The subway wasn’t very crowded over the weekend, and there were plenty of empty seats in the carriage.
Zhou Xiaqing picked a seat near the door and sat down, with Chen Jinshan sitting right next to her.
As the subway rumbled along, the hanging hand straps overhead swayed slightly.
Zhou Xiaqing sat up straight, her eyes unconsciously tracking their back-and-forth movement as her mind drifted off to parts unknown.
An occasional bout of absent-mindedness was just another symptom of her severe sleep deprivation under immense pressure.
The carriage doors opened and closed as people came and went.
When she finally snapped out of it, she noticed that the carriage had filled up considerably.
Judging by their relaxed laughter and chatter, most of them were making use of the weekend to go out shopping and grab dinner.
Chen Jinshan had been sitting beside her the entire time, completely silent.
She had no idea what he was doing.
She turned her head to sneak a glance at him, only to find him leaning against the back of the seat with his arms crossed over his chest.
He had actually fallen asleep with his eyes closed.
She truly envied his ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere.
Seeing that they were only two stops away from their transfer, Zhou Xiaqing decided to take advantage of the crowd to immediately execute the first step of her seduction plan:
Stare at him brazenly. Especially when there are a lot of people around, look each other right in the eye.
“Chen Jinshan,” she called out in a soft voice.
He didn’t move an inch and gave no reaction whatsoever.
“Chen Jinshan!” She nudged him with her elbow and called his name again.
This time, his head tilted slightly, but he still didn’t open his eyes.
The carriage was crowded, which perfectly matched the background conditions required by the first strategy in the guide.
Opportunity knocks but once, and this absolute prime moment could not be wasted.
However, with so many eyes watching them, the proper upbringing she had been raised with since childhood made it impossible for her to call his name any louder or nudge him any harder.
On top of that, she was keeping her gentle persona strictly in mind; she couldn’t treat him too harshly, or she would risk him rebelling and causing her plan to fall through.
If she didn’t manage to get him into bed, all her previous preparations would be for nothing.
Gritting her teeth, she cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone, leaned in close to his ear, and whispered, “Chen Jinshan, wake up quickly.”
Her warm, moist breath brushed against his ear, and the faint scent of her shampoo drifted into his nose.
Chen Jinshan felt a sudden itch in his heart that he couldn’t seem to scratch away.
Still scheming, he continued to pretend to be asleep, his acting skills practically flawless.
The subway had only one stop left before reaching their transfer station.
Zhou Xiaqing leaned forward once more, her lips pressing close to his ear as her speaking pace quickened slightly out of urgency.
“Chen Jinshan, we have to transfer at the next station.”
She was in too much of a hurry.
Her lips accidentally brushed against his earlobe.
The wet, soft sensation caused Chen Jinshan’s body to instantly stiffen.
His ear felt tingly and numb, and then his entire body felt as though an electric current had surged through it, leaving a lingering ripple of tremors from head to toe.
The scene of that tender intimacy, which he had replayed in his mind countless times, flashed through his brain once again.
During those two nights abroad, when they took a break midway through, he had held her and let her sit on his lap.
One of his hands had rested on her slender waist while the other smoothed her hair.
He had been utterly immersed in that lingering, affectionate atmosphere, and she seemed to be too.
She would wrap her arms around his neck, tilt her head up, and kiss him deeply.
Then, he would kiss her ear, her neck, and her collarbone, inch by inch.
He wanted to kiss Zhou Xiaqing, and he wanted to sleep with her too.
What a coincidence, someone else wanted to sleep with him, too.
Seeing that he had finally opened his eyes, Zhou Xiaqing didn’t waste a single second and immediately put her plan into action.
Her gaze swept over him meticulously from top to bottom, and then from bottom to top.
Zhou Xiaqing believed her gaze was naked and brazen enough.
She even raised her eyebrows in a playing-hard-to-get manner, then locked her eyes onto Chen Jinshan’s, attempting to look each other right in the eye just as the guide instructed.
Conveying feelings through their eyes, casting flirtatious glances, being as tender as water.
Zhou Xiaqing believed she could pull it off; after all, she had rehearsed it countless times in her head.
Chen Jinshan also stared back at her silently.
As their eyes locked, it felt as though some unnameable emotion was truly flowing between the two of them.
Time passed agonizingly slow.
In the end, Chen Jinshan couldn’t hold back any longer.
The moment he opened his mouth, he blurted out, “Zhou Xiaqing, why aren’t you blinking? Do your eyes feel uncomfortable?”
He lowered his head and opened his phone, searching for a pharmacy on the map.
“Let me see where they sell eye drops.”
So, it turned out that the so-called “emotion” was actually confusion.
He was simply wondering why she wasn’t blinking.
Step one of the seduction plan: Failure.
A wave of annoyance surged in her chest.
Zhou Xiaqing grew impatient; he actually couldn’t read such an obvious hint.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.
She had already overcome her sense of shame to seduce him so shamelessly, and that was his pathetic reaction?
Just then, the subway slowed down as it entered the station.
Out of shame and anger, Zhou Xiaqing was the first to stand up, her tone displeased to the absolute extreme.
“Your eyesight is the one that’s bad. You’re the one who needs eye drops.”
“What’s going on?” Chen Jinshan stood up right after her, his mind full of question marks.
“Why are you suddenly angry?”
“Who’s angry?” Her tone was clearly bursting with rage.
Zhou Xiaqing followed the crowd out of the carriage and walked ahead without looking back.
She walked with giant strides, completely ignoring him.
Chen Jinshan followed closely behind her at her exact pace, reaching out his hand to grab her arm, but she nimbly dodged him.
He tried again, but she shifted her body to the side, causing his large hand to catch nothing but air.
He tried yet again, but she suddenly accelerated her pace, and he still failed to catch her.
An angry girlfriend is harder to catch than a pig during the Lunar New Year.
This sentence suddenly flashed into his brain.
It had to be said that it fit the current scene all too well.
Even though Zhou Xiaqing wasn’t actually his girlfriend.
“Zhou Xiaqing,” Chen Jinshan softened his voice to persuade her. “Walk a bit slower. There are a lot of people right now.”
“Leave me alone.”
As if deliberately doing the exact opposite of what he wanted, Zhou Xiaqing not only failed to slow down, but instead started jogging toward the upper staircase for the transfer line.
A continuous stream of people was coming down from the opposite escalator.
Worried that she might get bumped into, Chen Jinshan also quickened his pace, reaching out to pull her back so she would walk slowly to ensure her safety.
To his surprise, before he could even get close to her, he managed to collide with a middle-aged uncle who was walking in a rush from the opposite direction.
Being physically strong and sturdy, nothing much happened to him; he and the uncle simply apologized to each other, and that was that.
But when he turned back around, Zhou Xiaqing had already reached the foot of the stairs and was stomping upward furiously, her speed comparable to Usain Bolt.
He ran over quickly, his long legs taking the steps two or three at a time as he scrambled to catch up with her.
Immediately after, with quick eyes and agile hands, he grabbed her arm.
Despite looking soft and frail, he had no idea where she got such immense strength, as she violently shook off his hand before he could get a firm grip.
The right-angled edges in the middle of the stainless steel handrails were unpolished, sharp and keen.
His hand swiped through the air and uncontrollably struck against the sharp edge.
A shallow cut instantly opened up across the knuckle of his ring finger, and droplets of blood began to ooze out.
He didn’t pay it any mind and continued bounding up the steps to chase after her.
To him, this kind of superficial scratch was just like being nipped by an ant; it was completely unworthy of being taken to heart.
However, the footsteps ahead came to a sudden halt.
Zhou Xiaqing turned around, walked down two steps, and came to a stop at a position one step higher than him.
She grabbed his wrist, carefully inspected his wound, then raised her eyes to look at him and said, “Let’s go to the pharmacy first.”
“You care about me that much?” Chen Jinshan said in a playfully smug manner, before switching to a completely nonchalant tone.
“This is just a minor injury. There’s no need to buy a band-aid.”
“You’re flattering yourself,” Zhou Xiaqing said. “I am going to buy eye drops.”
“I knew it. Why else weren’t you blinking?”
“Because I felt like it. Who told you to pull me?”
“Because I felt like it. Why are you angry?”
“Because I felt like it.”
The two walked side by side toward the top of the stairs, bantering back and forth with perfectly synchronized steps, looking incredibly natural together.
In the end, they still made a trip to the pharmacy, and they didn’t just buy eye drops.
They also bought iodine antiseptic and band-aids.