Fragile Life

As Shen Shikun collapsed to the floor, the entire office erupted in commotion. Everyone craned their necks over to Chen Jue’s workstation, curiosity and anxiety drawing them closer.

“Hurry!”

“Call 120, get an ambulance!”

Li Mo, the team leader, was a bit older and clearly had experience in such matters. The moment he saw Shen Shikun in trouble, he rushed over. Working with Chen Jue, he managed to roll over the heavyset man, weighing well over two hundred pounds. He patted Shen Shikun’s face, but got no reaction. Then he reached out to feel for a pulse at his neck and bent down to listen for breathing.

“He’s not breathing and his heart has stopped! It’s a heart attack!” After a quick examination, Li Mo’s face turned ashen with worry.

“A heart attack?” Chen Jue’s face changed at the words.

This was, after all, the notorious number one killer among working people; once it struck, it could claim a life within minutes. Chen Jue had previously witnessed a sudden cardiac death at Huaye Park, which had caused a huge stir in the company’s WeChat group. He hadn’t expected that in just his second week at Hengtong Group, he would encounter such a sudden emergency.

“I’ll start CPR. Call the ambulance, now!”

This was a matter of life and death. Li Mo didn’t waste another second. He had Chen Jue loosen Shen Shikun’s shirt and belt, then placed his hands, one over the other, at the center of the man’s chest and began forceful compressions.

The onlookers were either on the phone with emergency services or rushing to the front desk to fetch the first aid kit.

By the time a young receptionist, accompanied by a security guard, sprinted upstairs with the first aid kit, Li Mo was already drenched in sweat from the exertion, yet there was still no sign of breath or heartbeat from Shen Shikun.

“Team leader! Let me take over!” Chen Jue, watching anxiously from the sidelines, stepped forward to relieve Li Mo.

From observing the past few minutes, Chen Jue had already picked up the technique for chest compressions, and his hands, specially trained, had far greater strength and stamina than Li Mo’s.

“Alright…you take over…I’ll monitor his pulse and breathing…” Li Mo panted, letting Chen Jue replace him.

As for the first aid kit, apart from the usual gauze, bandages, antibiotics, and burn ointments, nothing inside was of any use for a heart attack.

“No AED?” Li Mo rifled through the kit, his eyes filled with helplessness and despair.

An AED—an automated external defibrillator—is a portable medical device that’s incredibly simple to use, designed to restart the heart through electric shocks and support CPR in cases of sudden cardiac arrest. In the crucial “golden four minutes” for rescue, it can often prevent death. Many large public places, such as train stations and airports, have them as standard equipment.

Yet, to their shock, a company as large as Hengtong Group did not keep an AED on hand. Clearly, the facilities department had never anticipated such an emergency, nor had they put in a request for one in advance.

Meanwhile, Chen Jue, having taken over, continued relentless compressions on Shen Shikun’s chest. His mind was blank, his thoughts nearly frozen, his only desire to restore Shen Shikun’s heartbeat and breath as quickly as possible.

After seven or eight minutes, an ambulance from the nearest hospital arrived at the base of Hengtong Tower. A team of medical staff in white coats rushed up to the 17th floor by elevator. The young doctor in charge had a nurse take over CPR from Chen Jue, while he unpacked a portable defibrillator and prepared to administer a shock on the spot.

But as he observed Shen Shikun’s pupils begin to dilate, the masked young doctor shook his head and sighed, “He may not make it. You’d better notify his family right away.”

With that, he had the security guards help lift Shen Shikun onto a stretcher and wheeled him hurriedly toward the hospital.

“He’s gone?”

The words buzzed in Chen Jue’s ears; he felt utterly drained, collapsed into his chair at his workstation, and watched as a distraught Li Mo followed the medical team out of the office.

The time he’d spent doing chest compressions after taking over from Li Mo was short—just seven or eight minutes. For someone like Chen Jue, trained for hand strength, it was hardly a challenge. Yet in those brief minutes, time seemed to freeze, every second dragging on interminably.

The feeling was unbearable, like a novice swimmer thrashing in water, choking and gasping for breath. Helpless and powerless, he could only repeat the compressions, numb, watching a vibrant life slip away before his eyes.

…

With the ambulance carrying Shen Shikun and Li Mo departed, the previously frantic seventeenth floor gradually returned to its usual calm, thanks to the soothing words of Director Luo from the risk control department. Nevertheless, the furtive whispers around the workstations and the endless stream of messages in the various group chats made it clear that the shock of the recent emergency had not yet faded.

After a while, Chen Jue managed to compose himself. He sat at his desk, sipped some water, feeling thoroughly unsettled. His mind was a jumble as he compulsively refreshed the fifth team’s group chat on his phone.

In the chat, aside from Li Mo’s early update—“We’ve reached the hospital, he’s in the ER”—there was only a flood of prayer emojis from the colleagues below.

It was as if a stone had been dropped into a pool, leaving only stillness behind.

The atmosphere in the fifth team’s area felt equally congealed. Apart from the sounds of breathing, coughing, and the occasional trip to the restroom, no other voices could be heard.

It wasn’t until after lunch that Li Mo, as team leader, sent a message to the group: “Everyone, Shikun is gone. His family is at the hospital handling the arrangements.”

Upon seeing this message, the fifth team fell silent. A few who had been close to Shen Shikun broke down and wept at their desks.

Colleagues from other teams, having heard the news, came over with sighs and murmurs, offering words of comfort and consolation.

As for Chen Jue, upon confirming that his rotund neighbor had died suddenly from a heart attack, he felt as if all strength and spirit had been drained from him. He slumped half-lifeless into his chair.

On the screen before him, the browser was filled with dense entries for “acute myocardial infarction,” “sudden cardiac death,” “CPR,” and “golden hour for rescue.”

“Is he really gone?” Chen Jue pressed at his throbbing temples.

Though he had only known Shen Shikun for a week, the man’s easygoing, humorous nature, along with their shared fondness for slacking off, had quickly made Chen Jue regard him as a potential friend.

Who could have foreseen such a twist of fate?

Just last Friday, they’d celebrated his own onboarding together. After a single weekend, the man was gone.

What struck him most was that he had witnessed every moment of Shen Shikun’s passing with his own eyes.

To witness the vanishing of such a lively spirit brought a profound shock to Chen Jue’s heart.

He felt a tight, suffocating weight in his chest, unable to utter a word.

He stood up from his desk and wandered over to the cold, floor-to-ceiling windows. Staring at the sun slowly sinking in the distance, and listening to the murmurs from the risk control department behind him, Chen Jue drew a deep breath.

He reached into the inner pocket of his suit and, with unsteady fingers, fished out a battered blue pack of Liqun cigarettes—only two remained. He pulled one out, placed it between his lips, and with a click, lit it. The long-missed scent of tobacco filled his nostrils, hoping to numb himself with nicotine.

Standing by the glass wall, enveloped in smoke, watching the sun descend, Chen Jue felt his eyes grow moist, stung by the glow of dusk. He muttered under his breath, “Humans… sometimes we really are damn fragile.”

Unexpectedly, just then, a notification from his attribute panel popped up before his eyes:

——————

[Ding~]

[After experiencing a significant emotional upheaval, the amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus regions of your brain have undergone a complex form of training. Your willpower has improved.]

[Mental attribute +0.01]