Chai Yuening hurried back to the third-floor guest room. The first thing she did upon entering was turn into the bathroom and splash her face with cold water.
That You Lan was baffling, the hotel room’s decor was baffling, and the large bathtub in the room was the most baffling of all.
And Chu Ci, too, with her inexplicably sharp eyesight. She could see when Chai Yuening’s face turned red from so far away. And seeing it was one thing, but she just had to come over and ask about it.
Chai Yuening couldn’t help but think that the past few days had been truly baffling.
Suddenly, the sound of a door closing came from outside the bathroom. It was Chu Ci, entering the room.
Chai Yuening took three deep breaths, dried the water from her face, and walked out of the bathroom as if nothing had happened.
“I just took a look. The ammunition supply in the vehicle’s cabin is plentiful. Besides the guns and ammo, there’s also some water and dry rations. The hardest thing to get was the vehicle itself. I swallowed my pride and mentioned it, not expecting much, but she actually managed to get it for me.” Chai Yuening said casually, sitting on the bed. She sighed with emotion, “No matter what, You Lan really did us a huge favor this time.”
Chu Ci sat back down on the swing she seemed to be so fond of. “You’re very moved.”
“Yeah.” Chai Yuening nodded. “I thought she’d be the type to only do as much as she was paid for. She’s a businesswoman, after all. There’s no need to get into a deal that might lose her money.”
“Your opinion of her has changed a lot.”
“I guess my prejudice against her was a bit too strong before. I suddenly feel like she’s actually quite loyal,” Chai Yuening said, her peripheral vision glancing toward the swing.
Chu Ci hummed in agreement, then stood up from the swing, picked up a bathrobe, and walked into the bathroom, gently closing the door.
Chai Yuening: “Are you taking a shower?”
Chu Ci: “Yes.”
Chai Yuening felt that Chu Ci’s reaction wasn’t quite right, as if she were sulking.
She got up and walked to the bathroom door, opening her mouth as if to ask something, but in the end, all that came out was the same motherly nagging she said every day: “Don’t get your wound wet.”
“Okay,” Chu Ci’s reply came from inside the bathroom. It sounded quite calm, no different from usual.
Chai Yuening returned to the bedside, her fingertips unconsciously toying with the soft, light gauze hanging from the canopy.
The room’s ambiguous pinkish-purple light and the wispy, hanging decorations kept making her think of the strange things You Lan had said.
—Who doesn’t know you took her back to your own place after getting her out of Ban Xiangming’s hands?
—As for what happens after the lights go out, as long as you click, gender isn’t an issue.
—That colored light in the bathtub has three different effects to choose from. It creates a great atmosphere, has a super high approval rating. You two have to try it.
“…Hiss!” Chai Yuening took a long, deep breath.
Something was wrong, really wrong.
It was one thing for that You Lan to have a head full of strange ideas, but how had she started letting her own imagination run wild?
However, You Lan had been right about one thing. Chu Ci always had a gloomy look about her, as if she were hiding a heart full of worries that she was unwilling to share with others.
As Chai Yuening thought this, she sighed deeply, fell backward onto the bed, and reached for the long, pink bolster pillow at the head of the bed, pressing it firmly against her slightly feverish face.
After an unknown amount of time, the bathroom door slid open, and a fresh fragrance drifted out with the warm water vapor.
Wrapped in a bathrobe, her long hair half-damp, Chu Ci walked out.
Hearing the sound, Chai Yuening tossed the pillow aside, kicked her legs, and sat up, looking toward Chu Ci.
Chu Ci walked to the table and poured a glass of cool water. After drinking it, she returned to the bedside in a few steps, grabbed the bolster Chai Yuening had just thrown aside, and flopped onto the bed without a word. The lower half of her calves hung off the edge, her feet bare and still dotted with a few beads of water.
Why was she lying down right after getting out of the shower?
Chai Yuening pulled Chu Ci up. “Don’t fall asleep, you’ll get a headache tomorrow.”
Chu Ci: “…”
Chai Yuening glanced at her pocket watch, then got up and fetched a dry towel from the bathroom, holding it out to Chu Ci. “Dry your hair for a while. It’s still early. Wait until lights-out to sleep.”
Chu Ci looked up at Chai Yuening but didn’t reach out to take it.
She didn’t expect what would happen next. The dry towel was plopped directly onto her head, followed by a messy ruffling that tangled the hair she had just combed smooth before coming out.
With a soft “pfft” of laughter, Chu Ci pulled the towel off her head and shot Chai Yuening a glare.
Chai Yuening stuffed the towel into Chu Ci’s hands and asked with a smile, “Unhappy again?”
Chu Ci: “…No.”
Chai Yuening: “It’s written all over your face.”
Chu Ci: “You’re seeing things.”
That familiar sentence structure finally made Chai Yuening understand why Chu Ci was angry.
It turned out that this little variant with a mountain of secrets had been bothered the whole time by the fact that she and You Lan had been whispering secrets without letting her listen in.
Chai Yuening thought for a moment, then pulled Chu Ci up and led her back into the bathroom once more.
Under Chu Ci’s bewildered gaze, she filled the tub with water and said to her, “You Lan didn’t really say anything to me. She just said you looked a little gloomy and that I should… cheer you up more.”
Chu Ci’s eyes widened. “Cheer me up?”
Chai Yuening nodded and reached out to turn the knobs for the tub’s jets and colored lights.
Instantly, lights of various colors flickered from within the water. The jets of water from the massage nozzles stirred up layers of ripples in the tub, each one shimmering with a hazy glow in the flashing lights.
Chai Yuening reached out and turned the light knob again. The lights in the tub stopped flashing back and forth and instead became layered.
At the very bottom was a deep purple, the middle layer a light purple, and the top layer a rose-red.
The layers weren’t distinct; the different colored lights blended in the water, creating a dreamlike, ethereal gradient.
The final light effect was dominated by a deeper blue-purple, with green as an accent.
A green halo floated horizontally within the deep blue-purple, carried by the ripples from the jets, like an aurora that most people had only ever seen in books appearing in the night sky on the surface.
The bathtub was semi-transparent. Chai Yuening pulled Chu Ci down into a squat. Through the warm water vapor and the glass in front of them, they gazed at the fantastical light effect, and for a moment, even she was a little lost in it.
When she came to her senses, she said softly, “She told me it would look beautiful and that I should show you.”
Chu Ci was momentarily stunned into silence.
Chai Yuening looked at Chu Ci. “Is it beautiful?”
Chu Ci nodded, a clear light shining in her eyes.
The night-like, tranquil light illuminated her smooth profile, a beauty that even her disheveled hair couldn’t hide.
Chai Yuening stared, a bit dazed. It took her a long moment to look away and remark with a smile, “The rich sure know how to live.”
“Mmm…” Chu Ci responded, then, as if remembering something, she asked in a small voice, “Is that all she said to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why were you blushing?”
“I…” Chai Yuening thought for a moment and pulled a random excuse out of thin air. “I’m not used to people standing so close to me.”
She said it casually, and the person beside her actually didn’t ask anything further. She just scooted a little closer and reached out to gently touch the glass, as if trying to see through something into another world.
Chai Yuening asked, “What do you think this looks like?”
Chu Ci thought for a long time before saying softly, “Like the outside.”
“I think so too. Like a night on the surface without the fog.” As she spoke, Chai Yuening also reached out and touched the glass, just as Chu Ci had. “Sometimes I wonder, what is the Floating City really like? The people who live in the Floating City can see the sky every day. They probably don’t have to shout slogans like ‘Humanity will one day return to the surface and reclaim light and freedom’ all the time, like we do in the Base, right?”
“…” Chu Ci blinked but didn’t answer, just quietly gazing at the halo of light in the water before her.
Chai Yuening looked at Chu Ci, listening to the sound of the water by her ear, and couldn’t help but try to guess what she was thinking at that very moment.
An unknown amount of time passed. Chai Yuening felt her feet go numb from squatting.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared throughout the entire district.
She and Chu Ci stood up at almost the same time, looking at each other with astonishment in their eyes.
Something had happened in the Seventh District.
In a district under strict defense, on what should have been a peaceful night, the city-wide emergency evacuation alarm had been sounded.
Sounds of cursing or confusion came from outside the guest room.
Someone knocked frantically on their door.
It was Jing Mu. She had run over from next door, her eyes filled with panic.
Jing Mu: “The evacuation alarm is going off again! Did a beast horde break in?”
Behind her, someone ran hastily toward the hallway, their clothes in disarray, not even having had time to fasten their belt. They bumped into her as they passed, then turned back to glare at her, muttering curses.
At that bump, the young girl’s eyes reddened behind her glasses.
“Let’s go, downstairs,” Chai Yuening frowned, taking the lead.
It was just past nine in the evening, still more than two hours before the outer city’s power cut. At this hour, the black market, especially this street under You Lan’s name, still had a certain degree of liveliness.
In the past few days, too many people had heard about the tragic state of the other districts. The moment the city-wide emergency evacuation alarm sounded, this liveliness devolved into uncontrollable chaos.
No one knew what had happened, but everyone knew what it meant for the evacuation alarm to be sounded directly, without any preceding district-wide broadcast.
In an instant, some fled in panic, while others begged not to be left behind.
The crowd was surging, people were pulling and shoving.
Confused questions, impatient curses and cries, and the sound of something shattering from an unknown location.
Every sound seemed to declare that the luxury and prosperity of this place would come to a complete end tonight.
Chai Yuening drove the new, still-unfamiliar vehicle, and the chaotic crowd scattered to either side.
No matter how chaotic it was here, she had to find someone.
The sound of the alarm continued to ring in everyone’s heart.
Everyone was fleeing. Some were not just fleeing, but also grabbing a lot of money that didn’t belong to them along the way.
The KTVs and bars along the street were instantly deserted and filthy. Besides the glaring neon lights, nothing was left.
A woman who once could have anything she wanted here, yet today seemed forgotten by everyone, stood dazedly outside the messy entrance of a bar, away from the human tide. She clutched a communicator in her hand, shouting something loudly, but clearly getting no response.
Chai Yuening quickly stopped the car, rolled down the window, and shouted, “Boss You!”
“Captain Chai!” You Lan turned around, and a light instantly appeared in her dazed and helpless eyes.
“Get in, let’s go together!”
Wearing a qipao and high heels, You Lan came running over with quick, clicking steps. Chai Yuening unlocked the door. The vehicle was a bit high, so Jing Mu quickly reached out and pulled her up.
The first thing she said in a loud voice after getting in was: “I knew it, not a single man in this world can be trusted! A million sweet words are all lies! Captain Chai, you’re still the best! You’re ten thousand times more reliable than that good-for-nothing Ban Xiangming!”
Author’s Notes:
You Lan: So, did you two play with the colored lights?
Chu Ci: We did.
Chai Yuening: …
Huge thanks to lumi kalt for the support!
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