American homeless people, surviving in the city

Chapter 149 A Leap

The wind howled fiercely at the edge of the cliff, the night wind whistling through the forest, almost preventing Sylvia from hearing Lynch's plan clearly.

"Huh? Go down from here? How do we get down like this!" Looking down at the cliff below—although Lynch thought it was just a dirt slope, to Sylvia it was a precipice. She subconsciously raised her voice, "Jump down from here? Impossible! Can't we find another way?"

"No time to take a detour, but this place isn't too high!" Lin Qi replied sharply. "This cliff has a bit of a slope, and I think I can climb down from this height!"

"Huh? Climb down?" Sylvia was stunned by Lynch's audacious idea, but after realizing the possibility, this exaggerated escape route inexplicably excited her. "Can you do it? You still have an injury on your arm!"

"I think it's okay!" Lin Qi bent down and grabbed a handful of soil from the edge of the cliff. It was a little damp, but with the support of tree roots and grass in the forest, the slope was quite sturdy.

"If you go down, what will I do?" Sylvia asked the crucial question again. With a missing arm, there was no way she could climb down the cliff.

"Anyway, this isn't exactly the first year of high school."

Lin Qi took a deep breath and gave his answer: "After I go down, you jump down, and I'll catch you!"

"Huh?" Sylvia exclaimed for the third time, but her voice was even louder. "Can you do it?!"

"If you trust me, I'll do it!"

Despite the excruciating pain in his arm and his extremely poor physical condition, Lynch's resolve remained unwavering: "It's just a small hill; I won't let it block our way!"

"Okay!" Sylvia stood up without hesitation. "Let's do it!"

Without further ado, Lin Qi walked to the edge of the cliff, using his feet to probe for footholds below while grabbing onto rocks and grass roots on the cliff face, and began to climb backward step by step.

If he were in good physical condition, this earthen slope, which was only a few meters high and not very steep, would be no problem for Lynch at all.

But at this moment, despite the excruciating pain in his shoulder and the blurred vision, blood flowed from his shoulder to his clothes and then to his body, but he just gritted his teeth and desperately persevered with his willpower.

He could feel that his arms were much weaker than usual, which slowed down his climbing speed.

As he tried to adjust his posture on the cliff face, he could feel his entire body trembling violently from the excessive exertion.

With such severe injuries, every inch of movement felt like walking on a knife's edge.

Fortunately, everything turned out alright in the end.

As his feet landed firmly on the ground again, Lin Qi let out a long sigh of relief.

He caught his breath for a moment, then raised his arms and shouted towards the top of the cliff, "Come on! Sylvia! Jump! I'll catch you!"

"Can I really jump?" Sylvia shouted, her tone devoid of doubt, only still worried about Lynch's condition. However, seeing this scene, her voice rose even higher: "How can we run away like in a fairy tale!"

Lin Qi shook his head helplessly: "Stop talking nonsense!"

"good!"

Sylvia stood atop the cliff, feeling the cold night wind sweep over her. Looking down at the height below, a flicker of fear crossed her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by unwavering trust.

"I trust you!"

She closed her eyes and leaped forward.

Lin Qi stretched out his hands with all his might, and in the night sky, under the moonlight, the girl leaped down.

He quickly adjusted his position, making sure he could catch Sylvia as she leaped down. However, as Sylvia's body collided with Lynch, he suddenly realized something:

With his current weakened body, he could not withstand such an impact.

The impact of Sylvia's fall made his legs go weak. Although he successfully caught Sylvia, the impact still made Lynch completely lose control of his body, and he fell backward violently!

The two fell to the ground at the same time, and then the unstoppable impact carried them down the last slope and into the rushing river behind them!

The icy river water swallowed them up in an instant!

...What a miscalculation!

However, everything happened so suddenly that Lynch had no time to react.

After being swept into the turbulent river, Lynch could only hold on tightly to Sylvia. At first, he tried to control his body in the water, but soon the two were tossed about by the current and quickly swept downstream.

The river water was icy cold, and the gunshot wounds and various abrasions were repeatedly washed away by the water, causing excruciating pain.

The darkness, the cold, and the rushing torrents gradually blurred Lynch's consciousness.

Before losing consciousness, only two thoughts remained in his mind:

My first thought was, "If I hadn't bumped into him, I wouldn't have known he had such a good physique."

My second thought was that I absolutely could not betray Sylvia's trust.

We must protect her and never let go of her.

Absolutely not.

Consciousness then sank into darkness.

In a daze, Lin Qi had no idea how much time had passed.

When the pain and bone-chilling cold roused him from his coma, Lin Qi slowly opened his eyes, only to find everything pitch black.

The world was shrouded in cold darkness, but the sound of pattering rain filled my ears.

It's raining in Seattle.

The rain felt like countless tiny ice needles, relentlessly piercing his skin. As consciousness gradually returned to his body, Lin Qi found himself lying on a rock on the riverbank, his body half-submerged in shallow water. The cold had seeped into his bones, making it almost impossible for him to tell whether he was alive or dead.

The gunshot wound to his shoulder, the laceration on his left arm, and countless abrasions and bruises all over his body were repeatedly washed by the cold rain. His upper body was in excruciating pain, as if countless tiny knives were cutting him at the same time, while his lower body was almost completely numb.

Then, Lynch suddenly felt a churning in his stomach, and he abruptly rolled over, coughing and vomiting violently.

He vomited up river water mixed with mud and sand. He didn't know how long he vomited until his stomach felt completely empty, and only then did he feel that he had barely survived.

Lynch struggled to sit up, pulled his lower body out of the river, and tried to warm it up.

It was pitch black all around. The already dim moonlight overhead was completely obscured by the rain. Besides the sound of the rain, the only other sound was the distant roar of the rushing river. Apart from these two regular, monotonous sounds, the surroundings were utterly silent.

Lin Qi didn't know how long he had been unconscious or where he had drifted to. He could only vaguely make out that this seemed to be a relatively open riverbank, with the tree canopy overhead no longer so dense, and rainwater could fall directly down.

But suddenly, he realized a terrible truth.

The girl he had held tightly in his arms before he lost consciousness was gone.

"Sylvia...Sylvia!"

Lynch's voice was terribly hoarse. He forced himself to stand up and staggered along the riverbank, his vision blurred by the rain and his steps unsteady. He felt as if he were walking on cotton.

Finally, on a smooth rock washed by the river not far away, he saw that familiar figure.

Sylvia lay on her back on the rock, her beautiful blonde hair soaked by the rain, clinging messily to her pale cheeks. The wound that ran from her forehead to her cheek looked particularly gruesome in the rain; the blood had been diluted, but it was still slowly seeping out.

She lay there on the riverbank, motionless.