Chapter 130
Chapter 130
Just now, Ning Xi had been too busy matching wits with that damned copycat Fu Zhi to really listen to what anyone else was saying.
Naturally, she had no idea about the online uproar Jiang Sheshe and the others had been discussing-Shen Yibai “standing by and doing nothing.”
The moment Jiang Sheshe saw Ning Xi speak up, she shot over without the slightest hesitation. First, she bumped Fu Zhi, that jerk, aside with her hip, then started chattering away like beans spilling out of a bamboo tube.
“You have no idea how cold Shen Yibai was…”
“Jiang Sheshe, do you have a death wish?!” Fu Zhi had been caught off guard and staggered from the impact. He instantly flew into a rage.
Jiang Sheshe ignored Fu Zhi completely.
It wasn’t as if Fu Zhi hadn’t shoved her and Qin Se around plenty of times before!
She had learned this move from that jerk Fu Zhi himself.
[He who bumps others shall be bumped in return.]
[I will never forget Fu Zhi’s expression just now after Jiang Sheshe knocked him aside-shocked, incredulous, and ready to murder someone. I’m laughing my way to riches.]
[It takes a villain to grind down a villain. That was so satisfying.]
After that, Fu Zhi tried to squeeze back to Ning Xi’s side, only for that hopeless romantic Jiang Sheshe to refuse to give him even the tiniest bit of space.
As for Xie Lanchen, who was standing on Ning Xi’s other side…
The thought had only just popped into Fu Zhi’s mind when Ning Xi, who had been tilting her ear to listen to Jiang Sheshe’s nonstop chatter, lifted her head and glanced at him.
Her gaze was faint. Very calm.
Yet it instantly made Fu Zhi abandon the idea he’d just had.
This wretched girl Ning Xi usually had a pretty good temper. She didn’t really get angry.
Even if the two of them argued, as long as he hovered around her and said a few more words, Ning Xi definitely wouldn’t hold a grudge.
But if she truly got angry, she was actually pretty terrifying.
When they were little, he had once accidentally broken Ning Xi’s hair clip. Ning Xi had ignored him for a full three months.
No matter how he tried to strike up a conversation or give her gifts as compensation, nothing worked.
In the end, with no other choice, he used all the New Year’s money he’d saved up since childhood to buy Ning Xi an entire cart of hair clips as compensation. Only then did they barely make up.
Of course, Shen Yibai had also sponsored a little money for that.
After all, if Shen Yibai hadn’t casually mentioned that after the kidnapping case, Ning Xi seemed to really like that cherry hair clip, but it looked a little worn-out and cheap, and that he wanted to give Ning Xi a more expensive one…
Fu Zhi never would have cared about that lousy hair clip!
…The look Ning Xi had just given him was exactly the same as the one she’d used when she refused to talk to him as a child.
After recalling all this, Fu Zhi decisively behaved himself.
But he still didn’t forget to secretly glare at Xie Lanchen several times.
No one cared, though.
As Ning Xi listened to Jiang Sheshe recount the whole story, her expression gradually turned serious.
After Jiang Sheshe finished venting, she started chirping again. “After watching the video just now, I honestly couldn’t understand it. But then I remembered Shen Yibai is afraid of water, so I felt like there was a reason after all. Sure enough, swimming is a skill everyone should learn…”
“Shen Yibai isn’t afraid of water,” Ning Xi suddenly said.
Jiang Sheshe froze. “Then he…”
Ning Mingyue also seemed to pause in surprise. “Is that so? I thought Yibai didn’t go rescue Sheshe right away because he was afraid of water. Then at the time, he… Wait, Xiao Xi, how do you know Yibai isn’t afraid of water? Are you really sure?”
[From what Ning Mingyue just said, it sounds like she’s starting to question why Shen Yibai didn’t immediately save Jiang Sheshe?]
[Uh, yeah, it does seem a little like that. *scratches head*]
[I’m just curious how Ning Xi knows Shen Yibai isn’t afraid of water. As Shen Yibai’s good friend, Ning Mingyue should know better than Ning Xi, right?]
At that moment, everyone’s eyes turned to Ning Xi.
Jiang Sheshe nervously twisted her fingers together. Was Ning Xi about to accidentally expose her own relationship with Shen Yibai just like that?
She had been following this drama for ages. Mingyue had said that after she fell ill and went abroad, Ning Xi, who had stayed in the country, took her place and got engaged to Shen Yibai.
If that got exposed just like this, wouldn’t netizens start flaming Ning Xi from now on?
Jiang Sheshe felt a little conflicted. She thought Ning Mingyue was pretty pitiful, but she also didn’t want Ning Xi to get cursed out. What if there had been some kind of misunderstanding about that engagement back then…
“Didn’t the Program Team arrange for Shen Yibai and me to go wakesurfing before?” Ning Xi, however, merely shrugged, unconcerned. “He said he knew how to surf, so he definitely isn’t afraid of water.”
“Oh, right! I even saw the video of you two surfing on the trending searches!” Jiang Sheshe hurriedly said.
She was trying to stop everyone from letting their thoughts wander too far and connecting it to Ning Xi having an unusual relationship with Shen Yibai.
Ning Mingyue’s smile paused slightly. “So that’s how it was. I was too anxious just now and actually forgot about that.”
Had she really just forgotten?
Ning Xi didn’t particularly care about Ning Mingyue’s explanation. In any case, the point of what she’d said wasn’t whether Shen Yibai was afraid of water or not.
“If I had been Shen Yibai at the time, I would have made the same choice,” Ning Xi said calmly, looking at Jiang Sheshe.
Hearing Ning Xi say that, Jiang Sheshe completely lost it.
“Why would you do that?!”
Was she that hateable?!
[Managed to snatch a bite of sugar from the cracks. When Jiang Sheshe learned Shen Yibai had “left her to die,” she could still joke and meme about it, but the second it was Ning Xi, she instantly went crazy]
[That’s because she doesn’t care about Shen Yibai, but she cares about Ning Xi]
[So shippable, so shippable, I’m shipping it so hard!]
Ning Xi looked calmly at the bristling Jiang Sheshe. “Someone who has just started drowning has a lot of strength in their hands. In a panic, they’ll cling tightly to the rescuer and may even unconsciously push the rescuer down. If you’re not careful, both people could be done for. So the best time to save someone is to wait until the drowning person has calmed down a little before going in.”
When she had first learned to swim, her coach had told her plenty of stories about drowning people being saved while their rescuers drowned instead.
Back then, the coach had told her very seriously: before saving someone, you had to make sure you were safe. In this world, the people who drowned were all people who knew how to swim.
“So that’s how it is. Then I misunderstood Shen Yibai…” Jiang Sheshe murmured.
She recalled how desperately she had thrashed around in the water in the video and said, relieved, “Thank goodness Shen Yibai knew that. Otherwise, if the water had been deep, he and I might both have been in danger.”
During those dozens of seconds when she had been drowning, her mind had truly gone completely blank. She had only wanted to struggle up out of the water and couldn’t think of anything else at all…
[So can the people who were scolding Shen Yibai earlier apologize now?]
[Even Jiang Sheshe knows to feel guilty, but some people don’t. Yue]
[Hahaha, that doesn’t sound like you’re praising Jiang Sheshe]
[But there already weren’t many people in the livestream talking about Shen Yibai by then. After all, once they were done scolding, it was over. Jiang Sheshe was the one who misunderstood]
[Am I the only one who thinks Jiang Sheshe is kind of an idiot? She misunderstood Ning Xi before and thought she stole her lipstick, and just now she misunderstood Shen Yibai and thought he left her to die]
[…So now we’re starting to scold Jiang Sheshe again? [blank stare]]
[Sometimes I really don’t want to be part of the same generation of netizens as certain people [facepalm bitter smile]]
“Hey, you’re finally here.”
Fu Zhi’s words drew everyone’s attention.
Everyone followed his gaze.
Only then did they realize that Shen Yibai had somehow arrived at the courtyard entrance. It seemed he had already been standing there quietly listening for a while.