When Jiang Ruo woke up, she found herself lying on a rocky shore. As she slowly blinked, she saw Bai Guolin looking at her with a worried expression. “Am I… am I already dead?” Jiang Ruo’s voice sounded extremely weak.
Bai Guolin immediately shook his head, “N-no, y-you won’t die. I… I won’t let you die.”
Jiang Ruo struggled to sit up, coughing violently and spitting out several mouthfuls of water. As she expelled the water from her lungs, her mind began to clear, and she started to remember what had happened earlier.
After leaving the place that she could no longer call home and getting into the taxi, she had no idea where to go. On impulse, she told the driver to take her to the spot on the Minjiang River where the current was strongest. Once they arrived, she got out of the taxi and stood by the rushing water in a daze. The driver, sensing that something was off with her, called out, “The wind is pretty strong here, and there’s not much to see. What are you doing here?”
Jiang Ruo replied softly, “I’m here to wait for someone. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Even so, the driver didn’t leave immediately but stayed in his car, watching her for a long time. After half an hour had passed, and the girl still appeared to be waiting for someone, he finally drove away.
What the driver didn’t know was that during that half hour, Jiang Ruo was lost in thought, trying to figure out where she should go from there. She had no home to return to now. Her father had told her to leave and never contact anyone again. Her mother would hate her because of her true identity, and her brother would never speak to her again.
The world was so vast, and yet… it seemed like there was no place for her.
At that moment, it felt like two voices were battling inside her head. One voice told her: You should live well! You are not the one who did something wrong; you shouldn’t have to pay for your parents’ mistakes. You should live a good life.
But the other voice said: What’s the point of living? You’re just an illegitimate child. You have no family left in this world, and no one will care whether you live or die. Even if you choose to cling to life, you’ll never escape the need for dialysis, and there won’t be anyone to accompany you for it anymore. You’ll be alone forever!
Eventually, the second voice overwhelmed the first, and she ended up jumping into the river, taking with her the suitcase full of stuffed animals.
Due to her health, Jiang Ruo had never learned to swim. When the water flooded into her mouth and nose, blocking her lungs, she instinctively began to struggle, and the suitcase in her hand was thrown away in the process.
At the moment when she was closest to death, Jiang Ruo realized that she wanted to live. Even if she had to shamelessly cling to life, she still didn’t want to die!
In her dazed state, she thought she heard Bai Guolin’s voice telling her to relax her body and let the current carry her downstream, saying it was her only chance to survive. At that point, Jiang Ruo couldn’t tell if the voice was real or just a hallucination, but she instinctively followed its instructions.
As she drifted downstream, her arms and legs were cut by rocks and branches, and the icy river water kept flooding into her mouth. Gradually, she lost consciousness.
When she woke again, she found herself lying on the shore, with a very anxious-looking Bai Guolin beside her. Jiang Ruo then realized that the voice she had heard before losing consciousness wasn’t a hallucination after all. She survived—because at the moment she leaped into the river, Bai Guolin also jumped down to save her.
Looking at Bai Guolin, Jiang Ruo said, “Thank you for saving me.”
Bai Guolin quickly shook his head, “N-no need to thank me. I-I couldn’t just let you die. B-but… please don’t do something like… like this again, o-okay?”
Jiang Ruo noticed that Bai Guolin still stuttered when he spoke to her, just as he always had. She looked at him and asked, “My da—… someone told me that you transferred to a school in the county. After three years of high school, your stutter still hasn’t improved?”
Bai Guolin’s face turned bright red, and he shook his head, “I-I’m not usually… n-not usually like this.”
Seeing Jiang Ruo’s blank expression, he quickly added, “M-miss Ruoruo, p-please… please don’t try to end your life again, okay?”
Jiang Ruo nodded slowly, “I will not seek death again. Even if life is tough, I will still choose to live.”
She had once read somewhere that if a person tries to die but doesn’t succeed, they won’t have the courage to try again. She didn’t believe it before, but in that moment when she was closest to death, she knew it was true.
Jiang Ruo found that her arms and legs were indeed injured, but Bai Guolin tore off the hem of his T-shirt and gave her a simple bandage. The bandaging technique was very clumsy, clearly the work of a novice.
Seeing her gazing at the makeshift bandages, Bai Guolin immediately said, “M-miss Ruoruo—”
Jiang Ruo interrupted him, “Stop calling me Miss Ruoruo. I’ve never been a ‘Miss Ruoruo.’ I’m just a thief.”
For years, she had thought she was merely switched at birth, but the truth was far more painful. She was actually the daughter of her father and a mistress. Despite being an illegitimate child, she had been swapped at birth and had stolen Jiang Li’s life for fifteen years.
Because she couldn’t handle the shock, she ended up jumping into the Minjiang River in despair.
“N-no, you’re not, you—” Hearing her words, Bai Guolin quickly responded.
“Please stop, okay? Just don’t call me Miss Ruoruo anymore, or… or I won’t talk to you again,” Jiang Ruo threatened weakly. She had lost all her family, and Bai Guolin had risked his life to save her. She didn’t want to lose this friend, too.
Although her threat lacked conviction, to Bai Guolin, it sounded like an absolute command. He quickly said, “I won’t call you that… I’ll do whatever you say.”
Jiang Ruo didn’t want to dwell on this issue any longer. She looked at Bai Guolin and asked, “Why did you suddenly show up here? I thought you had transferred to a school in the county?”
“I did transfer to a school in the county, b-but…” As Bai Guolin spoke, his eyebrows suddenly knitted in pain.
Jiang Ruo asked back, “Did something happen?”
Bai Guolin looked embarrassed. “I d-dislocated my arm.”
Since moving to the county three years ago, his left arm has dislocated several times. The doctors had told him it was a habitual dislocation, and the only way to prevent it was to avoid using that arm as much as possible. However, when he saw Jiang Ruo jump into the river, his mind went blank, and he jumped in purely on instinct, disregarding his dislocated arm.
Jiang Ruo frowned, “Then we should go to the hospital right away! Why didn’t you mention it earlier? Are you stupid?”
Hearing her scolding, Bai Guolin couldn’t help but smile happily. He knew that Miss Ruoruo was only saying these things because she was worried about him.
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