Hard to Escape

Chapter 11

But before I could polish my masterpiece, Fifty Stratagems to Nail an Iceberg, Yin Li, acting as an iceberg, was struck by the "Titanic".

That day, Yin Li's destination was in the same direction as my school so he dropped me off along the way. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, trying to think of a topic to start a conversation with, when suddenly a van appeared, haphazardly driving in a zig-zag on the wrong side of the road, and driving recklessly fast in our direction. I didn't even have time to react before the silver van closed in on due collision course with us.

Perhaps because I had already experienced a car accident, at that time I became extraordinarily calm. I only turned my head quickly towards Yin Li. The man I liked sat next to me, yet in my mind there weren't any thoughts along the lines of "until death do us part." My mind was only filled with one thing: "Those whom the gods love die young!"1 Looks like we're doomed!

1 The actual idiom used by Yan Xiao is 天妒英才, which translates to "the heavens are jealous of outstanding talent". Can refer to either "the best die young" or "the more talented you are the more hardship you face".

However, Yin Li's face bore a grave expression. He wasn't panicked, but he also didn't spare me a single glance. Gripping the steering wheel, he furiously tried to avoid the car hurtling towards us, or at to least lessen the degree of impact.

When the van was half a meter away, I knew that Yin Li's efforts could not overcome fate.2 At the moment of impact, he finally turned my way. His body suddenly twisted over to embrace me and he buried my head in his chest, using his upper body to shield me.

2回天乏术: 回天 (to reverse the sky) on its own refers to succeeding in escaping a hopeless situation, 乏术 means to come just short of finding the method, thus 回天乏术 means "unable to turn around a hopeless situation".

"Yan Xiao, close your eyes!" He stared at me.

But I couldn't close my eyes. I knew that, in this life, I would never be able to forget his expression in that moment. It was unwaveringly firm in its resolve, as if he had just made some kind of significant decision. Yet it was also unexpectedly calm. Before the violence of the impact and its accompanying dizziness, I could only stare blankly at him.

For the first time in my life, I wished I could live on—wished I could live on alongside another person.

When I awoke, I was lying on a stretcher and the scent of disinfectants surrounded me. The medical personnel were just about to push me into the surgery room when I lifted my head and looked around. But I couldn't see any trace of Yin Li. My head hurt painfully. I could only remember that during moment of impact, only one airbag went off. I only heard Yin Li's muffled grunt, and then the air was filled with the smell of gasoline, grinding metal, and blood.

"Such a tragedy. Did you see the person in the driver's seat? Before even reaching the hospital, he passed away. His face was so mangled, it was impossible to tell who he was. This is already the tenth traffic accident we've dealt with this week. Ai, so young. When harming others, people harm themselves."

The conversation brought me back to reality, but to an ice-cold reality. All my strength abruptly left my body, and I could only stare hollowly at the ceiling as, too late, past memories came up again in my mind.

A man who had once sent me a hundred white lilies and clumsily peeled apart lobsters for me, stood downstairs outside my home yelling, "I love you. I'd like your hand in marriage." In all these brief glimpses and fragments, I couldn't make out that man's face, but I could feel the depth of his love and the warmth of his hand.