Liu Ran grew anxious and growled lowly, “I came to check if you’re dead or not, okay? Can you walk?”
Ming Siyu sniffed. “My left foot is sprained. I can hop on one foot.”
“Wait a second.” Liu Ran tore open the seal on the bucket of water with one hand. She glanced around and spotted a piece of clothing piled in the door crack at the doorway—it looked like Ming Siyu’s jacket. Ming Siyu must have planned to stuff it into the gap to block the smoke. Liu Ran walked over, picked it up, layered it with the cloth she had been using to cover her mouth and nose, soaked it with water from the bucket, and then handed some to Ming Siyu.
“Cover your mouth with this. Don’t walk—you stay put. I’ll carry you on my back.” Liu Ran squatted down, turned around so her back faced Ming Siyu, and reached her hands behind her waist, flapping her palms to urge her to hurry. As Ming Siyu lowered her head, she noticed several blisters from burns on those slender, beautiful hands. The fur on one side of Liu Ran’s ears had also been singed. Yet Liu Ran acted as if she felt no pain.
The room’s door, which Ming Siyu had shut after hiding in from the bathroom, wouldn’t open afterward—but Liu Ran had forced it open with a single bump.
The bucket of water she couldn’t twist open, which had frustrated her enough to hurl her high heels at it—Liu Ran had torn it open effortlessly.
When Ming Siyu had messaged He Qiange, she never imagined she would see Liu Ran here. She had figured she just needed to hold out until the terrorist attack ended. If she couldn’t, she’d die in a foreign land. Truth be told, dying anywhere didn’t matter much to Ming Siyu; she never dwelled on what came after death. But dying in a partitioned room in a Country B hospital at the hands of gun-toting arsonists felt too fantastical, too absurd—not fitting any of the endings she had envisioned for herself.
What rotten luck, encountering such a low-probability event. If those who hated her learned how miserably she had met her end, they’d probably grin until their teeth fell out.
But Liu Ran arrived like an unexpected twist. When she appeared in the doorway, Ming Siyu thought for a moment she was dreaming or hallucinating from toxic fumes.
The Liu Ran in her mind always bristled with thorns toward her—sometimes sharp, painful ones; other times soft ones that wilted at a touch. Liu Ran’s wariness and resistance toward her wouldn’t vanish anytime soon. Deep down, if their situations were reversed and Liu Ran were trapped, Ming Siyu would at most hire someone with money to rescue her; she absolutely wouldn’t risk her own life.
Ming Siyu climbed onto Liu Ran’s back. Ever since her diagnosis, her physical condition had plummeted, and now dizziness overwhelmed her.
With her face pressed against Liu Ran’s neck, she asked, “Can you carry me?”
“Of course. Don’t talk—conserve your breathing.”
Not only could Liu Ran carry her, but she supported Ming Siyu with one hand while freeing the other to cover their mouths and noses with the towel. The fire in the corridor had grown fiercer since they arrived, and crashes of overturning furniture echoed from upstairs along with curses, followed by another gunshot. Liu Ran lightened her steps in tension, fearing discovery that would doom them both.
At the window, she set Ming Siyu down and gestured while speaking, “It’s only the second floor—not high. I’ll jump first, catch you from below. Then you jump.”
Seeing Ming Siyu nod, Liu Ran leaped out, rolling half a circle on the grass to cushion the fall. She immediately turned back, reached out toward Ming Siyu, and mouthed, “Come down!”
Ming Siyu leaned half her body out the window but didn’t jump. Liu Ran panicked at first—why was Ming Siyu dropping the ball at the critical moment? Did she doubt Liu Ran could catch her? Even if she couldn’t, falling from the second floor wouldn’t kill anyone; at worst, a few broken bones—still better than staying inside the hospital.
Only when she saw Ming Siyu’s dazed, gasping expression did Liu Ran realize she wasn’t refusing to jump—she simply couldn’t. Nothing below the window offered footing or leverage, and Ming Siyu lacked the strength to vault out like Liu Ran had by pushing off with her hands. She resembled a turtle straining to climb out of a jar, managing only to extend her head and neck.
Liu Ran considered climbing back up to toss Ming Siyu down first, then jumping herself. Just as she prepared to gesture for Ming Siyu to step back, Ming Siyu closed her eyes, leaned her body maximally out the window, and plunged headfirst like an onion dive. It terrified Liu Ran, instantly breaking out in cold sweat. She had just claimed a second-floor fall couldn’t kill, and Ming Siyu demonstrated a high-fatality method: head-down, snapping the neck with a crack.
The moment Liu Ran caught Ming Siyu, the impact nearly dislocated her arms. She steadied Ming Siyu upright and was about to rejoice in their survival when her peripheral vision caught a dark muzzle flashing at the upstairs window.
For the first time, Liu Ran truly appreciated the Ice Plains Wolf genes granting her sharp senses and lightning reflexes. Without thinking, she tackled Ming Siyu and rolled behind the wall. The bullet grazed her face and buried into the grass beneath them. Simultaneously, another gunshot rang out—the shooter who had targeted them splattered blood across the window.
Ming Siyu, pinned beneath her, fainted from exhaustion.
…
When Liu Ran woke again, she saw the pristine white sheets covering her and smelled the faint antiseptic in the air. She knew she was in a hospital.
Recalling her plunge into the hospital to find Ming Siyu, a belated chill of fear ran through her.
Only now did she fully grasp that they had faced armed terrorists, while she was merely an ordinary Alpha—not some movie hero impervious to bullets or infinitely respawning. If struck, she would have died for real. Risking her life to save someone else wasn’t worth it.
In the future, she resolved to stay calm when deciding—never impulsive again.
Right—Ming Siyu?
The room held only her. Liu Ran pressed the call button by the bed. A kindly nurse entered. In a foreign language, she asked about Ming Siyu’s whereabouts. The nurse smiled. “That Omega? She’s in another room. We thought you two were a couple and tried to put you in a double room, but your companion insisted you weren’t and demanded separate singles.”
From the nurse, Liu Ran learned that among the three of them, He Qiange had suffered the worst injuries. Liu Ran had minor burns, Ming Siyu a sprained ankle plus brief unconsciousness from stress, but He Qiange’s arm was genuinely broken—though the child in her belly was unharmed.
“Want to visit your companions?”
Liu Ran shook her head. Better not. She wasn’t sure how to face Ming Siyu.
Or rather, she didn’t know how Ming Siyu would treat her after all this.
At least they were fine. If something had happened to her while rescuing Ming Siyu and she died there—well, that would have been a massive loss. Their family would be down to one, still in a long-term coma.
Liu Ran let her thoughts wander aimlessly until sleep claimed her again.
In Ming Siyu’s room.
He Qiange, her arm in a cast, said to Ming Siyu on the bed, “Was it worth it? You wake up and pick a fight with me over a little pet? Do you know the negotiations fell through in the end? That coal miner was willing to take the whole hospital down rather than back off. Even when the special forces arrived, they only saved some people—the better half of the building got blown apart. If I hadn’t forced Liu Ran to go in and drag you out—brushing shoulders with death, so dangerous. I broke my arm for you, and I don’t even know how to explain it to my sister when I get home.”
“She’s only nineteen!” Ming Siyu suppressed the anger in her voice. “Did you even think what might happen if she died going after me?”
He Qiange shook her head, baffled. “No need to get so worked up, right? Didn’t you say before that you’d train that little pet to die for you willingly?”
Ming Siyu faltered. She had said something like that, harbored such thoughts—and firmly, at that. But not anymore.
“It’s different.”
“Don’t tell me you’re actually fond of a little pet.”
Ming Siyu frowned. “She’s the fluffiest I’ve ever petted— one of a kind. Even her ear fur got singed, so of course I’m distressed.”
The thrill from the moment Liu Ran burst through the door still fluttered in Ming Siyu’s heart. Irritated, she said, “I don’t have much time left to live anyway. A year or half more or less doesn’t matter; dead is dead. Liu Ran’s too young, doesn’t understand a lot yet, and she’s so strong and healthy. It’d be such a waste if something happened to her.”
“Her purpose in existing is for you. Si Si, if she died for you, she’d feel proud.” He Qiange said it nonchalantly, dead serious.
“Are you preaching some cult here?” Ming Siyu’s chest tightened with an unprecedented emotion she didn’t know how to vent. After racking her brain, she decided it was He Qiange’s constant hovering irritating her eyes. “If you say one more word about Liu Ran dying for me, I’ll call your sister and tell her you’re fooling around with her wife and even got her pregnant.”
He Qiange huffed, “You—ungrateful wretch! I broke an arm for you. I’m heartbroken.”
Ming Siyu was in a foul mood. “I won’t tell your sister. I want to be alone. You go rest too.”
After He Qiange left, Ming Siyu remained alone in the room. She had heard the full account of events, which boiled down to one thing: they survived with minor injuries purely by luck. Raised in a no-guns environment, her gun knowledge came mostly from movies and TV; she hadn’t grasped their terror, which let her calmly hide in the bathroom stall and evade the terrorists’ first sweep. The chaos drew their focus to the police, so they never expected an ordinary person to charge in recklessly—and overlooked Liu Ran. The crowd concentrated on the sixth floor; the first and second, with larger fires, had only light guards, allowing their escape unnoticed.
A real-life gunfight experience. Ming Siyu mentally blacklisted Country B.
Ming Siyu crutched her way to Liu Ran’s room. Liu Ran slept on her side, posture like the character for “dog” turned backward, half her face buried in the pillow. She looked soundly asleep. Suddenly, Ming Siyu recalled a pet-keeping post: even after a hundred hurts from humans, one act of love makes a dog love humans again without hesitation.
Her heart filled with indescribable complex emotions. Ming Siyu steadied herself with one hand on the crutch, the other tracing Liu Ran’s brow, nose bridge, and lips with her fingertip. The lip tubercle was plump; in sleep, her lips pursed gently like a sweet cherry. Ming Siyu had tasted that cherry’s sweetness, but never with cherishing or tenderness—only brutal ravaging.
