DSMIS CH4

Chapter 4: You Must Be a Living Bodhisattva

A faint trace of awkwardness hovered around Dr. Shen, and it took a long moment before he managed to dryly eke out a sentence:

“About last time… thanks.”

Jiang Lin looked up:

“Hmm?”

“Uh, my tissues fell into the toilet pit.”

A low chuckle, mingled with the sound of wind and rain, reached Shen Xing’s ears. Immediately after, his hands felt empty as Jiang Lin took the suitcase from his grip, his voice laced with amusement:

“I guessed as much. Good thing it wasn’t nighttime—otherwise, walking into a restroom and seeing a hand reaching out from under the stall door would be pretty terrifying.”

Shen Xing: …

“My trunk is a bit dirty, so I’ll put your suitcase on the back seat.”

Shen Xing picked up the next suitcase and caught up with quick strides, hurriedly speaking up:

“There’s rainwater on the suitacase—don’t get your car seats wet.”

“No problem, it wipes clean easily.”

As he spoke, Jiang Lin swung the door open and lifted the suitcase inside with one hand. Following closely behind, Shen Xing finally saw that the original occupant of the back seat was none other than the majestic German Shepherd he had spotted at the service area earlier.

Currently, this dog—easily a supermodel among canines—was tilting its head to look at him. Shen Xing scratched his cheek in slight embarrassment, then turned to Jiang Lin:

“I have too many suitcases. Is it crowding him?”

Jiang Lin gave the dog’s head a rough stroke, casually patting the side of the suitcase:

“Not at all. Heibao is very generous. Be good, don’t chew on the suitcases, alright?”

“His name is Heibao? That’s such a cool name.”

Jiang Lin let out a brief laugh:

“Yeah. Trust them—they can coexist peacefully.”

Indeed, they could coexist in peace—mostly because Shen Xing completely failed to notice that after the suitcases were loaded, the majestic German Shepherd made no attempt whatsoever to claw or bite at them. Instead, it began sniffing along the edges of the suitcases from front to back, left to right.

The black German Shepherd’s eyes were no longer listless like when it was napping on the back seat. Instead, they shone bright and sharp—devoid of any desire to slack off, brimming entirely with professional focus. It didn’t even spare the two grocery bags, using its paw to gently nudge them aside as it carefully sniffed every single inch.

Holding the umbrella, Shen Xing was just about to pull the spare tire out from his own trunk when Jiang Lin suddenly caught a whiff of an odd smell. He squatted down, and sure enough, a small puddle of water-insoluble liquid had gathered beneath the Audi A6, the distinct scent of gasoline growing noticeably stronger. Standing up, he said:

“Your fuel tank is ruptured.”

Shen Xing froze for a second, then immediately squatted down to inspect it:

“Holy crap! It’s leaking this much?!”

He really couldn’t hold back a curse. No way I’m this unlucky, right? If it were just a blowout, putting on the spare tire with the Land Cruiser bro pulling him out would have allowed him to manage and keep driving. But now, with a ruptured fuel tank, how the hell was he supposed to drive anywhere?

Shen Xing clutched his head in sheer frustration. Jiang Lin noticed a sharp, protruding rock on the embankment, its jagged side facing upward:

“It probably slashed through when your car crashed down the shoulder. You might have to call a tow truck.”

Shen Xing took a deep breath and pulled out his phone, only to realize that his damn iPhone seemed determined to bury him right here in the mountains—it didn’t have a single bar of signal!

Watching Shen Xing pace back and forth with his phone held high, completely unable to place a call, Jiang Lin silently pulled out his own phone. Seeing two bars of signal on his screen, he handed the device over:

“Use mine.”

Shen Xing accepted the phone with both hands. Looking at those two glorious bars of signal, the reverent posture with which he held the phone surpassed even the way he had received the tissues earlier. His eyes sparkled with overwhelming gratitude as he looked at the Land Cruiser bro:

“You’re a living Bodhisattva sent down from heaven to save me, aren’t you?”

Jiang Lin waved his hand with an amused expression:

“Don’t flatter me. I can’t grant any wishes here.”

Shen Xing was in no mood to keep bantering and quickly dialed the number. The call went through, but his blood pressure spiked immediately:

“What?! Five hours? Where are you guys coming from that it takes five hours to get here?! I’m out in the middle of the mountains! It’s about to turn pitch black—what if there are wolves?!”

Jiang Lin watched Shen Xing hang up the phone with a face full of misery:

“How is it?”

“They said there’s a landslide up ahead and a traffic accident. The earliest they can get here to rescue me is five hours. It’s ridiculous! If anything happens to me out here, they won’t even need to bother with an emergency room—they can just dig a hole and bury me on the spot.”

Shen Xing was venting, but panic was genuinely setting in. He glanced at his watch—it was nearly 5:00 PM, and the sky was already growing dim. The distant mountains looked like a dark, suffocating wall under the gloomy sky, and the howling wind and rain whipped through the forest trees, creating a eerie, chilling atmosphere if listened to for too long.

The terrifying pressure of raw nature was hard for Shen Xing to describe. If he had to put it into words, he was even more anxious now than he had been during his very first visit to the medical school’s anatomy lab. And he had to stay in this nerve-wracking environment for five whole hours? He couldn’t help but shiver violently.

Shen Xing looked at the good Samaritan beside him, his expression completely numb from being battered by harsh reality:

“I’ll just have to wait for the tow truck here. Let me grab my stuff back out. You go ahead first, living Bodhisattva. Seriously, thank you so much for pulling me out earlier.”

Jiang Lin looked down at his phone, then surveyed the road ahead and behind, a trace of concern written between his brows:

“The weather forecast says the rain will intensify in half an hour, and it probably won’t stop all night. Mudslides and falling rocks are very common around this area. Staying here for five hours might be pretty dangerous, don’t you think?”

Shen Xing had virtually no experience living in the mountains; to him, the word “mudslide” was still just a natural disaster he saw on news broadcasts.

Yet, even without experience, he had clearly seen the scattered rocks along the road. Hearing Jiang Lin put it that way, he felt that this was no longer a matter of mere fear—his very life was under threat. He subconsciously widened his eyes and asked:

“Then what should I do?”

Jiang Lin looked down again, shielding his constantly rain-drenched screen with one hand as he rapidly searched for something. In less than a minute, he turned his phone screen toward Shen Xing:

“The nearest town from here is about 25 kilometers away. The map shows there’s an auto repair shop there. How about I help you swap out the tire first, and then I tow you to the town to see if they can temporarily patch up your fuel tank?”

Those words felt like a beacon of light rescuing Shen Xing from the depths of hell. In his eyes, the tall, handsome Land Cruiser bro truly had transformed into a gold-rimmed living Bodhisattva. Throwing all bashfulness to the wind, Shen Xing said:

“Then… then I won’t stand on ceremony! Thank you so much! You really are a living Bodhisattva saving me from suffering. Once I settle down, wherever you are, I’m taking you out for a massive feast!”

Jiang Lin smiled and pointed at the trunk:

“Alright then. Let’s get the spare tire.”

“You got it!”

Swapping a spare tire on flat ground was no big deal, but doing it in a muddy patch of overgrown bushes was a real test of skill.

To change a tire, you first had to use a jack to prop up the chassis. Not only could the soft mud barely support any weight, but the bushes and weeds on the side were so thick that standing beside the car was an ordeal, let alone changing a tire.

Although Shen Xing didn’t know how to change a tire, he possessed common sense. Seeing Jiang Lin’s clothes get snagged several times by the shrub branches, he quickly grabbed Jiang Lin’s fire axe, swung it up, and began hacking away at the surrounding brush.

His axe swings were clean and decisive, his strikes precise and powerful. Anyone watching his practiced form would think he came from a construction background. In no time at all, he cleared away most of the brush surrounding the living Bodhisattva.

Turning around, Jiang Lin caught sight of Shen Xing swinging the fire axe and tilted his head slightly:

“You handle that axe pretty well. Ever chopped firewood before?”

Shen Xing wiped the rainwater off his face, offering a look that was half self-deprecating and half playful:

“To be honest with you, swinging these kinds of tools is literally my profession.”

With that, he brought the axe down with another sharp blow. Jiang Lin chimed in right on cue:

“Eighty!”

Big hammer eighty, small hammer fifty—both of them instantly recalled the classic comedy sketch, bursting into laughter together.

Shen Xing thought this guy had a really great personality—genuinely humorous.

Jiang Lin inspected the muddy ground beneath his feet, pressing down some of the brush branches Shen Xing had cut off. Just as he was about to move a large rock over to weigh them down, a sharp, violent pain shot through his knee and leg as he stepped forward. He braced himself against the car body and froze, holding the position for a moment. Unobtrusively, he bent down and rubbed his knee before looking at Shen Xing:

“Bring those two rocks over and press them down on the branches.”

“Got it.”

Shen Xing dutifully carried the rocks over and pressed them down. Once Jiang Lin recovered, he found a few more branches to cover the top before placing the foot-operated jack on top. Sure enough, with the makeshift padding, the jack didn’t sink as easily into the mud. Shen Xing’s eyes lit up:

“Hey, you’re really smart!”

“Just a basic survival skill.”

Shen Xing was too busy watching the car body being lifted to notice Jiang Lin’s tightly furrowed brows and pale complexion as he pumped the jack. Soon, the vehicle was elevated. Gripping the wrench with his right hand, Jiang Lin deftly removed the flat tire.

Shen Xing attentively took the old tire and handed over the new one. Jiang Lin lifted the rim with his right hand while keeping his left hand casually in his pocket—looking exceptionally cool as he leaned in and used his leg to nudge the wheel flush onto the axle. The entire movement was sleek and stylish.

Standing to the side, Shen Xing held the umbrella, tilting it almost entirely over Jiang Lin. In any case, his own clothes were already soaked through, so a little more rain didn’t make a difference.

Watching the fluid, seamless process of mounting the tire, Shen Xing couldn’t help but look at the sharp, defined side profile tucked beneath the black windbreaker hood. For the first time, he felt like his unlucky life might actually be saved.

After all, this time he wasn’t purely unfortunate. On this deserted national highway, he had managed to run into such a reliable guy—someone who had not only rescued him from a toilet stall, but was now pulling him out of a literal muddy pit.

Jiang Lin braced himself against his knee and stood upright, only then noticing that Shen Xing was practically drenched. He reached out and gently pushed the umbrella handle back toward him:

“Hold it over yourself. My jacket is waterproof.”

“Even if it’s waterproof, you can’t just let yourself get soaked like this.”

Seeing the guy who looked sharp enough to walk down a fashion runway just moments ago now covered in mud spots all over his pants, Shen Xing felt genuinely bad.

Jiang Lin looked down at his clothes, then blinked as he raised his head:

“I spent good money on this, and it’s my first time wearing it out. I just want to get my money’s worth.”

Shen Xing laughed:

“Fair enough! That brand definitely isn’t cheap.”

Ignoring the mud caked over the old tire, Shen Xing tossed it straight into the trunk’s spare tire compartment. Standing beside the car, Jiang Lin slowly bent down to massage his left knee, taking a long moment before standing straight again:

“I have a tow strap in my truck. I’ll pull you from behind in a minute.”

“You got it!”