Chapter 15

Don’t Pull My Ear!

“I really can’t do anything with him!”

In the bathroom, the girl stared at the boy’s socks and underwear, thinking that since she had already washed them for him, she might as well wash them again.

Scrub, scrub, scrub.

As she rubbed the two small items in the sink, Jiang Yuan’s face remained flushed.

She was thinking about her white outfit, which seemed to match Lin Senmu’s big black socks and underwear, almost like a couple’s set.

“So embarrassing! I’m never washing his stuff again!”

After finishing, Jiang Yuan casually wanted to hang them up to dry, but as she stepped out, she happened to meet Lin Senmu’s gaze. She got annoyed and said, “Hang your own stuff up!”

“Sure thing!”

Lin Senmu chuckled and trotted over.

“Lin Senmu, if you don’t hand wash these yourself tomorrow, I’ll hit you!”

Jiang Yuan raised her little fist in warning.

“Mhm, mhm!”

Lin Senmu nodded obediently on the surface, but inside, he was full of defiance. He’d deal with tomorrow when it came!

The RV was parked in the vast grassland.

After nightfall, the area was extremely quiet, with only the occasional lights of the yurts belonging to the herders in the distance.

Inside, the RV’s lights were bright, but the space was filled with tranquility.

Jiang Yuan lay on the bed, swinging her cute little feet. She munched on chips while her tablet, propped up on the headboard, played a drama.

Lin Senmu, curled up in the overhead bed, was also lying down playing a game, but his stats were a sea of red.

It wasn’t that he was bad at the game; it was just that in this environment of a boy and girl alone together, he couldn’t focus on the game. His mind was filled with thoughts of the playful girl on the double bed.

Playing the game was purely a way to distract himself and pass the time.

This phenomenon was normal. During adolescence, both boys and girls are filled with fantasies about the opposite sex.

“Nineteen years of being single, I want to fall in love.”

The thought popped into Lin Senmu’s mind, and it was strong.

Jiang Yuan’s heart wasn’t as calm as it seemed on the surface either. Excluding the time on the train, this was the first time she was truly alone in a room with a boy.

Her beautiful eyes held a trace of worry and nervousness. From time to time, she would open her phone’s rear camera to check what Lin Senmu was doing, wondering if he might lose control.

“If he really did something to me, would I choose to forgive him?”

Jiang Yuan’s little brain was filled with wild thoughts. As she thought, she blushed furiously, though she wasn’t sure why.

Time passed gradually, and the boy and girl in the RV fell asleep without realizing it.

The next morning, when Jiang Yuan woke up, the first thing she did was check if she had been violated. Finding herself unharmed, she thought of a term: “worse than a beast!”

“Ugh!!!”

“Jiang Yuan, stop daydreaming! Why are you always thinking about what Lin Senmu might do to you?”

Jiang Yuan burrowed under the covers, scolding herself repeatedly.

“Morning.”

Not long after, Lin Senmu woke up, greeted the girl, and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

“Like a pig, always the last to wake up!”

Jiang Yuan had already finished her morning routine and was just waiting for Lin Senmu to get up.

Later, they moved from the interior space to the driver’s seat, and Lin Senmu and Jiang Yuan set off for their new day of travel plans.

They didn’t eat breakfast. The RV had cooking tools, and they had snacks like milk and bread, but with so many delicacies in the Western Regions, they wanted to save their stomachs for the local food in the cities along the way.

In the afternoon, they drove to the mysterious canyon.

The canyon’s exterior was a massive red-brown mountain range, which, under the sunlight, looked like clusters of burning flames. It was both majestic and spectacular.

The interior of the canyon was quite marvelous. While the outside temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius in the summer, inside it was only around 17 to 18 degrees.

Lin Senmu and Jiang Yuan chose not to hike through the canyon, as the entire trek would take five to six hours. Instead, they rode camels one after the other.

“Wow, this place makes you forget about time,” Jiang Yuan exclaimed, tilting her head back on the camel and snapping photos with the DSLR camera hanging around her neck.

“Yeah,” Lin Senmu responded.

He was also capturing the breathtaking natural scenery, but more often than not, his lens was focused on the girl riding the camel ahead of him.

“Lin Senmu, I caught you!” Jiang Yuan suddenly turned around, glaring at the guy who had been snapping photos of her.

“Hehe!” Lin Senmu chuckled, then suggested, “Jiang Yuan, how about you give me a peace sign in my shot?”

Jiang Yuan obliged, placing a peace sign next to her stunning face. “Peace!”

Inside the canyon, the spot where most tourists lingered was the babbling stream flowing down from the mountain. This was genuine mineral water, and many visitors were filling their bottles and cups with the clear spring.

Lin Senmu and Jiang Yuan had done their research and brought their own bottles to collect the mineral water.

“So cold, so cold!” Jiang Yuan shivered as she drank the icy spring water.

“Who told you to drink it so fast?” Lin Senmu also took a sip, finding the water cool and sweet.

At 8 PM, the sky in the western region was still bright.

Lin Senmu and Jiang Yuan arrived at Wood Lake, the most sea-like lake in the borderlands, rumored to be the last tear of the Atlantic Ocean.

They first drove around the lake, then got out to admire the lake’s scenery.

The lake was a deep blue, as was the sky, creating a seamless connection between water and sky, like a painting. There were crescent-shaped bays and lighthouses extending into the water.

Perhaps it was the encounter of words with extreme beauty, but it felt impossible to describe adequately, as some landscapes defy verbal interpretation.

“Lin Senmu, let’s go to the dock and take a boat ride on the lake,” Jiang Yuan said, pulling Lin Senmu toward a sailboat about to depart.

When the sky turned dark, they returned to their RV for the night.

After each had taken a shower, Jiang Yuan was in no mood to indulge Lin Senmu today.

She stormed out of the bathroom, grabbed Lin Senmu, who was sitting on a chair, and scolded, “Lin Senmu, go wash your socks and underwear yourself!”

“Baby, aren’t you going to pamper me today?” Lin Senmu blinked, also trying to act cute—after all, you can learn anything online these days!

“Pamper you, my foot!” Jiang Yuan said fiercely. “Hurry up and go wash your own underwear!”

“Baby, why split a task that one person can handle between two?” Lin Senmu attempted to argue.

“Not going, huh?” Jiang Yuan, who had been holding his T-shirt sleeve, switched to pulling his ear, dragging Lin Senmu toward the bathroom.

“Ouch! That hurts, be gentle, don’t pull my ear!” Lin Senmu winced, covering his ear with his hand, which also enveloped the girl’s small hand.

“Are you going to wash them or not?” Jiang Yuan issued her final ultimatum, looking quite fierce.

Who does Lin Senmu think he is? He’s not even her boyfriend, yet he’s always trying to get her to wash his socks and underwear!

“I’ll wash them, okay? I’ll wash them!” Lin Senmu squeezed the small hand in his palm, then went into the bathroom to get to work.

He soaked his socks and underwear in the sink, but as he was about to start washing, he noticed Jiang Yuan’s intimate garments placed nearby.

“Cough, cough!”

Lin Senmu glanced at the two small items and decided to take them over.

What was he thinking?

Jiang Yuan had hand-washed his clothes twice. Being a gentleman, Lin Senmu believed in reciprocating favors. If one person could handle it, there was no need for two to share the task.

He separated the rest of the laundry, but kept the socks together.

As he scrubbed, the fabrics of their clothes became tangled into a single mass.