Running away from the Love-Brain

Captain

By the time they checked into the hotel, it was already quite late.

Chi Buyu was yawning drowsily, barely able to keep her eyelids open. She leaned against Cui Xijin, pushing the suitcase they had left at the front desk while wrapping her arms around her waist, looking like a drunken koala dragging its legs behind her.

But once Cui Xijin evaded the gazes of the other guests, she struggled to pull Chi Buyu into their room. As she inserted the room card into the power switch, the lights flickered on, illuminating their faces like lantern fish. Just then, Chi Buyu suddenly stopped in her tracks—

She looked up at Cui Xijin in a bizarre manner, as if in disbelief, swallowing the remaining half of her yawn. Her cheeks bulged as if stuffed with two large pieces of bubble gum, and she extended her fingers to poke Cui Xijin's shoulder gently.

"Excuse me, Miss Cui, you're traveling with your girlfriend but still booked a room with two beds? What on earth were you thinking?"

Cui Xijin pinched Chi Buyu's puffed cheeks, finding it amusing. She replied lightly, "Because there's a silly person who fell asleep while I was picking the room and didn't tell me how to choose afterwards."

A room with two beds was probably the safest choice.

Chi Buyu felt a bit guilty, but not too much.

Pouting in annoyance, she twisted her face out of Cui Xijin's palm and pushed the suitcase inside.

She looked around the room and plopped down on the bed closest to the window, still wearing her floral shirt that had absorbed the salty sea breeze and the aroma of seafood barbecue from dinner. She buried her face in the sheets and rolled around a couple of times.

When she finally raised her face, her twin ponytails had come undone, fluffy strands of hair falling over her face. A few eyelashes had also dropped, and her ears were slightly flushed, but she still looked at Cui Xijin defiantly and declared, "Now that this bed is dirty, Miss Cui, you have no place to sleep."

It turned out that she had intentionally made it dirty after all that fuss.

Cui Xijin was on the verge of bursting into laughter.

But then, she caught Chi Buyu pouting at her like a goldfish, trying very hard to suppress her laughter. She reluctantly nodded and replied, "Alright, Miss Chi."

In fact, they had already shared a bed during their last trip to Leshan. But back then, they each had a separate blanket, cocooned like silver threads inside, which was obviously different from the current situation.

Especially since Chi Buyu took an unusually long time to shower this time. Cui Xijin let her go first while she meticulously checked the area outside to ensure there were no hidden cameras. She then neatly arranged her and Chi Buyu's sunglasses and luggage. Just then, it started to rain outside, with raindrops pattering against the window. Listening to the sound of the rain, she spaced out for a while, making sure she didn't think about anything, and the drunken couple in her WeChat messages hadn't sent her any boring texts at that moment.

Feeling bored, she turned on the hotel television and ended up watching SpongeBob SquarePants. She saw the red-bearded pirate captain with an eye patch singing exaggeratedly, "Are you ready, kids?"—

Not knowing which episode of SpongeBob was playing, Cui Xijin was about to doze off when she was suddenly awakened by a faint sound of the door opening. Still bleary-eyed, she reached for her glasses, only to hear Chi Buyu shout loudly, "No!"

Cui Xijin jumped in surprise, nearly dropping her glasses.

She squinted in confusion to see where the sound had come from. "What's wrong?"