You go ahead if you think you can do better.
Xu Rong rolled her eyes a second time and directly began dispensing medicine. It was a blatantly obvious bruise, so no examination was really necessary anyway.
“Apply this ointment morning and evening, spread it evenly, and do not massage it in.” She left behind a bottle of ointment, finished briefing Lu Bai on how to use it, and rose to depart without a shred of lingering attachment.
Are you kidding me? She would not even let her touch it for a second; if she started crying from the pain during the application later, would she have to stay and coax her too?
Lu Bai remained noncommittal, while Qiu Wu only snapped back to reality after the front door clicked shut and scrambled up in a panic. “Hey! Wait…”
She could not reach that spot on her back herself. Now that Xu Rong had left, would Lu Bai be the one applying the medicine to her later?
The moment she turned around, she locked eyes directly with Lu Bai’s calm gaze. The woman’s pupils drifted slowly downward, landing right in the open collar of her shirt.
Her line of sight was easily captured by Qiu Wu’s pretty collarbones, sliding smoothly downward into the full, soft expanse beneath.
Qiu Wu: “Ah.”
Her cheeks burned fiercely. Fumbling clumsily, she buttoned her shirt back up while instinctively resorting to her habitual apology. “Excuse me.”
Lu Bai’s gaze drifted away toward the desk. Picking up the ointment bottle to inspect it, she spoke in a very soft voice. “No need to apologize, you did not do anything wrong. Besides, we are in a dating relationship now, and this level of contact is reasonable.”
“Do not bring up your dating rules at a time like this.” Having successfully buttoned her shirt, Qiu Wu recovered her composure and stopped her with dark circles of speechlessness weighing down her mind.
Why did she not just say that lovers going to bed together was completely normal either, seeing as the two of them were not even at the stage where they could bare their souls and bodies to each other yet. “I am going to go make dinner first.”
“You are injured, you should rest. Just order takeout.” Lu Bai took out her phone.
“It is fine,” Qiu Wu tightened her expression, purposefully moving her shoulders around to show she had no problems. “The ingredients are already prepped, it would be too wasteful not to finish cooking them.”
She did not want their date to ultimately turn into nothing more than a hassle for Lu Bai alone.
Lu Bai: ” ”
She could find no grounds to refute Qiu Wu, yet she still felt this handling method was unreasonable, her brain continuously mulling over whether she should stop Qiu Wu the next time she encountered such a situation, to the point that she ended up scalding her mouth a second time during dinner.
“Could we not have had the housekeeper do it?” After eating, taking a shower, and changing into her pajamas, Qiu Wu sat cross-legged on the bed, looking upward at Lu Bai, who was standing stiffly straight in front of her holding the tube of ointment.
“When I fell ill last week, you were the one who took care of me. The two of us should enjoy the exact same rights and obligations.” Lu Bai vetoed the suggestion without blinking an eye.
Recalling how effortlessly capable she herself had looked while nursing Lu Bai the week prior, Qiu Wu vaguely envisioned a boomerang flying straight toward her forehead.
“Fine.”
A person cannot hold double standards.
Qiu Wu spent half a minute building up her psychological defenses before turning around and shedding her clothes.
Her weight was far too low.
To make it easier for Lu Bai to apply the ointment, Qiu Wu had steeled herself and stripped down quite thoroughly. Against her unblemished spine, now devoid of everything save for her undergarments, the outlines of her bones stood out in sharp relief.
Lu Bai consistently maintained the standard weight demanded by Luocheng’s official health guidelines, which gave her a very clear understanding of what external physical traits a person of normal weight ought to possess.
Qiu Wu had a well-proportioned frame; when clothed, she looked quite balanced and not excessively emaciated.
Was she not eating properly?
Lu Bai narrowed her eyes, reviewing her past chats with Qiu Wu in her head without finding any obvious clues.
Qiu Wu ate very punctually, and her palate was far more varied than her own; logically speaking, a situation like this should not have occurred.
“What is the matter?” Noticing a moment of stillness behind her, Qiu Wu tilted her head in confusion while maintaining her posture of one hand clutching her hair.
“It is nothing, I am going to start applying it now.” Lu Bai donned a pair of medical gloves, scooped a dollop of ointment onto her palm, and applied it carefully over Qiu Wu’s swollen skin.
The ointment was ice-cold, and the medical glove had yet to be warmed by the woman’s body heat. Lu Bai’s pressure was extremely light.
It felt like a willow branch dipped in cold water brushing gently across her spine.
Both cold and itchy, with a trace of tingling pain mixed in the middle.
Having armed herself with plenty of mental preparation, Qiu Wu at least managed to avoid the humiliation of crying out, but the itchy-painful sensation was far more unbearable than pure pain alone. Holding her breath, her body began to tremble slightly.
Lu Bai possessed a minor flaw: once she concentrated on a single task, it became difficult for her to notice her surrounding environment. Consequently, at that moment, her field of vision contained only that patch of bruised skin, until the ointment had evenly coated the injured area into a sheet of snowy white. Only then did she nod in satisfaction, finally willing to shift her gaze elsewhere.
With one hand gripping her opposite arm, the woman pulled her shoulders inward and shivered. A faint blush crept from the tips of her ears down the side of her neck, flowing sluggishly toward her spine.
Lu Bai: ” ”
She froze for a few moments before extending her hand. Her ointment-stained fingertips traced straight down the shallow indentation running along the center of Qiu Wu’s spine, leaving behind a faint white streak.
This action held no significance whatsoever.
She had no idea why she had chosen to do that either.
“Ah…” Startled by the sudden touch on an unprepared spot, Qiu Wu let out a soft cry and turned her head back in confusion.
Only then did Lu Bai snap out of it, lowering her eyes. “I am sorry, I drifted outside the injured area.”
It was not that she was trying to cover up her tracks; she simply had no way to explain to Qiu Wu something she could not even make sense of herself.
“Oh.” Still nursing a burning face, Qiu Wu did not press further, though a question mark formed inside her mind.
Could someone like Lu Bai, who could slice vegetables with absolute millimeter precision, genuinely smear medicine crookedly?
That very night, Lu Bai had a dream.
In it, Qiu Wu stood with her back turned and shed her clothes, exactly as she had during the day.
Only this time, Qiu Wu was not wearing undergarments as she turned around.
A customary smile hung on her face; she made no moves, uttered no words.
Just like during the day, Lu Bai’s body bypassed her brain, stepping forward to gently embrace the topless woman.
Nothing happened at all.
The next morning, an awakened-ahead-of-schedule Lu Bai stared up at the blank white ceiling in silence for a moment before unlocking her phone and initiating a search.
What does it mean to dream about your dating partner being naked from the waist up and hugging you?