dives like she’s got form. Probably… because that thing where I almost died hit her way too hard.”
…
Only then did Qin Feng finally understand.
He’d thought Cheng ngxue had simply been too worried about Jiang Ran, that her panic had made her recognize her feelings, that she’d been about to confess under the push of alcohol…
All wrong.
Every single guess was wrong.
This wasn’t so lodramatic romance.
It was a past where they’d almost ended up on opposite sides of life and death.
For Cheng ngxue, rescuing soone from drowning wasn’t a heroic story.
It was the biggest psychological shadow of her life—her deepest trauma.
The mont Jiang Ran jumped from that bridge, what flashed through Cheng ngxue’s eyes was the scene from more than ten years ago… that little boy who jumped into the river to save her, and died 99.99%.
It was her most terrifying nightmare.
The scene she feared most.
“Alright. I admit it—I guessed wrong.”
Qin Feng patted Jiang Ran’s shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
…
The two of them fell silent.
Moonlight sank back into the dark clouds.
The crowd on the lower deck dispersed. The lights went out.
The night quieted.
Seabirds landed in the moon’s shadow to snatch leftover scraps. The steel hull split the water with a constant splash-splash.
Waves slapped the ship’s side in layers, washing away traces of ti, washing through the fields of the heart.
“But there’s one thing I didn’t get wrong.”
Qin Feng turned his head.
“Don’t care how other people see you. Don’t care whether these years you’ve been ordinary or exceptional. In Xiaoxue’s eyes, for more than ten years, you’ve never changed—”
“[From the mont you jumped into the water at six years old, you’ve been her one-and-only hero.]”
Jiang Ran neither confird nor denied it. He just smiled faintly.
“Why don’t you take an elective in Adolescent Psychology?”
“Next sester, the three of us should take it together.”
“Yeah, no.”
Wooooo——————
A dull, heavy horn sounded.
It was a signal that had long since lost its aning at sea, but now had beco the cruise ship’s hourly chi.
When the horn sounded, it ant all entertainnt was over for the day, a reminder for guests to return to their rooms and rest safely.
“Let’s go.”
Jiang Ran pushed off the railing and headed for the stairs.
“Hm?”
He realized Qin Feng wasn’t following.
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Ran asked, confused.
Qin Feng still didn’t speak.
He walked over to the table.
Picked up a green jujube from the fruit plate.
And threw it at Jiang Ran.
Pop.
Jiang Ran lifted a hand and caught it cleanly.
“Jiang Ran.”
Qin Feng narrowed his eyes, staring at the green jujube in Jiang Ran’s palm.
“Do you think that pencil…”
“Was really a coincidence?”
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