Chapter 2: The Only Lifeline

“Ring, ring, ring—”

The shrill sound of the alarm shattered the morning’s tranquility, jolting Xu Yuan from a haze of light sleep.

She snapped her eyes open, the familiar white ceiling of the dormitory coming into view, yet her heart still felt as if gripped tightly by an invisible hand, pounding wildly, almost leaping out of her throat.

That dream…

Too real.

So vivid that she could still feel the icy, bone-chilling seawater and the fierce wind whipping up massive waves, crashing against her again and again, suffocating her with helplessness.

And Jiang Yi’s lonely, stubborn figure, as if he were fighting against the whole world.

“Are you crazy, Xu Yuan? Why’s your alarm so loud so early? Rushing to be reborn or what?”

A muffled complaint came from her roommate, Zhou Lili, in the upper bunk. She turned over, pulling the blanket over her head, and continued sleeping.

“Sorry, sorry…”

Xu Yuan hurried to turn off the alarm and quietly climbed out of bed.

She walked to the balcony, twisted the faucet open, and splashed cold water on her face repeatedly, trying to sober herself from the lingering terror of the nightmare.

In the mirror appeared a pale, paper-white face, dark bruises under the eyes, lips devoid of any color.

“It’s just a dream,” she whispered to her reflection, trying to soothe herself. “It must have been the scene I saw yesterday that unsettled me, made me overthink…”

Yes, it must be so.

She was merely a humble voyeur. Because she had glimpsed someone else’s scars and felt sympathy, she thought of him day and night.

Jiang Yi, whether a reef or an island, had nothing to do with her.

What she should care about now was her bank balance, a mere seventy-eight yuan and fifty cents, and her parents back home, waiting for her to send money for medicine.

The self-comfort seemed somewhat effective. Xu Yuan took a deep breath, and the suffocating heaviness in her chest eased slightly.

She changed clothes, grabbed her backpack, and as usual, prepared to head to the cafeteria to buy the two cheapest vegetarian buns to cover her breakfast and lunch.

But as she passed the electronic bulletin board in the teaching building’s lobby, her steps froze as if nailed to the spot, unable to move even an inch.

On the screen, a campus event advertisement was scrolling—

[“Starlight Cup” Campus Original Works Competition]

[First Prize: 100,000 yuan!]

One hundred thousand!

The number struck Xu Yuan’s mind like a thunderclap, instantly shattering all her reason and pretense.

That sum could cover all her father’s subsequent medical expenses, ease her mother’s hardships, and even allow her to breathe for a moment amid suffocating poverty.

“First prize is 100,000, second prize 50,000, and even third prize offers 10,000!”

An excited voice suddenly came from beside her. Her best friend Lin Feifei had appeared unnoticed, eagerly shaking her arm, eyes sparkling with excitement.

Lin Feifei was her only friend at this university—a wealthy, fiery-spirited heiress who was wholeheartedly devoted to her.

“Yuan Yuan, this competition is tailor-made for our Journalism Department! Shooting a short film, writing a proposal—aren’t these exactly your strengths? Let’s team up and claim that 100,000 yuan prize. Then we can eat well every day!”

Team up…

A buzzing sound exploded inside Xu Yuan’s mind.

She fixed her gaze on the small print on the board—[Participation format: Teams of two, free to form teams].

A wild, desperate thought instantly consumed her entire being.

What if…

What if she could team up with Jiang Yi…

That absurd dream that had haunted her entire night overlapped eerily with the life-saving fortune of the prize before her very eyes.

She told herself it was for the money. For that 100,000 yuan, she had to find the strongest technical partner, and no one in the whole school was more suitable than Jiang Yi.

But deep inside, a faint yet stubborn voice whispered: This was an opportunity, the only chance to stand legitimately beside that “reef.”

She couldn’t save him, but at least, she could try not to let him be so lonely.

Money was the best excuse and the strongest armor.

“Feifei, I’m not eating breakfast with you!” Xu Yuan suddenly pulled her friend’s hand away, her eyes burning with an almost obsessive, all-or-nothing determination.

—

“Ah? Where are you going?” Lin Feifei was bewildered by this sudden change.

Xu Yuan didn’t answer. She tore a registration flyer from the board, clenched it tightly in her palm, and turned to run toward the library.

She needed to find him.

Now. Immediately.

…

Binhai University Library, third floor, the same corner as yesterday.

Xu Yuan stood in the shadow of the bookshelves, her heart racing wildly, the flyer in her palm dampened from sweat.

Not far away, by the window, Jiang Yi sat quietly.

He wore a faded gray hoodie, with headphones on, his long fingers flying over the laptop keyboard, the screen scrolling with dense lines of code that Xu Yuan couldn’t understand.

Sunlight filtered through the window, casting a faint golden halo over him, isolating him from the noisy world—a cold, focused, solitary kingdom.

He was still that silent reef, as if the humiliating scene yesterday in the library had been a mere hallucination.

Xu Yuan took several deep breaths, finally mustering courage to step out from behind the bookshelf and walk toward the person she both feared and had no choice but to approach.

She stopped at his desk, her shadow covering a small patch of light in front of him.

Jiang Yi’s typing paused.

But he did not look up, his gaze fixed on the screen as if she were nothing more than an insignificant obstacle.

“Jiang Yi,” Xu Yuan spoke, her voice trembling faintly from nervousness.

No response.

She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms to steady herself. Raising her voice slightly, she tried to sound steadier.

“Jiang Yi, I want to talk to you.”

This time, he finally reacted.

He slowly raised his head and removed one earphone.

His jet-black, fathomless eyes met hers unexpectedly—cold, indifferent, with a sharpness that seemed to see through all her disguises and lies.

“What is it?”

His voice, colder than the early autumn morning breeze by three degrees.

Xu Yuan felt a pang of guilt under his gaze, almost wanting to flee. But thinking of the life-saving prize money and the icy sea from her dream, she forced herself to meet his eyes and placed the crumpled flyer on his desk.

“The ‘Starlight Cup’ competition,” she said clearly, word by word, pointing to the headline on the flyer. “I want to ask you to be my partner.”

The air seemed to freeze.

Jiang Yi’s eyes slowly shifted from the flyer to Xu Yuan’s face.

Time seemed to stretch many times over; Xu Yuan could clearly hear her pounding heartbeat.

Just as she was about to collapse, the corner of Jiang Yi’s mouth twisted into a faint, almost cruel smirk.

It was not a smile, but pure, undisguised mockery.

“You?”

He leaned back in his chair, his scrutinizing gaze like a sharp scalpel dissecting her from head to toe, finally resting on her trembling eyes.

“You were the one hiding behind the bookshelf spying yesterday, weren’t you?”

His voice was low but thunderous in Xu Yuan’s mind.

Her face instantly turned ghostly pale; all her excuses and pretenses suddenly seemed so ridiculous.

“I…” she opened her mouth but could not utter a single word.

“Many people want to team up with me,” Jiang Yi said coldly, without a trace of warmth. “Give me one reason why it should be you—a coward who hides in the shadows spying on others?”

The words “coward” were spoken softly, yet they pierced Xu Yuan’s armor like the sharpest dagger.

Yes, she was a coward.

Afraid that classmates would know her family’s plight, afraid to face her parents’ worries, afraid of that absurd yet real dream, and even afraid of the cold gaze of the boy before her.

But sometimes, when driven to desperation, even cowards grow fangs.

—

Xu Yuan took a deep breath, lifted her head, and met his scrutinizing, almost torturous gaze.

She didn’t try to explain or hide anymore but did something even she thought was crazy.

She took out her phone, unlocked it, opened the SMS notification showing her balance of only seventy-eight yuan and fifty cents, and turned the screen toward him.

“This,” her voice trembling from extreme repression but carrying a resolute determination, “and those coffee-stained notes on your desk.”

Jiang Yi’s pupils contracted sharply.

He hadn’t expected her to answer his question in such a self-destructive way.

She laid bare her most desperate, humiliating predicament before him—a mirror reflecting his own shadow.

“I need money, a lot of money. So do you,” Xu Yuan said, staring into his turbulent black eyes, speaking clearly each word. “I’ve checked all your records and read every paper you wrote. You’re Binhai University’s top programmer, without equal. And for the scholarship, I can survive on just four hours of sleep a day for a whole month. For money, I’m willing to do anything.”

Her gaze was no longer admiring but possessed an almost mad obsession.

“I need your skills, you need my planning and execution. We’re the same kind of people, Jiang Yi,” she pushed the crumpled flyer toward him again, “We’re the best partners.”

The library was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.

Jiang Yi stared hard at her; the face always frozen in eternal frost showed the first crack.

In her reddened, stubbornly tearless eyes, he saw a beast driven to the edge by life, just like himself.

Proud, yet forced to bow for survival.

After a long, suffocating silence of half a minute, it was broken.

“At five p.m., ‘Wednesday’ café at the south gate of the school,” he finally spoke, his voice still hoarse and cold but less sharp and distant. “Bring your proposal. If I think it’s feasible, I’ll consider it.”

He did not agree outright.

But Xu Yuan knew she had won the gamble.

…

That night, Binhai University’s campus forum exploded over a single post.

[Title: Shocking! This Year’s “Starlight Cup” Sees a Divine Duo! Fallen Noble Jiang Yi Teams up with Journalism Prodigy Xu Yuan—Is This a Power Alliance or Mutual Shelter?]

The main post detailed the backgrounds of Jiang Yi and Xu Yuan: one a genius fallen from the clouds, the other a rising star, accompanied by a candid photo—no one knew who had taken it—of the two “signing the contract” at the café that afternoon.

The post instantly shot to the top of the trending list. A fiery comment further fueled the heat.

It came from an ID named “Shero,” whose avatar was an evidently expensive platinum handbag.

[Shero: A fallen aristocrat turned stray dog and some wild girl who popped out of nowhere—calling that a ‘divine duo’? Laughable. This year’s champion is already mine, Song Shiya.]

Song Shiya! The dance department’s campus queen, a true white-rich-beautiful.

Xu Yuan, staring at the hostile comment, felt a surge of agitation.

She turned off her phone, buried herself under the blanket, forcing herself to think of nothing.

She had succeeded.

She had successfully tied her fate to Jiang Yi’s. This was the first and most crucial step.

Carrying a hint of exhaustion and false reassurance, Xu Yuan sank into a deep sleep.

Yet she did not know that once fate’s gears began to turn, they would not easily stop.

Midnight.

Once again, she plunged into the familiar, icy nightmare.

But this time, no reef or sea.

Instead, she found herself in a dimly lit, noisy KTV private room.

Faces were indistinct; only a suffocating, trapped pressure was palpable. The sharp sound of breaking glass, the choking smell of alcohol, and countless malicious jeers crashed over her like a tide, drowning her.

At the dream’s end, she seemed to hear Jiang Yi’s voice—a voice she had never heard before, crazed to self-destruction.

Xu Yuan shot awake, heart pounding wildly, cold sweat soaking her pajamas.

Though she couldn’t see exactly what had happened, that intense, ominous premonition gripped her heart like an icy net.

Danger was coming faster than she had imagined!