2 – Meeting Him Again
When Jiang Wanning woke up again, she was in a hospital. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw a face looming close to hers, and she was so startled she thought she’d seen a ghost.
Seeing that Jiang Wanning was awake, Jiang Wanrou frowned slightly, a flicker of displeasure crossing her face, but she quickly composed herself and immediately called for Jiang Sunan.
Following Jiang Sunan into the room came the doctor as well.
“Ningning, you’re finally awake. How are you feeling? Does anything hurt? Do you feel unwell anywhere?”
Jiang Sunan asked with a face full of concern.
Jiang Wanning said nothing. The young, handsome doctor in a white coat came over to examine her. Seeing her dazed expression, he asked her to blink, but Jiang Wanning didn’t follow his instructions.
“Miss Jiang, is your throat bothering you?”
Jiang Wanning stayed silent.
“Then, Miss Jiang, can you hear me?”
Before Jiang Wanning could speak, Jiang Wanrou’s sweet voice chimed in, telling the doctor, ”Dr. Cheng, please don’t mind her. That’s just how my sister is—she doesn’t like talking to strangers. She just woke up, so her mind might still be fuzzy…”
Before she could finish, an apple came flying at her, striking her shoulder with a painful thud. The apple bounced off, rolled across the floor, and disappeared under the bed.
Jiang Wanrou frowned, forgetting all pretense of politeness, and snapped angrily, “Jiang Wanning, what is wrong with you?!”
“Throwing it at you. Can’t you tell?”
Jiang Wanning had somehow pushed herself up on her arms into a sitting position. Her waist-length seaweed-like hair hung messily over her shoulders and down her back. Her face was pale, but even without makeup, it was strikingly beautiful.
Some people are simply born blessed by the heavens.
Jiang Wanning, for instance.
Her beauty was something Jiang Wanrou, two years her junior, could never achieve even with the best beauty filters. And so, between the two sisters, one was cold and aloof, and the other was good at pretending.
Jiang Wanning’s casual remark dripped with arrogance and disdain. Jiang Wanrou stomped her foot in fury and turned to Jiang Sunan with a wronged expression. “Dad! Look at her!”
Jiang Sunan’s face hardened. “That’s enough. Your sister just woke up—stop bothering her! Ningning, let me ask you: why on earth were you driving somewhere so remote at night? Do you know how dangerous that was? There was a torrential downpour yesterday. If heaven hadn’t spared your life, you’d be…”
He couldn’t go on, and he didn’t have the heart to scold her further. Finally, Jiang Sunan sighed. “You were far too reckless!”
“I wasn’t being reckless. I went to gather raw materials. I just never expected an accident…” At this, Jiang Wanning carefully recalled what had happened. Her car had been driving along just fine, but near the abandoned factory, it had accidentally slipped into a collapsed ditch.
She tried for a long time to no avail, then went to make a call, only to find her phone had no signal. Not far away was an abandoned bridge arch, with a few scattered makeshift wooden tents nearby, all long abandoned.
There were no residential areas around, and no people at all.
Jiang Wanning had been thirsty. She twisted open a bottle of mineral water from her seat and gulped down more than half of it. After that, she lost consciousness and knew nothing more.
Thinking back on it now—if she put it that way, then something must have been wrong with that bottle of water. At the thought of it, Jiang Wanning’s eyes dimmed. There was probably no evidence left to find.
The water in the bottle had long since spilled away.
Who, then, was trying to harm her?
Jiang Wanning pressed her lips together, and suddenly something occurred to her. She jerked her head up and asked, “Who saved me? Where is that person?”
She still clearly remembered that sharply chiseled, handsome face with its deep-set features. Especially that man’s eyes—beautiful, captivating, like a starry sky on a summer night.
Jiang Sunan replied, “A young man. According to the nurse, he dropped you at the hospital and left. He didn’t give a name or leave a phone number—just said that since he happened to come across it, he couldn’t stand by and watch someone die. Oh, and he said he’s a firefighter.”
A firefighter?
So the man was a firefighter. Then did saving her not even count as an act of heroism?
Jiang Wanning was silent for a moment. She shot Jiang Wanrou a glance, signaling her to get out—not to be an eyesore if there was nothing she needed. Before Jiang Wanrou could throw a fit, Du Shiqin, without a word, pulled the hot-headed girl out of the hospital room.
Jiang Sunan asked, “Ningning, you sent Shiqin and Wanrou away—is there something you want to tell me?”
Jiang Wanning’s eyes were calm and steady. She didn’t hide anything and said plainly, “Dad, the rainstorm was an accident, and falling into that pit was an accident. But being trapped in the car—fainting in the car, my whole body weak and powerless—that was no accident.”
She lifted her gaze. “Someone wanted me dead. They didn’t want me alive. Preferably, they wanted me to die silently, in what looked like an accident.”
Jiang Sunan’s face filled with shock.
That afternoon, since there was nothing seriously wrong with Jiang Wanning and she only needed rest, she was discharged from the hospital.
Downstairs, before she even reached the entrance, she heard the siren of a fire truck approaching from a distance. Jiang Wanning didn’t pay it much mind at first and was about to head home.
If firefighters came with sirens blaring, it was either someone about to jump off a building or a fire somewhere.
Jiang Wanning’s head felt slightly heavy—she had a bit of a cold. To prevent a fever, she had already taken antiviral medication and medicine for a cold caused by wind-chill.
She patted her forehead and walked expressionlessly toward the hospital lobby exit.
Just as she stepped outside, someone came rushing toward her. As the person sprinted past like the wind, nearly brushing shoulders with her, a man beside Jiang Wanning slammed into her hard. Caught off guard, her balance shattered, and she pitched forward toward the glass door.
Jiang Wanning’s eyelids twitched. This is it!
She was completely unprepared, nothing to grab onto, and had already braced herself for a nasty, painful fall.
Either a big bump on her head, or sprawled on the ground in an utterly humiliating posture. But no matter which, she never expected to fall into a man’s broad chest instead.
Black clothing, with fluorescent stripes.
A firefighter’s uniform?
The next second, Jiang Wanning looked up.
Sure enough, she saw that face—the one from that night, illuminated by flashlight, perfectly overlapping with the sharply chiseled face before her now. Exactly the same man.
It was him?
What kind of fate was this?
He had saved her and left nothing behind, and just as she was planning to find some way to track this man down, he had appeared out of thin air right in front of her.
Jiang Wanning wanted to ask his name and get his contact number. But just as she opened her mouth, she saw Fu Yan give her one deep look before unceremoniously pushing her away.
Fu Yan said coldly, “Watch where you’re walking!”
With that, he turned and sprinted off.
Jiang Wanning froze for a moment, then hurried after him. After a few steps, she suddenly stopped, turned, and left the lobby. She didn’t go home, but walked straight toward where the fire truck was parked.
Everyone was busy; hospital security was urging onlookers to leave. Jiang Wanning leaned against the fire truck and looked up at a tall building. Sure enough—someone had decided they wanted to jump.
The floor was too high and too far away—she couldn’t see clearly.
She only heard the hurried footsteps of several firefighters, and someone speaking rapidly: “Where’s Captain Fu?”
Another replied: “He’s already gone up. The captain is the best at psychological counseling—we’ll handle the rest.”
Captain Fu?
Jiang Wanning brushed the hair blowing against her cheek aside and thought, so that man’s surname is Fu?
Hah, what a heartless jerk, really.
He’d kissed her and stolen her first kiss—and after kissing her, he just walked off without leaving a phone number, without even leaving his name?