Winter Returns

Chapter 142 Falling from the Rooftop
A figure fell from the rooftop.

then.

Disappear.

I can't hear anything.

"..."

Zhang Shutong subconsciously stood up and silently opened his mouth.

Everything happened so fast, without warning, that the other person's body was already swallowed up by the surrounding buildings that looked like tofu blocks.

fleeting.

There wasn't even a muffled thud, because it was too far away.

On the empty rooftop, the sunlight was dazzling, and a sudden, bone-chilling coldness rose up his back.

who is it?

Why on the roof of the staff dormitory?

Zhang Shutong's pupils contracted again. He had been to Lao Song's room, which was at the very end of the corridor. If he wasn't mistaken, the figure was standing on the edge of the roof just moments before jumping down, with Lao Song's room right beneath his feet!
The memory etched into his muscles prompted him to take out his phone. Zhang Shutong quickly found Lao Song's number, but a second later, he gritted his teeth and exited the page.

It was still unclear who the falling figure was; he had only vaguely prepared for the worst. But whoever it was, they had already jumped from the roof. Therefore, the best course of action wasn't to confirm the person's identity, but rather—

Call 120 immediately!

He frowned as he waited for the operator to connect the call, trying to get a better view by standing on tiptoe, but it was all in vain. The houses blocked his view of the ground, and it was impossible to get a clearer view by simply standing on tiptoe.

Lu Qinglian was also frowning. She stared intently in the direction of the dormitory building, without saying a word.

The call was connected very quickly:
"Someone jumped to their death from the staff dormitory of Yingcai Middle School!"

Zhang Shutong spoke succinctly, verified the location and time with the other party, and after confirming that everything was correct, he immediately hung up the phone and dialed Lao Song's number.

Answer quickly, answer quickly...

Zhang Shutong even began to pray silently. His mind started to race with uncontrollable agitation. What was going on? Why would someone suddenly run there and jump off a building? Was someone suicidal? Had there been any cases like this before? And who could it be? A faculty member or Old Song?

Why can't I get through on the phone?!

But things didn't go as planned.

Song Nanshan's phone was constantly busy.

But shouldn't the other party be hospitalized outside the island?

Zhang Shutong cursed under his breath, while Lu Qinglian, standing to the side, had already averted her gaze. Without a word, she had already assessed the current situation:
"Walk."

The girl uttered a single word.

The two ran off the rooftop at the same time.

Zhang Shutong followed closely behind Lu Qinglian. He was not as fast as Lu Qinglian, but perhaps because Lu Qinglian's foot injury had not yet healed, her speed was also not very fast.

During lunch break, two quick footsteps swept across the corridor, breaking its tranquility.

Occasionally, students would tiptoe out and be surprised to brush past the two of them.

They went down from the fourth floor to the first floor, then rushed out of the teaching building one after the other, and then to the bicycle shed:
"Hold on."

Zhang Shutong, panting, said that it was already a struggle for him to keep up until now:

"Wait for me to push the car out."

He pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket. His bicycle had been parked at school ever since he rode it there on Thursday, and he hadn't looked after it during his hospital stay, which added up to almost a week. The bicycle had a quick-release tail box on the back, which he bought together with the tail box for Qingyi's motorcycle.

He had previously joked that having a trunk on the back seat would prevent him from carrying girls, but now he just finds it a nuisance, and Zhang Shutong simply threw the trunk on the ground:

"boarding."

He said something to Lu Qinglian, and was about to get on the bike, but then paused.

Zhang Shutong looked down at his left hand, which was slinged across his chest, and realized that he was now injured and no longer the person who could just hop on his bike and go. He couldn't ride a bike at all, let alone carry anyone.

There are no taxis on the island, and it would take seven or eight minutes to run from the school to the dormitory. By the time they arrived, the person might have already been taken away by an ambulance. So, should they go directly to the hospital? But the hospital is even farther from the school, taking at least twenty minutes.

In the instant Zhang Shutong hesitated, a flash of blue had already passed before his eyes. Lu Qinglian jumped into the car, the hem of her long robe fluttering in the wind.

"You can ride a bike?" Zhang Shutong was taken aback.

Lu Qinglian never wasted words. She stepped on the pedals and simply glanced back at him:
"boarding."

Zhang Shutong sat on the back of his bicycle for the first time.

Lu Qinglian pulled her along.

He grabbed the hem of the girl's robe with one hand, not yet realizing what was going on, or rather, feeling a little uncomfortable, because having his hand hanging in front of his chest was really inconvenient, making it impossible for him to sit upright.

So Zhang Shutong was now sitting sideways on the back of the bicycle, holding onto Lu Qinglian's clothes. Suddenly, she felt like the little girl being pulled along. Even if she couldn't see what she looked like, she could imagine how awkward she was.

But he wasn't in the mood to care about that. Zhang Shutong belatedly realized that today's events were too coincidental; he had just decided to go to the dormitory to get his notes when this happened.

Moreover, he hadn't planned to go up to the rooftop. If it weren't for that misunderstanding, he probably would have just stayed in the classroom to rest. Lu Qinglian usually eats earlier than this, and if she didn't lack the key to the rooftop, and if she hadn't happened to see him walking this way, she wouldn't have followed him.

In any case, the result was that the two of them went up to the rooftop at just the right time and witnessed a figure falling from the top floor.

He shared these guesses with Lu Qinglian, who nodded, then frowned slightly:
"Don't shake around."

Zhang Shutong didn't ask her where she learned to ride a bike:

"I'm having trouble maintaining my balance right now, so please be careful, but it's best to ride fast..."

“Then take it easy.” Lu Qinglian interrupted him, ordering, “Zhang Shutong, I’m not that pretentious.”

Zhang Shutong instinctively put his arm around her waist.

The car then sped up.

Everything before him was rushing past, his body swaying back and forth with the bike. He didn't know why, but he felt like he was riding a motorcycle. It was just a flimsy bicycle, yet beneath her it felt incredibly agile, as if it were an extension of her body. Lu Qinglian rode through several alleyways, nearly hitting open windows a few times, but only narrowly escaped unharmed. Zhang Shutong stared at the window corners that had just grazed his nose, barely managing to catch his breath—

"arrive."

Lu Qinglian gripped the brakes.

It turned out they had already ridden up to the back wall of the dormitory building.

Looking up, you can see the mottled walls; the once white paint has turned grayish-black and is covered with cracks. This is an old-style tenement building, not located on the street, suggesting that the area was a wasteland when it was built.

The surrounding area was overgrown with weeds, almost knee-deep. Not far away lay a sofa that was reduced to a skeleton, and stacks of old tires. The cold wind blew against them, producing a sharp whistling sound.

In the desolation, Zhang Shutong tried hard to make out the scene he saw on the rooftop, searching for the spot where the figure had fallen.

Actually, you don't need your eyes at all; your ears are enough.

The sound of an ambulance siren came from the other end of the building; hospital staff had arrived before them.

Zhang Shutong's heart tightened. He jumped out of the car, went around the building, and ran quickly forward.

You can hear the conversations of medical staff:

"Who called the ambulance? Can you contact them?"

"He seems to be a student. Let me try calling him again..."

Zhang Shutong didn't know if jumping from a two-story building would be fatal. Regardless of the probability, he remembered that the person had their arms outstretched and fell backward, which would have resulted in a direct hit to the back of the head, and even if the building wasn't high, it would still be fatal.

Thinking of this, he held his breath. Although he had not witnessed it with his own eyes, he had prepared himself mentally. First, he could foresee the bloody scene that was about to unfold, and second, he was afraid of seeing a familiar face.

"why you?"

When two medical staff came into view, one of them looked up and gave him a surprised look.

Zhang Shutong was also taken aback. It turned out that the other party was the male nurse surnamed Li, and the two of them had worked together to take Lao Song to the hospital.

“I called 120,” he explained quickly, glancing at the ambulance, its back door wide open. “How is the person now?”

As Zhang Shutong was about to get into the ambulance, she was stopped by another person, presumably the driver. The driver angrily said:

"What kind of trouble are you causing, student?"

"Don't rush, I know this kid. Let me ask him first. He shouldn't have gone to the wrong place..." Xiao Li stopped him.

The words whispered in his ear like a gust of wind, and Zhang Shutong stood frozen in place, a chill instantly enveloping his entire body.

...where are the people?
What happened to the person who jumped from the building?
There were no injured people as expected in front of the dormitory building.

So he subconsciously thought that Xiao Li had already lifted the injured person into the car and was about to drive to the hospital, but a few seconds earlier he had already seen the scene inside the ambulance.

It was spotless.

There was only one empty stretcher bed.

Where have people gone?

Why did the figure who jumped backward from the second floor disappear?

Suddenly, Zhang Shutong felt a tightness in his chest. He took a few deep breaths, almost thinking the group had come to the wrong place. Just as he was about to step back to take a closer look, Xiao Li had already turned his head:
"You don't need to look anymore. We've already searched the entire building, but we haven't found anything."

As he spoke, the other person took off his mask and frowned:
"I don't doubt that you're causing trouble or lying, but when you called 120, you said you saw someone jump off the roof of the school building, right? Are you sure you didn't see wrong? It was this building, and not some surrounding building?"

As he spoke, Xiao Li began to mutter to himself:

"But that's not right either. If someone really jumped off a building nearby, Mr. Sun should have already received a call..."

"Alright, stop arguing with these kids. I think it's just a prank by these little brats!"

The driver, known as Master Sun, was a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a scar on his eyebrow. When he raised his eyebrow, the scar seemed to twitch.

"You call ambulances like this? Don't you know that's a waste of social resources? And you make it up like it's real, like jumping off with your face upturned. Well, let me ask you, where did that person go?"

Zhang Shutong was still pondering what Xiao Li had said. Could it be that he had really misread the location?

The person who jumped from the building certainly exists, but it remains to be seen which building he jumped from.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to recall more features.

No, rather, the very existence of this building is its most distinctive feature.

Even though there are two-story buildings nearby, this type of tenement building in the style of the last century is unique.

Besides, Lu Qinglian saw it too.

Even if that person didn't die from the fall, they should at least be seriously injured. They couldn't just fall down, dust themselves off, and walk away. Zhang Shutong didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or frown. The good news was that the person definitely wasn't Lao Song, but the bad news was, how did the other person just disappear?

Zhang Shutong glanced at the front wall of the dormitory building again; the driver seemed genuinely angry.
"Can't you hear me? Do you think you can get away with making false police reports or fake 120 calls? What class are you in? I'm going to call your teacher and ask how they teach you!" the other person cursed.

Xiao Li persuaded the other person to leave, then came over and whispered:
"Do you have enough money? If not, you'd better call your parents. Well, how should I put it, Mr. Sun's car doesn't belong to our hospital; it's contracted by a company in the county. It's not that legitimate. Don't be fooled by his loud voice; he mainly wants to get money for you..."

Sure enough, before Xiao Li could finish speaking, the driver bypassed him, walked straight to Zhang Shutong, and was about to grab his wrist.
"The total cost for this trip is eighty!"

Zhang Shutong guessed what was going on; it might be a bit of a bluff. However, since ambulances have to pay for each call, there was nothing to complain about.

He guessed that the other party was afraid that he would skip paying the fare because he was a student. Zhang Shutong just wanted to get rid of the other party. He reached into his pocket and found that he only had fifty yuan in loose change.

"Not a penny less, or you'd better call your parents right now!" the driver raised his voice upon seeing this.

At this moment, Lu Qinglian came around from behind the building and looked at the change in his hand:

"not enough?"

"What are you doing, you little brat...?"

"Please don't make a sound."

Her gaze was cold and devoid of any emotion, which startled the other person for a moment, but they didn't step forward again. Zhang Shutong knew that Lu Qinglian's serious demeanor was actually quite frightening, like the woman he saw in the black and white photo album eight years later. After speaking, she took a banknote from the inner pocket of her green robe and placed it in Zhang Shutong's hand:
"Count me in, is this enough?"

That was a fifty-dollar bill.

Zhang Shutong had no idea where she got so much money.

He broke the change, added it up, and handed it to the driver. The island's ambulance service had indeed run 81 times, so it wasn't exactly extortion. The driver didn't say anything more, just spat and counted it, then called Xiao Li back to the car.

The ambulance started up, and the surroundings quickly quieted down, leaving only the two of them on the desolate field.

Zhang Shutong glanced at his phone.

He could almost hear the bell ringing to signal the end of lunch break, indicating that it was time for the first class of the afternoon.

and so……

(End of this chapter)