A live stream that dramatically transformed a depressed schoolgirl shocked netizens across the count

If you could go back to one day, which day would you choose?

Ye Xingyu's words landed in the center of the stone table.

The sandalwood beads on Shen Qingci's wrist touched the rim of the cup and made three sounds.

The first tap was light, the second hit the rim of the glass, and the third fell into the breaths of the people around the table.

She bent down and untied the knot.

The wooden beads had been soaked in sweat for many years, and the knots were so tight that she had to untie them twice to loosen them.

The string of beads left her wrist and she placed it next to the red heart nine.

The cuffs, no longer concealing the arm, slid back, leaving several old marks under the lantern light.

Bai Weiwei's fire tongs stopped at the stove opening.

Su Niannian was still spinning the spatula when the wooden handle touched her knees, and then she stopped moving.

Ye Xingyu stared at the string of sandalwood beads.

When washing vegetables, Shen Qingci only rolled up the right sleeve; when going into the water, she buttoned up the left sleeve tightly; the day before yesterday, hot oil splashed on the back of her hand, and she rinsed it with cold water for a long time, but she still couldn't roll up that piece of fabric.

She picked it herself tonight.

Shen Qingci did not pull her sleeves back.

"A rainy day when I was five years old."

Outside the courtyard wall, the croaking of frogs filled the grass.

The wind blew through the bougainvillea, a few leaves brushed against the eaves, and the wick of the kerosene lamp tilted towards her.

"I sat in the back seat, and my mom drove."

Shen Qingci pushed the rough pottery cup away half an inch, making a small space next to her.

"The wipers are swishing very fast. Left and right, but they can never clear the water off the windshield."

"There were nursery rhymes playing in the car, and I thought it was too noisy, so I reached out to reach the player in the front seat."

"My mom looked at me in the rearview mirror and told me to sit still. She said she'd cook me wontons when we got home, with lots of seaweed."

Bai Weiwei lowered the fire tongs and pushed the charcoal that was about to fall out of the charcoal stove back in.

Shen Qingci looked at the roasted rice soaking at the bottom of the cup.

"Two beams of high beam came from the opposite direction, crossed the center line, and shone into the driver's seat."

"She stepped on the brake, turned the steering wheel to the right, and reached into the back seat with her other hand to push me back into my seat."

She raised her right hand and paused in front of her chest.

Thirteen years later, that action still retains the same direction as before.

"The car crashed into the guardrail, and the windshield shattered. The right door was stuck in the seat, and her hand was trapped in the gap. She was still pushing me, trying to make me crawl to the left."

"I was stuck in the seatbelt, crying the whole time, asking her if the wontons were still cooking."

The charcoal in the stove burned out and rolled to the bottom.

The lid of the copper kettle was lifted by the hot steam, making a soft sound.

"Before the ambulance arrived, she kept calling my name, telling me not to fall asleep."

Shen Qingci paused, placing her hand on her knee.

She closed her eyes first.

No one at the table responded or urged her.

Chen Lang leaned back in the rattan chair, the spade card between his two fingers still lying there for a long time.

The lantern light shone on the black earring in his left ear, and his wispy hair fell in front of his brow bone. His face, which always carried a casual smile, did not turn away.

Shen Qingci pulled aside his sleeve and pressed his palm against the old marks.

"A year after my mother passed away, my father remarried. Zhao Yulan entered the Shen family and became my stepmother."

"She moved my old desk and replaced it with a desk that can be locked. She has the key to the drawers, and the door can't be locked from the inside."

"I was six years old that year, and a schedule appeared on the wall."

"Wake up at 6:10, wash up at 6:13, and memorize vocabulary at 6:20. Breakfast takes 12 minutes, shower takes 8 minutes, and wrong questions must be redone before bed."

"There's a timer hanging next to the form. It beeps when you brush your teeth for too long, and it beeps when you eat for too long."

Shen Qingci's fingers touched the rim of the cup, but she didn't pick it up.

"One minute late means one less meal the next day. One wrong question and the whole test paper is torn up. If you write outside the lines, you have to copy from the first page of your exercise book."

"Once, I wrote the wrong date in my essay. She tore out that page and made me stand in front of my desk and write it two hundred times."

"I wrote until dawn, the papers piled up to my feet. The next day at 6:10, the timer went off as usual."

Su Niannian placed the spatula across her lap, pressing the wooden handle down with the heel of her palm.

The floral dress was pressed into a deep crease, and the wooden handle made a soft sound under her hand.

"Where's your dad?" she asked.

Shen Qingci looked at the fire in the stove.

"When he was at home, Zhao Yulan would say that she was strict with me because she was afraid that I would go astray."

He nodded after listening, telling me to be sensible.

Su Niannian's jaw tightened, the spatula lifted half an inch, then fell back onto her knee.

Gu Qingshang flipped his phone over, screen facing down on the table: "Have you told the teacher?"

"I said it once."

Shen Qingci turned the cup around once.

"The homeroom teacher talked to her. She brought a photo of my mother to school and said that I had suffered trauma, was prone to lying, and refused to accept her as my stepmother."

"When I got home, she didn't hit me. She put the food on the table and made me stand and watch them finish eating."

"From that day on, I stopped mentioning my family to my teacher."

Bai Weiwei moved closer from the rattan chair and placed the back of her hand against Shen Qingci's hand.

She had just added charcoal, and the warmth from her palms traveled along her skin.

Shen Qingci's shoulder twitched, but she didn't pull her hand away.

"Zhao Yulan checked my backpack, drawers, and phone, and also checked who I was talking to. After I started boarding school in high school, if I didn't reply to a message for ten minutes, she would send me a voice message."

She looked at Ye Xingyu's work phone, which was face down on the table.

"The most at one time was twenty-three."

Ye Xingyu pressed her hand against the cracked corner of the phone. The screen didn't light up, and she didn't remove her hand.

The first step is to inquire, the second is to urge, and the third is to begin calculating the consequences.

After the tenth rule, every shock would cause people to drop what they were doing and start explaining why they hadn't obeyed in time.

"I used to think that when my mother pushed me out of the car, she wanted me to walk that road for her," Shen Qingci said. "Zhao Yulan always used this to teach me. She said that my mother risked her life to save me, so I had to live up to her expectations."

"First place isn't enough; the score has to be even higher. Tsinghua or Peking University isn't enough; she has to choose her own major. Piano exam results, competition rankings, mock exam scores—everything is posted on the study wall."

"If I stop, I will owe my mother and the Shen family a debt."

Gu Qingshang picked up the teacup, brought the rim to his lips, and then put it back on the table.

"She turned the love your mother left behind into debt collection notices."

Shen Qingci glanced at her.

She picked up the rough earthenware cup, the tea splashed against the cup wall, and a few grains of roasted rice sank to the bottom.

"On the day I stood on the Jiangcheng Bridge, I deleted my browsing history, left the class group, and tidied up my desk beforehand."

"I put the competition certificates in the box by year, stacked the notebooks of wrong questions on the left, and hung my school uniform to dry on the balcony after washing it. I also put the pen I borrowed from my deskmate into my schoolbag, intending to have the teacher return it to her."

She stopped, her throat bobbing once.

"I didn't decide on a whim."

Bai Weiwei moved forward slightly, pressing against the back of her hand, and covered her hand with her palm.

Shen Qingci remained seated in the same place.

"At that time, all I could think about were the rules that Zhao Yulan had taught me."

She looked down at the tea.

"You don't deserve to breathe unless you achieve perfection."

Su Niannian clenched her back teeth.

The spatula handle sank into her palm. She loosened her grip, then gripped it again, repeating this process twice before finally managing to suppress the urge to rush out and find someone, and return to her chair.

Ye Xingyu dragged the chair closer, pressing her knee against Shen Qingci's chair leg.

Gu Qingshang pushed the cards aside to make room for her.

Bai Weiwei did not let go.

Four people surrounded her. No one asked for help, and no one told her to think positively.

Shen Qingci looked at their faces and then fixed her gaze on Chen Lang.

Chen Lang leaned back in the wicker chair, a spade card between two fingers. Stray hairs covered half of his eyebrows and eyes, and the casualness on his face remained, but the card didn't move for a long time.

Shen Qingci's tightly pursed lips relaxed.

"Later, a person who scored 250 on the college entrance exam came to the bridge."

Chen Lang raised an eyebrow: "You remember the grades so well, is Teacher Shen planning to hold a parent-teacher conference for me?"

Su Niannian glared at him: "Shut up, the excellent student is analyzing a negative example."

Bai Weiwei leaned over the table, her shoulders twitched a couple of times, and finally, laughter escaped her lips.

Shen Qingci smiled as well.

She exhaled with that laugh, picked up her teacup, and took a sip.

"He stood inside the railing and first asked me what score I got. I said seven hundred and twenty."

He said he scored 250 on the college entrance exam and asked me to move aside so that a lower-scoring student could have a seat.

Chen Lang raised his hand to correct him: "The original words were 'respect the order of queuing.'"

"You're quite civilized," Su Niannian said, giving him a sideways glance.

Shen Qingci looked at Chen Lang: "He also said that if life and death were really decided by scores, I wouldn't even get a chance to be in line."

Su Niannian's lips twitched, and a smile just appeared before she suppressed it again.

Bai Weiwei asked softly, "Did you really believe it back then?"

Shen Qingci shook his head.

"I thought to myself, this person is sick."

"What a coincidence," Chen Lang replied. "The doctor also said that I'm in good health and can't be treated for the time being."

Shen Qingci looked at him, the light from the lantern falling into her eyes and illuminating the spade card on the table.

"But he really was standing outside the bridge."

The spade card stopped.

"He jumped when I let go."

Shen Qingci spoke calmly, but his hand, pressed against the table, gripped his sleeve tightly.

"The wind rushed into my ears, and the bridge piers and the river surface were all surging upwards. Those schedules, grades, and news could no longer keep up."

"An extra arm has appeared on my waist."

"He pressed my head into his shoulder and guided me as I stepped onto the steel frame and onto the bridge piers, using the wind to change direction. Every time we bumped into something, he would turn his back to the outside."

Su Niannian slapped her knee: "Chen Lang, you dared to chase after him in a place like that?"

Gu Qingshang continued, "How long did it take you to determine the bridge structure, the spacing between the steel frames, and the thickness of the sand pits?"

Chen Lang placed the cards on the table.

"I didn't have time to fill out the risk assessment form at the time."

"You should be glad the landing point wasn't off." Gu Qingshang picked up his teacup. "Otherwise, we'd be studying a bridge accident report tonight."

"When I fell into the sandpit, I heard his back hit the ground," Shen Qingci continued. "I was held in his arms, and I didn't have a single scratch on my body."

Ye Xingyu did not respond.

She gazed at Chen Lang, her eyes lingering longer than usual.

The lantern illuminated the man's profile, the spade card pressed beneath his palm.

He stepped on the steel frame and over the bridge piers, forcefully carving out a path to survival from the wind and rain sweeping down from the Jiangcheng Bridge.

The day seawater filled her nasal cavity, the shore was in chaos. Chen Lang plunged into the waves and dragged her back to shore.

Shen Qingci met him even earlier.