131: Chapter 131 One Wrong Word, One Life

On the seventh floor, that pair of white sneakers swayed again.

Ji Shen tapped Han Su on the shoulder and pointed at the fire truck at the school gate.

"Drive the truck in, park it below the steps, set up the air cushion between the roof of the truck and the steps, and use the truck body as a barrier."

He paused for a moment.

"Even if they jump and bounce off, at least they won't slam directly onto the steps."

Han Su scanned the width of the school gate and then measured the size of the fire truck with his eyes.

"Alright, Qin Xiaoshan, go drive it in."

Qin Xiaoshan didn't say a word and turned to run. This kid always executed any order involving manual labor in seconds, faster than a food delivery rider grabbing an order.

The fire truck reversed into the school gate, the roar of its engine echoing three times within the U-shaped building. Qin Xiaoshan had to shift back and forth twice to get the position just right.

The air cushion was laid out from the roof of the truck to the steps. Han Su and Ji Shen used ropes to secure it to the truck's frame, winding it three times and tying it tight.

It wasn't perfect.

But it was better than nothing.

"I'll keep an eye on the air cushion." Han Su tucked away his walkie-talkie and turned to Li Li.

"You take Shen Jue, Su Nianzhi, and Jiang Shiyu up to check the situation. Don't get too close, just assess the situation first."

Li Li nodded and beckoned.

The four of them entered the teaching building.

The hallway was unnaturally quiet. The doors to every classroom were closed, and a teacher stood by each window, their backs pressed against the glass, using their bodies to block the students' view. Some were lecturing, their chalk writing becoming crooked as they went. Others stood silently, not moving a muscle.

No one looked outside.

It wasn't that they didn't want to.

It was that they didn't dare.

The principal and the dean of students were already losing their minds.

Shen Jue followed behind Li Li, holding even his breath. This person, who usually could make the car's walkie-talkie buzz with static, was treading so lightly it didn't seem like him at all.

In the stairwell between the sixth and seventh floors, countless school leaders were gathered; they had been driven down by the police.

At the end of the stairs was a half-open iron door leading to the roof.

Li Li stopped.

He fished a full-body safety harness out of the equipment bag and put it on. He buckled the waist belt, tightened the chest strap, and secured the leg loops.

He tied the other end of the safety rope to the steel railing of the stairwell and gave it a tug to check its load-bearing capacity.

Shen Jue watched him work.

"Brother Li, what you're tying is..."

"So that when I go to grab the person, we don't both go down together."

It was a very soft sentence.

Shen Jue closed his mouth.

Jiang Shiyu leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He kept tapping his toes on the ground; the frequency wasn't because he was bored—it was because he was tense.

Su Nianzhi stood at the back, her hand resting on the railing, quiet and still.

Li Li fastened the last buckle and pushed open the iron door.

The wind from the rooftop rushed in.

The May sunlight slammed onto the concrete ground, creating a glaring white expanse. Three uniformed police officers were scattered across the rooftop, standing in a fan shape, each separated by five or six meters. The oldest police officer, a man in his forties, stood the closest, but even "closest" was still over ten meters away.

A female teacher was crouching behind the police, her hands covering her mouth, her shoulders heaving, but she made no sound.

The cornice.

A boy was sitting on the low wall.

He was thinner than expected, with the sleeves of his school uniform hanging long, covering his wrists. His hair was a standard student cut, kept short by the Homeroom Teacher.

Fourteen or fifteen years old.

His legs were dangling over the edge.

No crying, no shouting, none of those hysterical scenes from movies or TV shows.

He just sat there like that.

He was so quiet that it didn't seem to fit someone making a life-or-death decision at all.

But the quieter he was, the more wrong it felt.

Li Li quickly scanned the rooftop. It was a U-shaped roof, with a protruding equipment area in the middle blocking part of the view, and a low wall less than half a meter high surrounding it. The spot where the boy was sitting faced the opening of the U-shape, and directly below were the steps and the air cushion that had just been laid out.

To get within three meters, there was no path that could be taken without being discovered.

It was all open ground, with zero cover.

He scanned the metal brackets of the equipment area with his flashlight, calculating the climbing angle in his mind.

"Is that Teacher Li Li?"

The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

The boy had already turned his head, his voice drifting over from fifteen meters away. The rooftop was so quiet that every word was crystal clear.

The three police officers turned their heads simultaneously.

The female teacher lifted her face.

Shen Jue, Jiang Shiyu, and Su Nianzhi were all stunned at the iron doorway.

Everyone looked instantly at the person wearing a full set of orange firefighter gear, with a safety rope hanging from his body.

This gear was glaringly bright under the rooftop sunlight.

It was all over.

Li Li hadn't intended to reveal his identity, nor had he intended to get close.

But a child sitting on the edge of the seventh floor had called out his name; denying it would be more dangerous than admitting it.

He took off his helmet.

He stepped forward two paces, revealing himself from behind the police officers.

"It's me."

The boy tilted his head to look at him.

Then he sighed softly.

"It would be great if Xu Qi were here."

Li Li didn't move.

"Oh, wait!" The boy shook his head and corrected himself.

"He would definitely be very angry; he really likes Sister Mu, he's a die-hard fan."

A child sitting on the cornice of the seventh floor was talking about fandom in a conversational tone.

It was no different from chatting with a desk mate while leaning against the corridor railing during a break.

Except that there were six stories of empty air beneath his feet.

Li Li's throat was terribly dry.

The last time he faced this kind of uncertainty was when Delia held a gun to Jiang Rumu's head. That time he gambled—he gambled on the psychological weakness of a maniac, and he gambled on his own reaction speed.

He won the gamble.

But Delia was an adult, a terrorist with behavioral logic. She could be analyzed, and she could be predicted.

The fourteen-or-fifteen-year-old boy in front of him—

He dared not gamble.

He had never received negotiation training, and he didn't know this child.

Who "Xu Qi" was, what his relationship was to him, where his emotional breaking point was—he had absolutely no idea.

One wrong word, one life lost.

It was the life of a child.

This burden of guilt was heavier than everything he had done in his life combined.

So he stood there.

Silence itself was also a response; at least he wouldn't say the wrong thing.

The boy didn't care.

He looked down at his sneakers dangling in the air, then looked up, his gaze lingering on Li Li's firefighter uniform.

"Teacher Li Li."

He called out again.

"You're wearing that uniform because you're filming 'Brave Blue Friends', right?"

Li Li nodded.

"That's pretty good."

The boy rested both hands on the low wall and leaned back slightly.

The knees of the Old Police Officer in front bent, and he took half a step forward, but his colleague grabbed his arm and yanked him back hard.

At the iron doorway, Shen Jue stumbled forward half a step, but Jiang Shiyu grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back.

The boy didn't notice.

Or maybe he noticed and didn't care.

He straightened his body again and looked at Li Li.

"Then let the Production Team come up."

Everyone on the rooftop had their breath hitched.

"Start a livestream."

The three words were thrown out, lighter than the wind.

"I want to seek justice for Xu Qi."

The wind flipped over a badge pinned to the collar of the boy's school uniform. A white background, red school emblem.

Cuiyuan Middle School.

Someone had just jumped last week.

The words of those two women at the school gate spun through his mind again—

"Did they save the one who jumped last week?"

"I haven't heard, they probably didn't make it..."

Xu Qi.

The die-hard fan who "really likes Sister Mu" that he mentioned.

Xu Qi.

The boy was waiting for an answer.

The three police officers were waiting. The female teacher crouching on the ground was waiting. Shen Jue at the iron doorway behind him was waiting.

Everyone was waiting for Li Li to speak.

The only thought that crossed his mind was—

Could a [Limited-Time Mission: Crash Course in Crisis Negotiation] pop up?

The system didn't react at all.

Not surprising; this piece of junk was even more ruthless than being left on read when you actually needed it.

The boy's white sneakers swayed gently in the wind.

Then his body shifted an inch to the left.

As if he had seen the air cushion downstairs, he turned and said, "If I move a few meters, I probably won't land on the air cushion, right?"

Hearing this, the veins on Li Li's forehead throbbed.

Qin Xiaoshan!!!!

"Hurry up and arrange for the Production Team to come up; I'm waiting."

Waiting.

Waiting with a hint of a threat.