Chapter 55: Specks of Light
Attachment is a wall between us and death.
Not being loved is the last straw that breaks a child.
With a dull thud, the shadow passed through the tree trunk under the twilight and landed on the muddy ground of the green belt. Blood soaked into the soil, and broken bones pierced into the organs. By the time people reacted, everything had quietly come to an end.
Until someone screamed.
Tong Yao’s face was pale. She looked down and could only see the dense, umbrella-like branches. Her trembling hand took out the phone, and after dialing, she said in a trembling voice, “120…”
After making the call, she knelt on the ground, leaning against the cold tiled wall, her emotions collapsing, and tears uncontrollably overflowed from her eyes.
“It’s Chen Mo…” she choked out.
Even though it was just for a moment, and she hadn’t even seen her face, a voice in her heart told her that it was Chen Mo.
“Teacher Tong…”
The young girl squatted beside her, flustered. The one who jumped was Chen Mo? To be honest, she wasn’t familiar with that girl. She didn’t even know if her name was Chen Mo or Chen Mo. They were just strangers who had met a few times and exchanged a few words. Besides sadness and shock, her heart was not greatly moved.
But for Teacher Tong… that was a student she had been with day and night for almost three months.
A student just like herself.
“…Teacher Tong, don’t cry.” She reached out to hug Teacher Tong, but the next moment, Tong Yao suddenly hugged her and said in a tearful voice in her ear, “Promise me, no matter what happens, you can’t do anything stupid.”
Ruan Xi was taken aback for a moment. “I… I know.”
Tong Yao slowly pushed her away, wiped her tears, and stood up. A crowd had already gathered downstairs. The parent-teacher conference had been over for a long time, and it was a blessing that there weren’t many people at the school now. She dialed the phone and rushed downstairs. This time, she was calling the school hospital.
“Who is it?”
“Is this the infirmary? A student jumped off a building and needs emergency rescue! Below the school building!”
Before the ambulance arrived, she couldn’t let any possible chance of survival slip away.
“…I’ll be right there.”
The response was a young female voice.
When Tong Yao arrived downstairs, she pushed through the crowd and saw the person in the mud.
It was a girl.
Her pink glasses had fallen by a bush not far away. The lenses were stained with mud and blood, but they were stubbornly not broken.
Her loose, dark school uniform showed no signs of injury or blood, concealing the cruel reality just as the school protected its students. The girl was there, as if she were asleep.
“Everyone, make way! Keep the air circulating! Don’t block the way!”
A woman shouted. Her messy white coat and mask clearly showed her identity and haste. The students were taking pictures from a distance. Some turned their heads away, unable to bear it. Some girls were sobbing uncontrollably.
The teachers’ group chat was already in chaos.
Liu Jian: “Someone said they saw Chen Mo go to the rooftop. Is it Chen Mo?! Her father’s phone is off!”
The girl on the ground’s side profile, covered in dust, was exposed. Tong Yao forced herself to look, and there was no longer any doubt about her identity.
“It’s Chen Mo.”
Liu Jian on the other end of the phone almost fainted on the spot.
The school nurse walked to Tong Yao’s side and shook her head.
“I’m not professional enough. I don’t dare to handle it.”
Tong Yao nodded lightly.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
The sound of the ambulance siren came from far to near, and finally, it drove into the campus, with a green light all the way.
Several medical staff got out of the ambulance, carrying a stretcher. The tone was cold, like Anubis’s chariot. Tong Yao felt an inexplicable chill.
One of the medical staff saw the white coat here and came over to ask, “Is there a relative of hers?”
The school nurse shook her head.
Tong Yao said in a low voice, “I’m her teacher.”
The medical staff said “okay” and added, “Both of you, get in the car. Sorry for the trouble. Please contact her immediate family.”
Tong Yao didn’t refuse. She stared at Chen Mo on the stretcher, feeling that tears were about to well up in her eyes again. She blinked, and the school nurse, seeing this, handed her a tissue.
“If you want to cry, just cry.”
She didn’t speak and followed them into the ambulance.
The school nurse also followed. “My name is Xia Yi. We’ve met. You injured your ankle last time.”
“I remember. My name is Tong Yao.”
The car drove steadily, the ambulance siren blaring all the way. Sometimes it was for salvation, sometimes it was a death knell.
The emergency rescue began in the car.
Tong Yao tried to call Chen Baihao’s phone. As Liu Jian had said, it was off.
Perhaps it was broken or out of battery. Perhaps it was because he was annoyed by the teacher’s harassment for not coming to the parent-teacher conference.
How dramatic, to be absent when his child needed him the most.
Perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to see his child’s last moments.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital. The medical staff began to work frantically. ECG, blood sugar test. They were stopped outside the emergency room’s rescue room. Everything that followed was up to fate.
“Have you contacted the family?” a nurse asked in a hurry.
Tong Yao was silent for a moment, then answered, “No.”
The nurse didn’t have time for that, turned around and left, leaving a sentence, “Hurry up and call the family to pay the ambulance and examination fees!”
She was taken aback and quickly asked, “What if there’s no family?”
But the nurse was already far away.
Xia Yi said, “Don’t worry, they’ll still save her.”
Tong Yao looked at the time. It was already 7:30. Now, she probably couldn’t do anything but wait. Finally, she walked straight in the direction the nurse had left. She came back a few minutes later. Xia Yi quickly asked, “Where did you go?”
“I paid the fees in advance.”
“How much?”
“Only a few hundred yuan in total.”
Xia Yi stared at her for a while, then suddenly smiled.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” Xia Yi leaned against the wall and stood. “If only all the patients’ families were like you.”
Tong Yao didn’t understand what she meant and was in no mood to ask. Every minute in the hospital was torture. Finally, a doctor came out of the emergency room and looked at the two of them.
“She’s been temporarily rescued.”
Before Tong Yao could feel a glimmer of hope, the next sentence followed.
“But she’s not out of danger yet.
“She needs more advanced drugs for resuscitation.
“The surgery requires payment and a family member’s signature.”
Someone inside said something to the doctor. The doctor frowned and quickly went back in.
Tong Yao’s face was a little grim. “Didn’t you say they would save her?”
“Yes,” Xia Yi said in a low voice. “If they hadn’t, your student would be dead already. Emergency rescue is required by law. Further treatment depends on the hospital.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some hospitals treat first and charge later. The consequence is that the department bears the cost. It’s common for patients to be unable to pay or unwilling to pay. Now hospitals are smarter. They charge first and then treat.”
The noble Hippocratic Oath, in the end, was no match for human nature.
Xia Yi said softly, “Do you know where the best place to skip out on a bill is? It’s the hospital. If you force them to pay, others will curse you. My brother is a doctor, and he’s been scared off by patients skipping out on their bills.”
Tong Yao completely calmed down. Recalling the doctor’s words, she asked, “What about the signature? Can I sign? I’m her teacher.”
“The chief on duty can sign. You don’t have to worry,” Xia Yi shook her head. “The important thing is, money.”
Tong Yao paused, and for the first time since entering the hospital, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Okay.”
**
When Liu Jian and Chen Baihao arrived at the hospital, it was already 8:30.
It was said that Liu Jian had personally gone to the rented house to find this man.
Chen Baihao, this man who had been so arrogant in the office, now seemed to have lost his mind. He knelt at the door of the ward, abandoning all dignity, and begged the passing doctors to save his daughter.
A 1.8-meter-tall man, crying like a child.
“Mr. Chen, you are a man. You need to pull yourself together now and prepare for your daughter’s subsequent treatment,” Xia Yi said, although she couldn’t bear it. “The treatment will take a long time. If the surgery is successful, try your best not to let the child have any sequelae.”
“Did you buy insurance for the child?” Tong Yao asked softly.
The man was panting and wiped his eyes.
“I did, I did.”
“Most insurance policies don’t cover jumping off a building,” Xia Yi poured cold water on him.
The atmosphere fell into a dead silence again.
It was Tong Yao who spoke first.
“Don’t worry about the money. The school will organize a donation. If it’s really not enough… I can lend you some.”
The man knelt on the ground, finding a glimmer of hope in desperation, and was overwhelmed with gratitude.
“Thank you, Teacher Tong, thank you, Teacher Tong…”
“That’s enough,” Tong Yao turned her face away. “Don’t let your daughter see you like this.”
She didn’t plan on rushing this man to pay her back either. With this family’s condition, the cost of treatment would probably empty their savings. To pay her back, he would probably have to sell the house.
Everything would have to wait until Chen Mo woke up.
If she could still wake up.
**
Tong Yao had never thought that she would one day be questioned by the police.
It wasn’t actually a serious matter. They just asked some questions about Chen Mo’s personality and situation. After confirming it was a suicide, everything became simple.
It was said that the earliest was after the parent-teacher conference, someone saw Chen Mo go to the rooftop.
That girl had stayed on the rooftop for three hours. The back-and-forth shoe prints showed her hesitation and indecision, but in the end, she still jumped.
The railing on the rooftop was very high. She had moved a chair up, stepped on the chair to get over the railing. There were only two shoe prints on the chair. Perhaps she had really thought it through. Either grow up early, or die early. She couldn’t bear the pain of growing up and ultimately chose to end her own life.
Under the chair, there was a suicide note with elegant handwriting.
Chen Baihao read the suicide note, banged his forehead against the wall, leaving bloody marks. He held Chen Mo’s hand in the ward and said “Daddy was wrong” over and over again.
Putting aside right and wrong, this man had indeed given his all for his daughter. Pressure and love were like a balance. In Chen Mo’s case, the pressure had crushed the love.
This only made him more pathetic.
“If I had known today, why did I do it in the first place,” Xia Yi said gloomily at the door of the ward.
Chen Mo was rescued for two days and two nights. The doctors worked tirelessly, and they also worked tirelessly.
Whether she would live, the doctor’s answer was “most likely.” Whether she would be disabled, the answer was also “most likely.”
And for the students at the school, this suicide was undoubtedly a topic of conversation for everyone. The reasons for the suicide were rumored to be bizarre, such as “being dumped after a breakup” and “being caught cheating.” The truly sad people had long since lost the energy to refute the rumors.
For the parents, this was a heart-stopping lesson. They held their own children and asked, “You won’t jump off a building, will you?” After getting a reassuring answer, they began to sigh.
The pain and shock briefly left a mark in people’s hearts, and then quickly weathered away. The iron-clad No. 1 High, the flowing students, learning had to continue, and it would not stop for anyone.
On a weekend evening, in Class 7.
“I’ll be taking this evening self-study session for Teacher Tong,” the physics teacher, Teacher Lu, said with a cheerful smile. “You can also ask me any math problems you don’t understand.”
The students in the class let out a sound of regret.
Ruan Xi looked at the office at the end of the hallway. The tutoring session had been canceled this week, and she hadn’t seen Teacher Tong at night. She didn’t know what was going on.
She was very worried.
She felt that Teacher Tong should be protected and not be disturbed by so many things. That was everyone’s goddess, the princess in the students’ hearts. How could a princess worry about these things?
These knights of hers… not a single one was useful.
**
This matter eventually alarmed her family.
Her daughter, who had always been frugal and rarely spent money, had money flowing out of her card like water for several days. When Jiang Wu found out, she thought her daughter was being threatened by someone.
Later, she found out that it was used to pay for a student’s medical expenses.
“Did you become a teacher to be an ATM for people?”
She asked aggressively on the phone.
Tong Yao was silent for a moment, then said, “Her family can’t afford a good plan. I don’t want her to have any sequelae, so I used the pocket money you gave me.”
“You want to be their savior? Do you want me to set up a foundation for you to treat your students?”
What made Jiang Wu not know whether to be angry or laugh was that her daughter’s answer was actually “okay.”
“Fine, I see you can’t support yourself by being a teacher. What if a student asks you for money for treatment tomorrow? What if all the students in the school ask you? Have you thought about it?”
“I have. This kind of thing won’t happen. Most people don’t know I paid. And… I can’t help many people. I won’t ask you for money.”
“As if I’m so stingy with you…” Jiang Wu narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “You should still ask the family when you need to. I won’t stop you from helping if you can. I’m just reminding you, don’t be a sucker for others. You haven’t slept for two days, right? Go to sleep now.”
“Mhm, thanks, Mom.”
She lay on the sofa, so tired she felt she could fall asleep just by closing her eyes.
But as soon as she closed her eyes, she would think of Chen Mo, who was still in the hospital.
If that child wakes up and finds out she might be disabled, what will happen?
A treatment that emptied their savings might not be able to exchange for a complete life.
She had always been an emotional and delicate person, prone to overthinking. After becoming a teacher, it seemed to have become more obvious.
The doorbell rang.
She opened her eyes and dragged her tired body to the door.
In Ruan Xi’s eyes, she had a kind of decadent beauty.
“Teacher Tong…”
“Ruan Ruan.”
She rubbed her eyes and went back to the living room. “I’m fine, just sleepy. I’ll take a nap. You should go back early.”
Sleepiness washed over her. Even with the young girl here, she felt that she was harmless. Curled up on the sofa, she fell asleep without realizing it.
Completely unguarded.
**
Author’s Note
PS: When I was in middle school, money was stolen from the classroom next door. There was only one girl in the classroom at the time, so the teacher called the girl to the office for a talk. The whole process was actually very careful, but the final result was that the girl jumped out of the office window. It was just after dinner when I was returning to the classroom. She landed in front of countless students and me. Before the ambulance came, a white cloth was placed over her body.
The person was eventually saved, but she transferred schools. I don’t know if there were any sequelae.
Everyone must cherish their own lives.
