137: Chapter 137 The Talkative One After Surviving the Calamity
Qin Xiaoshan had already hauled Song Yaoshan out of the air cushion.
His school uniform was crumpled like a rag, his hair was frizzy, and one of his white sneakers was missing.
Li Li climbed down from the side of the fire truck; his entire left arm was numb, and he could barely bend his fingers. He ignored it, rushing over to the air cushion in a few strides and crouching down.
"Does anywhere hurt?"
Song Yaoshan tilted his head, his gaze still unfocused, and he stared blankly for two seconds.
He shook his head.
Just as Li Li was about to speak, over a hundred pounds of weight slammed directly into him.
Song Yaoshan wrapped his arms around Li Li's waist, buried his face in the chest of the firefighter's uniform, and howled.
It was the kind of howl a sixteen-year-old should have, one that poured out with his entire lung capacity. Snot and tears smeared all over the orange firefighter's uniform, and the crying echoed three times within the U-shaped teaching building, with heads behind every window looking down simultaneously.
"Damn, I almost died just now..."
Li Li wanted to pat his back, but his left hand couldn't lift halfway, so he switched to his right.
"I really almost died, am I crazy..."
"It's okay now."
"When that man threw me out, I thought it was over... I was spinning, I saw the sky... then when I hit, my bones felt like they were falling apart..."
"The air cushion caught you."
"I know, but I bounced!! I bounced up and then fell back down!! I almost rolled onto the steps!!"
Qin Xiaoshan added a jab from the side: "You really did bounce quite high; I was watching from below and almost didn't catch you."
Li Li turned his head and glared at him.
Qin Xiaoshan shut up.
Song Yaoshan clung to his waist, refusing to let go, shaking while his mouth wouldn't stop moving.
"I felt so brave when I was up there... but the second I actually fell, I regretted it... I don't want to die... I really don't want to die... I was just being such an idiot..."
Li Li didn't respond.
He rested his right hand on the boy's back, not applying any pressure, just leaving it there.
This child never truly wanted to die from start to finish.
What he wanted was to be heard.
After crying for about two minutes, the howling subsided into sobs, and the sobs into choked gasps.
Snot smeared a large patch on the front of the firefighter's uniform; Li Li glanced down, thinking he would need to soak it in disinfectant later.
Footsteps approached from the direction of the teaching building.
Cheng Songyan.
His firefighter's uniform was torn in a large patch, the reflective strip on his right shoulder was broken, and he was clearly in pain at his waist while walking, but his gait remained steady.
Song Yaoshan lifted his head from Li Li's embrace, his red eyes scanning the area until they locked onto the person who had jumped from the sixth floor to intercept him in mid-air.
He let go of Li Li and rushed over to hug Cheng Songyan.
"Thank you, Uncle!!!"
Cheng Songyan stiffened for half a second.
His arms hung in mid-air, and he finally patted Song Yaoshan's shoulder awkwardly.
"...Don't call me Uncle, I'm not much older than Li Li."
Song Yaoshan looked up at Cheng Songyan's face, then turned to look at Li Li's face. His gaze darted back and forth twice.
That expression needed no translation: Are you sure you're the same age?
Cheng Songyan's face went dark immediately.
Li Li really wanted to say that it wasn't the kid's fault, as those dark circles under his eyes did make him look a bit old. But saying that now would get him beaten up.
The cameraman rushed out of the teaching building with his equipment, the red light on, the lens sweeping across the air cushion, the fire truck, and the three people hugging.
It was all recorded.
Including the face Cheng Songyan made when he was called "Uncle," which looked sour enough to squeeze out aged vinegar.
At the school gate, the principal's voice drifted over: "These images must absolutely not be broadcast! This concerns the school's reputation..."
The cameraman didn't even turn his head.
"I listen to the Production Team, not you."
The 120 ambulance reversed into the school gate. Emergency personnel ran over pushing a stretcher, and Song Yaoshan shrank back a step.
"I'm fine, I'm really fine..."
"You just suffered an impact, some internal injuries aren't felt immediately."
"I'm not going."
The sixteen-year-old boy, having just been fished back from the seventh floor, stood next to the air cushion arguing with the emergency personnel, his stubborn-donkey mode activating in a second.
Li Li walked over.
"I'll go with you. Didn't you want to tell me about Xu Qi? Tell me on the way, it's perfect."
He hesitated for three seconds.
"You keep your word."
"I keep my word."
"What about that song?"
"That too."
"Alright then."
The Homeroom Teacher followed into the ambulance. The carriage swayed, and Song Yaoshan, lying on the stretcher, started pouring everything out before the IV was even inserted.
Once his chatterbox nature opened the floodgates, there was no stopping it.
He told the story of Xu Qi, starting from their first year of middle school: how they met, what they talked about on their first day as desk mates, which break they were in when he was first mocked for "walking like a girl," when he was first cornered in the restroom after the midterms of the second semester of the first year, and when his diary was posted on the bulletin board in the second week of the first semester of the second year.
Every event was precise down to the day of the week; he really remembered it all.
Li Li leaned against the wall of the carriage, holding his phone in his right hand and typing with one hand in the notes app.
The Homeroom Teacher sat opposite him, not saying a word from start to finish. She listened to every detail, her body shrinking little by little into her seat.
There were many things she didn't know.
Or if she did know, she hadn't taken them seriously.
The hospital examination was quick; no internal bleeding, no fractures, just soft tissue contusions, observation was sufficient.
Song Yaoshan didn't stop talking even on the examination bed; while the nurse was sliding the probe over his stomach, he was still talking about the name of the classical dance Xu Qi liked.
After leaving the emergency room, the Homeroom Teacher wanted to take him home.
Song Yaoshan shook his head.
"I want Teacher Li Li to come over to my place and sit for a while."
The Homeroom Teacher looked at Li Li, and Li Li nodded, saying nothing more.
At the hospital entrance, Song Yaoshan scanned two shared bikes.
"Let's ride bikes, it's not far."
Li Li couldn't use his left hand, so he held the handlebars with one hand and followed behind.
At first, the road was normal—old residential areas, convenience stores, roadside stalls.
Then, the more they rode, the more wrong it felt.
The buildings on both sides of the road began to get taller, the landscaping became denser, the streetlights changed from white light to warm yellow, and even the paving stones on the sidewalk changed material.
Song Yaoshan stopped his bike at the entrance of a residential complex.
Pengcheng Bay · Seaview Number One.
Double guard booths at the entrance, imported stone exterior walls, with three Porsches and two Maybachs parked at the gate.
Li Li recognized this kind of development; in his previous life, while delivering food, he loved taking orders for these places because the butler would handle the delivery upstairs, and he only needed to hand it over at the door.
First-line sea view residence in Shenzhen.
Starting at 50 million.
"Where is this?"
Song Yaoshan was scanning his face at the entrance gate and looked back at him.
"My home."
"Aren't you an orphan?"
"I wasn't born an orphan." Song Yaoshan pushed his bike inside, "I only became one a few years ago after my parents died in a plane crash. An acquired orphan, get it?"
He paused his steps without turning around.
"My dad was an early employee of Tencent, the kind who joined in the early 2000s. He bought all sorts of properties early on, and a few years ago, he sold half of them to go all-in on this place."
A calculator popped up in Li Li's mind.
The average price in this area back then, multiplied by the square footage of this type of unit, plus the appreciation over the years.
"Now the stocks have all been transferred to me too." Song Yaoshan added, his tone flat.
Good grief.
The "orphan" he had risked his life to pull back from the seventh-floor ledge today lived in a 50-million-worth home.
The elevator reached the top floor. The foyer was bigger than his office at the orphanage.
Li Li had heard the echo of wealth today.
Song Yaoshan changed into slippers, his bare feet stepping on the heated solid wood floor.
"Come on in."
Li Li stepped inside, the feeling of the soles of his feet touching the floor—Burmese teak.
He looked down at his firefighter boots, which were covered in cement dust.
Song Yaoshan had already opened the refrigerator and was bending over, rummaging inside.
"Teacher Li Li, do you eat king crab? There's also Australian lobster that the housekeeper bought yesterday..."
He straightened up, holding a crab leg bigger than his own head.
"The housekeeper didn't come today; she doesn't know I went to the rooftop."
He paused.
"Actually, I didn't let her come all week, but she still came yesterday."
Cold air billowed from the fridge; Song Yaoshan stood in the middle of the kitchen holding the crab leg, wearing his crumpled school uniform, one foot bare, with a sock on the other stepping on the floor.
A three-hundred-square-meter apartment.
Living alone.
Li Li scanned the living room.
There were two photo frames on the coffee table. One was a family portrait of a man and a woman holding a little boy, with a seaside resort in the background. The other was a portrait of Song Yaoshan in his school uniform, with a small note stuck next to it, written in crooked handwriting.
"Happy elementary school graduation, Yaoshan! Love, Mom!"
The edges of the note had turned yellow.
Written three years ago.
He looked back at the boy in the kitchen holding the crab leg.
His parents died in a plane crash when he was thirteen; he lived alone, was bullied, his desk mate jumped off a building, and he had almost jumped himself.
With assets over a hundred million.
Money really isn't everything sometimes.
"Teacher Li Li, can you cook? I'm not very good at it; the housekeeper usually does it."
Li Li took off his firefighter jacket, hung it on the hook in the foyer, walked into the kitchen, took the crab leg from Song Yaoshan's hand with his right hand, and weighed it.
"Where's the pot?"
"The steamer... wait, you can cook?"
Li Li pulled open the cupboard with one hand; when he reached for the steamer, he had nowhere to put the crab leg he was holding in his right hand, so he held the pot lid in his mouth and dragged the steamer out—the whole process looked like an acrobatic act.
"I can cook anything."
Song Yaoshan leaned against the refrigerator door, watching him bustle about for three seconds.
"Teacher Li Li."
"Hmm."
"About that song you said you'd write for Xu Qi..."
"I'll start writing the lyrics tomorrow; let's eat first today."
Water splashed into the bottom of the pot.
Song Yaoshan lowered his head, his toes curling.
"Xu Qi also liked eating this."
His voice was very soft.
"Every time he came to my house, he would eat a lot. Good thing I have money, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to eat these things."
Li Li didn't turn around. He arranged the crab legs in the steamer, put the lid on, and turned the stove to medium heat.
Outside the window, the last bit of light over Shenzhen Bay sank into the sea.
The living room darkened, with only the flames on the kitchen stove dancing.
"Teacher Li Li."
"Hmm?"
"Can that song be called 'rose boy'?"