A man who has crossed countless mountains x a man who dives beneath the ocean's surface
A sharp-tongued, mischievous writer on the bottom x a sharp-tongued diving instructor on top
The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth.
To find inspiration for his new book, Jiang Yanqing packs a shabby bag and heads out, having heard that Egypt has schools of dolphins and some of the clearest waters in the world.
His flights are delayed, buses run late, a tricycle breaks down, and he has to walk through all kinds of hardships before finally reaching Dahab.
When bad luck strikes, even a drink of cold water can get stuck in your teeth. Not only is his phone dead, but his power bank has vanished too.
Luckily, a friend arranged a local guide for him before he arrived.
Jiang Yanqing, still dazed, clutches his dead phone and squats by the Red Sea like a stone waiting for her husband to return.
Two hours and thirty minutes later, he picks out the person who looks best to him. “Excuse me, can I borrow your phone?”
“OK. How are you?” asks a man holding a pair of fins, raising an eyebrow.
“I'm fine, thank you, and you?” Jiang Yanqing hates his damn muscle memory and covers his face. Then he spots the green app icon and brightens.
“Hey, can I use WeChat to call my friend?”
Jiang Yanqing stares at his own contact details on the phone, completely lost.
The guide?
Is the elegant man in glasses from the ID photo really the same person as this tanned guy with model-perfect abs and loud swim trunks?
Jiang Yanqing awkwardly holds out his hand. “I'm your client. The time got mixed up by two days, but those photos of you are pretty misleading.”
The guide snatches back his phone and turns to leave. “I'll get plastic surgery now and come pick you up the day after tomorrow.”
Jiang Yanqing stands there, bewildered in the scorching wind.
Can you really get pale again in two days? Are you going to change your skin?
Jiang Yanqing: “Huh? Hey, don't go. I'll pay you the difference for the two days.”
He Ci: “Forget the difference. You owe me compensation for emotional distress.”
“Sure, better to pay up and avoid trouble.” Jiang Yanqing waves a hand and reaches for his pocket.
“Double.”
“Good grief, you're really trying to rob...”
“Triple?”
Jiang Yanqing immediately changes his tune. “You're such a reasonable man! A bodhisattva in human form! I'm sticking with you!”
Jiang Yanqing teary-eyed and shamelessly begs until the man agrees to take him diving for inspiration.
A school of dolphins swims beneath them. Jiang Yanqing looks at his bodhisattva, bends over, and darts underwater to swim with the free-spirited creatures.
Jiang Yanqing slips and crashes into the water, forgetting that he can't swim.
As he starts to sink, he spots his bodhisattva gesturing at the dolphins?
The next second, a dolphin swims straight up and smacks him with its tail.
Jiang Yanqing: “Gurgle, gurgle...” Before he can shout, “Murder!”
A hand covers his mouth, and a smiling man appears before him.
Oh! His bodhisattva came to save him.
But why does saving someone require grabbing them by the neck, covering their mouth, pinching their nose, and kissing them?
Sitting on the deck, soaked through, Jiang Yanqing says, “Why did you kiss me?”
He Ci frowns, takes his face in his hand, and kisses him again. “The first one was CPR. This is a real kiss.”
He Ci: “So if you can't swim, don't go in the sea. You could end up sleeping down there forever.”
Jiang Yanqing covers his burning face and stubbornly retorts, “But you know CPR, don't you?”
He Ci is a scientist who follows marine life and has no fixed home. In Egypt, he agrees to look after a kid entrusted to him by a friend.
The kid is the polar opposite of the words he writes. His prose is objective and calm,
but in person, the kid is cheeky and loud, with only a red nose and a pair of beautiful black eyes left after getting sunburned at the beach.
He thought life would be peaceful and uneventful, but the kid can't swim and still insists on going into the sea.
He Ci doesn't understand why, when every breath underwater is so precious, the kid is always imitating dolphins and blowing bubbles.
“Keep your mouth shut. Stop blowing bubbles.”
“Hey, come save me~”
Theme: Protect marine life
