Prodigy’s Playground

Chapter 19 Secret

Thump!

A dull, heavy sound.

Cheng Mengxue’s face slammed into the king crab shell. Her breathing puffed out in tiny little snuffles, and she fell into a dead sleep.

“…”

“…”

Jiang Ran and Qin Feng both hesitated, wanting to speak and stopping themselves.

“...She got drunk?” Qin Feng asked carefully.

“Obviously.”

“No wonder! I knew something felt off just now!”

Qin Feng let out a huge breath of relief.“I’ve never seen Xiaoxue this bold before! That whole vibe— I seriously thought she was about to confess to you! I didn’t even know where I was supposed to crawl into and disappear!”

“But this tolerance is just—”

He looked at Cheng Mengxue’s red wine glass. It had only been poured to about a third in the first place, and by now she’d drunk less than half of that.

Getting blackout from two sips of something as low-alcohol as red wine—honestly, that counted as biodiversity.

“This should be her first time drinking,” Jiang Ran said.

He shook his head.

“Anyway, in all these years, I’ve never seen her drink.”

“I also didn’t know her tolerance was this bad… The amount of alcohol she drank is probably less than the alcohol in a liquor-filled chocolate.”

“Has she ever eaten liquor-filled chocolate?” Qin Feng asked, curious.

“…Seems like no.”

…

Jiang Ran carried Cheng Mengxue into her own room and laid her on the bed.

Then he left, closed the door, and clicked the lock again and again to make sure it was secured and couldn’t be opened. Only then did he return to the viewing deck.

The fireworks show had ended long ago.

The DJ dance party on the deck had also mostly dispersed, in twos and threes.

Qin Feng was leaning over the viewing deck railing, staring into the distance, no one knew what he was thinking.

He heard footsteps.

He turned around and looked at Jiang Ran.

“If Xiaoxue could’ve held on for two more seconds, she might’ve said she likes you.”

“She wouldn’t.” Jiang Ran shook his head.

“How wouldn’t she?”

Qin Feng leaned back against the railing.

“You’ve always seemed like you were avoiding this. And since it’s between you two, I’ve never asked.”

“But… it’s not high school anymore. Dating isn’t some big deal, right?”

When Jiang Ran came over too and leaned on the railing in silence, Qin Feng sighed.

“Don’t tell me the childhood-friends curse is real.”

“It really is a weird pattern. In real life, the probability of childhood friends ending up together is really, really low.”

“Is it because you’re too familiar? Like… family, relatives, a little sister kind of feeling?”

He turned again, leaning on the railing with Jiang Ran, the sea wind in his face as he looked at him.

“It’s obvious. Xiaoxue really likes you. Especially after this whole jumping-in-the-river-to-save-people thing… in her eyes, you’re an invincible hero.”

“Maybe that’s what hit her too hard. So earlier, the alcohol gave courage to a coward, and she finally said what she really felt inside.”

Jiang Ran was still silent.

“Hey. Say something.”

Qin Feng jabbed him with an elbow.

“I don’t know.”

Staring at the foam on the sea, Jiang Ran spoke softly.

“I’m not a genius who can solve every problem… This problem, I don’t know the answer either.”

“…”

Qin Feng watched him quietly.

In the end—

as if making up their mind—

“Jiang Ran, I’ll tell you a [secret].”

?

Jiang Ran lifted his head.

“You still have something you’ve been hiding from me?”

“Xiaoxue told me not to say it.”

Qin Feng shrugged.

“But look—am I not telling you anyway? It’s just a few days late.”

“Relax, it’s not some huge thing. I know what matters.”

Jiang Ran looked at him.

Then nodded.

“Say it.”

…

Qin Feng licked his lips, took a deep breath through his nose, then slowly let it out.

“For you, this happened on this worldline. So after the temporal shift and the worldline transition, you have absolutely no memory of it—and we didn’t tell you either.”

“That day, after you grabbed Xu Yan and then flipped over the bridge and jumped into the river… Cheng Mengxue reacted like she’d been triggered. She screamed and screamed, and went crazy trying to jump in after you.”

“I’ve never seen her lose control like that. To put it bluntly, she was seriously like a rabid dog… Xu Yan and I both had to hold her down, pin her down—we almost couldn’t.”

“She really went crazy. The instant you jumped, tears just exploded out of her. To break free from us, she even bit Xu Yan’s arm hard enough it was almost bleeding. Of course, Xu Yan would never let you see the bite mark.”

As he spoke, he habitually touched his left arm.

Looks like that bite had landed on Xu Yan—but it hurt Qin Feng, too.

After a pause, he continued.

“She didn’t come back to herself until she saw you make it to shore from far away. Her face was white—no color at all.”

“Later, we rushed you to the hospital. The whole way was chaos, and we didn’t have time to bring it up.”

“But after we got back to school, Xiaoxue secretly came to find me and Xu Yan. She begged the two of us—swore us—never to tell you. Yeah. About how she lost control, how she cried and screamed, how she bit someone, how she tried to jump in to save you.”

“I get it. I can understand how she felt. In that situation, who wouldn’t panic? So don’t take it to heart. She wasn’t trying to hide it from you on purpose—she probably just felt like she was too out of control, too embarrassing.”

Jiang Ran listened in silence.

He remembered that after that temporal shift, when he woke up in the hospital, the first person he saw was Cheng Mengxue.

She’d just come back with takeout then, smiling bright—there was no trace of anything like that kind of madness or collapse.

“She didn’t want us to tell you because she didn’t want you worrying,” Qin Feng said.

All along, he kept patching the story, protecting Cheng Mengxue.

“But! What I’m saying is, in your eyes, maybe you don’t understand why Xiaoxue said such bold things after drinking.”

“But I understand. It’s because you jumping into the river hit her too hard. And maybe it was exactly that—that made her decide to face her feelings and prepare to confess to you.”

“It’s just a shame her tolerance is so awful. If she’d held on a few more seconds, you two might’ve become a thing.”

Heh.

Unexpectedly—

faced with a story that sentimental, Jiang Ran actually gave a soft laugh, shaking his head.

“Qin Feng, you really are good at solving problems. But I’m sorry—on this one, you solved it wrong.”

“What—do you have a conscience?”

Qin Feng was furious.

“I’m not saying you have to do anything. But with that attitude—does Xiaoxue deserve that?”

“Then do you know why Xiaoxue went that crazy when she saw me jump?” Jiang Ran shot back.

“Because she was worried about you?”

“Not entirely.”

Jiang Ran shook his head.

“She knows I’m a strong swimmer. When we were kids, we took swimming lessons together. By middle school, I’d already won city-level medals.”

As he spoke, he pointed toward the four-meter diving platform by the pool.

“The platform you were scared to jump from—Xiaoxue jumps it. Sure, the splash is big, but it’s still basically a perfect entry. I can even jump backward, flat on my back. Is that something an average person who can swim would dare to do?”

“Not to mention, I was wearing a buoyant life jacket. With that on, you can throw someone into the open sea and they won’t drown. Even if they die, they’ll still have to float on the surface… With my swimming ability and a buoyant life jacket, do you really think I needed that kind of worry?”

“Fine—take ten thousand steps back. Of course there would be worry. You were definitely worried too. But would you be worried enough to lose control that badly?”

…

Hit with that chain of reasoning, Qin Feng was stunned too.

“The three of us—these past years, we’ve told each other everything. There’s nothing we haven’t talked about. Even something as broken as time-traveling text messages—I never once thought about hiding it from you two.”

“But there are still some things… things between me and Xiaoxue… that you still don’t know.”

Jiang Ran straightened.

“The thing Xiaoxue told you not to say—you still told me anyway. I’m touched.”

“So, Qin Feng.”

He turned his head.

Looked straight into Qin Feng’s eyes.

“I’ll tell you… a [secret], too.”