Chapter 6 Chapter Five: The Storm on the River

St. John's University is about sixteen or seventeen miles from Takahashi.Su Guanlan often starts from school on a bicycle to go to Gaoqiao for exercise.This morning he set off again.He has a crew cut, sunglasses and a Panama hat, tennis shoes and a shorts vest, an Innager swimming watch on his left wrist, and a heavy net bag on the back of the car. His skin is tanned and shiny. Each muscle bulges alternately with the movement.Arrive at Takahashi at ten o'clock in the morning. Gaoqiao was originally a quaint Jiangnan town.Over the past ten years, foreigners have successively built some villas, shops, clubs, tennis courts, gymnasiums and swimming pools here.Su Guanlan likes a natural swimming pool run by the French.At the place where a small river flows into the Huangpu River, there are several huts assembled with iron sheets and wooden boards, and a watchtower built with angled iron logs stands tall. There are some red and green mushroom umbrellas and deck chairs on the beach. , there are two or three small boats floating on the shore, in short, very simple.What Su Guanlan likes is its naturalness and simplicity.It is not far from the sea, the terrain is open, the river is densely covered with branches, and there are reeds, shrubs, woods and water birds everywhere...

Su Guanlan studied in a church school run by the British since she was a child.These schools had a great influence on him, making him yearn for science and keen on physical exercise.He is from Shanxi.There are many mountains in Shanxi.Su Guanlan likes mountain climbing and hiking, and he has climbed Wutai Mountain, Black Camel Mountain and Taibai Mountain; sometimes he spends the whole winter and summer vacations in mountain temples, worshiping monks and Taoists as teachers, studying scriptures, learning Chinese martial arts and practicing boxing.He has a British "Three Guns" bicycle, and he often travels long distances on this bicycle, covering tens of miles, hundreds of miles or even thousands of miles.He carried maps, compasses, cameras, binoculars, specimen holders, camping equipment and pocket tents, etc., and sometimes daggers and shotguns.

There is a lack of water in the north.Su Guanlan's only regret is that she can't swim.After graduating from middle school, he went to Qilu University in Jinan; this is another church school, jointly run by the Christian churches of the United Kingdom and the United States.Jinan is in Shandong, and Shandong is near the sea; therefore, when she was in college, Su Guanlan would go to Qingdao, Weihai or Yantai whenever she had the chance. The purpose of going there was to swim against the wind and waves in the sea and practice swimming hard. Su Guanlan was admitted to Qilu University in the summer of 1927 in the 16th year of the Republic of China.In the following year, in May 1928, the "May 3rd Massacre" occurred. The Japanese army occupied Jinan, burning, killing and looting wantonly.Su Guanlan was forced to flee and went to Shanghai St. John's University to "borrow".St. John's is also a church university, but it is not run by the British but by the Americans.

In May 1929, the Japanese army withdrew from Jinan.Su Guanlan finished her "borrowing" and was preparing to return to Qilu University.In the last days of his stay in Shanghai, he often went to Gaoqiao to practice boxing, wrestling and Sanda.Su Guanlan is 5.97 feet tall, with broad shoulders and muscular development. She speaks fluent London English and can speak a little German and French. She doesn't need to be "ashamed" in front of Caucasians... The farther from the shore, the faster the current.Su Guanlan constantly changes her posture, either going upstream, downstream, or swimming back and forth.Every time he comes to Takahashi, he swims first and then goes to the gym.This kind of exercise has lasted for more than ten days, and Su Guanlan feels very tired now.He thought, maybe he shouldn't come to Takahashi today... However, if he comes, he should take it easy and reduce his swimming time; he won't go to the gym after landing, and he won't do anything, but have a good meal and sleep!Thinking of this, he slowed down his movements, swam a few laps and landed. Looking around, there were quite a lot of people swimming today, maybe fifty or sixty people.He looked back, found a mushroom umbrella and lay flat on the beach to rest; he drank a little water, closed his eyes, and fell asleep unconsciously...

I don't know how long it took, the faint thunder woke the young man up.Looking at his watch, it was already afternoon; he stood up and looked into the distance.Dark clouds surged in the sky, and blue-white lightning flashed between the gaps in the clouds.Su Guanlan put her hands on her hips, admiring the moodiness of nature, feeling the wind and sand, feeling the numb pain on her cheeks and body.In an instant, the dark clouds overwhelmed the top, a strange wind suddenly rose on the river, the waves were rough, and white waves rushed to the shore like one after another; the waves became more and more fierce, and the tide was getting higher and higher.In the blink of an eye, the front wave was about to rush to Su Guanlan's feet.

"Oh, no, no, no!" Someone ran up from behind and grabbed Su Guanlan's arm.He turned around and saw that it was the old white Russian man hired by the swimming pool.This guy is in his fifties, bald, with a half-circle of yellow hair around the back of his head, and yellow hair all over his big belly, with two breasts dangling straight, so fat that he doesn't even have a neck, and he's out of breath after walking a few steps , I actually ran a few hundred meters to get here today! Su Guanlan glanced at him: "What are you talking about, why not?" The old man gestured vigorously, speaking broken English with Shanghai dialect, but Su Guanlan still understood. He said that the storm was terrible and severe, and he had to go back as fast as possible, as far away as possible!

Su Guanlan packed up the odds and ends, and walked back on the beach step by step.Passing by the tall observation tower, I saw the tower was swayed by the strong wind, and two foreigners who were obviously lifeguards were climbing down in panic, screaming while climbing, and even lost a telescope down.They seem to say that someone swims away and disappears.When Su Guanlan heard this, she stopped and waited; when the two men climbed down, he stopped them and asked, "What happened? Who's missing?" They stammered, saying that there was another swimmer who disappeared in the rolling waves, most likely already submerged. died……

"Look, it's terrible!" A foreigner pointed to the turbulent river.There is where the small river flows into the big river. The torrential torrent collides with the violent wind and rain, causing huge waves to roar and scream. In addition, the lightning and thunder are getting closer and stronger... Another foreigner exclaimed: "God, who can come back from there alive?" "Then you just leave him alone?" Su Guanlan was furious. "He, who is he?" The other party asked back, "Who did we leave behind? What should we do?" At this moment, a flash of lightning flashed across the sky, turning the world into a ghastly white!The foreigners shrunk their necks in fright, and there was an earth-shattering thunderbolt...

Su Guanlan looked up the river and found that several lifeboats had been swept away by the huge waves.A gust of wind whizzed by, and the thick and hard sand slammed on the person, feeling a burst of pain; the last two mushroom umbrellas were uprooted, rolled on the beach, and then flew into the air... Not far away, the watchtower more than ten meters high made a strange sound.As far as the eye can see, the roof was lifted, followed by the breaking of metal and wood.The entire body of the pagoda was tilted, crooked, and then collapsed at the middle... Oh my god, then it fell straight towards the place where the four of them were standing like the top of Mount Tai!

The two foreign lifeguards were agile, galloped, rolled and climbed, and escaped the moment before the tower hit the beach.Su Guanlan followed closely behind them and escaped safely.The collapsed tower lay behind them like a dead dinosaur, bursting and roaring, splashing water and sand several feet high... The storm was followed by showers.The raindrops were as big as soybeans, sweeping them obliquely or even sideways, smashing them, smashing them!Su Guanlan stopped, hesitating.What if there was such a swimmer who never came back?Isn't that just desperate?However, on the surface of the vast river, the turbid current is rolling, how to search and rescue?He wiped the rain off his face with his hands over and over again, looking at the river near and far.Suddenly, a small red dot jumped into his field of vision—oh my god!It was a human being, a living being, struggling to survive!Su Guanlan yelled loudly, but immediately realized that it was futile, as there was no one within a thousand feet.Looking at the surface of the river again, the little red dot suddenly disappeared and popped up again; obviously, the man was pushed to the top of the wave and fell to the trough again.He was exhausted, unable to reach the shore, and was being swallowed by the waves, rolling towards the place where the water and the sky connected.

Su Guanlan made a decisive decision and ran towards the water's edge; the waves swarmed up and engulfed him.The young man got out of the water, raised his arms, and swam towards the center of the river, towards the place where he had just spotted the little red dot.I don't know how much time it took, and I don't know how far I was swept by the torrent. In short, in the stormy river, I finally swam to the little red dot and lifted the man's head out of the water.Only then did he realize that the other party was a young woman, a girl in a red swimsuit and a round red swimming cap on her head, but she was already dying and had lost the last bit of strength to struggle.Su Guanlan hugged and supported the girl with one arm, and swung the other arm vigorously to move forward through the waves.The world was immersed in the boundless darkness, and it became like the night, confused and chaotic, unable to distinguish the direction.Su Guanlan knew that she must not panic, otherwise she would die without a place to bury her, together with that girl she had never met before!Feeling the direction of the water flow, he stroked to the right, stroked to the right, tried his best to stroke to the right... The thunder and lightning gradually went away.However, there are still dull roars and dim flashes from time to time, briefly and frequently illuminating the layered dark clouds and the undulating river surface.Su Guanlan used her two arms alternately, pushing away the clutches of the god of death time and time again.At the moment when he was about to lose his last ounce of strength and confidence, his already numb feet suddenly felt a little bit of touch—oh my god, it was either a beach or a reef or some kind of sediment, anyway, it would no longer be the bottomless abyss !At last he realized that he had landed.No matter what kind of shore it is, shore, shore!And at this moment, all Kishi meant life to him—oh no, not only "to him," but this girl curled up in his bosom!Although she didn't move at all and seemed completely unconscious, Su Guanlan knew she was alive, alive, alive! Su Guanlan staggered ashore with the girl in her arms.He tripped over a rock, his toes were numb with pain, and he fell hard.He was the first to lie down on the river beach full of large and small rocks, protecting the girl with his body.His forehead was smashed, his mouth was full of salt, and he was obviously bleeding; his whole body was in explosive pain, especially in his ribs, where there might be a broken bone, and he couldn't move!However, he thought, no, it’s all come to this point, and we can’t let it fall by the wayside.We have to move forward, move forward, until we reach a place where there are people.After panting for a while, he protected the girl with one arm, supported the ground with the other arm, and crawled to a higher place.He bit his teeth desperately, biting his cheeks rattling and biting his lips until blood flowed; the blood mixed with the blood on his forehead, cheeks, and limbs, and flowed down against the skin, on the sand, stones, A long trace was drawn on the mud...