Lu Jiaying looked up and saw him holding his phone to capture both her and himself in the frame. She raised her hand to scold him.
Jiang Jingyu, ignoring her, pressed the shutter.
Lu Jiaying's expression, a mix of annoyance and anger, was frozen in time alongside his silly grin.
Less than ten minutes after boarding the life raft, raindrops the size of soybeans began to pound down.
Accompanied by a suffocating gale and rolling waves, Lu Jiaying realized for the first time how cowardly she was.
She couldn't breathe, dared not open her eyes to look around, and tightly gripped the rope in her hand, calling out to Jiang Jingyu.
"What do we do? Are we going to die here today? It's so scary."
"Jiang Jingyu, will I drag you to your death? You absolutely cannot get hurt. If you die here, how will I explain it to your family?"
Jiang Jingyu was not afraid at all; he was born to love challenges.
He even found the rain quite fitting, seeing Lu Jiaying's frightened appearance.
Lu Jiaying finally had a moment of weakness compared to him, a moment when she needed him.
He slowly moved closer to her and took off his shirt to cover her head.
Although it couldn't shield them from the wind and rain, it at least gave her a sense of security.
He pulled Lu Jiaying into his arms, used one hand to paddle, and forcefully kept the raft steady, preventing the wind from pushing them further away from the sides.
The two of them huddled together like this, relying on each other, struggling in the rain.
After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Jingyu felt he could no longer hold on, utterly exhausted. The rain finally lessened, and at the same time, a strong wind picked up on the sea.
Heaven did not intend for them to perish; the wind was blowing in their direction.
It was as if an invisible hand was pushing them towards the riverbank.
Thus, after drifting in the rain for a while, the life raft wobbled its way to the shore.
As it wasn't a designated landing spot, the riverbank was straight and steep, and there was nowhere to tie the raft.
To get ashore, they would have to jump into the water, swim to the bank, and climb up the rocks.
Jiang Jingyu reminded Lu Jiaying that they had reached the shore and told her to open her eyes and look.
When Lu Jiaying opened her eyes, her sense of despair did not diminish.
In the torrential rain, her vision blurred. Before her stood a sheer cliff, two to three meters high, almost perfectly vertical.
She couldn't swim and had never climbed rocks.
She had been in school all her life, and after graduation, she went straight to work at Grey Electric. Her days were filled with work, and outside of the workplace, she had no survival skills.
Now, she was expected to swim and climb?
She couldn't believe her eyes and asked the obvious question, "What do we need to do?"
Jiang Jingyu held her, his face streaked with rain, his eyes resolute.
"Jump in and swim to the shore. I'll go first. Once I find a suitable spot, you can follow. Climb up using my footprints."
Just hearing his words made her legs go weak.
Lu Jiaying dejectedly shook her head, "But I can't swim."
Jiang Jingyu hadn't known this. "You can't swim?"
"And I can't climb rocks either."
He had selfishly only thought about spending time alone with her, enjoying the thrill and creating a lasting memory, without considering the practicalities.
He didn't even know she couldn't swim.
But it was too late for regrets; they couldn't just wait there indefinitely. Who knew when the rain would stop?
Lu Jiaying was so thin; it would be troublesome if she caught a cold from the rain.
"It's okay. If you can't swim, I'll take you. But you'll have to learn to climb rocks."
"Don't overthink it. I'll climb ahead, and you just follow my footprints behind me. Focus only on what's in front of you, don't think too much. We can do this."
Glancing again at the perfectly vertical cliff, Lu Jiaying shivered all over.
"But I feel like I can't really do it..."
"Then what? Should we go back the way we came?"
The waves on the river surged higher and higher, and the small raft, propelled by the waves, sometimes leaped nearly a meter high.
Lu Jiaying never wanted to experience the sensation of falling weightlessly from a wave again; it was far more thrilling than a roller coaster, and it felt like it could take her life.
Moreover, it wasn't just her who was in danger; Jiang Jingyu was too.
Even if she didn't want to live, she had to get the Zhan family's young master back before she died, otherwise, how could she face Melody?
"Okay, I'll listen to you. No more nonsense. Be careful, you absolutely cannot get hurt."
Jiang Jingyu took his shirt off her head. Lu Jiaying pulled it over and hugged it to her chest. They clung tightly together, and he used the shirt to tie them together, then looked at the churning water.
"Take a deep breath. Hold onto my neck."
Lu Jiaying's teeth chattered with nervousness. She gripped Jiang Jingyu's shoulders tightly with both hands.
"Hold onto my neck. At a time like this, are you still distinguishing between men and women? Do you still want to live?"
Startled by his words, she no longer dared to be polite and quickly wrapped her arms around his neck.
Jiang Jingyu, holding her, slid to the edge of the life raft, extending his long legs into the water. Lu Jiaying couldn't help but let out a scream.
"Ah—"
Jiang Jingyu stopped and gently pressed the back of her head.
"You're scared, right? We'll go down after you've screamed enough. Once we go down, you can't scream anymore, or you'll choke on water."
He even had the leisure to give her a science lesson. Lu Jiaying deeply felt her own inadequacy.
Terrified, she could only grip his neck tighter and close her eyes.
"It's okay, let's go."
Jiang Jingyu wrapped her legs around his body and plunged into the water with a splash.
The two of them, weighing over a hundred kilograms combined, plummeted rapidly into the seawater.
The sensation of being buoyed by the water, floating weightlessly, and the chilling cold that permeated every limb was agonizing.
Lu Jiaying finally understood what "lifelong friendship" meant.
At this moment, even if Jiang Jingyu were her enemy, she wouldn't bear to let go of him.
After falling for just a few seconds, Jiang Jingyu exerted all his strength to swim out, like a mother kangaroo carrying her joey towards the shore.
Upon reaching the bottom, he remembered a new problem.
Lu Jiaying couldn't swim, so he had to get her up first.
Otherwise, if he left, she would sink.
"Open your eyes and look behind you. We've arrived."
Lu Jiaying opened her eyes and looked at the cliff.
What had seemed like a smooth, vertical surface from afar was actually full of pits and hollows up close. Though not very deep, they were enough for hands and feet to grip.
Jiang Jingyu directed her, "You climb up first. Once you've taken two steps, I'll follow you from the side. Pull yourself together, Lu Jiaying, you don't want to die here, do you?"
At this point, she had no choice but to try. Staying on the rock was better than staying in the water.
Lu Jiaying nodded. Jiang Jingyu lifted her to the side of the rock, found a few suitable small hollows, and helped her tremble as she wedged her hands and feet into them.
"Hold this position, don't move, wait for me. I'll get to your side."
He found a suitable spot beside her and began to climb.
"Don't look around randomly. Listen to my instructions. You can do it, Lu Jiaying. Let's go."