Yan Luqing had watched quite a few ancient-costume television dramas before. In them, there were always two kinds of accidents happening in the mountains: one was falling off that kind of sheer cliff, completely suspended in the air, and very likely with a waterfall beneath; the other was exactly what she was now experiencing—rolling down a steep mountain slope.

On television, that rolling-down-the-slope scene usually happened when the main character was being chased and accidentally fell. The female lead would spin smoothly as she tumbled down to the bottom, and after rolling she would pat the dust off her clothes, sit up, pound her legs a little, stretch her waist to rest for a while, then be able to stand up again and continue fleeing for her life.

Yan Luqing had thought it was just like that.

Until now, when she personally experienced it once, she only wanted to raise her middle finger at the drama she had watched.

Just now, she had clearly let go, but almost at the same time Gu Ci’s hand turned and caught her again. Exactly at that moment when they changed position, his strength loosened for a brief instant, and the force pulling Yan Luqing constantly downward instantly increased. The two of them rolled down the slope together.

…This really made her look exactly like a scourge who, because her weight was too heavy, dragged down the one saving her together with her!

The details that followed, she only remembered that Gu Ci reacted extremely quickly and encircled her, lightly saying at her ear: “Close your eyes.”

Even in such a tense situation, Yan Luqing still trusted his words completely, almost like a conditioned reflex, immediately carrying out the instruction.

Then, in a stretch of darkness, she felt herself as if falling into a thin but very secure embrace.

The mountain slope only had a general angle, but it was not flat ground. This was exactly the place where Yan Luqing wanted to raise her middle finger at the television dramas—the slope was full of protruding stones and clods, and there were also trees and stumps. Whether stone clods or tree stumps, they all had intervals. It was impossible for them to stop people; they only served as obstacles in the rolling process, constantly striking every part of your body.

As for where they struck, that was completely random, depending on fate.

Yan Luqing knew that she had already been hit twice on the waist and leg by a big stone and a stump, and she already felt close to death. Under such force, if it struck the head, that would simply be like winning the grand prize.

Those few blows left her muddle-headed, almost about to lose consciousness, only remembering with the last shred of instinct to clutch tightly at Gu Ci’s clothes.

She did not know how long they rolled. At last she finally felt the slope ease, the speed slow, and then the two of them crashed into some unknown object with a “bang!” sound.

Only then did they come to a complete stop.

As soon as they stopped, the two naturally let go. Yan Luqing exhaled in one breath, her voice weak as gossamer but still unable to help cursing: “Ah… fuck…”

This fucked-up system punishment.

After rolling like this, Yan Luqing finally understood why Gu Ci had held her—the front of a person was much more fragile than the back. Rolling down while holding each other meant that mostly the back took the injuries, thus reducing the danger. Moreover, she even had a mountaineering backpack on her back.

But he was still struck in far more places than she was.

Especially that last collision which made them stop—Yan Luqing did not feel any pain at all there, so it must have been Gu Ci who had taken the impact… Just hearing the sound was enough to make one imagine unbearable pain.

Yan Luqing very much wanted to immediately ask about his condition, but right now she was in so much pain that she did not dare make any large movements.

She could not crawl up. Lying on her back made her stomach feel uncomfortable. So she had no choice but to gather all her strength to half-prop her upper body up, then retched and gagged a few times. Nothing came out, but at least the churning in her stomach lessened.

All around was pitch-black. She was someone very afraid of the dark, but at this moment there was something more serious than darkness that she had to confirm.

So Yan Luqing maintained this posture, using both hands to “shift” herself to Gu Ci’s side, then probed to call him: “Gu Ci?”

There was no response.

So close that she smelled, on him, the same hotel shampoo fragrance as on herself, and also—

A scent of blood.

Her heartbeat suddenly accelerated. Yan Luqing no longer called his name, but directly reached out to feel.

She groped over his head, from the crown to the back of the skull, running her hand over once. Discovering no wound, no place damp with blood, her whole person relaxed slightly.

“Gu Ci, can you hear me—”

Before Yan Luqing could finish, the person beside her suddenly awoke as if startled and began to cough violently.

His coughing was broken and intermittent, yet showed no sign of stopping. Yan Luqing at once “shifted” back to where she had fallen just now, felt out the backpack that had been dragged down together, took out from inside a bottle of water and a spare small flashlight, then returned again to Gu Ci’s side.

Yan Luqing turned on the flashlight, shining it at the mineral water bottle in her hand, then handed it over: “Water, for you.”

Gu Ci seemed to hesitate for a moment before accepting her water with one hand.

But after taking it, he did not drink. Holding it in his hand, he then set it on the ground, still using that same hand to support himself as he sat up. His speed was not slow, only his posture somewhat stiff and strange.

“Cough…” Gu Ci seemed finally to finish the last cough. After steadying his breathing, he raised his head to look at her.

Now with light, Yan Luqing could also see his appearance clearly.

A leaf was stuck in the hair at his temple. He wore a set of black sportswear, with no injury visible. His face, compared with just now under the illumination of moonlight, was completely different: at the end of his brow was a fine wound, from which beads of blood were seeping outward. His glasses had long since gone who knows where. Slightly panting, he appeared somewhat bedraggled.

Only those eyes remained clear and calm.

Yan Luqing herself certainly could not be any better off.

Suddenly she felt that the moment the two of them faced each other like this, recalling Gu Ci’s act of grabbing hold of her at the last moment, there instantly rose within her a sense of sharing hardship and surviving disaster together.

What was he about to say now? He must be about to ask “Are you alright?” or “Where are you hurt?” Yan Luqing had already prepared to answer “I’m fine,” then sincerely say to him, “Thank you.”

Yet what she saw was Gu Ci opening his mouth, his expression carrying even a faint trace of doubt, as he said gently:

“Yan Luqing, why are you so heavy?”

“…………”

The night of October, the environment at the foot of the mountain was dark and cold. Gu Ci said he had roughly felt around, the place they had crashed into was precisely an ancient tree with a diameter of no less than seven or eight meters.

Yan Luqing’s mind was full of only that sentence Gu Ci had just said.

What did he mean, why was she so heavy?!

Her body was already this thin, was it not light as a swallow yet? How could he call her heavy?!

Yan Luqing was stifled with grievance: “Just now it really wasn’t because I’m heavy, it was because—”

She wanted to say “because my foot was tripped by something else,” but discovered that her throat seemed sealed, unable to speak it no matter how.

Yan Luqing tried again: “It was because—”

Again it stuck.

Before she had time to react why this was, Gu Ci was already bracing himself with one hand against a nearby object, slowly standing up.

From the sound, he seemed to smile a little before saying, “Got it, no need to explain.” Then he put his hand out before Yan Luqing and—his voice as usual—said, “Lend me the flashlight.”

Yan Luqing looked at the hand in front of her.

That hand was usually very fair and pretty; the bones and joints were perfectly proportioned. Even now, smeared with dirt and small scratches, it still showed signs of having been pampered.

She looked at the person in front of her again.

When she’d called him a moment ago and he hadn’t responded, Yan Luqing’s mind had gone blank—but now that he was awake, this calm manner was exactly what she had expected.

He opened his eyes and joked with her immediately; his tone held not a trace of anxiety, as if they had not tumbled into this deserted place but merely lost the main group for a while.

Yan Luqing unexpectedly felt reassured. She no longer fussed over whether she was heavy and handed the flashlight to him directly.

After Gu Ci shone the light, she realized the side they’d struck was a hard tree trunk, and that the beam could penetrate into the tree’s interior.

Gu Ci rested in place for a moment, then moved around to the other side.

Yan Luqing remained in her previous position, lying on the ground and raising her voice to call him: “Gu Ci, what are you going to see?”

“There’s a very large hollow on the other side, you can go in.” He answered while returning to her side. “Is your phone still with you?”

Yan Luqing nodded. “In the bag.”

“Go in and rest first, then notify the others; I’ll call the police.” he said.

The arrangement was fine… but—

“Um, Gu Ci.” Yan Luqing looked up at him a little embarrassed. “I think I injured my foot when we rolled down…”

Gu Ci’s steps paused slightly. “I know.”

Yan Luqing was stunned. “How do you know?”

Gu Ci crouched down in front of her; the flashlight’s narrow beam outlined his gently arched brows and eyes. “If you could walk, why would you crawl?”

“…………”

Good grief.

You have a mouth.

You! Have! A! Mouth!!!

Yan Luqing was so rebutted she felt like exploding, and yet she still couldn’t move—still stuck in this humiliating crawling position.

Just as she felt she might puff herself into a pufferfish from anger, Gu Ci spoke again.

“But you need to wait a moment.”

As he spoke, he suddenly leaned against the tree trunk and sat down, right in front of Yan Luqing, less than half a meter away.

Her voice still carried the sting of being scolded: “Wait for what!”

Gu Ci placed the flashlight on the ground, his expression indifferent: “Wait for me to put my arm back into place.”

“?” Yan Luqing thought she must have misheard. “What did you say?”

“My left hand is dislocated,” Gu Ci said calmly, as if saying “I am handsome,” explaining to Yan Luqing, “So wait for me to put my arm back into place, then I can help you.”

“???”

He was going to put it back into place himself?

“Are you still human?”

Yan Luqing was so shocked she forgot what she’d just been angry about. Maintaining her posture of lying on the ground, her eyes widened more and more. She reached out, wanting to stop his action: “Don’t… Gu Ci, don’t be rash. Like this—let’s call the police first, then when the police uncles arrive, we’ll go to the hospital and let the doctors—”

Before she could finish speaking, Gu Ci lowered his head slightly, his eyelashes casting shadows, his gaze fixed on his left elbow. What had looked like a leisurely posture shifted: his right hand suddenly moved to his left elbow and, very quickly, jerked upward to the left—

Yan Luqing heard a sound.

She couldn’t describe whether that sound was “ka-cha” or “ge-beng,” or neither—

In short, it was a sound that seemed extremely contradictory, both muffled and crisp, a sound that made one feel both sour and chilled with pain.

Yet this man’s expression did not change in the slightest, as if he felt no pain at all.

He even lifted his eyes afterwards and gave her a smile.