136: Chapter 136 Everyone's Gone Mad

Time rewinds five minutes.

Cheng Songyan's Number 1 truck was parked at the school's main gate.

The radio on his waist crackled to life—Han Su's channel, cutting in and out, mixed with wind and static, but a few keywords were clear enough: Cuiyuan Middle School, seventh floor, student suicide attempt, Li Li negotiating on the rooftop.

Cheng Songyan gripped the radio, the color draining completely from his face.

"Go! Get inside and help!"

Gu Zeyan quickly got out of the truck and walked into the main gate with Tao Qianzhi.

The crowd in front of the school gate had doubled in size, a dense forest of raised phones. Cheng Songyan jumped out of the truck and glanced upward.

That figure on the seventh-floor ledge was still there.

Still there.

Han Su ran over from beside the fire truck, drenched in sweat.

"Li Li is up there, talking to the kid. The kid wants to livestream, and right now…"

"Where's the air cushion?"

"It's spread between the roof of the truck and the steps, but the position isn't quite…"

"I see it."

Cheng Songyan cut him off, pulled three safety ropes from the truck, and handed two to the people behind him.

"Gu Zeyan, Tao Qianzhi, with me. The sixth floor."

Gu Zeyan took the ropes.

"Not going to the rooftop?"

"Going up is useless. Let Li Li handle the negotiation; I haven't been trained in it, and another person just adds more variables." Cheng Songyan was already walking into the school gate. "We'll wait in the sixth-floor hallway, directly below."

"What are we waiting for?"

"In case the kid falls."

Cheng Songyan didn't look back.

"I'll try to catch them."

Gu Zeyan stumbled on the stairs, but this time, he didn't laugh foolishly.

— The inner hallway of the U-shaped teaching building on the sixth floor.

The window was half-open, and the wind blew in through the opening of the U-shape. Looking up, one could see the edge of the low wall extending from the seventh-floor ledge.

Further up, a pair of white sneakers.

Dangling.

Cheng Songyan scanned the hallway and locked his gaze on the steel pipe of the fire hydrant box; it was welded into the wall and could bear the weight.

He wrapped one end of the safety rope around it, tied a figure-eight knot, and pulled twice to confirm.

He tied the other end to the harness around his waist and locked the buckle tight.

Gu Zeyan stood beside him, holding the middle section of the rope, winding it twice around his ten fingers.

"Captain Cheng, if you really jump…"

"Hold tight." Cheng Songyan cut him off. "No matter what happens, hold on for dear life."

Tao Qianzhi didn't say another word. He wrapped the rope around his waist, walked to the corner of the hallway, pressed his back against the wall, and braced his feet against the baseboard.

Cheng Songyan adjusted the angle of the knot on the fire hydrant box and was just about to recheck the buckle…

It felt like it exploded overhead.

The Homeroom Teacher's scream.

The voice-activated lights in the entire U-shaped teaching building flickered on.

Cheng Songyan didn't have time to think.

"Grab the rope!"

He rushed to the hallway windowsill, braced his hands on the low wall, and vaulted over. Outside the sixth-floor hallway was a ledge less than half a meter wide, with no railing, only a concrete edge.

He crouched on it and looked up.

A pair of legs.

White sneakers, falling.

The school uniform billowed in the wind, the whole body spinning.

A window of less than a second.

Ten years ago, he hesitated once, and the price of that hesitation was Former Captain Meng Yancheng being struck by a collapsing beam, suffering severe injuries that forced his retirement.

Ten years.

Enough.

He jumped from the outer edge of the sixth-floor windowsill.

In the hallway, Gu Zeyan watched with his own eyes as the Level 4 Commander—who normally checked knots three times over—leaped from the sixth-floor windowsill…

Just jumped right out.

"Holy shit!!!"

The loudest profanity Gu Zeyan had ever shouted in his life.

Cheng Songyan spread his limbs in mid-air, crossing paths with the falling Song Yaoshan in less than half a second.

His right hand reached the back of the school uniform first.

His left hand scooped up from below, locking tightly around the small, thin body.

His two legs clamped around his waist.

Limbs locked.

Freefall.

At that same instant, the rope snapped taut; the impact traveled from the waist harness through the entire rope, passing through the window frame into the hallway.

Gu Zeyan's hands were yanked violently by the rope, the pain of fibers digging into his skin drilling straight into his bones.

He subconsciously let go.

Half a second.

And immediately grabbed it back.

He would remember that half-second for the rest of his life.

But in that half-second, the rope slid outward thirty centimeters.

At the corner of the hallway, Tao Qianzhi was dragged half a step forward, his back scraping away from the corner, his calf slamming into the baseboard, his teeth grinding in pain.

The dead weight of two people, the safety rope, and the fire suits—an impact force of nearly 300 jin—turned into a sustained tension after the first wave of deceleration, the rope screeching as it rubbed against the edge of the window frame.

Gu Zeyan was half-kneeling on the floor, his hands sliding inch by inch along the rope.

He couldn't hold it.

"Come down and help save them!!!"

Tao Qianzhi roared toward the stairwell, the sound echoing through the entire sixth floor.

In the stairwell, the school administrators who had been herded down by the police froze for a second.

He Manzhou was the first to react, rushing down the stairs two steps at a time, running to the hallway to see Tao Qianzhi bent into a shrimp from the strain of the rope, and Gu Zeyan half-kneeling, veins bulging from his neck to his arms.

"Pull! Pull quickly!"

He Manzhou lunged forward and grabbed the rope.

Su Nianzhi followed closely, and the principal and the dean of students also rushed down from the stairwell, stunned for a second before lunging over to help.

Six or seven people were pulling on a single rope, the hallway filled with the sound of rapid breathing and the rope rubbing against the window frame.

Gu Zeyan gritted his back teeth, the skin on his hands already torn, blood seeping into the fibers of the rope.

He didn't dare let go a second time.

They pulled for ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Then…

The rope suddenly went light.

The weight in their hands went from 300 jin to 150.

Two things came from outside the window simultaneously.

A scream.

A dull thud.

Every movement in the hallway stopped.

Silence for a second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

He Manzhou's hands were still clutching the rope, her knuckles white.

Tao Qianzhi leaned against the corner, panting heavily, his eyes fixed on the direction outside the window.

Footsteps came from above.

The seventh-floor iron door was kicked open; Shen Jue was the first to rush down, followed by Jiang Shiyu, and three police officers ran down the stairs. Su Nianzhi leaned against the wall, her legs shaking.

The last one down was Li Li.

His left hand dangled at his side, the angle of his wrist wrong. As he walked, his entire left arm didn't swing, and his pace was a beat slower than usual.

By the time he reached the sixth-floor hallway, Gu Zeyan and Tao Qianzhi were already reeling in the rope.

The end of the rope was slowly pulled back from outside the window. First the end of the safety rope, then the buckle of the harness, and then a pair of fire boots.

Cheng Songyan was pulled back onto the windowsill.

Half his body flipped over and slammed onto the hallway floor. A large patch of his fire suit was torn, the reflective strip on his right shoulder was broken, and the harness had left a deep, purple-bruised mark around his waist.

He lay on the floor, gasping for air.

Both arms spread wide.

Empty.

Gu Zeyan squatted beside him, his voice cracking.

"Where's the kid, Captain Cheng?!"

Cheng Songyan stared at the ceiling, his chest heaving three times.

"…I didn't catch them."

The three words were squeezed out through gritted teeth.

No one in the hallway spoke.

The principal's legs went weak, and he sat on the floor. He leaned his back against the wall and hugged his head with both hands.

"The higher-ups will hold us accountable… The higher-ups will hold us accountable…"

He Manzhou's hands slid off the rope.

Qi Wanyin turned around, one hand braced against the wall.

Shen Jue stood at the stairwell, motionless.

"But I threw them onto the air cushion."

Fuck!

Everyone wanted to curse at Cheng Songyan's dramatic pause.

Li Li walked to the end of the hallway.

He didn't look at Cheng Songyan, didn't look at the principal, didn't look at anyone.

He was looking outside the window.

Directly below the U-shaped teaching building, the fire truck was parked at the bottom of the steps, the air cushion spread beside the truck.

Qin Xiaoshan was climbing onto the air cushion.

On the air cushion, there was a lump.

A white school uniform, curled up.

It wasn't moving.

Li Li's right hand touched the window frame; his left hand could no longer be raised.