Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lu Chen died in the river.

The school had organized a sketching trip for the senior class. On the return journey, a sudden torrential downpour caused the bus to break down near a bridge. As a female classmate was getting off, her foot slipped, and she tumbled into the swollen river. Chaos erupted by the bridge; no one dared to jump in. Only Lu Chen threw down his backpack, vaulted over the guardrail, and dove in.

I rushed forward like a madwoman.

This hadn’t happened in my past life.

This time, Lu Chen managed to push the girl back toward the bank, but he was swept into the bridge culvert by the raging current. When I jumped in, the water was bone-chillingly cold. I couldn’t even open my eyes; I only managed to brush against a soaked sleeve of his school uniform.

The rescue team arrived quickly, but the river was too fast.

I sat on the bank, watching them search again and again, my entire body shaking uncontrollably.

As dusk fell, Lu Chen was carried out.

All color had drained from his face. His eyelashes were beaded with water, and he looked so peaceful, as if he were merely asleep.

I knelt in the mud, a single, absurd thought echoing in my mind.

Why him again?

Why, when I had clearly changed the first fatal encounter, did he still have to die?

When Lu Chen’s mother arrived, she wept so hard she could barely stand. I didn’t even have the strength to support her. I felt as though someone had punched me with all their might, leaving a hollow ache in my chest.

That night, I held Lu Chen’s diary, flipping through it page by page.

It turned out that the things that never had the chance to happen in my past life were still happening one by one in this one.

He would fix my bicycle during the winter of our freshman year; he would leave a box of cold medicine for me in the spring of our sophomore year; he would return the English notes I’d left on the stadium bleachers to the classroom before the senior oath-taking ceremony.

His feelings for me were never an accident.

And the fact that I couldn’t save him wasn’t one either.

I cried until dawn. When I opened my eyes again, the intercom crackled to life once more.

“Freshmen, please enter the assembly hall in order of your classes.”

For the second time, I had returned to three years ago.

The second time around, I was even more ruthless than the first.

I no longer just kept watch for that car accident. From the start of freshman year, I monitored everything Lu Chen did. I forced him to eat on time, forced him to get physical exams, forced him to stay away from the river on rainy days, and forced him not to do anything that would put him on the front lines.

I became like a neurotic person.

My classmates whispered behind my back, wondering if I’d gone crazy with my crush on Lu Chen, but I didn’t care. Even Lu Chen was worn down by my persistence. Once, I practically dragged him from the basketball court to the infirmary to have his blood pressure checked. Standing in the hallway, he looked at my bloodshot eyes and finally couldn’t help but ask, “Cheng Zhi, what exactly are you afraid of?”

What was I afraid of?

I was afraid of spring.

I was afraid of anything that would take him away from me.

But I couldn’t say a word. I could only lower my head and scramble for an excuse. “You’ve been looking pale lately.”

Lu Chen looked at me for a long time. Suddenly, he reached out and placed an orange candy in my palm.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

Those three words nearly broke me.

I successfully avoided the car accident in the second semester of senior year. I turned the sketching trip into a farce by faking an illness, ensuring he never even stepped foot on that bus to the outskirts. Lu Chen passed the entire month of February safely. Every night before I went to sleep, I thought that maybe, just maybe, it had worked this time.

On March 1st, the power went out during evening self-study, and the entire teaching building erupted into a clamor.

That night, Lu Chen suddenly collapsed by the side of the track.

By the time he reached the hospital, the doctor said it was a ruptured congenital cerebral vascular malformation. It happened so fast that there wasn’t even a window for surgery.

I stood outside the emergency room, watching the lights flicker on one by one, then extinguish one by one. The last shred of hope in my heart finally shattered into nothing.

When the doctor came out, he removed his mask with a gentle, weary motion.

“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

I slid down the wall, my vision turning pitch black.

It turned out the car accident wasn’t the point. The river wasn’t the point either.

The point was simply that Lu Chen would die.

No matter which door I blocked for him, fate would always open another.