Song Qingchun could feel her heart being overwhelmed by something; it tasted sweet and sour with a hint of pain. Song Qingchun repeated the words Su Zhinian told her several times in her minds, and her brain that was put in some sort of stasis after being pushed off the edge of the building started to resuscitate.
The leap of faith that she saw, his hand that stretched toward her in mid-air, the tight grasp he had on her wrist as he pulled her into his embrace, how he sacrificed himself to act as her body shield before they hit the floor… All those things that she had thought were merely illusions created by her mind… were all real.
When he saw her fall from the building, he had followed her.
Song Qingchun’s lashes twitched with fear, and tears swallowed up her eyes. She stared at him like a post-trauma victim before asking, rather a bit too late, “How about you, are you alright?”
As she asked that question, she reached out to inspect his body. Her every touch was like a hellish torment for Su Zhinian. Before he answered, Song Qingchun raised her head to look at his eyes. “Su Zhinian, are you okay?”
Was he okay? Of course not. Even though the firefighters had managed to set up the safety cushions in time, a fall from 27 floors up—a height of about eighty meters—still injured him greatly, especially since he acted as human shield to protect Song Qingchun.
He could not tell precisely where the injured was because pain had completely overwhelmed all his senses. However, when facing the question by Song Qingchun, he tried his best to maintain his composure. Using practically the last bit of his strength, he breathed out two words. “It’s okay…”
It’s okay because you’re safe.
His expression was calm, so calm that Song Qingchun really thought he was fine. Right then, the emotions in her heart started to churn once more, and she whispered softly, “Why did you jump down after me?”
Just as she finished that question, her tears started to fall like a broken dam. Before waiting for him to answer, she repeated herself like a broken record, each instance of question fiercer than the one before it. “Su Zhinian, why did you jump down after me? Why did you jump down after me? Why? Why? Why?”
Song Qingchun’s questioning eventually turned into sobs.
He listened to her cry and watched her tears fall. He desperately wanted to reach out to help her wipe away her tears, but he could not move. In fact, he did not have enough energy left to even say something to comfort her. He could not even move his lips to tell her not to cry. In the end, he could only settle with looking at her gently.
Why did he jump down after her?
Was it necessary for there to be a reason? Then was this reason enough?
At the time, he did not know whether they had prepared the safety cushion or not. Even if they had, a fall of eighty meters might still have killed her.
When they were alive, he could not be with her, but in the afterlife, he would not hesitate to walk alongside her, to be her company.