I Promise to Walk With You for Half of my Life’s Journey - Chapter 2

At two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was at its harshest.

The East Line trail wound deep into the dense forest. The stone path was overgrown with moss, and the air was a thick mixture of soil, decaying leaves, and wildflowers. Walking in the middle of the group with several female classmates, Cheng Sutong’s breathing gradually became labored.

The elevation, the humidity, and the prolonged walking were all adverse factors that were beginning to stack up against her.

“Cheng Sutong, your face is very pale,” her seatmate Song Qingqing whispered. “Do you need to take a break?”

“I am fine,” Cheng Sutong replied while shaking her head. Her fingers quietly pressed against her chest because her heartbeat was already unnaturally fast.

She looked up toward the front of the line. An Chuxin was leading the group with a straight back, pointing at a species of fern by the roadside to explain its properties. Her voice carried from a dozen meters away, though it was cut into fragments by the mountain wind.

“This is the Athyrium, which thrives in damp environments.”

Cheng Sutong tried hard to listen clearly, but a ringing began in her ears. The sounds of the world gradually receded, leaving only her own heavy heartbeat and labored breathing. Black spots flickered at the edges of her vision, resembling the static on an old television when it loses its signal.

She stopped walking and leaned against a thick tree trunk to close her eyes.

“Cheng Sutong?” Song Qingqing’s voice sounded distant.

“I just need to catch my breath,” she said in a weak voice.

Just then, a commotion broke out in the front of the line. A few boys were chasing each other, and as one of them backed up, he bumped into a display rack beside the boardwalk. Several replica bird specimens on the rack began to wobble.

“Watch out!” An Chuxin shouted sharply.

Cheng Sutong instinctively opened her eyes just in time to see a specimen tipping toward her. She subconsciously raised her hand to block it, but her movements were sluggish due to her dizziness.

The specimen grazed the back of her hand and crashed onto the bluestone floor with a dull thud.

Time seemed to freeze.

Everyone looked over. Cheng Sutong stood frozen in place as a burning pain radiated from the back of her hand. The edge of the specimen had sliced a thin, long gash, and beads of blood were slowly seeping out.

Footsteps approached from a distance.

An Chuxin pushed through the crowd and came to a halt in front of Cheng Sutong. She looked down at the shattered specimen and then at Cheng Sutong’s bleeding hand.

“What happened?” An Chuxin asked in a very low voice.

“I did not mean to do it,” Cheng Sutong said. She opened her mouth, but her voice was thin.

“I asked what happened,” An Chuxin repeated. “Why were you standing here, and why did you touch the exhibit?”

Each question struck like a whip.

Cheng Sutong felt the blood rush to her head, and her ears rang. Her heart hammered frantically against her ribs, and each beat brought a tearing pain. She wanted to explain that she was dizzy and that she was not the one who knocked it over, but her throat felt as if it were being constricted. She could not make a sound.

Her vision began to spin. An Chuxin’s face, the curious gazes of her classmates, and the swaying shadows of the forest trees all blurred into a mess of colors. She felt her legs go weak, and her body fell backward uncontrollably.

The world shifted into slow motion.

She saw An Chuxin’s expression change. For the first time, panic appeared on that normally severe mask.

Then, the world turned upside down.

Before her consciousness sank completely into darkness, Cheng Sutong felt a pair of arms catch her. Those arms were firm and steady. She was lifted entirely off the ground, and her cheek pressed against a cool cotton fabric.

The scent of disinfectant mixed with the clean smell of sun-dried clothes enveloped her.

In her daze, she heard An Chuxin’s voice coming from above. It felt very close yet very far away. The voice was no longer cold or harsh; instead, it was low, trembling, and urgent.

“Everyone, move back! Song Qingqing, go find the medical station staff for the reserve!”

“Cheng Sutong? Cheng Sutong! Can you hear me?”

“Where is her medicine? Where is it?”

Cheng Sutong wanted to answer, but darkness rushed in like a tide. Her last sensation was the tightening grip of that embrace. It was tight enough to press her into the other woman’s body, as if An Chuxin were trying to defy the gravity of the entire world.

An Chuxin strode through the crowd while cradling the student, who felt impossibly light in her arms.

The girl was deathly pale, and her breathing was so light that it felt as though it might stop at any moment. Yet, her fingers unconsciously gripped the fabric of An Chuxin’s shirt.

She looked like a drowning person clutching a piece of driftwood or a lost soul grasping at starlight.

An Chuxin looked down and saw the thin wound on the back of Cheng Sutong’s hand still seeping blood. The sight was so piercing that it made her heart contract sharply.

This student was too fragile. An Chuxin had known this since the health survey in the first week of school. The girl had a history of heart disease and a list of medications that was far too long for a seventeen-year-old.

This student was also very strange. Sometimes the way she looked at An Chuxin did not seem like a student looking at a teacher, but rather like someone looking at an old friend. Sometimes the sentences she scribbled in the margins of her notebooks were mature and desolate.

However, An Chuxin had never imagined that this seemingly frail body would truly collapse before her in this manner.

Even more, she had not expected that the moment this student fell, what surged in her heart would not just be a teacher’s sense of duty. It was a panicked impulse that she must not let anything happen to her.

“Teacher An, the medical staff are here!” Song Qingqing ran back while panting.

“Tell them to prepare the vehicle. We are going down the mountain to the hospital immediately,” An Chuxin said calmly. “Vice Monitor, continue the activity with the group. Assemble and take attendance before six o’clock. Call me if anything happens.”

The person in her arms moved slightly.

An Chuxin looked down and met Cheng Sutong’s eyes, which were slightly open. At that moment, her eyes were misty and out of focus, yet they fixed accurately on An Chuxin’s face.

“It hurts,” Cheng Sutong’s lips moved, and her voice was as faint as a sigh.

“Where does it hurt?” An Chuxin asked. She softened her voice instinctively.

Cheng Sutong did not answer. She only looked at An Chuxin with vacant eyes. Then, she slowly and tentatively used her uninjured hand to touch An Chuxin’s arm.

It was not a push; it was a confirmation. She was confirming that the person holding her was real.

An Chuxin’s breath hitched for a second. She tightened her arms and quickened her pace.

The reserve’s small ambulance was already waiting at the entrance. She carefully placed Cheng Sutong in the back seat and sat down beside her. The moment the door closed, the forest and the sunlight were shut out. This left only the smell of disinfectant and the low hum of the medical equipment in the cabin.

Cheng Sutong leaned against the seat with her eyes half-closed, and her breathing remained shallow.

An Chuxin remembered thinking to herself previously, “What are you afraid of? I am not going to eat you.”

Now she knew the answer. What this student feared was perhaps the world itself.

An Chuxin reached out and gently brushed away the damp strands of hair from Cheng Sutong’s forehead, which were wet with cold sweat. As her fingertips touched the skin, she felt the girl shiver.

“It is okay now,” she said softly. She was unsure if she was saying it to Cheng Sutong or to herself. “You will be fine once we get to the hospital.”

Cheng Sutong did not respond because she had seemingly drifted back into unconsciousness. However, her hand remained tightly clenched around An Chuxin’s clothes.

It was an unconscious form of dependence.

An Chuxin looked at those clenched fingers, the dried blood on the back of the girl’s hand, and the young face etched with exhaustion. A crack silently opened in her heart.

The mountain wind seeped through the gap in the car window, carrying the cold April scent of Mount Qingwu. Like two planets veering off course, they had collided in the dark universe.

Then, gravity began to take effect.

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