Make Her Heart Flutter - Chapter 56

Chi Shuang smiled. “You’re here.”

Though she had witnessed many filthy, unbearable aspects of this world, she was still moved by all the subtle, unintentional gentleness and kindness.

Having journeyed halfway through life, she returned with the heart of a youth.

The mountain path was rugged, and Jiang Qi had been consciously or unconsciously protecting Chi Shuang all along. There were no camera crews today, everyone had gone to search for the children.

Thus, the two didn’t bother hiding much. On muddy or difficult stretches, Jiang Qi held Chi Shuang’s hand.

Halfway up the mountain, Jiang Qi and Chi Shuang spotted an unexpected figure.

A small silhouette stood under a large umbrella, wearing ill-fitting little rain boots.

“Lili?” Chi Shuang exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Lili grew visibly excited upon seeing Chi Shuang and Jiang Qi. “Teacher Chi, Teacher Jiang. I… I came to look for Lu Mingxuan.”

Lu Mingxuan was the missing boy.

“You should head back. You’re too young, let us handle the search,” Jiang Qi said with a slight frown.

The little girl pressed her lips together, looking a bit frightened as she nodded, thinking Teacher Jiang was angry with her.

Noticing this, Chi Shuang shot Jiang Qi a glare, then crouched down to smooth Lili’s damp bangs. “What Teacher Jiang means is that it’s too dangerous for you to be alone on the mountain.”

Lili nodded. “I know… Teacher Jiang is worried about me. But Lu Mingxuan is my deskmate, my best friend at school. So… I wanted to help too.”

Hearing the tremor in her voice, Chi Shuang felt a pang of sadness and gently stroked her hair. “Go home first. Teacher Jiang and I will search together. You’re still too little.”

Watching Chi Shuang comfort the child so tenderly, Jiang Qi’s lips unconsciously curved into a soft smile.

Lili pressed her lips again, glanced at Jiang Qi, and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Then, Teacher Chi, Teacher Jiang, I’ll go home now. If you find him, could you let me know?”

“Go ahead, we’ll tell you,” Chi Shuang said gently, seeing Lili off. When she turned back, she found Jiang Qi watching her, her expression full of tenderness.

“What is it?” Chi Shuang raised an eyebrow.

Jiang Qi shook her head and cleared her throat lightly. “Is Lu Mingxuan from the kindergarten too? Why didn’t we see him last time?”

Chi Shuang stood up, thinking for a moment. “Probably his parents didn’t bring him. Not all the students were present that day.”

Jiang Qi nodded, that seemed to be the case.

Unconsciously, they had reached the mountainside. The path gradually narrowed, forcing them to proceed single file. The rain began to fall harder.

Summer in Jiangcheng was naturally rainy, with showers arriving unpredictably. What had been a light drizzle suddenly turned into a downpour. Jiang Qi glanced at the dark clouds overhead and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

The path ahead had ended. The areas they had just passed were the usual routes, likely already searched by the police.

If they wanted to find the child, they would have to venture into less-traveled areas.

“Shall we go?” Chi Shuang turned to ask Jiang Qi. She wasn’t sure whether they should continue, while there were no large predators on the mountain, the path was treacherous, and the summer foliage had grown wildly, likely to tear their umbrellas or scratch their skin.

Jiang Qi looked at the path ahead and shook her head. “Let’s go back. If we slip or get hurt, they’ll have to split their attention to rescue us.”

Chi Shuang also agreed and, looking at another path nearby, said, “Let’s take this way back. Maybe we’ll find some clues.”

Jiang Qi nodded: “Alright.”

Descending along the other path, this route was slightly more challenging than the one they had taken earlier, likely because it hadn’t been used in a long time, with wild grass growing everywhere.

“Be careful.” Jiang Qi grabbed Chi Shuang’s hand, their fingers interlacing.

Chi Shuang looked at their joined hands, her lips pressed together as a blush crept onto her cheeks. Even though they had already done much more intimate things, why did such a simple touch still make her heart flutter and her face flush?

But it was just that strange, every little thing she did with Jiang Qi seemed to make her heart race uncontrollably.

As they made their way down the mountain, the two kept looking around, afraid of missing even the slightest clue.

“Wait.” Chi Shuang suddenly tightened her grip on Jiang Qi’s hand, pulling her to a stop. “Did you hear something?”

Jiang Qi fell silent, tilting her head to listen carefully. The sound of the wind, the rain falling on leaves and their umbrella, and a faint… child’s crying.

“Over here!” Chi Shuang closed her umbrella and headed toward the nearby bushes.

The gaps between the bushes were narrow, so Chi Shuang put away her umbrella. The old-fashioned umbrella doubled as a walking stick to clear the path ahead, while Jiang Qi naturally took on the role of holding the umbrella for Chi Shuang.

The closer they got, the clearer the child’s crying became.

As they walked further, Chi Shuang frowned. They had reached a steep cliff, about ten stories high, and the child’s cries were coming from below.

“It’s down there!” Chi Shuang called out to Jiang Qi.

But with such a high cliff, could the crying from below really be heard from above?

Jiang Qi surveyed the terrain and, ignoring the rainwater on the ground, lay down on her stomach. She propped herself up with her hands on the edge of the cliff, leaning halfway over.

Chi Shuang was startled and quickly grabbed her.

“Hold on, hold me tight.” Using Chi Shuang’s support, Jiang Qi leaned out a little further.

Chi Shuang held her breath, tightly clutching one of Jiang Qi’s legs.

Only when Jiang Qi pulled herself back did Chi Shuang let out a sigh of relief, scolding her, “Why take such a risk!”

Jiang Qi smiled and poked the faint dimple that appeared on Chi Shuang’s cheek as she spoke. “Just as I thought, there’s a ledge below with a naturally formed cave inside.”

“Is Lu Mingxuan in there?” Chi Shuang asked.

Jiang Qi wiped the rain from her face. “I didn’t see him, but the sound is coming from inside. I’ll go down first to check.”

Chi Shuang leaned over to gauge the height of the ledge, about two to three meters, almost the height of a single story.

“It’s dangerous, and the path is slippery from the rain.” Chi Shuang frowned, not wanting to put Jiang Qi in harm’s way.

“But we can’t just leave him down there alone, can we? I’ll go first. If he’s really there, you can go call for help,” Jiang Qi insisted.

It was true, a four- or five-year-old child wouldn’t last long after two days and a night in such conditions.

“Then be careful.” Chi Shuang squeezed Jiang Qi’s hand, reluctant to let her go.

Jiang Qi nodded. “Don’t worry.”

She sat on the edge of the cliff, lowered her legs, and slowly slid down, using her hands to support herself.

Theoretically, this method made it less likely she would overshoot and fall straight to the bottom.

Safely landing, Jiang Qi gave an OK sign to Chi Shuang, who was watching anxiously from above.

Due to the rainy day, the cave was quite dark. Jiang Qi took out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and scanned the area, it was still overgrown with weeds, but the grass on the left side was slightly flattened.

The child’s intermittent crying had stopped by the time she descended, but perhaps sensing the light, the sound emerged once more from the grass.

“Lu Mingxuan?” Jiang Qi called out tentatively.

A faint sound suddenly came from the cave. Jiang Qi hurried closer and found a drenched little boy lying in the waist-high grass.

“Lu Mingxuan?” she called again, helping him up and leaning him against the stone wall. Her cool fingers brushed against his arm, and she felt a wave of intense heat.

Lu Mingxuan’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t respond. Jiang Qi frowned, this wasn’t good. He had a fever.

She stood up and walked out of the cave to the platform. “Sweetie, the child is inside. Call the director and tell them to come quickly. Also, he has a fever, toss me your water bottle from your bag.”

Upon hearing this, Chi Shuang quickly threw down her backpack. “I’ll go make the call. The signal here is bad; I’ll find a better spot.”

Jiang Qi nodded, wiping the rain from her face, and carried the wet backpack back inside.

She reached out to feel Lu Mingxuan’s forehead, it was burning hot. Clenching her fist, she trembled slightly.

After giving him a little water, she dampened a spare jacket from the backpack with rainwater and placed it on his forehead to cool him down.

Once she finished, she remembered that the child hadn’t eaten for days.

Rummaging through the backpack, she found only a few individually wrapped cookies. It seemed… you shouldn’t eat cookies when you have a fever, right? But he must be very hungry.

Jiang Qi found herself in a dilemma. Remembering that Chi Shuang had gone elsewhere to find a signal, she could only sigh in frustration.

“Lu Mingxuan?” she called softly, gently shaking the little boy.

She really wasn’t good at taking care of children. In just a short while, she was already scratching her head, unsure of what to do.

Fortunately, Chi Shuang returned quickly after making the call. She looked down at the platform below. “How is Lu Mingxuan? The police will be here in about fifteen minutes.”

“He hasn’t eaten for a long time, but I’m not sure if he can eat cookies while he has a fever. There are only cookies in the bag,” Jiang Qi sighed.

“Is he conscious? If not, don’t let him eat for now. Let him rest. Isn’t there a jacket in the bag? Change him out of his wet clothes and wrap him in the dry jacket,” Chi Shuang suggested.

Jiang Qi felt a bit guilty but was mostly anxious. “I already used a wet compress on his forehead!”

Chi Shuang: “???”

She couldn’t help but feel exasperated. “Silly, if you put the jacket on him, you can use the wet clothes you took off for the compress, right?”

Oh! Jiang Qi finally realized, that made sense!

“Sorry,” Jiang Qi apologized.

Chi Shuang couldn’t bear to hear her sound so distressed. “Forget it, they’ll be here soon. If he wakes up, you can break off a small piece of cookie for him to eat, but not too much.”

Jiang Qi nodded, then remembered Chi Shuang couldn’t see her and replied loudly, “Okay!”

However, in the next ten or so minutes, Lu Mingxuan showed no signs of waking up. Perhaps he had relaxed a bit after seeing someone and had simply fallen asleep.

The police and villagers arrived a bit earlier than expected, a large group surging forward in a mighty procession, followed by a couple weeping as if their hearts would break, likely Lu Mingxuan’s parents.

After about ten minutes of commotion, Jiang Qi and Lu Mingxuan were finally brought up.

The parents clung to their child, nearly kneeling to kowtow in gratitude to Jiang Qi and Chi Shuang. It took several people to stop them. After repeated and profuse thanks, they hurriedly carried their child down the mountain to the hospital.

A police officer asked Jiang Qi with concern, “Young comrade, should you go to the hospital to treat the scrapes on your arm?”

Chi Shuang shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary.”