A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 079 – Accident

“Your Skin Over Here Is Broken.”

However, Gao Tianyang’s words did remind Sheng Wang — he had too many friends in common with Jiang Tian, his profile picture was rather unique too. As long as someone with bad intentions looks through their messages a few more times, they could tell that something was wrong. After all, not everyone was as upright as Gao Tianyang.

What if someone else ends up chancing upon the messages in the future? What if that person does not turn themself in or make a noise, and get all tangled up in trying to figure that out instead?
He suddenly felt that the strings of relationships between people were too much in the way…if only there were none of those around him and Jiang Tian. Not a single thread tied to them, nothing to do with anyone else at all. That would be great; they could act without the slightest qualm.

*
The weather on the day of the weekly exam suddenly turned cloudy, with humidity heavily fogging the air. The grey cloud of mist floated across the river to the east of Fuzhong, twisting and winding itself around the parasol and camphor trees that were planted all over the school.
Sheng Wang did not have a good sleep last night, his eyelids keep twitching early in the morning. As he walked towards Mingli Block with Jiang Tian, they ran into a few teachers. They vaguely heard them discussing something, but the moment they noticed students coming nearer, they immediately ended the conversation furtively.

“Did you catch what Old Wu said just now?” Sheng Wang looked downstairs again once he climbed upstairs. He leaned over the railings, and saw the balding heads of Class A teachers.
“I didn’t.” Jiang Tian stopped in his steps when he got to the corner of the third floor, indicating for Sheng Wang to go to Class B.
“It’s cool, either way it has nothing to do with us.” Sheng Wang withdrew his gaze as he headed to the classroom subconsciously. He only moved two steps before he retreated back once more.

“Just remembered that there is an exam coming soon. Do I get special encouragement?” He looked at Jiang Tian, seeming like on the verge of smiling.
“Define special?” Jiang Tian had already ascended one step, he turned aside and his head moved to look at him.
Sheng Wang originally wanted to tease him, that’s all. He did not intend on anything else. When Jiang Tian asked that question, he replied off the top of his head, “Give me your hand.”
Jiang Tian took his hand out from the pocket of his long pants, and his palm faced upwards.
Sheng Wang rubbed his palm with both his palm and the back of it, saying, “Bless me with a little of your godly energy.”
Jiang Tian raised an eyebrow, but before said eyebrow went down, he saw a few people shoot up from downstairs, hollering, “NOHOLDONDON’TKEEPITYET! Shouldn’t everyone present get to have a chance at mooching off things like godly energy too?”

Gao Tianyang was at the very front, Song Sirui closely followed behind. A few boys even lunged over like hungry wolves. “Let me touch Tian-ge too!”
“……” Without any hesitation, Jiang Tian stuck his hand into his pocket once more.
Gao Tianyang found himself mooching off thin air, and relentlessly clapped Jiang Tian’s shoulder anyway. “Does it count if it’s the shoulder? I don’t care, I got some.”

“You bastard, can Tian-ge’s shoulders even be touched by the likes of you? Scram! I need to get a bit of that holiness too, I messed up real bad last time.” Song Sirui charged over.
In the blink of an eye, Jiang Tian was surrounded by that group of boys.

He pointed at the bunch of dumbasses that came clinging onto him, and asked Sheng Wang, a headache evident in his voice, “Did you get a kick out of setting me up?
Sheng Wang doubled over in laughter, sprawling over the handrail. While nobody noticed, he blew a flying kiss at him, and then attempted to flee on the spot. However, before he could even take a single step, he found himself blocked.

A huge wave of chit-chatting girls surged up from the stairs, and all of them happened to be from Class B coincidentally. Sheng Wang stuck to the side with his back against the railings, giving way to the girls. The girls glanced towards Jiang Tian’s direction, and then giggled as they greeted Sheng Wang.
Sheng Wang nodded, and politely returned the greetings. Just after he finished laughing, he felt a light pat on the top of his head.

“What?” Sheng Wang looked above him as his hand rested on the railing, “You want revenge even for that? How about you get Old Gao and the rest to touch me too.”
“No,” Jiang Tian pointed at his own right corner of his lip, saying, “your skin over here is broken.”
Gao Tianyang, Song Sirui and the rest all looked over on instinct, the passing girls also glanced at the corner of his lips too. Sheng Wang’s tongue darted out to lick that corner, and found a very small wound.

This was the result of what happened at the dorm last night. Jiang Tian was washing up by the sink, and he snuck over using the excuse of going to the toilet. While Shi Yu and Qiu Wenbin weren’t there too, he made use of the opportunity to grab Jiang Tian’s shoulders and gave him a munch. However, he was in too much hurry out of the fear of being caught, and accidentally cut his lower lip instead. He ran away with a hand covering that corner.

Jiang Tian, as the person involved himself, witnessed everything from the start to end. He knew every damn detail well, yet he chose to vaguely bring it up at this moment.
The crowd was an endless stream around them, Sheng Wang felt a wave of heat rush to his face amidst all sorts of greetings and laughter. He licked the wound, and fanned himself with the collar of his shirt. He made a tall thumbs up at Jiang Tian and conceded, “You win.”
He had now begun to realise a true principle of the world — when it comes to being secretly shameless, nobody could defeat his Ge.

Sheng Wang’s seat for the exam was the third in Class B, right next to the window. Just as he sat down, he heard the few day students behind him say, “Eh? Have you heard?”
“What is it?”
“You don’t know about what happened by the river at the east gate?”
“We literally stay in the dorms, how are we supposed to know? Spill already.” This was Shi Yu.
“Apparently they found a dead body.”
“Ah???” Someone sucked in a gust of air. “Is that for real?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen it.”
“Where did the body come from?” Someone guessed, “Don’t tell me someone from school committed suicide?”
“I don’t think our school is that bad though?”

Nearly every student had heard of some rumours: like how someone from XX school XX city jumped off the building, dived into the river, hung themselves etc etc. Usually, once they heard it, they would express some melancholic sentiments, and slowly the discussion would fizzle out until they hear of the next one. Although Fuzhong was heavy on the homework and exams, the overall mood wasn’t depressing and too down.

A certain rumour went around the students, saying that every time someone from some other school jumped off the building, Fuzhong would add another layer of soft mud beneath the major teaching blocks and residential blocks, to the point that there wasn’t a single building suitable for committing suicide in the whole of Fuzhong.

Last year, a year three student had their paper blown outside the window by the wind, and stuck their arms out to try to grab it. However, they accidentally fell straight from the fourth floor, and gave the teachers a giant scare. Apparently Big Mouth Xu’s legs even turned jelly, only when they went straight to the hospital then they found out that it was only a minor fracture.

With that, Fuzhong hired yet another wave of hourly workers on the second day, and added a layer of soft mud, ensuring to their best abilities that students would leave with not a single hair touched even if they fell down.

Nothing came to fruition out of the discussion they had — after all, the students were thoroughly occupied with school, they could barely spare any time inquiring issues like this.
However, because of that, the entire classroom fell into a sullen mood. Most people’s hearts weren’t entirely in it when they answered the questions.

Only when they went to have lunch at Wu Tong Wai then did Sheng Wang hear about the situation from Old Man Ding.
As the old man ladled more soup into Sheng Wang’s bowl, he said, “I didn’t see anything, but the Da-Mei who lives at the front saw it. Doesn’t she like to applaud all around the streets at night?”

There was a group of old ladies who were too old to properly dance anymore, so they took themself to stroll around the circumference of the school and clap their hands. They claimed that there were a lot of acupuncture points on the hand, clapping will ensure they live a life of longevity.
Old Man Ding called this behavior “applauding” every time.

“Ooooh, it is truly terrible weather to be soaking in the water. Apparently the body had already bloated up by the time they fished it out,” he continued while gesturing an exaggeratedly wide distance, “it bloated until it was this big. It didn’t even float over together.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t together?” Sheng Wang’s face was slightly green.
“The body was dismembered,” the old man said.
“It wasn’t a student committing suicide?”
“No way.” Old Man Ding said, “Your school still requires residential students to ask for a permission slip to leave the school. You’re telling me the student gotta ask for a slip from a teacher if they wanna jump? Even more impossible for day students, wouldn’t they have to come all the way from home to jump?”

The old man said, “Ain’t nothing like this happened in our area before; last night, a good half of the alley all went to look. I didn’t manage to make it before I was dragged away. What a pity, the body was all white and meaty.”

“Forget it, let’s not talk about it anymore. I made stewed chicken especially for your exams, it will nourish you.” As he talked, he settled the bowl of soup before Jiang Tian, a white and meaty drumstick swimming within.
Jiang Tian: “……”

This incident caused the two boys to both lose their appetites; but they also did not want to let the old man’s cooked meal go to waste just like that, so they drank intermittently. When they finished the soup, the old man’s giant bowl of rice was already finished. He cleared the bowl without a second word and said that he would be going to the kitchen to knead some dough — he would be making some baozis tomorrow.

Jiang Tian said, “Leave it alone first, I’ll help you knead after my exams, at night.”
The old man said, “Does it look like I don’t know how to knead?”
“Kneading takes quite a bit of strength,” Sheng Wang asked, “Grandpa, how many do you plan to make?”
The old man said, “Not much, just a bit.”
Jiang Tian exposed him in a heartbeat. “At least 200, he does it every single year. He’ll make an entire mountain at around the end of December, the start of January-ish. He couldn’t exactly stomach much either, so he’ll keep giving them out in bags.”
“200?” Sheng Wang was stunned, “Then how much dough is he gonna knead? No way, please just let us do it at night.”
“None of ya business, eat your food. You kids gotta wait for me to age by at least 20 years more before you get to help.”

The old man was not obedient at all; he walked away, mumbling under his breath. However, barely a moment passed before there was a giant clang in the kitchen — like something fell to the ground and knocked the vegetable basket over.
Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian stilled for a second before they pushed their bowls aside and rushed to the kitchen.

The old man was in the military at one point in the past, even as he got older he did give naughty kids a good smacking. He refused to admit that he was old on the premise that he was still strong with a good hearty appetite, as though he was still in the prime of his life; it would take half a lifetime at the very least before he was a hunchback.
But sometimes, all it took was an instant for someone to age—
He merely saw a couple of rice grains on the ground, so he bent over to pick it up. He stood up a little too quickly, and by the time he opened his eyes again he was already in the hospital.
He was dazed for a while. After he figured out what happened, his first reaction was “thank god I can still open my eyes”.

Old Man Ding usually enjoyed densely flavoured teas on a daily basis, his food tended to be on the saltier side. Jiang Tian ate without any complaints for a very long time…until one day Zhao Xi and co came over to eat and casually brought up how his food was rather salty, then he finally realised that it was too salty. After that, his food gradually became milder.
Oh, he did like to smoke in the past too. If he had nothing else to do, he would help himself to frying some peanuts and enjoying a couple of mouthfuls of alcohol. Although he did reduce his intake under Jiang Tian’s vigilant watch, he still craved for it once in a while.

Anyway, all sorts of direct and indirect reasons led to this accident. When he woke up, it was already nearly evening, Zhao Xi and Lin Beiting were in the hospital ward, fruits and clothing in hand. “Fortunately, it was just a slight brain hemorrhage, and fortunately, Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang were around for food too.”

The IV drip was still inserted into the old man’s hand, the smell of disinfectant and medicine invaded his nose. He watched the back of his hand, flesh loose and skin wrinkled, and abruptly realised that he really was old; it wouldn’t do him any good to not admit to that.

“Where are the kiddos?” the old man asked.
“Chased away by Lin-zi and me,” Zhao Xi said, “how goddamn stubborn, they nearly skipped the exams this afternoon. At least, it’s only the weekly exam this time — the rules aren’t as strict — plus their school gives them more leeway too. Otherwise, who would let them enter the exam venue after arriving so late.”

The old man was instantly a little frantic. “Then did they go for the exams?”
“They did, relax,” Zhao Xi hurriedly assured, “lie back down first. Even if it’s only a slight hemorrhage you still gotta stay lying down in bed, don’t rush. If you faint again they would have to come again.”

He did not want the old man to overthink, so he did not bring up other issues. The fact was, when Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang were chased back to school, the afternoon exams had already begun for a long, long time. They did take their papers, but their grades would definitely be somewhat affected.

TO BE CONTINUED.