JR Chapter 40

 Mo Lin and Jiang Yuanmu had only been sitting quietly on the deck sofa for a short while when Cheng Lulu’s voice echoed from the cabin, breaking the silence.

“A water plane costs tens of thousands for a trip? No way I’m going back. We’ve been through so much turbulence to get here, and now you want me to call a water plane and go back?”

As she spoke, she climbed up to the deck, with He Ye gently supporting her legs to make it easier, and the tour guide explaining behind them:

“I saw you were having a hard time with seasickness. If you can manage, I suggest continuing the journey. I just wanted to offer an option.”

“Lulu,” Mo Lin called out, “are you okay?”

Cheng Lulu looked more worn out than when they first boarded, her face showing signs of dehydration. But after a bit of rest, she seemed more energetic:

“I’m okay,” Cheng Lulu replied, continuing her argument with the tour guide. “I’m not going back. Didn’t the captain say the waves would be smaller tomorrow?”

The captain at the stern of the boat responded, “Yes, according to the forecast, the day you went out had the roughest seas recently. Tomorrow should be better.”

“Mo Lin, what do you think?” Cheng Lulu touched Mo Lin’s forehead. “You look pretty spirited. Do you want to go back? The guide said a water plane can take us back to the main island in about an hour. Do you and President Jiang want to go back?”

Mo Lin glanced at Jiang Yuanmu, who said, “I’m not as badly affected as you two. It’s up to you.”

Mo Lin thought for a moment and asked Cheng Lulu, “Last night, half-asleep, I heard you crying.”

“I was crying,” Cheng Lulu admitted, “I felt so terrible from the seasickness. After getting up to use the bathroom, it got worse. I drank some water, threw up. Ate some melon slices they gave me, threw up again. But the watermelon was good, sweet going down and sweet coming up…”

Mo Lin was speechless, while He Ye, behind Cheng Lulu, started to feel sorry for her. “Is your stomach still upset today?”

“I’m fine now that the boat isn’t rocking as much,” Cheng Lulu continued. “Last night, a big wave threw me from the sofa onto the deck. It really messed with my head. I couldn’t take it and cried… I really felt like I was going to throw up my life…”

Mo Lin frowned with concern. “Maybe you should take the water plane back. Even if the waves are smaller tomorrow, just in case…”

“Oh, it’s fine.”

Cheng Lulu waved it off, citing the ultimate travel mantra, “We’re already here.”

So, all disputes were put aside, and they collectively declined the tour guide’s suggestion to return by water plane. Following the captain’s advice, each of them took a fishing rod to start fishing.

“Eat whatever you catch,” the captain said.

“We won’t go hungry, right?” Cheng Lulu asked.

The captain smiled and replied, “In this sea, half of it is water, half is fish. You won’t go hungry.”

True to the captain’s words, the sea was indeed brimming with fish. Whenever they cast their lines, they almost immediately caught fish. If there was no activity within ten seconds, it was certain that the bait had been eaten and they needed to re-bait the hook.

The constant success in fishing quickly piqued the interest of the four novice anglers. Even when Mo Lin started to feel a bit tired, she noticed that Jiang Yuanmu was still fishing.

She handed her rod to the sailor to let him fish on her behalf and squatted next to Jiang Yuanmu to watch him fish.

Jiang Yuanmu was focused, reminiscent of how he looked while working on his laptop at the dining table.

Mo Lin glanced at the rod and then at Jiang Yuanmu, feeling amused. She couldn’t help but tease, “You won’t become one of those legendary fishing guys, will you?”

Jiang Yuanmu, who was concentrating on feeling the “pulse of the sea,” was momentarily taken aback by Mo Lin’s teasing. He then smiled, “No matter what I do, I’ll be home in the evening.”

At that moment, the fishing rod tugged, and Jiang Yuanmu quickly refocused to reel in the fish. This one seemed bigger than the others they had caught earlier, struggling underwater for a while before Jiang Yuanmu finally pulled it up.

It was a beautiful fish, its body colored like a peacock’s feathers. The vibrant hues made Mo Lin skeptical. “Can we eat this fish?”

The captain glanced at it and responded, “Yes, you can. We call it ‘Qingyi.’ It’s very pretty and edible. But it’s not as tasty as the small fish you’ve been catching.”

The small fish they had been catching earlier were from the same species. It seemed like today, only this species of small fish were around. They were small, white-bodied, with large eyes. The captain called them “Big Eyes,” though their scientific name was unknown.

The captain chopped off their heads, removed their guts, washed them in seawater, and used a packet of hotpot seasoning to cook a mixed fish hotpot for them.

As the seafaring folks said, the “Big Eyes” were indeed more delicious than the “Qingyi.” Such delicacies were rare onshore due to their small size, limited meat, and the difficulty of transporting them alive. Thus, they were generally only available to be caught and eaten fresh as they were doing now.

The group sat on the boat, enjoying their hotpot and happily waiting for nightfall.

Finally, after enduring seasickness and labor, the four of them could relax, lying on the deck, which no longer had the sunshade. They began their real “vacation.”

They gazed at the star-studded night sky, with the Milky Way faintly visible. The sound of the waves made it hard to tell if it was the ocean’s gentle caress or the Milky Way softly calling to them.

Suddenly, a bright shooting star appeared in the sky, spiraling quickly before disappearing. They all saw it and instinctively reached out, pointing towards the shooting star’s direction.

Cheng Lulu was quick to react, exclaiming, “Ah ah!”

Mo Lin and He Ye could only manage a single “Ah!”

Jiang Yuanmu opened his mouth but didn’t make a sound.

After the shooting star’s light completely vanished, they broke the brief silence to confirm, “A shooting star!”

“I saw it! Spinning!”

“It’s my first time!”

“Jiang Yuanmu,” Mo Lin turned her head, the starlight making her eyes sparkle, “did you see it too?”

Jiang Yuanmu also turned to look at her. Gazing into her eyes, he felt as though rarer shooting stars were twinkling in her eyes. “Yes, I saw it.”

Mo Lin turned back to the vast night sky, “This is my first time seeing the Milky Way and a shooting star, and it was spinning.”

“Yes.” Jiang Yuanmu turned to look at the deep starry sky, “Very fortunate.”

“Indeed, spinning meteors must be rare,” Mo Lin replied.

“What I’m grateful for is being able to see it with you.”

Mo Lin was taken aback. She could hear her heartbeat again, louder and more impossible to ignore than before.

“Oh, I’ve had enough!” Cheng Lulu suddenly sat up beside them, “President Jiang, can you give a heads-up before you serve dog food? I can’t stomach it anymore.”

The romantic atmosphere was disrupted, replaced by a joyful one, with Cheng Lulu boldly saying:

“When that meteor came, why didn’t any of us come up with something poetic? Just going ‘ah ah ah’—if aliens saw us, they’d think our civilization was still in the Stone Age.”

Mo Lin couldn’t help but laugh as she sat up. Jiang Yuanmu didn’t seem annoyed; he sat up too, retorting, “The most poetic one said it twice.”

“Wow, President Jiang, if you keep this up, I won’t put in a good word for you anymore. And today, I’m evicting you. Back to your boat you go. Hijacking our boat trip is unacceptable.”

Feeling a bit sleepy, Mo Lin took out her phone and checked the time—9:30 PM, and there was no signal.

She was feeling tired so early.

Nature’s rhythm seemed to take over immediately when away from the city’s lights.

Mo Lin glanced at Jiang Yuanmu, not asking him to leave, as she found herself somewhat reluctant.

But Jiang Yuanmu misunderstood her intent.

“Yes, we should go.”

Watching Jiang Yuanmu and He Ye board the dinghy, He Ye almost stumbled getting on, which startled Cheng Lulu. Seeing her reaction, He Ye couldn’t help but smile, unable to suppress his grin.

“Tomorrow, you can come over to our boat,” He Ye invited. “We’ll be stopping at another reef and exploring it. We can go together.”

Cheng Lulu didn’t refuse, and neither did Mo Lin.

That night, Mo Lin finally ventured into the cabin to take a comfortable shower. Since the cabin was below sea level, the water wouldn’t drain naturally. After showering for a while, she had to step on a button on the floor to drain the water, which she found amusing. She showered for quite some time and, when she came out, expected Cheng Lulu to be asleep. To her surprise, Cheng Lulu was still tossing and turning in bed.

“What’s wrong?” Mo Lin asked.

“I know talking to you about this probably won’t help much, but my phone has no signal, and there’s no one else to talk to. I can’t exactly go find your President Jiang to chat.”

“What is it?”

“I think I’m really struggling to resist He Ye’s advances.”

Regarding matters of love.

Mo Lin fell silent, sitting on the bed and applying her face cream.

Cheng Lulu hugged her blanket and sat up, really beginning to talk to Mo Lin, recounting their experiences from university to the present.

She explained that in college, He Ye and she were in a mutual romantic relationship. However, after He Ye joined her on a graduation trip, he returned and broke up with her, citing that he felt unworthy of her. He claimed that only in another lifetime might he be worthy of standing by her side.

After their breakup, He Ye didn’t remain single; he dated two girls, while Cheng Lulu, too, moved on to new relationships, meeting new people, and parting ways for various reasons.

“Until now.”

“Not long ago, he once told me that if we hadn’t met again at that bar, we might never have crossed paths again. But we did meet again. At a time when he wasn’t so insecure and had a bit more confidence. He said this time, he doesn’t want to miss out.”

“I often thought he was crazy. If he really liked me, why did he break up because of insecurity? How could he let us have no connection for a lifetime? Now he’s relentlessly pursuing me—what was he doing back then?”

“But recently, I’ve realized I might have been too harsh on this relationship. Thinking back, he was a poor student then, with no money but a lot of pride. After the breakup, who knew how our lives would unfold? Trying to work and live took all our effort. Who would really hold onto a relationship like in a story?”

“And now I find myself in trouble,” Cheng Lulu looked at Mo Lin, “His voice is really nice, isn’t it?”

Mo Lin, having finished her skincare routine, sat beside Cheng Lulu and nodded, “His voice is really nice.”

“Yesterday, when I was terribly seasick, they waited for the waves to calm down before coming over on a dinghy. You were asleep, but President Jiang took care of you, wiping your face and feeding you water. I was feeling so bad, crying while holding onto He Ye. He was comforting me, patting my back repeatedly. Mo Lin, you know what?”

Cheng Lulu covered her heart and said, “I really felt my heart flutter.”

Upon hearing this, Mo Lin also touched her heart.

So, this is what it felt like.

So, she had already felt this many times, uncontrollably.

“So, do you think you’ve fallen in love with him again?” Mo Lin asked Cheng Lulu, a bit anxious for her answer.

Cheng Lulu looked at Mo Lin, giving a helpless, bitter smile, “I think I’ve fallen for him again.”

Like a gentle breeze clearing the fog and revealing the bright moon, Mo Lin touched her heart and said,

“Yes, then… you are in love with him.”