Chapter 1 Died in Earthquake Rescue

A huge bang.

The dome overhead suddenly broke off with a bang. The boy in Gu Baisheng's arm burst out tears in fear.

Gu Baisheng's body sunk for dozens of centimeters. The paramedics above her shouted in panic.

"Dr. Gu?"

"How are you holding up, Dr. Gu?"

The aftershock only lasted for a short time.

But the rubble of buildings couldn't take it. Under the wave of the aftershock, there was a secondary collapse.

Luckily, after such a heart-stopping collapse, there was still one small opening in the ruins.

Only a child below five years old could climb through that tiny crack.

She held the boy in one arm and lulled him as gentle as a mother would be, "I'll hold you up in a while, and you need to reach your arms up as high as possible."

The boy was sobbing. His face was dirty because of the dust, which made him resemble the child in her memory.

She smiled and tried her best to bear the pain coming from her buried lower body. She pulled the kid by her side, reaching out her hands and grabbing his waist. She held him up with all the strength.

The kid did what she asked. He reached out his tiny hands while crying.

He reached out his arms in his best effort, like a tiny tree extending its branch towards the sky. At that moment, countless arms reached in from that small crack.

"Grab me..."

"Good boy. I'll pull you up now."

"Dr. Gu, hang in there. We'll get you out as soon as the boy is out."

The paramedics and the rescue team grabbed the hands of the boy with their best effort. They pulled the kid out from the tiny crack.

Gu Baisheng didn't dare to let her guard down or let go.

She was afraid that this kid would be like her kid, who turned into a cold and tiny corpse.

"Dr. Gu, the kid is out. Please hang in there."

The small kid was carried away from the crack which had lights that shone through.

Gu Baisheng was relieved inside. She curled up her lips and looked down at her lower body which was buried in the ruins.

She then reached to the pockets of her doctor's robe and struggled to take out an old and shabby phone.

People above here were still organizing the rescue intensely.

They were comforting her and telling her to rest assured. The voices over her head kept telling her that they would get her out.

She responded all with, “I’m hanging in. Rest assured.”

Yet she started typing on her phone.

That was a message from her mother that she received every day since she came to Hanchuan disaster area.

“Shengsheng, did you eat well today?”

She replied as usual, “I did. Don’t worry, mom.”

After she replied that, she continued to the next one. A message came from Song Shuang, which was only four words long, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

Thinking about it for a while, Gu Baisheng didn’t reply.

Below that message was one that was from seven years ago.

She kept that message for seven years, and she had been waiting for its reply, yet she never received another message from this number.

She asked him every day, “Cheng Bi, when will you be back? I want to tell you good news.”

Day after day and year after year, that person never responded in the past seven years.

She didn’t send the same message. She smiled and typed something different quickly.

“Cheng Bi, I’m trapped by the earthquake. If I make it out this time, can you hurry up and come to marry me?”

She just finished typing the last word.

Before she could hit send, the earth shook.

The ruins of the buildings above her fell in a bang.

Gu Baisheng heard the sound of a heavy rock landing near her. Then she fell into darkness.

…

When she woke up again, she heard cries outside the window.

There was a familiar voice calling her name while crying, “Bai! You heartless girl! I raised you up. Why are you leaving me?”

That was her mother’s voice.

She immediately stood up from the hospital bed and looked outside the window.

There were people downstairs carrying a coffin and heading towards the funeral home. Her mother was among the group.

Other people in the same inpatient ward also looked down from the window and sighed, “What a pity! Gu Baisheng was a really good surgeon.”

“I know. She performed the surgery on my son last year. She died in the earthquake rescue! So young!”

Gu Baisheng opened her mouth and stared at her hands unbelievably.

But she was alive!