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Psst! We're moving!
Finally, they arrived at the hotel.
The elevator was out of power, so they had to take the stairs.
Shen Yihuan followed behind Lu Zhou, walking through the hotel corridor. The red carpet on the floor was already covered with countless muddy footprints from people coming and going, all sorts of shoe marks.
She suddenly remembered the first time they went to a hotel together.
Awkward and shy.
But Lu Zhou, without blushing or a pounding heart, pushed his ID to the front desk, openly asking for a king-size bed room.
...
As soon as they entered the hotel, Lu Zhou pushed Shen Yihuan into the bathroom, placing the thermos he was carrying on the sink: “Take a hot shower first.”
Then he closed the door and left.
Shen Yihuan turned on the tap and found that, as expected, there was no hot water in the hotel.
She picked up the thermos, poured half a basin of water into the sink, stripped off all her clothes, wet a towel, and poured water from her head downwards. Dried mud from her hair and skin mixed with light brown muddy water flowed down.
She had never been so disheveled.
She used the hotel’s complimentary shampoo and body wash, lathering it up and rubbing it all over her body. Only after two rounds did she feel clean.
Halfway through her shower, she suddenly heard a few knocks on the bathroom door.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Open the door.”
“???”
Was Lu Zhou truly not planning on acting like a normal human being? He made a lewd remark earlier, and now he was directly asking her to open the bathroom door?
His voice was muffled by the door, not very clear, as he said the next sentence: “Drink the medicine first, I’m leaving.”
“What medicine?”
Shen Yihuan stood naked by the door, holding a towel in both hands, asking.
“Cold medicine.”
She paused, then opened the bathroom door a crack. A dry, broad hand reached in, gripping the cup.
Shen Yihuan took it. The dampness on her hands wet his fingertips.
Her hand emanated warmth and humid steam, touching the cold outside the bathroom, still subtly steaming. Her skin was flushed pink from the hot water.
Lu Zhou’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He pulled the bathroom door shut again.
Then he raised his hand, rubbing his dry lips with his damp fingertips.
It was a sugared version of Banlangen (herbal cold remedy), not hard to drink at all. She was indeed very thirsty. She tilted her head and drank it all in one go. Her stomach felt warm and much more comfortable.
She heard movement outside and tentatively called his name: “Lu Zhou?”
He replied: “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Aren’t you going to take a shower before you leave?”
“I’ll just get dirty again,” he said, spreading out the quilt and tucking the hot water bottle he had prepared inside. He stood up. “I’m leaving now.”
“Are you coming over tonight?”
As the words left her mouth, Shen Yihuan realized their double meaning.
Outside, there seemed to be a brief pause, then he said in a deep voice: “We’ll see.”
The door opened and closed, and Lu Zhou was gone.
She quickly finished her shower, washed her wet clothes—they looked like they’d been pulled from mud—then put on a bath towel and hung her clothes to dry.
As she pulled back the covers, she saw the hot water bottle Lu Zhou had put in for her beforehand.
It made her heart soften.
...
It was dark, and Lu Zhou hadn’t returned. Fortunately, it didn’t rain heavily all evening, just an occasional light drizzle that didn’t intensify.
The disaster situation probably wouldn’t worsen.
The rescue operation wouldn’t pose any significant risks either.
Lu Zhou and his team were forged by long-term training and had experienced even more dangerous conditions. This level of severity was still within their manageable range.
Shen Yihuan waited until ten o’clock at night, assuming he wouldn’t return, so she turned off the bedside lamp and pulled up the covers to sleep.
The room darkened, enveloped in silence and darkness.
She didn’t know how long passed.
Suddenly, some sounds came from the door. The hotel’s soundproofing wasn’t good, and the sounds clearly reached the room.
The whole team was dirty, faces gray and black, covered in mud, hair and clothes wet, a forehead full of sweat and grime.
“Hey, Captain Lu, where are you going?” He Min waved the key card in his hand, watching Lu Zhou walk in another direction.
They had been awake for almost two days. After the emergency rescue ended, no one dared to drive through the night while so exhausted, so they came here to stay overnight. It was all standard rooms, two people per room.
Lu Zhou should have been sharing a room with He Min.
He turned back, saying indifferently: “You go first.”
With that, he walked straight towards the end of the corridor.
He Min stood rooted, watching him pull another room key card from his pocket, swipe it on the doorknob, and gently push the door open, not even turning on the room light.
There was definitely someone in that room.
________________________________________
Shen Yihuan vaguely heard movement, but didn’t wake up. She snuggled deeper into the covers and fell back asleep.
The room was pitch black, with only the dim, faint moonlight. He stood there for a long time, looking at the half of the young girl’s face exposed.
Her eyes were tightly closed, black hair clinging to her cheek, eyelashes dark and thick, casting a fan-shaped shadow beneath her eyes.
He heard Shen Yihuan’s steady breathing and quiet sleeping face. Her familiar scent enveloped him, like an obscure yet sharp tenderness.
And like a suffocating safety.
Shen Yihuan finally woke up, roused by the trickling sound of water from the bathroom.
He was afraid of waking Shen Yihuan, so he deliberately kept the water running very low. There was no hot water, so he could only shower with cold water. His skin had already swollen and turned white from soaking in the floodwaters, so he didn’t feel the cold water was too cold.
“Lu Zhou, is that you?”
The female voice from the doorway made his movements pause slightly.
He quickly twisted the faucet shut, turned off the water, and turned to ask: “Did I wake you?”
“No,” she had just woken up, her sleepiness not yet faded, her voice soft and nasal, “I was afraid it was someone else, so I just asked.”
Following that was the sound of slippers shuffling, presumably back to bed to continue sleeping.
The girl’s voice was undoubtedly an stimulant in this dark, silent night. Lu Zhou tightly closed his eyes, reopened the water, and cold water poured over his face.
This mixture of dark night and the sound of water created a sensual atmosphere, devouring the rules and restraints of daylight.
Lu Zhou gritted his teeth, reaching his hand down.
The sound of water drowned out his increasingly heavy breathing.
The person inside gripped a hot and moist part, the defenses built over three years crumbling into nothingness in an instant, leaving behind shattered ruins on the floor.
The person outside was wrapped tightly in a quilt, feeling a profound sense of security from the sound of water coming from the bathroom, their brows unfurrowing.
He washed his hands and put on a bathrobe.
He didn’t dare to look at Shen Yihuan again, and went straight to the other bed.
________________________________________
When Shen Yihuan woke up the next morning, Lu Zhou was already gone.
There was a message on her phone:
“Wait for me here. We’re going back to the military camp tonight.”
Shen Yihuan lay on the bed, stretching her arms, giving a big yawn. She had slept soundly.
Her phone rang.
“Friend, where are you?!”
It was Gu Minghui’s voice.
Wait!
Gu Minghui?!
Shen Yihuan scrambled up from the bed, realizing only then that Gu Minghui had said he was coming today, a fact she had completely forgotten.
“You haven’t already arrived, have you?”
“Yes, honey.”
“...” Shen Yihuan got out of bed and put on her shoes. “Then guess where I am.”
“If you’re still sleeping, I’ll kill you.”
“Hey, I’m already up.”
Gu Minghui: “...”
Shen Yihuan brushed her teeth while talking on the phone: “Wait for me, I’ll be right there.”
“Go to hell.”
________________________________________
Another landslide occurred early this morning. Fortunately, no one was injured, but it affected traffic and damaged farmland.
He Can and the rest of the rescue team had been busy all night and had just gotten some sleep.
“It’s almost done. People have been called to clear the large boulders over there,” He Min said to Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou: “How’s the water drainage coming along?”
“Several machines are pumping, and the drainage system is fully open, but the system isn’t perfected yet, and the affected area is large, so it’ll still take some time.”
Lu Zhou grunted and walked towards a nearby supply station.
There had been a lot of vehicles coming and going recently. The gas stations here were far apart, and if a car ran out of gas in the wilderness, it could easily lead to trouble, so the supply station became even more crucial.
He lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and walked into the small supermarket next to the supply station.
“Captain Lu, you’re here,” the small supermarket owner recognized Lu Zhou and greeted him as he entered.
“Mm,” he handed over the gas can he was holding.
“How much do you want?”
“Just like everyone else.”
The owner acknowledged him, then lifted a rolling shutter door and went out. After a while, he returned with a gas can that was more than half full: “Here.”
“Has the price gone up these past two days?”
“No, sometimes gasoline can save lives here. How can money be exchanged for lives?”
Lu Zhou curled the corners of his lips, took out two red banknotes from his wallet, and handed them over.
“Oh, by the way,” he suddenly remembered something, “Do you have any condiments here that go well with rice?”
The owner thought for a moment: “I really don’t have any, but that old woman over there might.”
Lu Zhou followed the direction he pointed, seeing the old woman sitting by the supply station outside. Her face was full of wrinkles, like dried tree bark. She sat on the ground, with two large black bags filled to the brim in front of her, looking heavy.
Seeing him approach, the old woman stood up and said in a local dialect: “Our handmade Xinjiang chili sauce here is especially delicious.”
Lu Zhou half-knelt on the ground, his arm resting on his knee.
He took the chili sauce the old woman offered and asked, “How much is this?”
“Twenty yuan a bottle,” the old woman said, holding up two fingers.
“Please give me two bottles.”
Shen Yihuan liked spicy food.
She found the food in the military camp mess hall bland, and she had lost a lot of weight these past few days.
Lu Zhou didn’t say anything, but he remembered everything.
In the evening, he went to a few more nearby border checkpoints.
They had been tracking a cross-border arms trafficking group. The injury on his back a while ago was sustained in a direct confrontation, but they still managed to escape.
Their surveillance and pursuit had never stopped.
He received news that traces of an arms group had been detected nearby.
Daring to commit crimes so repeatedly, it was highly likely to be the large-scale arms group they had been pursuing for a long time.
“Captain Lu,” the soldier at the border post showed him the monitored footage, “This is what we captured on the boundary river. There were a total of seven tents, but no one was there when we patrolled earlier.”
Lu Zhou: “Any information about firearms?”
“We found primers and explosives.”
Lu Zhou was silent. After a while, he said in a deep voice: “Continue monitoring. Report any unusual activity.”
“Yes, sir!”
________________________________________
Coming back from the border checkpoint.
Lu Zhou felt a little uneasy.
He had experienced even more dangerous moments before, unafraid of death, always calm and unruffled. But now Shen Yihuan was here.
He didn’t know when the big battle would come. If Shen Yihuan was still in Xinjiang then, would she be in danger?
He pushed the door open.
He was stunned when he saw the empty room.
The room and the bathroom were both empty.
“Shen Yihuan,” he murmured.
...
Shen Yihuan had left again without a word.
This realization immediately threw him back three years. His entire body tensed, and he struggled to calm his breathing.
He ran downstairs and asked the hotel receptionist.
But he was told that no one had checked out, and she hadn’t noticed a beautiful girl leaving.
“Can I check the surveillance?” he asked.
“Ah, may I ask who you are to her? Is she lost or something?”
Lu Zhou took out a cigarette pack, frantically pulled one out, and with a cupped hand, lit it. The contours of his features became sharper in the firelight, unable to suppress his fierce anger.
He took out his ID, pushing it across with his index finger.
The receptionist was stunned, then reacted: “Oh, okay, I’ll check for you right away.”
He even forgot he could call Shen Yihuan.
That casual breakup text message three years ago, he had frantically called her, but none went through. For several months, she didn’t answer.
Later, he found out she had changed her phone number.
Lu Zhou looked at the surveillance video that was pulled up. Shen Yihuan had left at nine in the morning.
His face grew darker and darker, his expression grim.
The receptionist thought this was some kind of law-breaking incident, and cautiously said: “How about... I check her phone number for you?”
The hand holding the cigarette paused slightly. He said nothing, clutching his phone, and walked outside.
“Hello, Lu Zhou?”
Hearing her voice, Lu Zhou’s jaw tightened.
He heard another voice come through the faint static to his ear.
He asked in a deep voice: “Where are you?”
________________________________________
Shen Yihuan hung up the phone and glanced at Gu Minghui, who was driving beside her. He looked at her knowingly: “Lu Zhou?”
“Yeah.”
He was silent for a moment, then shook his head helplessly and chuckled: “You two still got together.”
Shen Yihuan said: “Not yet.”
“What are you thinking?”
“What do you mean, what am I thinking?”
“You like him?”
Shen Yihuan didn’t hesitate: “Yes, I do.”
Gu Minghui’s eyes dimmed slightly: “Then why did you break up before?”
“It’s hard to say. I was pretty immature back then, and he was indeed...” Shen Yihuan didn’t finish her sentence.
Lu Zhou was indeed a bit abnormal, too obsessive.
But she still couldn’t let him go.
Especially now, seeing the man’s dedication here, the steadfastness in his eyes, his proud and upright demeanor, unafraid of hardship, he was more attractive than before.
Gu Minghui made the most of his rich second-generation advantages, somehow having a car even here. He drove Shen Yihuan back, getting out with her.
He walked over and saw Lu Zhou.
He was single-handedly lifting heavy equipment into a vehicle, his shoulders broad, his arm muscles taut, his back to them.
“Lu Zhou,” Shen Yihuan called out to him.
He turned, his gaze sweeping over both of them, then coldly retracted.
Shen Yihuan frowned, not knowing what was wrong with him now.
Gu Minghui’s face darkened. He grabbed Shen Yihuan’s arm: “Ignore him, I’ll take you back.”
Lu Zhou heard him.
He turned, staring intently at Gu Minghui’s hand clutching Shen Yihuan’s arm.
Two seconds passed.
A grim, violent expression flashed across his brow. He swiftly took a few strides, moving quickly like an enraged leopard. With a sudden burst of strength, he grabbed Gu Minghui’s collar and violently slammed him to the ground.
Gu Minghui, who had been involved in many fights during his school days, wasn’t one to be beaten so easily.
He propped himself up on his arms, just about to get up, when Lu Zhou roughly pinned him back down by the neck.
They continued to wrestle, but Lu Zhou, who trained intensely every day, was no match for Gu Minghui. He was quickly subdued on the ground.
Only then did Shen Yihuan finally react. She shrieked and lunged forward.
She hugged Lu Zhou’s descending arm, her voice trembling: “Lu Zhou! Stop, Lu Zhou!”
She had been in many fights.
But those were just minor scuffles between teenagers.
More often than not, they were to satisfy the vanity of their rebellious age, and nothing truly serious ever came of them.
But now, as Lu Zhou punched down again and again, his eyes were calm and indifferent, sending shivers down one’s spine, as if the person beneath his hands wasn’t a human life at all.
His raised fist stopped, suspended in mid-air. He turned his head to look at Shen Yihuan, then expressionlessly shook off her hand and stood up.
He looked down at Gu Minghui.
He said, word by word: “Try touching her again.”
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