Past Events

"That was over a decade ago. Little Xue and I were five or six, childhood sweethearts who did everything together. We ran around and played together every day."

Jiang Ran gazed out at the sea, feeling the ocean breeze grow colder.

"That year, something happened. I almost died."

"Or you could say I did die. At least, I was 99.99 percent dead."

Pfft—

Qin Feng spat out his drink.

"Sorry."

He wiped his mouth, looking torn between laughter and disbelief.

"I know this is a serious moment, and I shouldn't laugh, but that percentage you gave for being dead is just... How am I supposed to respond to that kind of ridiculous quantification?"

Jiang Ran shook his head.

"It's not an exaggeration. Under normal circumstances, I would've been dead for sure. But I'm still alive, so I said 99.99 percent."

"What happened back then was a lot like when I jumped into the river to save that kid a few days ago."

"I pulled the same heroic stunt when I was six. Only back then, the person who fell in wasn't a stranger. It was... Little Xue."

Qin Feng's expression turned serious.

He had a vague idea of what was coming.

"We were running around on a hill when Little Xue lost her footing and slipped into the river."

"She couldn't swim, of course, and immediately started flailing before sinking beneath the surface. And naturally, six-year-old me couldn't swim either."

Qin Feng blinked.

"Don't tell me you..."

"Yeah."

Jiang Ran nodded.

"I didn't even think. I ran straight to the river and jumped in."

"It wasn't bravery or anything. I was just too young to know any better. And back in kindergarten, my parents were always telling me to look after Little Xue and protect her from bullies."

"What did I know? They kept saying it, so I started thinking of protecting her as my responsibility. She fell into the water, so of course I had to jump in."

"You can guess what happened next. I jumped in, but my feet couldn't touch the bottom, and I started choking on water. Still, I forced my eyes open and used all my strength to push Little Xue toward the bank."

"We were lucky. Little Xue grabbed hold of a drainage pipe and climbed out. The river swept me away, and before long I passed out from lack of oxygen."

Qin Feng furrowed his brow.

He'd never imagined the two of them had a history like this.

No wonder... Cheng Mengxue had reacted so abnormally when she saw Jiang Ran jump into the water to save someone that day.

"What happened after that?" he urged.

"Everything that happened afterward, I heard from other people."

Jiang Ran stared out at the sea.

"Like I said, I was unconscious from drowning, so of course I don't remember what came next."

"They said that after Little Xue got to shore, she ran along the river, screaming for help the whole way."

"The adults nearby heard her cries, and a kindhearted person jumped in right away and pulled me out... but it had already been several minutes."

"They said I wasn't breathing, my face had turned purple, and my heart had stopped. The adults immediately gave me mouth-to-mouth and started CPR, pressing on my chest, but nothing worked."

Qin Feng clenched his palm, growing tense too.

Only now did he truly understand what Jiang Ran meant by being 99.99 percent dead.

He'd suffocated in the water, his heart had stopped, CPR hadn't brought him around, and his brain had been starved of oxygen for nearly ten minutes... Calling that 99.99 percent dead wasn't an exaggeration at all.

"Then..."

He looked at Jiang Ran.

"What was the 0.01 percent?"

"[What was the 0.01 percent that brought you back?]"

Jiang Ran smiled.

He stretched in the sea breeze.

"[A coincidence.]"

"A coincidence?"

"That's right. An incredible coincidence."

Jiang Ran continued.

"This part still makes me laugh. The adults were doing CPR, and when they saw I wouldn't wake up, they started pressing harder and harder. They even broke my ribs, and my head kept bouncing against the ground."

"Then a schoolkid with a backpack happened to pass by on the hill and slipped. The backpack fell open, and all the school supplies inside went flying—pencils, erasers, rulers, the lot."

"And wouldn't you know it, a pencil bounced and rolled all the way down the hill, then sprang right up beneath my neck."

He rubbed the back of his neck without thinking.

"By chance, the adult doing CPR was pressing down hard at that exact moment, and then..."

"Yikes!"

Qin Feng sucked in a breath. A gruesome image flashed through his mind, and he felt a phantom pain at the back of his neck, as if a sharp pencil point had just pierced it.

"The pencil jabbed straight into the back of my neck."

Jiang Ran picked at the scar on his nape with a fingernail.

"You know there's a little blue mark here. You asked me about it once."

"I remember."

Qin Feng opened his left palm.

"I got stabbed in the palm by a pencil when I was little, too. I've still got a tiny blue-black dot. It's pretty much the same principle as a tattoo."

"I remember asking you why you had a blue mark on the back of your neck. You said it was from a pencil, and I didn't think much of it. Who hasn't been stabbed by a pencil at school?"

"But I never imagined that little mark on your neck came from something like that. So... that pencil that happened to fall on you was the 0.01 percent that saved your life?"

"Exactly."

Jiang Ran gave a quiet laugh.

"The pencil went in pretty deep. My whole body stiffened, and my legs kicked out. The water in my lungs came rushing out, and as I started coughing violently... my heart started beating again."

"Damn."

Qin Feng was astounded.

Reality really was stranger than fiction.

The pencil must have hit a nerve, like an electric shock, making all his muscles tense up and somehow kick-starting his heart and lungs.

That kind of internal stimulation had worked far better than pressing on his chest from the outside.

"When I woke up, Little Xue's voice was hoarse from screaming, and the corners of her mouth were bloody. She was holding me and crying her eyes out."

Jiang Ran turned to look at the second-floor window.

That was Cheng Mengxue's room. The sleeping beauty was already fast asleep.

"After that, she insisted we sign up for swimming lessons together."

"I went just to splash around. Little Xue took every lesson seriously—almost too seriously."

"So you see, Little Xue can dive with perfect form. Maybe... what happened when I almost died affected her too deeply."

By then, Qin Feng finally understood.

He'd thought Cheng Mengxue had panicked because she cared too much about Jiang Ran, and that seeing him jump into the water had made her realize her feelings for him. He'd even thought she was about to confess under the influence of alcohol...

He'd been wrong about everything.

Completely wrong.

This wasn't some melodramatic love story. It was a memory of how they'd almost been separated by death.

For Cheng Mengxue, seeing someone fall into the water and get rescued was the greatest psychological trauma of her life.

The moment Jiang Ran jumped off the bridge, all she could see was what had happened over a decade ago... that little boy who'd jumped into the river to save her and been 99.99 percent dead.

It was her most terrifying nightmare.

The scene she feared most.

"All right, I admit I got it wrong."

Qin Feng patted Jiang Ran on the shoulder.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

The two of them fell silent.

The moon disappeared behind the clouds once more.

The crowd on the lower deck dispersed, and the lights went out.

The night grew quiet.

Seabirds landed in the moonlight to pick at leftover scraps, while the ship's steel hull churned through the water with a steady rush.

Waves slapped against the ship, washing away the marks of time and the cares in their hearts.

"But there is one thing I got right."

Qin Feng turned to him.

"Forget what other people think of you. Forget whether you've been ordinary or outstanding all these years. In Little Xue's eyes, you haven't changed at all—"

"[From the moment you jumped into the water at six years old, you've been the one and only hero in her heart.]"

Jiang Ran smiled faintly without confirming or denying it.

"Why don't you take a class in adolescent psychology?"

"We should all take it together next semester."

"I'll pass."

Woooo—

A deep, muffled foghorn sounded.

It was a signal that had long since lost its purpose at sea, but had now become the cruise ship's hourly chime.

When the horn sounded, it meant all the day's entertainment had ended and reminded passengers to return to their cabins and rest safely.

"Let's go."

Jiang Ran pushed himself away from the railing and headed for the stairs.

"Hm?"

He noticed that Qin Feng hadn't followed.

"What's wrong?" Jiang Ran asked, puzzled.

Qin Feng still didn't say anything.

He walked over to the table.

He picked up a green jujube from the fruit platter.

Then he tossed it toward Jiang Ran.

Smack.

Jiang Ran reached out and caught it cleanly.

"Jiang Ran."

Qin Feng narrowed his eyes, watching the jujube in Jiang Ran's palm.

"Do you think that pencil..."

"Was really just a coincidence?"