Chapter 162 - 118: The Charm of that Slap

Zhao Jinchen frowned, sat up, and picked up the two-way radio.

"Instructor, how long has it been since the person fell into the water? Should we go back for diving gear?"

"Sizz... No need to go back, the person just fell in. Command Center wants us there now."

Squad Leader Fang, who was driving, heard the order and immediately triggered the alarm bell, made a U-turn from the center lane, and then began to pass other vehicles.

The four new recruits clearly saw that, at the turn, the traffic policeman in a vest who was questioning a motorcyclist sternly, glanced at them and immediately turned his head back.

The motorcyclist said something, pointing at their fire truck, but was quickly scolded by the traffic policeman.

On the road, Squad Leader Zhao began to give them instructions:

"Once we arrive, get off the vehicle and set up the police tape and cones. If there are onlookers, don’t let them get close."

The three new recruits nodded obediently, their eyes filled with anticipation for the emergency scene.

But Fang Huai remained silent.

If there were many onlookers at the scene, chances were good that there would be one or two people who could dive in to save the victim, but he feared if there was nobody but the person who called the police, by the time they arrived, they’d be retrieving a body.

There were still many kind-hearted people in society. In such emergencies, if someone could swim, they generally wouldn’t stand by and let others die.

In a past life, during Diver Training, the instructor made it clear to them that the gear was for playing the ’river god,’ to retrieve bodies, not for saving the living. The time it took to put on the gear was enough to drown a person.

The gear could only save someone if there was a flood.

In the vehicle were only the driver Squad Leader Fang, Zhao Jinchen, and the four new recruits; no one spoke.

Fang Huai watched the minutes tick by on the dashboard clock, his heart growing increasingly calm.

After 10 minutes, their Car 1, being the lead vehicle, arrived at the Reservoir entrance. As they went in, the entire area was silent.

The road was wide, but soon they encountered a three-way fork, and Squad Leader Fang didn’t know which direction led to the reservoir, so he had to use the two-way radio to ask Team Cao to have the person who called the police meet them at the entrance.

Fang Huai, however, spoke sternly, "Song Lin, roll down your window."

Song Lin immediately rolled down the window.

In February, the cold wind was chilling and dry.

But along with the wind came a faint sound of a woman crying.

"Over there! Squad Leader Fang!"

Song Lin, who was nearest the window, heard it clearest and immediately pointed down a road.

There was a main road that required going around a bridge, looking quite far.

There was also a smaller path next to it, seemingly leading the same direction, with tree cover.

Zhao Jinchen instantly raised his hand, opened the car door, "Drive around; I’ll go ahead and take a look."

Fang Huai quickly stood up, "Squad Leader Zhao, I’m a strong swimmer; I’ll go with you!"

Zhao Jinchen looked back at Fang Huai, hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

The two of them quickly followed the sound along the smaller path and found the scene.

A woman sat slumped on the ground, incessantly slapping the ground and wailing, "Dad, yeah... Dad!"

A man who looked like a security guard hurried over, appearing very anxious, and pointed at a calm spot on the water’s surface incoherently:

"There! There!"

Zhao Jinchen and Fang Huai looked in the direction the guard was pointing, about a dozen meters from the shore.

Zhao Jinchen turned to the guard, "How many minutes since the person went under?"

The guard seemed not to understand and simply pointed, saying, "Right there, right there!"

Fang Huai raised his voice in the local dialect, "Don’t panic! I’m asking you! When was the last time you saw the person’s head above water, how many minutes have passed!"

Only then did the guard snap back to reality, "Three or... maybe four or five minutes! He can swim! Looked like he got a cramp! He was struggling just now!"

Fang Huai continued, "How deep is the reservoir?"

"3 meters... 3 meters five! It should be 3 meters five there!"

Fang Huai looked at Zhao Jinchen, "Squad Leader, there’s still a chance to save the person. How good are you at swimming?"

Zhao Jinchen hesitated.

Without hesitation, Fang Huai patted his pockets, finding nothing significant, took off his hat and jacket, and said, "I’ll do it, Squad Leader, ask them to tie two 20-meter ropes together and try to throw it to me. If they can’t throw it far enough, get someone to swim it over!"

Zhao Jinchen, reassured that Fang Huai wasn’t going in to play the hero, nodded, took up the two-way radio, and told Fang Huai,

"Safety first!"

The woman nearby, seeing that they were preparing to go in, suddenly stopped crying, stood up, and shouted, "Don’t bother saving him, anyone coming out of there is brain-dead by now! We can’t afford to rescue them!"

When Fang Huai heard the words "brain dead," a chill ran down his spine, and he took another good look at the woman. In her thirties and, judging by her demeanor just now, she didn’t seem educated.

Damn it, it’s like a real-life "Hidden Corner."

No, it’s "The Vanishing Lady"! She must have brought the old man to see the stars under the sea!

Fang Huai shouted, "It’s not up to you!"

He then made eye contact with Zhao Jinchen and signaled, "Squad Leader, inform the police!"

Zhao Jinchen too seemed to catch on and nodded his head.

The woman panicked, sprang up, and tried to grab Fang Huai.

Fang Huai agilely sidestepped her, rushed to the nearest shore, and jumped in.

"Splash!"

The moment he entered the water, Fang Huai had some regrets.

The minor scrapes from climbing ropes earlier that day and the raw skin from that morning’s pull-up bar all stung with pain.

And there was the chill across his whole body.

Damn, he was finally entitled to pen a will today.

But fortunately, once he opened his eyes, the visibility seemed decent, even though his eyes were unbearably dry.

If he had even a pair of swimming goggles right now, the experience would be much more bearable.

Forcing his eyes open, Fang Huai let them adjust to the underwater environment.

After resurfacing from his dive, it was already much more bearable.

The icy water was starting to feel tepid, only his head still hurt.

Swimming in cold river water wasn’t as chilly as he imagined. Once submerged, as long as one keeps moving, it’s much warmer than standing naked on shore—the blood vessels on the skin’s surface fill with warm blood, providing a protective temperature.

That’s why one’s whole body turns red after getting out of cold water.

When he emerged from the water, he heard Zhao Jinchen shouting something behind him, but his eardrums were filled with water, and he couldn’t hear clearly.

He looked back and saw Zhao Jinchen pointing and yelling at a spot.

Only then did Fang Huai realize that he had dived in the wrong direction and was off course, so he immediately turned sideways and swam toward where Zhao Jinchen was pointing.

As Fang Huai approached the area, he dove under the water and began to breaststroke, spreading his arms and legs to increase the area of sensation.

Although he had reached the spot the security guard had pointed to, there was no one there.

But after a few tries, when he surfaced, he kicked something.

Calculating the time, it had been over a minute, and Fang Huai hurriedly took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks, and dove back under.

This action helped to relieve some of the pressure on his nasal cavity.

He found it.

At the bottom of the reservoir.

Fang Huai grabbed the man’s arm, pushed off the bottom with his feet, and shot to the surface with the old man in tow.

He was heavy.

Rescuing someone from the water was only the first step in saving them.

Fang Huai continuously recalled the first aid knowledge he had learned, supporting the man back to the surface. When he still couldn’t feel any breath, he reached his hand into the old man’s mouth.

His hand was inside the mouth, yet he felt no spontaneous breathing, but instead scooped out some mud, sand, and waterweeds.

His heart sank, Fang Huai quickly swam to the surface to check the situation and waved vigorously toward the shore.

There was no sign of spontaneous breathing, and Fang Huai knew that if he tried to bring the man to shore on his own, it would be too slow, and the old man would definitely not make it.

Fortunately, as he broke the surface, he already saw Cao Yi standing on the shore with a figure holding a rope, swimming vigorously toward him.

It was Little Black.

Fang Huai urgently called out, "Squad leader, throw the rope, throw it! Quick... ugh."

He choked on a gulp of water and flailed, nearly losing his hold on the old man.

In the urgent water rescue, there were no rules. Afraid that he wouldn’t be able to throw the rope far enough, Little Black grabbed an end of the rope and, with a strong flick, sent 20 meters of it, slapping hard onto Fang Huai’s shoulder along with water.

Fang Huai cursed from the pain, "Damn it..."

Before he could rescue the man, he had already endured a lash of a water-soaked whip.

Bearing the pain, he quickly grabbed the end of the rope and wound it around the old man’s arms a couple of times, then tightened and tied a figure-eight knot.

"Pull, pull, pull!" Fang Huai waved his hand forward vigorously.

The old man immediately slipped from his grip, quickly drifting toward the shore like a surfboard.

At this moment, whether it was a bone fracture or bruise was irrelevant. Every second earlier increased the chance for survival.

Fang Huai kicked in the water, floating on the surface. He watched as the bald old man drifted away as if he were in a dream.

The scene he had imagined countless times was actually happening before his eyes.

"Awesome, brother!"

Little Black didn’t care whether the man was alive or dead. He floated on the surface with a smile, even sticking a hand out of the water to give Fang Huai a thumbs-up.

"Let’s go, let’s go, take a look."

At this moment, Fang Huai’s thoughts returned to normal. Seeing that the old man had already been pulled ashore by several people scrambling to save him, he felt a sense of responsibility for the man he had personally rescued and hurriedly swam to shore.

...

As soon as he got onto the shore, the woman’s crying broke out again.

She cried as if the sky had darkened, as though at a funeral where a family is saying goodbye.

"Dad, Dad..."

The woman half propped herself up and tried to throw herself onto the old man, but Zhao Jinchen firmly held her back.

Cao Yi was performing CPR on the man.

As soon as Fang Huai reached the shore, he ran to the old man’s side, pried his mouth open, and with three fingers, scooped out the remaining bits of mud and sand from his mouth.

"30 presses and one breath, establish breathing first!"

First aid was a mandatory course for firefighters, and the Fire Brigade often dealt with pulling people from the water, but it seemed to be Cao Yi’s first time resuscitating someone who could still be saved. After many unsuccessful attempts, he noticed that Fang Huai seemed to have some experience, and hesitated:

"You do it?"

"Keep pressing!"

Fang Huai was freezing, and after feeling the old man’s neck and wrist, he couldn’t detect any response. Checking for a heartbeat wasn’t clear either, but a subtle sense told him: the heart was still beating.

And the mouth he had just pried open had slightly closed again, showing there was still responsiveness.

He quickly pried open the old man’s mouth again, and this time he could smell a strong odor of alcohol coming from it.

After blowing a few breaths into him and getting up, he saw the continuously wailing woman and felt agitated.

Fang Huai gritted his teeth and with a swing of his hand slapped the old man across the face.

He shouted angrily, "Get up, look at your unfilial daughter!"

There was a stunned silence all around, and everyone gaped at Fang Huai.

The crying had stopped.

It was that miraculous.

The old man came back to life, coughing a few times.

Everyone was shocked; the slap seemed like magic, reviving the old man as if by spell.

Fang Huai also realized that the old man hadn’t been underwater for four or five minutes, or else he surely wouldn’t have woken up.

The security guard standing on the shore didn’t quite estimate the time right due to the chilling river wind.

Fang Huai could feel this acutely because in the silence that followed, he could count three gusts of wind passing over him, making the time feel exceedingly long.

Thankfully, Zhao Jinchen had decisively chosen the shortcut. Taking the main road would have added another minute, possibly taking away their chance.

Now, no one dared to touch the old man.

A few seconds later, Cao Yi, the more courageous one, reached out and placed his hand on the old man’s heart.

After a while, Cao Yi’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he looked up at Fang Huai:

"He’s alive."

In that moment, Fang Huai felt tears uncontrollably streaming down his face.