Chapter Twenty-One: The Milk Tea Shop, Part 5 (Is This World Really Getting a Little Off?)
With Zhou Rui's help, the man used his last bit of strength to drag the remaining two children back to shore.
"She's awake! Garbo's awake!"
"My glutinous rice balls are too! Thank God, thank you for your blessings."
On the shore, two women were crying and laughing, each holding their newly awakened child. Nearby, another woman slapped her son on the bottom, saying, "I told you not to go swimming, but you wouldn't listen. Now look what happened, you almost lost your life!"
The son was beaten until he was grimacing, but he didn't dare to talk back. He knew things had gotten out of hand, and he wouldn't be able to get away with it without being beaten and scolded a few times, so he endured it with a bitter face.
Just then, a woman rushed over upon hearing the commotion. She pushed through the crowd and threw herself at one of the last two children pulled from the water, crying, "Qiangqiang, what happened to you? Wake up! Wake up!!"
However, no matter how she called out, the tallest child closed his eyes forever.
Those performing CPR had given up and spontaneously stepped back, shaking their heads at the others before leaving.
It means that the child is dying, has no breath, no pulse, and cannot be saved.
"Where's the doctor? Where's the ambulance?" the woman shouted. But people around her instinctively looked away.
Zhu Lin had no choice but to step forward and say, "We've already called the police and an ambulance; they're on their way."
"Why didn't you call out sooner!" the woman roared, venting all the grief and resentment deep within her heart onto Zhu Lin.
Zhu Lin's tone turned cold. "Auntie, I stopped these children from going into the water. I told them not to swim secretly and to only go in when an adult is watching. It was your Qiangqiang who didn't listen and even told the other children to go secretly, as long as they weren't discovered. Now that something has happened, he has to bear most of the responsibility."
"Nonsense!" Qiangqiang's mother didn't believe it at all. "My son is so well-behaved, how could he not listen when you tell him not to?"
Zhu Lin, “…”
Does this mother not understand her son at all?
She didn't argue, but directly called the children who had already woken up over, saying, "You tell me."
The chubby boy was eager to speak first, saying, "Sister Zhu Lin won't let us go into the water, she wants us to play something else. Brother Qiang said that if we sneak in and don't get caught, we'll be fine. He also said that anyone who doesn't go is a coward!"
“When we got to the shore, I told him that he needed to stretch before he could start swimming, but he wouldn’t listen and even called me a sissy, like a little girl. When I told him not to swim too far, he complained that I was nagging.”
"After swimming for a while, he got a leg cramp and couldn't move in the water. The others went to rescue him, but they also got cramps. I couldn't save all five of them by myself, so I went ashore first and went back to call for help."
"You're talking nonsense! My son would never do that!" Qiangqiang's mother refused to believe it.
To everyone's surprise, the other three children chimed in, "Fatty wasn't lying. It really was Qiang who insisted on swimming. He swam the farthest and was the first to get a cramp."
"If only Brother Qiang had agreed to play something else back then..."
"If Brother Qiang had cramped up, everyone would have gotten ashore first and gone back to ask the adults for help, and things wouldn't have turned out like this."
"Are you trying to shirk responsibility and deliberately shift the blame onto Qiangqiang?" Qiangqiang's mother said emotionally. "You're all liars! You've all lied to me!"
Nearby, after more than ten minutes of CPR, another child who was rescued along with Qiangqiang also stopped breathing.
The child's mother went berserk, lunging at Qiangqiang's mother and grabbing her hair, screaming, "It's all your fault! How did you raise your child? Why did you let Qiangqiang lead them swimming? Your child is reckless, doesn't want to live, why did you drag my child into the water?!"
"It couldn't be Qiangqiang leading this, impossible! You're just deliberately shirking responsibility."
The two cried and fought, getting into a physical altercation.
Yunxin received the notification.
[The player successfully rescued a human (a chubby little boy) in instance number 117781—"Child Drowning Incident," earning a "C" rating and rewarding the player with the following attribute points: Agility +0.1, Constitution +0.1.]
The other people watched as the two women pulled each other's hair, feeling a chill run down their spines, and none of them dared to intervene.
Fortunately, the police arrived in time and separated the two immediately, thus stopping the farce.
Zhou Rui watched all this and asked in a low voice, "Will the man who saved the person be alright?"
“What could possibly happen to him?” Zhu Lin smirked. “There are so many people here, and he was the only one who went into the water to save someone. Not only did he successfully rescue his own son, but he also saved two other children. It would be a shame if the police station didn’t award him a banner of appreciation.”
"It's good that you're alright." Zhou Rui didn't say anything more.
The surviving children ran up to Yun Xin, bowed their heads, and apologized honestly, "We're sorry, sister. We shouldn't have disobeyed you and run away."
Yun Xin simply patted the chubby boy's head and told him, "Be careful who you befriend."
The chubby boy clearly didn't want to go, but because his "friends" egged him on, he reluctantly went along.
Luckily, the children were quick-witted enough to go home and ask adults for help. If they had stayed put and tried to rescue the children on their own, it would have been like the Calabash Brothers trying to save their grandfather—they would have had to send them off one by one.
The chubby boy seemed confused and didn't quite understand.
The other three looked embarrassed and lowered their heads, promising, "We won't do it again."
While the police were cleaning up the mess, Zhou Rui and Yun Xin took the time to sign the rental agreement.
Because of the drowning accident, the parents of several children got into a huge commotion, pulling and shoving at each other. By the time things calmed down, it was already quite late. Zhou Rui really didn't want to go back to his old rented apartment to spend the night, so he bought some basic necessities at the supermarket and made do for the night in his new apartment.
I took half a day off the next day to go back and pack my bags and move.
Yunxin went home first, and will come over to stay after she has packed her luggage.
Have a good night's sleep.
Since the weather turned warm, Zhou Rui hadn't been able to sleep so soundly in a long time. When he woke up the next day, he was full of energy and looked radiant, a far cry from his previous exhausted appearance.
Even something as strenuous as moving was done incredibly quickly; he finished packing everything in no time. Then he hailed a tricycle to deliver the belongings to the new rented apartment.
When he left, the landlady was quite reluctant to see him go, and even asked, "Why are you moving? Isn't it quite nice living here?"
Zhou Rui remembered that he had gotten his hands dirty while packing his luggage, and for a moment he didn't think about the water treatment plant, so he accidentally turned on the tap...
He couldn't manage a smile, and simply said, "I've found a more suitable place, so I won't trouble you any further."
With that, he fled as if he were escaping.
The landlady watched him walk away with regret.
These days, there aren't many tenants like Xiao Zhou who pay their rent on time and voluntarily. It's a real shame not to renew the lease.
In the afternoon, after a hard day's work, Zhu Lin extended an invitation—she would pay for Yun Xin and Zhou Rui to have some barbecue as a celebration of their move.
"No need to be so polite." Yun Xin often moves around and has long been too lazy to celebrate moving.
“We’re all family here, no need for pretense,” Zhou Rui said.
"Yes, yes," Zhu Lin insisted. "I took you to see a house yesterday, but it turned into you saving someone from drowning. I have to treat you to a meal to calm your nerves."
Hearing her say that, Zhou Rui couldn't refuse anymore. He looked at Yun Xin, "What do you say?"
"Since we're free anyway, let's go together," Yun Xin agreed.
"Okay!" Zhu Lin took out her money to treat them to dinner. She was actually the happiest of the three. "I've eaten at that restaurant several times. The food is top-notch. You definitely won't be disappointed."
"On a sweltering day, air conditioning, beer, and barbecue skewers—that's life!"
“Life…” Zhou Rui sighed softly.
He hadn't tried such an ordinary daily routine as having barbecue after get off work for a long time.
Life is like a mountain; sometimes it can crush a person's spine in an instant.
Compared to before, life has only changed slightly, with a few more expenses. However, the days that were once manageable have suddenly become unsustainable.
Fortunately, the problem has now been resolved.
He glanced at Zhu Lin and said with a smile, "You're finished. If I find out you're a rich woman, I'll eat you out of house and home."
"Eat, eat as much as you want!" Zhu Lin said boldly. "No one is allowed to leave the store today until they're stuffed."
Drinking soda in the summer is really a very enjoyable thing.
Especially when it's chilled, with bubbles rising to the surface, taking a sip makes you feel refreshed all over.
Yunxin took a bite of a grilled skewer and a sip of ice-cold soda, and her mood improved.
Zhu Lin drank a can of beer. She wasn't drunk, but she became bolder and dared to say anything. "Before this, I really didn't expect Yun Xin's sixth sense to be so strong. I told the children not to go swimming, but they didn't listen, and then something really happened."
“Last time I tried to stop Zhou Rui from picking up trash at the supermarket, but I couldn’t stop him and something happened. I got beaten up and came back.”
"Yunxin, how do you know everything?!"
This was the first time Zhou Rui had heard that Yun Xin had tried to stop him before he was beaten. He tried to recall, "Really?"
“Yes,” Yunxin told him, “you ran too fast. I hadn’t even finished speaking before you ran off.”
Zhou Rui gave an awkward laugh, "Then I guess I really didn't hear it, I have absolutely no recollection of it."
“I also want a sixth sense,” Zhu Lin said, resting her chin on her hand. “I want to win the lottery.”
Zhou Rui: "...You're already so rich, why would you want to win the lottery?"
Zhu Lin said fiercely, "That's not my money, it belongs to my parents. There's a difference between my parents having money and me having money myself. I hope I can have money without having to ask my parents for it."
Yunxin sighed, "I've never won the lottery, no matter how strong my sixth sense is."
"I can't win..." Zhu Lin said disappointedly.
While we were chatting, we suddenly heard the barking of dogs outside the door.
Zhu Lin looked in the direction of the sound and saw a small yellow dog that was terrified and restless, barking and making a fuss, and even trying to break free of its leash and run away.
“I used to want to have a dog,” Zhu Lin suddenly remembered, “but the puppy barked too much and was always aggressive towards me, so I didn’t dare to say I wanted to have one.”
Yun Xin winked at Zhou Rui: Is he drunk?
Zhou Rui hesitated slightly: Should I?
Yunxin blinked: What do we do now?
Zhou Rui: ...Let her speak?
It's just that the urge to confide in someone has increased, but it's not a big problem.
Unexpectedly, Zhu Lin changed the subject and started talking about something else: "Lately, I keep feeling like I'm living in a disaster movie. Children suffocating to death in strollers, dying from heatstroke and dehydration, children drowning... to the point that when I see a dog barking wildly, my first reaction is that animals sense an earthquake in advance and are therefore panicking. Is the world going wrong, or am I going crazy?"
Unable to find an answer, Zhu Lin opened another bottle of beer and took a large gulp in frustration.
(End of this chapter)
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