Chapter 20#
Save Me#
Ji Landong had a dream.
It was a good dream, quite thrilling, speeding, flying, and crashing head over heels in a blizzard.
The snow was sweet.
He saw an innocent bird startled and flying away, sand-brown, with white eyebrows, its flight light and beautiful.
Perhaps some kind of lark.
Or perhaps a hallucination, sometimes there were such hallucinations: sitting by the window, a lark suddenly burst out of its chest, bloody, escaping, but too late, dying from a cold shot in the scattered, messy feathers.
Ji Landong had just tasted a bit of snow.
It was delicious, and he wanted to taste more, but that depended on luck.
The probability of eating enough snowflakes to be full was no higher than drinking the northwest wind.
His chest really hurt, Ji Landong forgot to tell Li Heng about it. He observed this frantic rescue from a third-person, completely detached perspective, watching himself lying on the snow, disheveled and ugly, his outstretched arms trembling with the compressions, a section of his wrist exposed from his sleeve.
Ji Landong squatted beside him and watched for a while.
…
He hadn’t realized he had so many scars.
Having lived for twenty-seven years, Ji Landong had never really intended to hurt anyone.
Including himself.
Fifteen-year-old Ji Landong did well, and twenty-two-year-old Ji Landong deserved a good pat on the back. Although there were inevitably some regrets, he had, after all, done his best. As for the following years, though messy, they were still acceptable upon closer inspection.
…Looking at it this way.
Looking at it this way, it was twenty-seven-year-old Ji Landong who messed up.
Twenty-seven-year-old Ji Landong apologized to the dying man lying on the snow: “I’m sorry.”
Pain was like a plant with vast roots. At first, there was no sensation, but by the time it was discovered, the roots had already grown deep. Cutting the wrist couldn’t truly remove it; the broken roots instead entangled flesh and blood.
“Li Heng.”
Ji Landong placed his hand on the two overlapping, bulging, desperately pressing hands on his chest. He thought it was enough: “There’s no need.”
He shared with Li Heng the answer he had tried countless times to refute, overturn, and escape, and finally accepted: “There’s no need.”
He tried to find some comforting lines in the scripts he had seen, but as soon as the words left his mouth, they turned into falling ashes.
The gray-white embers of pain burned out.
Cunningly disguised as snowflakes.
Li Heng trembled as he kissed the snow-covered eyes.
Li Heng swallowed his pain, and Ji Landong watched as it wildly took root in another body without hindrance. This was not good. Ji Landong kindly tugged at Li Heng’s sleeve, advising him not to pick up things from the ground to eat.
But Team Leader Li couldn’t hear.
Ji Landong could only watch two squirrels scamper across the treetops, connecting pine nuts to pine cones, pine cones to pork ribs. That wasn’t right, start over, connecting squirrels to pork ribs.
…No.
Actor Ji was a little troubled.
He looked at his chest, where free larks flew out, in flocks, soaring into the sky, fluttering down warm, soft feathers, leaving an empty ice shell.
Ji Landong heard himself say: “Li Heng.”
This ice shell was carried by Li Heng, stumbling and running, shocked by electricity, massaged through his ribs, filled with oxygen, rescued with a force that could crush him, and then carefully, repeatedly stroked his hair, the skin on his neck, and his eyes with fear and guilt, afraid of crushing him.
“Ji Landong.” Li Heng constantly adjusted his strength, carefully asking him, “Does it hurt?”
Li Heng’s voice trembled: “…Does it hurt?”
Li Heng gently touched his eyes, his breathing rapid and trembling, hot air blowing across his face.
Li Heng cupped his face, his arm carefully cushioning the back of his neck, desperately and futilely sending some bloody air into his cold throat.
On such a night when nothing could be done, Ji Landong watched the ambulance windows slowly being buried by snow, and finally began to ponder this question.
…
The roar of a helicopter broke the silence.
High-power searchlights illuminated the snow-covered ground, making it dazzlingly bright.
After a string of bad luck, it was inevitable to have some good luck by accident. Occasionally, these extremely low-probability miracles happened in the world; otherwise, where would those “how did they survive” news stories come from?
The snow stopped in the latter half of the night.
Coincidentally, the wind also stopped, and visibility improved.
Coincidentally, a rescue team successfully got a rescue helicopter airborne.
Li Heng’s identity was not suitable for death, especially not for freezing to death in the snow with a protected witness, so the rescue priority was adjusted to be very high.
There was no suitable landing platform nearby. The helicopter hovered in mid-air, a soft ladder descended, and the huge blades stirred up an even greater gale.
Snow dust filled the air, engulfing the cold stars that had just appeared in the dark night sky.
The system desperately made noise from the snow-buried ambulance, honking the horn wildly, flashing the lights frantically, and even blowing out a tire.
The effect was good. The rescue team immediately confirmed the location, rappelled down with professional equipment, and frantically dug the car out of the snow—there was a strange feeling, as if if they were a step too slow, an ambulance would jump out of the snow in a rage.
Now was not the time to study why the ambulance looked like it wanted to bite someone.
It wasn’t difficult to revive Li Heng. Li Heng had excellent physical fitness. Although he was severely hypothermic, he only needed hot water, an electric heater, and a foil-lined survival blanket.
The witness with Team Leader Li was a different matter.
Ji Landong showed almost no signs of life.
His pupils were dilated, there was no light reflex, no spontaneous breathing, and the detectable heartbeats were just chaotic, disordered flat waves.
Even if he was saved, what then? This was a person who was already seriously ill, his bodily functions almost completely destroyed. Anywhere else, he would be deemed beyond resuscitation.
The paramedics tried to move him, and Ji Landong’s head and neck slumped softly to one side.
The rescue captain hesitated: “Team Leader Li…”
Li Heng’s eyes made them shiver.
No one dared to speak further, so they steeled themselves and continued resuscitation. Adrenaline was injected one after another, and the defibrillator paddles were set to maximum.
At a certain moment.
…At a certain moment, a sound seemed to come from the cold, silent throat.
Li Heng rushed over.
Such an intense, unannounced reaction stunned the rescue team. They thought Team Leader Li was calm enough, but Li Heng seemed completely oblivious to the scratches on his calf from broken branches. The blood had long frozen into ice on his pant leg.
Because Li Heng forced everyone to resuscitate and forbade the rescue team from wasting manpower to stitch him up, the ice melted into dripping blood again.
Li Heng was oblivious to his open wound. He almost stumbled and fell beside the stretcher, tightly grasping Ji Landong’s hand, carefully supporting the back of his head, protecting him in his arms, against his chest.
Ji Landong slowly opened his eyes.
He looked at Li Heng, as if he couldn’t quite recognize the person in front of him. His slender, handsome, pale face appeared very indifferent.
But his kissed fingertips seemed to recognize him. In the violently trembling, burning kisses, Ji Landong’s hand moved slightly, his fingers curling.
Ji Landong slowly recalled for a while.
He asked: “…Li Heng?”
“It’s me.” Li Heng gathered his shoulders, stroking his hair, “Ji Landong, what should I do?”
Ji Landong looked at the system whose data card was stuck in the ambulance and couldn’t be removed for now.
There was no time to waste. Li Heng nodded without hesitation: “I’ll take care of my friend.”
Li Heng completely accepted and believed everything Ji Landong said.
Ji Landong’s friend was certainly not an ambulance before. According to Ji Landong’s description, it seemed to be an invisible mushroom, very small, easy to carry, could be put in a pocket, would steal Ji Landong’s medicine and try to add honey, and would gobble down sausages and cream of mushroom soup with the puppy Pudding.
That suddenly extra bit of electricity seemed to have an explanation. Li Heng abandoned atheism and gripped Ji Landong’s hand.
Li Heng called the detective to tow the ambulance back and store it with the highest specifications. This order was not unusual; the investigation bureau often had such tasks. The detectives thought it was important physical evidence and simply followed orders without thinking.
Ji Landong listened quietly, then lost his heartbeat again.
He was given emergency resuscitation on the spot, medicine injected wherever possible, his brow furrowed in intense pain from the electric shocks, and the oxygen mask fogged up with a lot of moisture from his breathing.
He couldn’t gather enough consciousness to think.
His head hurt badly, and his memories sank into a thick fog.
This made him almost unable to recognize Li Heng, so every time he woke up, Li Heng seemed to see that fifteen-year-old boy… a thin, sharp knife made of ice.
But the unreserved kisses would make his slightly curled fingers hesitate, tremble slightly, and a faint blush would slowly appear on his knuckles and pale earlobes.
Ji Landong was finally distracted.
Ji Landong scrutinized Li Heng for a while, then slowly wrote in his palm: Do we know each other?
“Yes, we do.” Li Heng held his hand, firmly protecting his slender shoulders in the biting night wind, “You might not believe it, Ji Landong, but for now, I’m in charge of walking the dog and the ambulance.”
This statement was amusing. Ji Landong chuckled softly.
Finding the experience interesting, he tilted his head slightly, his eyelashes arrogantly drooping, letting Li Heng kiss his eyelids.
Actor Ji was acting imperious again: Tell me more.
The people around them were busy finding a stable height for the helicopter, busy securing the tow ropes and safety lines. The helicopter couldn’t land, so they had to hoist the dying witness and Team Leader Li up together and fly to the nearest hospital.
Flashlights flickered, voices were noisy, and light and shadow constantly changed.
So Li Heng took advantage of the chaos to make up a story.
Presuming Ji Landong didn’t remember, Li Heng fabricated a new story in which they had lived together for at least three years, because Pudding was already quite large.
In the story, Team Leader Li was miserable: he came back from walking the dog, happily carrying millet porridge with ten spoons of sugar and pork rib buns with large pieces of meat and rich gravy, but he slipped and was dragged into a mud pit by the ecstatic Pudding, rolling around passionately.
The porridge spilled, the buns were stolen by Pudding, and Team Leader Li claimed he would stew dog meat but didn’t dare, so he could only frantically drag a muddy pig into the bathroom for a bath.
Team Leader Li’s storytelling wasn’t much better than a third-rate screenwriter’s.
But Actor Ji, who remembered nothing, seemed to be listening with great interest.
As if briefly ignoring the pervasive, intense pain threatening his body, ignoring the bitter cold, ignoring the imminent death.
Actor Ji asked for more details: What about me?
“You were temporarily coldly isolated outside the bathroom door.”
Li Heng analyzed reasonably: “Otherwise, the muddy pig would wag its tail and ask you for a hug, and we would have to hire a professional team of more than ten people to clean up all the mud in our house again.”
Ji Landong coughed with a smile. His expression was relaxed, his head resting in the crook of Li Heng’s arm, tilted slightly upward, looking at the face close to him.
Li Heng softly asked: “Can you see me clearly?”
Ji Landong shook his head weakly, his eyes still curved.
He was too weak, his once clear pupils seemed to be covered with a layer of white mist.
Li Heng then held his hand, helping him to feel his face clearly, from his eyebrows and eyes to his nose and mouth. Finally, Li Heng kissed these fingers, and they recoiled slightly.
Ji Landong remembered nothing, but still dwelled on this matter: “Pork rib buns.”
The description was cruel, “pork rib buns with large pieces of meat and rich gravy” was much more attention-grabbing than just four dry words. Even Pudding ate buns in the story.
Li Heng kissed his ear, and a faint blush spread across his pale skin because of it: “Very fragrant, have you eaten them?”
Actor Ji was a bit stubborn: “Yes, I have.”
Team Leader Li smiled: “Liars get kissed.”
He stayed with Ji Landong, completely ignoring whether there were other people nearby. He tried to give some very soft kisses, like melting snowflakes. Ji Landong’s body trembled slightly, and the lingering sharpness and coldness of the youth seemed to melt away, turning into a kind of bewilderment.
Ji Landong whispered: “Li Heng.”
Li Heng responded with a kiss on his fingers.
Ji Landong curled his fingers. He didn’t know why he resisted, didn’t know where this tendency to seek advantage and avoid harm came from. Li Heng’s kisses revived his numb body, and the first sensation to return was the intense pain under his left ribs.
No one liked pain.
Ji Landong closed his eyes.
The pain spread under his eyelids, feeling hot in the extreme cold that could freeze anything.
Ji Landong didn’t know why he said: “Li Heng.”
Ji Landong’s heartbeat was very unstable, and speaking was extremely difficult, especially through an oxygen mask, making his voice muffled and unclear.
Li Heng didn’t want him to waste any more energy. He carefully lifted him, propped him against his chest, and held Ji Landong’s hand, letting him write on his own hand.
But Ji Landong stopped speaking and writing again.
Li Heng whispered: “Ji Landong.”
“Are you cold?” Li Heng made him lean against his neck, “Still hurting, I know, very tired, right? Ji Landong, I can’t even last a few hours, it’s so hard, how did you hold on until now?”
He had wanted to ask for a long time, but never dared, just as he dared not remind a soul floating between life and death—endurance was actually a powerful inertia that maintained a precarious illusion of balance.
The moment it was realized, everything would shatter.
Li Heng lowered his head, stroking his bewildered eyes.
He held Ji Landong’s head and back with the lightest touch, making people tie Ji Landong and himself tightly together. He wanted to take Ji Landong onto the helicopter, he made sure every part of Ji Landong was as close to him as possible. This layer of skin was really inconvenient.
Li Heng thought.
Wouldn’t it be much simpler if he and Ji Landong could share one heart?
Wouldn’t it be much simpler if he could directly transfer all of Ji Landong’s pain?
But none of these were possible.
So, even if Li Heng was self-centered and unreasonable, he had to respect Ji Landong: “The snow has stopped, Ji Landong. I’ve washed the dog, and cleaned the ambulance. The bun shop will be open tomorrow, and we’ll go home by helicopter.”
“We’ll walk the dog tomorrow.” Li Heng’s chest trembled, close to his ear, “Okay?”
Ji Landong quietly lowered his head.
He was held tightly by Li Heng, who refused to let go. His limbs hung limply, and his head slumped softly on Li Heng’s shoulder. They were bound tightly by ropes in the biting night wind, and the dazzling searchlights blurred everything into a halo.
Ji Landong swallowed the sweet, metallic taste in his throat mouthful by mouthful. Some of it was too late; he coughed, spitting out a warm gush.
Li Heng seemed to be driven mad by the heat.
The breathing by his ear turned into a sharp, rapid gasp. Li Heng gasped for air, constantly trying to drape Ji Landong’s limp arms over his shoulder, but they kept sliding down… Li Heng could only desperately grasp those powerless fingers.
Ji Landong slowly wrote.
Li Heng trembled, not daring to breathe. When the first character “说” (say) was finished, and the second character “谎” (lie) was halfway written, he frantically grabbed the hand.
Ji Landong’s eyes smiled slightly.
“Liars get kissed,” Li Heng’s rule. He was just trying to imitate.
It was Team Leader Li himself who only saw the second character and didn’t dare to continue reading.
Ji Landong’s fingers moved, hooking Li Heng’s palm. They were lifted onto the helicopter. This seemingly cool scene was actually more uncomfortable than wire-fu. The helicopter made the chaotic airflow change more violently, like being subjected to a rather creative large kite hanging.
But after suffering comes joy. They were caught by several hands at the cabin door, dragged into the warm cabin.
Li Heng knelt in the cabin, holding Ji Landong.
Ji Landong felt his heart somersault twice under his ribs, then was squeezed tightly. His chest trembled, and because he couldn’t swallow in time, bright red blood splattered everywhere like a spray.
Team Leader Li’s bill would wrap around the office.
Ji Landong remembered Li Heng’s joke about “needing a professional team of more than ten people to clean up the mud.”
He chuckled inappropriately.
Li Heng held him, constantly speaking loudly words he couldn’t understand. Everything melted in the bright light, like sweet cream, Ji Landong thought, sweet cream is delicious.
Ji Landong noticed the outline of the lights resembled a lark.
The bloodstains somewhat resembled a deer that had successfully escaped.
These were all good omens.
So tomorrow.
So tomorrow.
Walking the dog, persuading his friend who temporarily became an ambulance to go home, and eating buns, eating a whole warm treacle pudding, drawing on the window, stuffing a snowball down Li Heng’s neck… it should all be doable in one day.
Blood continuously gushed from his throat, bringing a sense of ease that seemed to melt into the light.
Ji Landong kept his eyes open, slightly curved, his pupils quietly scattering in the white mist. With his last conscious fingertips, he poked Team Leader Li’s palm.
“Save me,” Ji Landong said, “Li Heng.”
“Li Heng.”
He said: “I want to live one more day.”