Chapter 26 Part 2

But she didn't really know Zhou Wan; they had never spoken.

Zhou Wan didn't dare to approach rashly, her heart was beating fast. "You're still very young, only in your first year. There's so much of a wonderful life ahead of you. Come down first. Don't stand over there, it's very dangerous."

The girl was unmoved. She turned back and looked at the dense crowd below, at the students and teachers.

"I'm not you. My grades are bad, and I'm not as pretty as you," Xue Xi laughed self-deprecatingly. "I don't have a future and life like yours either. My mother is overbearing and controlling. If I don't do as she says, she hits and insults me. In her eyes, I'm just her possession. I don't want to live like this anymore."

Zhou Wan paused for a moment.

Then she said softly, "Do you envy me?"

Xue Xi glanced at Zhou Wan, then at Lu Xixiao behind her, the popular figure all the girls at school gossiped about.

"Of course," Xue Xi said. "I envy everyone."

When a person is immersed in an emotion for too long, they can't get out, forever lost in a dead-end alley.

Zhou Wan said: "My father fell ill and passed away when I was ten. My mother also abandoned me and left home that same year. For all these years, my grandmother and I have lived together. My grandma has a serious illness and relies on dialysis to survive. She's too old for a transplant, and I don't know how many more years she can hold on."

"All these years, I've been trying to find ways to earn money and get scholarships so that my grandma doesn't have to work so hard."

There seemed to be a certain captivating quality in Zhou Wan's eyes that calmed people down. Her voice was very light and gentle, not deliberately portraying her hardships, but simply stating facts.

"Do you think I can see my own future and life? I don't even dare to have dreams. I don't know where I'm going. I've also thought about giving up everything, just like you. But I don't want to disappoint my father and my grandma, so I've worked hard to get to where I am today."

Xue Xi calmed down, looking at Zhou Wan wordlessly.

Zhou Wan: "So no matter what, you can at least live a little more beautifully for yourself. The world we see now is too small. In a few more years, maybe we'll see a broader world, have a different state of mind, and have a future we can't even imagine right now."

Zhou Wan slowly approached her, gradually extending a hand.

"Xue Xi," she said softly, "just hold on a little longer."

The girl raised her hand halfway, still hesitating.

More and more people gathered below. Teachers also ran up. Someone shouted, "Her mother is here!" Xue Xi's mother and teachers sprinted up to the top floor and rushed out.

Xue Xi abruptly pulled her hand back and gripped the stainless steel railing. The railing shook, making a sharp, piercing noise.

"Don't come any closer!" Xue Xi screamed.

Her mother's face was covered in tears. Frightened by her action, she collapsed to the ground, begging her not to jump.

Zhou Wan turned to look at her mother.

Next to the mother was a boy, the one who was in a relationship with Xue Xi and whose parents had been called.

"Xue Xi," Zhou Wan turned back. "You should have a good talk with your mom."

"It'll be the same." Xue Xi shook her head, crying. "It's always the same. As soon as I come down from here, she'll still hit and curse me. She doesn't understand at all!"

"But what about your boyfriend?" Zhou Wan suddenly asked.

Xue Xi fell silent, her red eyes looking at the panicked boy before her.

Zhou Wan: "If you really jump from here today, have you thought about him? Whether it's true or not, he will become one of the contributing factors behind your suicide."

"More importantly, if you jump right in front of him like this, he'll be left with a shadow that he can never erase for the rest of his life."

At this point, Zhou Wan suddenly paused, her heart skipping a beat.

A shadow.

She had never thought about why Lu Xixiao had a fear of heights.

He was clearly afraid of nothing, so why was he afraid of heights? Why did he rush upstairs to save someone without a second thought, and why did he become so cold and pale, unable to even move?

Unintentionally, she seemed to have glimpsed another of Lu Xixiao's secrets.

Zhou Wan glanced back.

Many people had already gathered on the rooftop. The ground below was noisy, firefighters had arrived, and shouts and cries mingled together.

Lu Xixiao just stood there, expressionless, his brow still slightly furrowed.

In this situation, no one noticed him in the corner, and no one knew that he was the first to arrive.

An indescribable bitterness spread through Zhou Wan's heart.

She turned back, looked at Xue Xi again, and carefully observed her expression. "You know some shadows can never be erased. Come back, Xue Xi. Everything can start over."

The world is vast, and the future is long.

Xue Xi stared at Zhou Wan with red eyes.

Suddenly, she squatted down on the narrow edge of the roof and began to cry bitterly.

Zhou Wan walked to her side, bent down, and finally grasped her cold hand.

Her mother and the teachers all rushed forward at that moment, pulling her back from over the railing.

Zhou Wan was pushed aside by the crowd. Cheers erupted from below. The wind on the roof was so strong, the sunlight so glaring, that it cast an unreal layer of light and shadow over everything.

Zhou Wan turned to look at Lu Xixiao and slowly walked towards him.

No one noticed them.

"Lu Xixiao." Zhou Wan went to take his hand, looked at the sweat on his forehead, and asked softly, "Are you okay?"

His voice was hoarse when he spoke, as if exhausted: "Yeah."

Zhou Wan helped him downstairs. His complexion finally eased a little after they had descended two floors.

"Lu Xixiao."

Zhou Wan's mind was a bit of a mess, and she didn't know what to say to comfort him. "She didn't jump."

"Yeah."

"We saved her together," Zhou Wan said softly.

Lu Xixiao turned his head to meet her eyes. They were crystal clear, calm and gentle, like a placid lake.

He watched Zhou Wan in silence for a while, then averted his gaze and said faintly, "Let's go."

Zhou Wan paused, watching his retreating back.

The young man's figure was tall and straight, his spine erect. He had returned to his indestructible appearance, showing no trace of the fragility and panic from the rooftop.

*

An incident like this was bound to cause a sensation at school.

After a meeting of all the school's teachers, they all informed their students not to spread the incident outside of school to minimize its impact. Zhou Wan, on the other hand, was singled out for praise.

In truth, if she hadn't seen Lu Xixiao run upstairs, Zhou Wan might not have reacted so quickly, not to mention Lu Xixiao was the first one to get there.

Zhou Wan had wanted to tell the teacher that Lu Xixiao had also gone up with her to save the girl.

But she was worried that some people at school would connect it to his mother's incident, and Lu Xixiao probably didn't want to get involved in such a matter, so in the end, Zhou Wan said nothing.

In the end, it was said that Xue Xi's mother tearfully hugged her daughter, apologizing to her nonstop. She finally took her daughter's psychological problems seriously and decided to have her take a temporary leave of absence from school for treatment.

Xue Xi packed her schoolbag and, before leaving the school with her mother, came to find Zhou Wan to thank her.

"You don't have to thank me." Zhou Wan gave her a small smile. "Focus on getting better. See you next time."

"I don't know if I'll see you next time," Xue Xi said. "After my treatment, I might transfer schools, start over in a new environment."

Zhou Wan nodded in agreement, but then paused and asked, "Then your boyfriend..."

"I just talked to him. We've decided to break up for now." Xue Xi shrugged and smiled. "He comes from a very happy family. He's sunny and warm, which is probably why I liked him. But we're not actually suitable for each other. Besides, this whole thing has been too embarrassing. I don't want to continue like this. If there is a future for us, I hope it's after I'm better, when we can meet again in a much more relaxed state."

Perhaps what had driven Xue Xi into a corner was never just the thwarted romance, but the countless straws weighing her down. Today's incident was simply the last one that broke her back.

Zhou Wan watched her leave and walk out the school gate.

The sun was still bright.

She wondered aimlessly, if she were ever in her shoes, what would be the last straw?

...

For the entire afternoon, Zhou Wan didn't see Lu Xixiao again.

When she passed by the entrance to Class 7, she glanced stealthily at his seat. It was empty.

He had left again.

She didn't know if he still remembered their plan to have dinner together.

At five o'clock, the dismissal bell rang. The students packed up their homework and gossip and headed home.

Zhou Wan, however, continued with her one-hour physics competition training with Jiang Yan.

The competition teacher specially hired by the school had also heard about what happened today and asked Zhou Wan about it. Zhou Wan explained everything.

The teacher asked, "I heard from your physics teacher that you were the one who talked the girl down?"

"Yes."

"Thank goodness, thank goodness. Otherwise, such a young life would be a terrible waste."

Jiang Yan, who was beside her, interrupted the topic: "Teacher Zhang, how do you solve this problem?"

"Which one?" Teacher Zhang leaned over. "Let me see."

Ever since Zhou Wan quit her job at the Arcade and devoted more time to her studies, her competition results had improved significantly. Her score on yesterday's test was 8 points higher than Jiang Yan's.

So, Jiang Yan also began to study even more diligently. He sat at his desk engrossed in practice problems, only getting up to eat or use the restroom. Even an event as big as today's had not affected him in the slightest.

After an hour, Jiang Yan wanted to stay at school a while longer to do more problems, so Zhou Wan left first.