"Help! Help, he—"
The faint cries for help were quickly scattered by the mountain wind.
Liu Yifei had already starred in two television dramas, and with her fair amount of filming experience, she never expected to encounter a snapping wire while working with a wire rig.
To make matters worse, as she fell, she landed on a rock in the stream, lost her footing, and sprained her left ankle.
She plunged into the water, her body slamming against the jagged rocks in the stream, the pain nearly causing her to pass out.
In her panic, she was swept away by the current, sliding all the way toward the small pool below.
Panicking and flailing wildly with her hands, she tried to grab onto the vegetation on the bank and the stones in the water, only to be relentlessly battered by the merciless current again and again. Her long hair drifted in the water, resembling waterweed struggling and dancing in the current.
Amidst the chaos, she saw a white figure sprinting toward her, trying to catch her.
To her despair, just as that large hand was about to grab her fingers, it missed.
Then she felt a tightness around her neck, accompanied by a "rip" sound. It seemed her collar had been grabbed, but the collar instantly tore, and the person failed to catch her.
"Ah—!"
Following the current, she plummeted from the ledge, plunging straight down toward the murky green pool below.
"Bang!"
The ledge wasn't high, only about five or six meters, but Liu Yifei's body slammed heavily and horizontally onto the water's surface, plunging her vision into darkness and tightening her chest with a suffocating ache.
When she opened her eyes again, she was already underwater.
Her gaze pierced the clear water, vaguely making out the shattered blue sky.
A huge white cloud fell rapidly from the blue sky, crashing heavily onto the water's surface and shattering everything in her field of vision!
Had someone come to save her?!
Her sluggish brain finally reacted, and she thrashed her hands and feet in the water, trying to swim upward.
Oh no, it's over!
Her legs cramped, her whole body instantly grew as stiff as wood, and she slowly began to sink!
No! Mom!
Liu Yifei parted her lips weakly, but the sound she wanted to make was choked back by the water.
Immediately afterward, her vision went black. In her mind, she seemed to see her kind maternal grandmother, her grandfather who had passed away when she was little, her gentle father, her nagging mother, and her stern grandfather...
Her hands patted and thrashed wildly in the water, wanting to embrace the loved ones before her eyes.
"Huh?!"
Just as she sank into darkness, she felt as though she had struck a piece of wood. Gathering the very last ounce of strength in her entire body, she grabbed onto that piece of wood with a death grip.
Two seconds later, she felt a tightness at her scalp, as if something had grabbed her long hair and was pulling her upward.
Her scalp hurt so much!
She shook her head, trying to shake off whatever was tangled in her hair. After a flurry of chaotic pulling, her scalp stopped feeling tight, but then a sharp pain shot through her neck, and she blacked out.
***
In Qi Tongwei's eyes, Huo Ge's movements seemed a bit slow, even though Huo Ge ran faster than him and was the first to approach Liu Yifei.
Yet at the very last moment, even though he clearly reached out his hand to catch Liu Yifei, for some reason Huo Ge fell just a fraction short and missed her.
And right as Liu Yifei was about to fall into the pool, Huo Ge had clearly grabbed her collar.
For some reason, the collar actually tore open, and Liu Yifei fell into the pool right before everyone's eyes.
Huo Ge dove in right after without a moment's hesitation.
Although two years of working in a remote mountainous area had worn away Qi Tongwei's enthusiasm for his job, his inner sense of justice still drove him to be the second to jump in.
His landing spot was far from where Huo Ge had fallen in. By the time he surfaced, he already saw Huo Ge holding Liu Yifei and swimming to the surface.
"Hey, Wei-ge, are you part snail? So slow!"
Treading water and supporting Liu Yifei as he swam toward the shore, Huo Ge even had the leisure to mock Qi Tongwei.
"Damn your grandfather!" Qi Tongwei cursed, speeding up his arms and legs to swim over. He grabbed Liu Yifei, and together with Huo Ge, they dragged her ashore.
Huo Ge laid Liu Yifei flat and, without another word, began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
"Cough, cough!"
Just as Huo Ge was about to give Liu Yifei mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she coughed up a mouthful of clear water and slowly regained consciousness.
Qi Tongwei chuckled to himself. It seemed heaven had intervened just in time, preventing this brat Huo Ge from taking advantage of the situation—wait, no, the brat had already taken advantage of her!
"Guo-gege?"
Liu Yifei's vision was blurry, but the handsome face before her made her dazedly think of Louis Koo playing Yang Guo in the Hong Kong television drama *The Return of the Condor Heroes* that she had been binge-watching over the past few days!
"Ah, Long'er—"
Huo Ge's unexpected reply nearly made Qi Tongwei burst out laughing.
Seeing that the crew members had already rushed over, Qi Tongwei quickly pulled Huo Ge up.
"Long'er—," Huo Ge muttered, acting as though he were still in character, letting Qi Tongwei pull him away while stretching a hand out toward Liu Yifei, his gaze filled with sorrow and reluctance!
"Hey, snap out of it!"
Qi Tongwei delivered a punch to Huo Ge's ribs, and Huo Ge immediately pulled his hand back in pain.
"Yifei! Yifei!"
The director and Liu Yifei's assistant Chen Cheng arrived almost simultaneously, shoving Huo Ge and Qi Tongwei aside.
Chen Cheng draped a large towel she was holding over Liu Yifei to prevent any accidental exposure.
The other crew members also swarmed around in several tight rings. Under the director's direction, a few female extras scrambled to lift Liu Yifei and rushed her to the hospital.
Struggling, Liu Yifei said, "Director, I'm fine. There's no need to go to the hospital, let's keep shooting!"
The director comforted her, "Go get checked at the hospital first. If you're really fine, you can come back and shoot. Don't rush!"
"I'm afraid of falling behind schedule!"
"It's fine, we'll shoot other scenes first."
"Director, I—"
"Don't talk yet, listen to me!"
Liu Yifei raised her head, wanting to see who had saved her, but surrounded by people, she couldn't see who it was.
Huo Ge simply washed his hands of the affair and hid his achievements, retreating to the outer edge of the crowd before glaring at Qi Tongwei. "Why did you hit me? I was saving someone!"
Qi Tongwei pointed at Huo Ge's nose. "Acting, keep acting! If I hadn't pulled you away, a barrage of fists and kicks would've been raining down on you. Even if you didn't die, you'd be crippled!"
"What's wrong with me?"
"You still have the nerve to ask? Your wolfish hand was pressed right against her chest, and you even wanted to kiss her! You beast, she's only sixteen, how could you bring yourself to do it?"
"Are you blind? That was cardiopulmonary resuscitation!"
"I'm not blind! If I hadn't pulled you away, those knights in shining armor would've beaten you to death long ago!"
"Who can beat me? Hmph!"
"..."
Before Liu Yifei was loaded onto the van, she had fully regained consciousness. Her vision cleared, and she searched the crowd for the person who had saved her.
She didn't know who had rescued her, but just now she vaguely remembered two people by her side: one wearing white costume robes and the other in a police uniform.
Here, Qi Tongwei was the only police officer, and she had spoken a few words with him earlier.
Yet she was certain the first person to save her couldn't have been Qi Tongwei; it was likely the man in white who had been talking to him.
That man in white looked familiar. Oh, right, Liu Yifei remembered—he was a handsome guy who wandered around the set helping out.
She remembered very clearly that the handsome guy seemed quite shy and had never spoken a word to her.