Volume 1, Chapter 41: In Dire Straits

Ever since the award ceremony for the men's butterfly concluded, Susan's heart remained unsettled. She even secretly sent a text message to Xiao Rui.

"Rui, weren't you looking into Tingyuan Lin and the high-ranking executives of the Su Corporation? Look directly into him and Suna."

"Mm, I've been receiving feedback gradually and am currently sorting through it. Alright, I'll prioritize screening Suna first."

Xiao Rui's instantaneous reply failed to bring Susan peace of mind. She was eager to know the results soon, yet fearful of her own damned, unerring intuition. She even wanted to go backstage right then and demand answers directly from Suna, but four events still remained on the schedule, and she had to continue working, completely unable to pull herself away.

With her heart hanging in suspense, Susan stuck to her post. It wasn't until the final event, when she saw Jiang Ming—whose form had declined and whose spirits were low—that her suspended heart was gripped even tighter.

Jiang Ming's condition was worrying, and signs of it had already appeared during the morning preliminaries of the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.

The arrangement of legs in a mixed freestyle relay requires combining multiple factors such as athletes' starting abilities, endurance, technical stability, and sprinting power, and even involves analyzing opponents' situations. In short, it is a comprehensive decision-making process. In our country, this relay race typically places male swimmers on the first two legs and female swimmers on the last two. Considering that male swimmers generate larger waves, female swimmers akin to a stick competition would find themselves in a relatively passive position if they caught those waves.

In the preliminaries, Wang Yining swam the first leg, and Jiang Ming swam the second. Because Jiang Ming's split was consistent and fast, he could help the team expand its lead. However, the split time Jiang Ming swam in the preliminaries was a full three seconds slower than his individual championship-winning time from the previous night! It was precisely because the pressure in the preliminaries was low and the remaining three teammates performed steadily that the final result and the flow of the race did not look unsightly. Some people even assumed that since it was merely a preliminary heat, he simply hadn't needed to exert his full strength.

Susan, however, did not think so. What she felt was the hard-to-conceive exhaustion radiating from Jiang Ming.

The Jiang Ming Susan knew was like a cold, perpetual motion machine. Although aloof and quiet, he contained infinite power. Yet competing up to this day, she distinctly felt that this perpetual motion machine was dragging a fatigued chassis, and its rotation speed had dropped.

That evening, in the 50-meter freestyle final, Jiang Ming narrowly edged out Wang Yining by 0.08 seconds to claim the championship without mishap. This result left Wang Yining pleasantly surprised, and Jiang Ming was happy for him too; yet purely from a competitive standpoint, Jiang Ming was dissatisfied with both his racing process and the outcome.

After the race and the award ceremony, Jiang Ming declined all media interviews, including Susan's. Offering only a polite nod of apology, he hurried back to the rear area.

Wang Yining followed closely behind him, smilingly explaining to everyone, "We still have a relay coming up and need to return to the warm-up pool to loosen up. Thanks for understanding!"

What worried Jiang Ming was that he distinctly felt his bodily fatigue was even worse than the previous day, and it would be difficult to adjust in a short period of time. After the 50-meter freestyle final, he hurried back to the warm-up pool to swim easy laps for a while, yet the muscles all over his body remained tense. Team doctor Wang came to his side and quickly gave him a massage, which only provided slight local relief. Yet tonight, there was still a relay event, and tomorrow featured two relay heats as well as his signature event, the 400-meter individual medley. Whether he could grit his teeth and push through on sheer willpower to find his form was perhaps a large question mark.

With his wealth of experience, and being both honest and responsible, Jiang Ming recognized the problem and took the initiative to approach coaches Li Yan and Zong Zhengguo, proposing to swap relay legs. As it happened, this coincided perfectly with the coaches who had already noticed his form issues.

On the seventh day of competition, in the final event—the mixed 4x100-meter freestyle relay final—Jiang Ming and Wang Yining swapped legs.

This adjustment was subtle; it felt somewhat sudden internally, while externally serving as a distraction. Either Coach Zong was adjusting the lineup strategy to test the team and catch other teams off guard during the National Championships, or there were special circumstances within the team.

In the final, Jiang Ming swam the first leg, making up for his lack of form with experience. His starting speed was fast, laying a solid foundation for the team. Although he failed to create a significant gap with other opponents—especially in the final 25 meters, where his stroke frequency had clearly accelerated yet the propulsion effect was less than ideal—he ultimately maintained the first position, laying the groundwork for Wang Yining to continue performing on the second leg and expand the team's advantage. The third leg swimmer, Lin Qingfeng, displayed stable technique and rich relay experience, ensuring a smooth baton exchange. The fourth leg swimmer, Wang Yiting, possessed strong sprinting abilities and successfully locked down the cumulative advantage built by the first three legs, completing the final sprint and firmly securing the gold medal.

During the post-race interview, Jiang Ming's complexion was terrible, and he remained utterly silent throughout. Even the usually daring Susan did not dare point to him for an interview. What worried Susan even more was that the entire time, Jiang Ming kept his hands braced against the outer perimeter railing of the interview zone. Even when he wasn't speaking, his breathing was less steady than usual, all of which proved that his body was in a state of extreme exhaustion.

Susan couldn't bear it. After rapidly completing the mandatory post-race interview routine, she kept it brief and let everyone return backstage to prepare for the award ceremony.

With the day's work concluded, Susan hurriedly bid farewell to her colleagues before falling into hesitation. Should she look for Suna first, or check on Jiang Ming's condition? The former was a rational choice, while the latter was driven by emotion.

Ultimately, Susan's rationality triumphed over her emotion. Suna was scheduled to participate in the award ceremony first; if she didn't go find her immediately, she would likely miss the chance to meet her.

To find Suna, Susan unsealed a phone card she hadn't used in many years.

This was a family-exclusive card. Back when they were minors, Su Qingtian had custom-ordered family cards from a telecommunications company to ensure the safety of his two children. Once activated and with the family group chat interface opened, the locations of all group members would be visible.

Ever since Susan had a falling out with her father and moved out of the old residence years ago, she had never activated this card again. As for Suna, she had always obeyed Su Qingtian, so even if she didn't use it, she certainly wouldn't have discarded the card. Thinking thus, Susan felt it necessary to reboot it and give it a try.

Tapping open the location map within the family group chat interface, she located Suna's avatar. After carefully judging the location, Susan breathed a sigh of relief—she was indeed still inside the natatorium. Thanks to her recent lurking around the natatorium to explore various hidden locations, Susan was not unfamiliar with this area: the corner of the southeast security exit.

An award presenter, at a time when all events had concluded, heading to a surveillance dead zone for what purpose?

Bizarre and suspicious! An ominous premonition stirred in Susan's heart.

Following the flashing location marker, Susan gradually closed in on Suna's pinned coordinates.

...

After finishing her presentation duties, Suna was unable to leave early—not only because she was reluctant to part, but even more because Tingyuan Lin wouldn't allow it.

Clutching the small slip of paper Tingyuan Lin had shoved into her hand, she remained thrilled for a long time.

"Darling, check WeChat for the location. Wait for me to wash up and smell nice, and I'll tear that dress right off you. Love you, muah."

The noble and dignified President Su of the front desk and the gentlemanly, warm king of butterfly swimming were, at this very moment, staging a deeply affectionate and passionate drama in the corner of the backstage area.