202: Chapter 202 This time we really can't catch him.

"Run!"

By the time Li Li shouted this word, he had already dashed out.

He wasn't heading toward Su Wantang.

It was the terrace.

He was no saint.

And certainly not the simp his predecessor had been.

To him, Su Wantang didn't even count as a stranger.

Strangers, at the very least, hadn't dumped him in front of hundreds of thousands of people in a livestream.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was, he didn't know how much of this building would collapse.

The southeast corner from the fifth to the twenty-fifth floor had completely blown out.

The load-bearing structure was damaged.

The extent of the chain-reaction collapse depended on whether the remaining structure could hold up.

The Mandarin Oriental was a building from the nineties.

The design redundancy from that era wouldn't be excessive.

To put it plainly:

If this building was going to collapse, it wouldn't necessarily just be one corner.

Li Li sprinted through the hallway.

The floor beneath his feet was shaking.

Not swaying.

It was the vibration transmitted after structural members snapped.

Once. Twice. It was getting more frequent.

He rushed into the banquet hall, vaulted over overturned chairs, and pushed open the fire door.

Wind poured in.

The helipad was still there.

The ground beneath his feet was solid.

Li Li stopped and looked back.

At the end of the corridor, dust billowed up.

Ceiling tiles were falling one after another.

Two light tubes exploded, and sparks fell onto the carpet.

Su Wantang hadn't followed.

Damn.

— Su Wantang couldn't run.

When Li Li shouted "Run," she was still sitting against the wall.

The nylon rope on her right wrist was pulled deathly tight; the other end went through a hole in the wall, connected to something unknown in the private room.

The one on her left hand had snapped just moments ago.

This one on her right hand was getting tighter and tighter.

The knots were different.

One was a slipknot.

One was a fixed knot.

That pervert with the Japanese accent even had to discriminate with the knots.

Su Wantang bit at it with her teeth.

She clawed at it with her fingernails.

It was useless.

The nylon rope dug into her flesh, and her wrist had already broken skin.

A loud noise came from behind her.

She looked back.

Where the private room was, the floor was sinking.

It wasn't cracking; the whole section was falling.

Floor tiles, wooden planks, broken walls, candlesticks, overturned tables and chairs—everything was plummeting.

Dust rushed up from the collapse, choking her into a coughing fit.

The edge of the collapse was still expanding, closing in on her.

Su Wantang crawled forward.

Her knees scraped against the carpet; she had no idea where her high heels had fallen off to.

She propped herself up with her left hand, while her right hand was dragged by the rope, her whole body skewed as she inched forward.

One meter.

The door frame of the private room was gone.

Two meters.

The corridor floor split open.

She shouldn't have looked back.

There was no floor left behind her.

She could see the cross-section of the floors below.

Rebar.

Concrete.

Fire.

The collapse was still eating forward.

It was faster than she could crawl.

Su Wantang scrambled forward desperately.

Her right hand was numb from being tugged, and every step she crawled took twice the effort.

The other end of the rope hadn't fallen yet, but the private room was almost gone.

Once that thing fell, she would be dragged down with it.

She didn't want to die.

She really didn't want to die.

Her arms began to tremble.

Her knees were scraped raw.

Her right wrist was bleeding from the rope's constriction.

The sound of the collapse behind her grew closer.

The floor shook so much she couldn't crawl steadily.

Three meters.

Two meters.

One meter.

Su Wantang stopped.

It wasn't that she didn't want to run.

It was that she truly had no strength left.

She closed her eyes.

Her mind was a mess.

The livestream.

The breakup.

Li Li.

The videos he had edited for her over the years.

The medicine he had delivered through the rain.

The cold steamed buns they had gnawed on outside the subway station.

And just now.

He had run faster than anyone.

He hadn't even looked back.

Serves her right.

She deserved it.

Su Wantang waited for the ground beneath her to disappear.

Waited to fall.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Nothing.

The ground was still there.

The shaking stopped.

She didn't dare move.

She waited a few more seconds.

It still hadn't collapsed.

Su Wantang opened her eyes.

Half a meter in front of her, the floor broke off.

Just half a meter.

A little further, and she would be gone.

The break extended outward; the entire area toward the private room had been hollowed out.

Only a few pillars remained of the walls.

The ceiling hung above, and there was no telling when it would fall.

Wind poured in from the breach.

Victoria Harbour was right below.

The night scene.

The lights.

The wreckage of that boeing 777 was still sitting on the sea surface.

The crowd downstairs was running out.

Police car blue lights were flashing.

Fire truck red lights were also flashing.

Above her head, there was the sound of helicopter rotors.

She had survived.

The collapse had stopped half a meter in front of her.

Su Wantang lay on the ground, her whole body trembling.

She wanted to cry.

But she held it back forcibly.

Because there were footsteps behind her.

Li Li was standing by the fire door.

A dozen meters away from her.

Su Wantang propped herself up and crawled to her feet.

Her knees throbbed with numbness.

Her feet stepped onto the carpet, and she swayed, only steadying herself by grabbing a half-standing wall nearby.

She turned around.

She cursed at Li Li, "Li Li, you bastard!"

Her throat was terribly hoarse.

But her voice was not soft.

"Why did you run!"

"Do you know I almost died!"

Li Li stood by the fire door, not responding.

Su Wantang continued to curse.

"Are you even a ma—"

Before she could finish.

Li Li suddenly charged over.

Not walking.

A full-on sprint.

Su Wantang froze.

The next second, she heard Li Li shout, "The rope!"

"Let go of the rope!"

Su Wantang looked down.

The rope on her right wrist was still there.

The nylon rope extended from her wrist, through the debris of the corridor, and connected all the way to the back.

She followed the rope with her eyes.

The other end of the rope was tied to the leg of a solid wood table.

That table was stuck on the edge of the collapse.

Below it was a broken piece of rebar.

The table leg was hooked onto the rebar, swaying precariously.

Su Wantang went cold all over.

The table was sliding downward.

The rebar was bending too.

The rope on her right wrist still had about two meters of slack.

Once the table fell, these two meters would instantly snap taut.

Then she would be dragged down twenty-five floors.

Su Wantang tried to untie the knot like a madwoman.

A fixed knot.

It got tighter the more she pulled.

A fingernail broke, and blood seeped from between her fingers.

She couldn't untie it.

The table slid another bit.

The rebar let out a screeching sound as it bent.

Li Li was still sprinting.

Ten meters.

Eight meters.

Five meters.

The rebar snapped.

The table plummeted.

The nylon rope snapped taut violently.

A tremendous pulling force exploded from Su Wantang's right wrist.

Her whole body was yanked toward the gap.

Her feet left the ground.

Her body flew out horizontally.

She stretched out her left hand, trying to grab anything.

She grabbed nothing.

The next second.

She crossed the edge of the break.

Beneath her feet was the height of twenty-five stories.

Li Li dove to the edge, his left hand grabbing her forearm.

The inertia pulled them both outward.

Li Li kicked his right foot against a protruding piece of concrete at the edge of the break, hooked his right hand onto some exposed rebar nearby, and pressed his whole body as low as possible.

Su Wantang hung in mid-air.

Her right hand was being dragged down by the weight of the table.

Her left hand was being pulled up by Li Li.

The force from both sides tore at her.

The nylon rope dug into her wrist, and blood dripped down the back of her hand.

The solid wood table below was still falling.

Getting heavier and heavier.

Li Li had half his body pressed against the edge of the gap, his left hand bearing Su Wantang's weight.

He looked down.

Dust.

Blood.

Sweat.

His short, layered hair was tousled by the wind.

He spoke.

"Are you a cat?"

Su Wantang hung outside the twenty-fifth floor, the wind plastering her hair all over her face.

Li Li continued.

"Nine lives aren't enough for you to squander."

Su Wantang wanted to curse him.

But once she opened her mouth, only a scream came out.

"Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh!"

The next second.

A muffled sound came from her right hand.

It wasn't the rope breaking.

It was her wrist being pulled out of shape.

The base of her thumb dislocated, and the rope loop slipped off her palm.

The table, along with the nylon rope, plummeted into the black hole below.

Su Wantang's right hand hung limp.

She couldn't feel the pain.

Because she realized that Li Li's hand, which was gripping her left forearm, was sliding downward.

One centimeter.

Then another centimeter.