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Shen Yihuan was so affected by the phrase “I’ll marry you” that she had a bizarre dream that night.
As soon as she returned to Beijing, her mother dragged her around for blind dates with some ugly rich young men. Lu Zhou couldn’t return from Xinjiang.
She couldn’t resist and was forced to go on the dates. When Lu Zhou found out, he was enraged again, and then General Lu Youju from Beijing also stepped in to oppose them.
She and Lu Zhou seemed to have fallen into a mini-game of navigating family squabbles, with constant obstacles and stumbles, making their journey incredibly difficult.
When she suddenly woke up from the dream, it was still dark outside.
Startled by the chaotic things in her dream, Lu Zhou immediately woke up.
He naturally patted her back: “What’s wrong?”
Shen Yihuan didn’t speak, just rubbed her head against him and continued to sleep.
________________________________________
When she woke up the next morning, Lu Zhou was no longer beside her.
Shen Yihuan propped herself up with both hands, remaining in that posture for a few minutes, clearing her mind. Her hair was a bit messy, and her eyes were half-closed as she dozed and adjusted to the light.
“Lu Zhou,” she called out, her voice still tinged with the tiredness of not being fully awake.
Then, hazily, she saw the man walk out of the bathroom shirtless. As he walked out, he put on his clothes, his strong and well-proportioned abs once again covered.
“Time to get up. It’ll get crowded there if we’re late.”
By the time Shen Yihuan finished getting ready and she and Lu Zhou reached the hotel lobby, the man was at the front desk checking out.
Just as she was about to call Qiu Ruru and Gu Minghui, the two came out of the elevator.
Two cars, still split into two groups.
Just because they were afraid the two men would get into a fight again, Qiu Ruru and Shen Yihuan felt very wronged. It was a rare chance to see each other, yet they couldn’t even be in the same car.
As they drove, the sun gradually rose overhead.
The weather also began to warm up. Today was exceptionally good, with no wind, it felt like the scorching heat they had experienced when they first arrived in Xinjiang.
Shen Yihuan took off her jacket. Underneath was a loose, goose-yellow shirt with a few red flowers. Although it was easily a garment that could look rustic, it looked incredibly beautiful on her.
The goose-yellow complimented her extremely fair skin. The neckline was wide, with two buttons undone, her shoulders straight and slender. Two long, dazzling earrings hung down, making her neck appear long and slender.
To take good photos in the desert, she wore a gauze skirt underneath.
They had already driven out of the city, approaching the Kumtag Desert.
The sky was clear without a single cloud. The tire tracks stretched out long, like an elegant curve drawn between heaven and earth. The distant sand dunes were sculpted into gentle waves, without a single ripple.
The desert stretched out, engulfing and obscuring the vast land as far as the eye could see, extending endlessly from beneath their feet into the distance.
Yellow sand filled the sky, nothing else, except for a few occasional hints of green; no third color could be found.
Shen Yihuan was mesmerized.
She had already experienced such beauty on her first day here, but after spending these past few days in the military camp, after experiencing life here, seeing these again made her realize the passion and pride behind this desolation.
Driving a little further, they saw many tourists and vast stretches of white SUVs.
“What’s going on here?” Shen Yihuan asked.
Lu Zhou said: “Dune bashing. They’re asking for prices to rent SUVs.”
“Dune bashing?”
“It’s like surfing in the desert with an SUV.” Lu Zhou pointed out the car window at a photo someone was holding in front: “The photo in his hand is of dune bashing.”
Shen Yihuan peeked out to look.
A white SUV sped across the vast yellow sand, captured in a still image as it drifted, kicking up a large cloud of dust.
Shen Yihuan became interested: “I want to play too. Do we need to hire a driver?”
Lu Zhou: “No need. If you want to play, I can drive.”
Shen Yihuan blinked, surprised: “You can do that too?”
Lu Zhou smiled and didn’t speak.
They hadn’t specifically practiced drifting or stunt driving; rather, sometimes in life-or-death situations, they had to drive like that, making it a life-saving skill.
The car drove to an open area.
Lu Zhou checked the fuel tanks of both cars. If they were going deep into the desert for dune bashing, plus the return journey, the fuel might not be enough.
He told Shen Yihuan, took the fuel tank from the back of the car, and walked to a nearby supply station.
Shen Yihuan and Qiu Ruru sat applying sunscreen. The sun made the desert very hot. Shen Yihuan quickly finished applying hers and stood up, pushing Qiu Ruru to keep her from getting up.
Qiu Ruru cursed a few times with a laugh.
They found a sand dune, turned their backs to the sun, and started taking photos.
After taking photos of each other, they realized they hadn’t brought a tripod, so they couldn’t take a dual photo. Only then did they finally remember Gu Minghui.
Qiu Ruru scanned around: “Where’s Gu Minghui? He didn’t go off to fight Lu Zhou, did he?”
Shen Yihuan punched her: “What are you talking about?”
“But why did they fight last time? I saw that even when Gu Minghui was annoyed with Lu Zhou during school, he never actually resorted to violence.”
Shen Yihuan glanced at her, a bit helpless: “Because this time Lu Zhou made the first move.”
“...” Qiu Ruru paused, let out an exclamation of “Whoa,” paused again, then asked, “Why?”
“I left without telling him, and then when he saw me with Gu Minghui, he might have lost control.”
Shen Yihuan looked down at her camera, her voice very soft, almost dissipating in the desert wind. “It’s a side effect, I guess. The last time he and I broke up, I just left with a plane ticket.”
Qiu Ruru sighed.
“But, Cherry,” Qiu Ruru’s expression became slightly more serious, she said earnestly, “Are you truly sure? I think, Lu Zhou isn’t the type of person who you can just peacefully break up with later if you regret it. His personality, to be honest, is a bit...”
Qiu Ruru didn’t finish, Shen Yihuan finished for her: “Extreme?”
“Yes.”
She felt that if there were another breakup like before, Lu Zhou might do something out of control.
“Are you certain?” Qiu Ruru asked.
Shen Yihuan glanced at her and smiled: “I’m certain.”
To be honest, she wasn’t sure when she saw Lu Zhou again in Beijing. Her approach then was simply due to Lu Zhou’s attractiveness to her.
But these past few days, in this land, Shen Yihuan became certain.
She was not a person who could tolerate restraint, not before, and not now.
This was a problem she and Lu Zhou needed to face together. In the past few years, she hadn’t given Lu Zhou any reason to trust her. Now, she needed to make Lu Zhou learn to trust her, that even if she temporarily left, she would return to him.
Lu Zhou also needed to let go of past unresolved issues.
Once she understood, many things became clear.
Where should she go from now on, what about her mother, and how should she live the rest of her life?
With Lu Zhou by her side, she felt she had a reason and the confidence to be pampered.
For a person to be pampered, someone must first be able to tolerate that pampering.
She thought.
What a pathetic life it was before. Why should she, Shen Yihuan, have to live that kind of life?
Lu Zhou delved deep into enemy territory, suffering countless injuries, yet he always fought his way back.
She had no reason to allow herself to live a life no one wanted to live.
________________________________________
Shen Yihuan finally found Gu Minghui in a spacious area not far away. She walked over; Gu Minghui had his back to her and was on the phone.
As she got closer, she heard Gu Minghui say, “Don’t let him show his face again,” his voice sharp and very different from his usual joking tone.
Shen Yihuan paused, reconfirming that the back was indeed Gu Minghui before speaking.
“Your work has really changed you, training people so aggressively.”
The sudden sound behind him made Gu Minghui turn sharply. After seeing it was Shen Yihuan, he subtly smiled at her, hung up the phone, and returned to his usual demeanor.
“One of the company’s employees messed up a bit, it’s really annoying,” he complained.
Shen Yihuan wasn’t interested in that. She got straight to the point, handing him the camera: “Then I’ll give you a less annoying job. Help Ruru and me take pictures.”
...
Lu Zhou came out of the supply station, put the fuel tank in the back seat of the car, and when he went to find Shen Yihuan, he saw this scene.
Gu Minghui stood in front, holding the camera with the doll they bought last night, taking pictures of the two girls. The three of them laughed, seeming to have a very good relationship.
In reality, their relationship was indeed very good.
After all, they had been friends for so many years.
Shen Yihuan was oblivious to Gu Minghui’s feelings for her, but Lu Zhou was well aware.
Since high school, Gu Minghui’s gaze towards him had always been hostile.
...
Lu Zhou leaned against the SUV door, a cigarette in his mouth, unlit.
His arm was draped behind him, the rolled-up sleeves revealing fluid muscle lines. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his gaze faint.
After standing for two minutes, Shen Yihuan’s clear laughter reached his ears. The breeze ruffled her long hair, sweeping it across her face. She smoothed her hair back, from front to back, her fingers raking through the roots.
Bright eyes, red lips, a captivating smile.
Lu Zhou stamped his military boot on the ground, took the cigarette from his mouth, and walked forward.
He grabbed Shen Yihuan’s collar, his back blocking the camera, and asked in a deep voice, “Are you done taking pictures?”
Shen Yihuan looked at him, truthfully replying, “Not yet.”
She linked her arm through Lu Zhou’s, poking Qiu Ruru, asking her to take a picture of the two of them.
Lu Zhou calmly raised his brow bone, with no other reaction, only a slight curl of his lips.
As a somewhat famous photographer, Shen Yihuan had photographed many models and celebrities, so posing was no stress for her at all.
She pulled her gauze skirt back, raised her chin slightly, and looked down at the camera, facing the sun.
Naturally unrestrained and arrogant.
Meanwhile, Lu Zhou stood by, habitually in military posture, head held high, chest out. He slightly frowned due to the sunlight, making one immediately think of the poplars in this desert.
“Damn,” Qiu Ruru clicked her tongue several times, shaking her head dramatically, “You took it so well! I think you should be glad I didn’t become a photographer, otherwise I’d steal your job.”
Shen Yihuan took a look, and it was indeed good.
Beside them, Gu Minghui said, “Aren’t we going dune bashing? Let’s get in the car.”
Lu Zhou cast a faint glance at him.
Qiu Ruru said: “Are we taking one car or two? Who knows how to drive that kind of car?”
“I do,” Gu Minghui said.
Qiu Ruru raised an eyebrow: “You have that skill too?”
“I’ve done it when I went to Dubai.”
Lu Zhou said: “One car should be fine. We might get lost if we split up in the desert.”
Since he said so, no one had any objections, as no one knew the desert better than Lu Zhou.
It was finally decided that Gu Minghui would drive. Young Master Gu, as a professional playboy, was exceptionally skilled at this kind of racing.
Professional dune bashing took place in the undulating sand dune area ahead.
Constantly accelerating to the top, followed by a descent and weightlessness, yellow sand filled the sky. Even with the windows closed, laughter and screams could be heard from inside.
Gu Minghui sped along, the SUV moving forward over the loose and uneven desert, driving past areas crowded with tourists.
Time had unknowingly passed into the afternoon.
It was the peak of the heat.
Gu Minghui closed all four car windows, locked the doors. Ahead was a sand dune.
He floored the accelerator, and with a roar, their backs pressed against the seats due to the sudden speed. The feeling of rapidly accelerating to the top was incredibly exhilarating. Even through the car windows, they could hear the howling wind outside.
A thick layer of yellow sand billowed up behind the car, heading straight for the sunset.
Like a soft-boiled egg.
Shen Yihuan and Qiu Ruru cheered as the car soared over the dune crest and plummeted, experiencing weightlessness, followed immediately by the next dune.
The young girl’s eyes were full of joyous light, her smile at its widest. There was no hint of panic or fear at this speed. Her pupils were like the ancient cosmic river, suppressing a reckless and unrestrained audacity.
Lu Zhou looked at Shen Yihuan.
He felt as if time had rewinded to eight years ago, when the young girl would happily cause trouble everywhere, with a fiery personality that, at that age, had already unconsciously taken on a hint of wildness and arrogance.
He unconsciously swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving sharply up and down.
In the howling wind and swirling sand, he heard the steady beat of his own heart.
________________________________________
After playing for an unknown period, the thrill finally passed, and then came the feeling of a sore back from the bumps.
Gu Minghui parked the car on a flat open space.
The car window rolled down.
The tire tracks from their recent speeding had already been quickly covered by the swirling and settling sand.
Shen Yihuan had no idea where she was anymore and asked Lu Zhou, “Do you still know the way back?”
Lu Zhou squinted slightly, looked towards the sunset, then towards the sand dune slope, and said, “Yes.”
Qiu Ruru took out the rooftop tent from the back of the car, and Gu Minghui helped her set it up.
The rooftop of the SUV was a small red tent. As the sun set, large fiery red rays of light cast a crimson glow over the yellow sand, making it sparkle faintly under the sunlight.
The two women were playing and taking photos inside the tent.
Lu Zhou sat not far away, the wind blowing over him, his clothes pulled taut against his back. This was an unchanging landscape, a barren desert, a vast Gobi.
He was the captain protecting this land.
And Gu Minghui just sat in the car, leaning back lazily, hands in his pockets, half-closing his eyes and dozing.
They seemed to be coexisting peacefully, but in reality, there were undercurrents of tension.
After watching the sunset, the sky quickly darkened.
They set off again to return.
Lu Zhou was driving.
The desert had a huge temperature difference between day and night. As soon as the sun set, the surface temperature quickly dissipated. Everyone put on their jackets, and Lu Zhou turned on the air conditioning.
“Which direction are we driving in now?” Qiu Ruru asked.
Lu Zhou: “West.”
“You never get lost here?” Qiu Ruru was a little surprised.
Could this be the power of a top student?
Lu Zhou turned the steering wheel and sped up a bit: “I have a compass.”
Qiu Ruru: “...”
Shen Yihuan couldn’t help but let out a snicker: “What if you didn’t have one? Would you get lost?”
“Possibly.”
But generally, no.
Lu Zhou had been here for three years and only got lost once. That was during his very first mission when he had just arrived. He had to trek through the desert for several days when escaping from an enemy camp to return to his own.
During the day, he could estimate direction by the sun’s shadow. On clear nights, he could use Polaris, Venus, Orion, Scorpio, Leo, and so on to deduce direction. If all else failed, he could even guess based on the monsoon winds.
But that night was a cloudy, windless night.
Additionally, Lu Zhou had only recently arrived, and his wilderness survival skills weren’t as complete as they are now, he almost died there.
________________________________________
The night was utterly silent.
Lu Zhou tried his best to stick to flat ground, so the car wasn’t too bumpy. Everyone had been out all day, and drowsiness quickly set in once they got into the car.
Shen Yihuan even specifically told Lu Zhou: “If you get tired, I can drive.”
But she herself fell asleep shortly after.
...
Shen Yihuan didn’t remember what woke her up.
She only remembered being startled awake from a dream by an extremely abrupt loud noise in the silent night. Her body trembled, and in less than half a second, she was pushed down by the back of her head, pressed into the seat.
Lu Zhou said in a deep voice: “Don’t move!”
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Shen Yihuan heard the sound in the darkness, but she couldn’t believe it was gunshots. It was too far removed from her life; she had only heard it in movies and TV, never in real life.
“What is it?”
Lu Zhou’s brows were tightly furrowed, a grim and violent expression flashing across his face. The muscles in his hands, gripping the steering wheel, were taut.
“Someone’s shooting at us.”
His voice was cold, with a faint, barely perceptible hint of anger.
Amidst her confusion, Shen Yihuan was shocked. She immediately woke Qiu Ruru, who was still asleep in the back seat. Gu Minghui was already awake, his dark eyes intently fixed on the window outside.
For a moment, Shen Yihuan felt like she didn’t know him.
Qiu Ruru also immediately crouched down, lowering her head below the car window.
At this time, all the tourists had already left. They had driven the car far out during the day, so there were no streetlights, only the two beams of light projected by the car’s headlights.
“Isn’t this a tourist spot? Why would someone be shooting?” Qiu Ruru trembled slightly.
Gu Minghui said in a deep voice: “We’re already far from the tourist center.”
“What do we do now?” Shen Yihuan asked.
Lu Zhou didn’t speak, his lips pressed into a flat line.
She looked at Lu Zhou’s serious and resolute profile. His usual indifference and calmness were completely hidden, and the tempered aura, cultivated deep within him, emerged at this moment.
This was the first time she had seen Lu Zhou facing danger.
She couldn’t connect him with the clean-cut, tall, and thin good student that all the teachers talked about when he sat beside her in high school.
She thought.
What have you been doing these past few years?
There were a few more gunshots. Lu Zhou determined the direction of the firing. People were shooting from all four cardinal directions, but the west side seemed to have the most people and the most accurate aim.
“Can’t escape,” he judged decisively.
The vast yellow sand, ordinary in the world.
It was as if only their car remained between heaven and earth, like it had been abandoned by God.
Fortunately, the car they were driving was Lu Zhou’s.
Lu Zhou looked back: “Help me get the box from the back.”
Qiu Ruru handed it to him, so heavy she almost dropped it.
Lu Zhou opened it, his features appearing sharper in the moonlight. It was a weapons case.
Shen Yihuan just watched him, his movements skillful, taking only a few seconds. He assembled the gun, then sternly warned them again: “Crouch down, keep your heads below the car windows.”
Then he decisively rolled down a narrow slit of the car window.
“Bang!”
It hit her eardrums directly.
Lu Zhou had fired too!
He narrowed his eyes slightly, pushed and pulled, reloading the bullet again. The corners of his eyes were long and narrow, the narrow eyelids forming a very shallow crease, outlining an unusually cold aura.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Lu Zhou fired four shots in a row.
She wasn’t sure if it was Shen Yihuan’s imagination, but she thought she heard distant wails.
At this moment, she truly felt the vast chasm that had been built between them during these three years of day and night.
She stared at Lu Zhou, momentarily lost in thought.
It wasn’t until Lu Zhou raised his hand and stroked the top of her head that she reacted.
Lu Zhou asked, “Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Was dune bashing fun during the day?”
She was stunned: “What...”
Lu Zhou’s tongue pressed against his molars. He shifted gears, stepped on the accelerator twice, the engine roaring. The corners of his eyes stretched, revealing an unfeeling coldness and indifference.
He spoke, his voice calm—
“I’ll take you for another ride.”
The SUV sped forward, rapidly cresting the dune, launching into the air, and landing with a thud. Its speed remained undiminished as it accelerated again, continuing to surge forward.
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