Her Tentacles 30

Chapter 30: The Cruise Ship

In the end, Shu Yao never dared to ask Lin Ran if that lychee was sweet or not.

She was afraid of helping her girlfriend recall certain ambiguous scenes, which would then lead to her being pressed down in some corner of the house and kissed until her jaw was sore and her tongue was numb.

That night, she even selectively forgot that there was a kitchen in the house. In the end, it was Lin Ran who made dinner, and after eating, she went up to the rooftop to see which of her flowers needed fertilizing, pruning, or watering.

The last one she saved for after her bath.

But when she came out in her pink bunny pajamas, she found that the watering can on the balcony was in someone else’s hand. The other person had already cleaned up the kitchen and was now, with her back to her, in the scattered starlight of the balcony, leaning over and carefully observing each blooming rose.

Shu Yao approached, intending to turn on the light for her and tell her that she didn’t need to water the ones whose soil was not dry. But who knew that she would see Lin Ran raise her hand and stroke a bud on a branch, and say with a serious expression as she watered it:

“Grow well. If you don’t bloom, I’ll eat you.”

The large balcony, which was usually windless, the flower bud that had been touched by her fingertips trembled slightly.

Shu Yao: “?”

She was greatly shocked, not expecting her girlfriend to secretly…

Previously, because of the strange incidents, the allergic-like marks on her body, which seemed to have been left by some unknown crawler, had quickly healed and disappeared. Shu Yao had completely forgotten about hiring an extermination company. Now, she felt she had completely found the truth behind why these flowers were wilting!

They were being threatened by Lin Ran!

And who would threaten a flower like this? People usually say they’ll throw them away, but only Lin Ran said she would eat them—

Could she be any cuter!

…

Shu Yao’s love-struck brain went into overdrive. She completely forgot the oath she had just made, and was so captivated by Lin Ran’s contrast that she walked toward her again, suddenly wanting to touch her face.

Lin Ran had long since noticed her approach. She took the watering can, which her feelers had been holding, in her hand. Remembering that Shu Yao had said these flowers were feeling down, she temporarily decided to act as a plant psychological counselor and give them some guidance.

When her cheek was suddenly touched by a warm palm, Lin Ran looked a little surprised.

She turned her head, and her silk-like black hair slid down her shoulders. Her dark eyes, which rarely shed their gentleness and composure, now had a blank, contrasting look, which made Shu Yao’s heart skip another beat. So she gently squeezed the face under her palm again.

Being kneaded so frivolously, as if she were a child, Lin Ran did not show any displeasure. After thinking for a moment, she even rubbed her cheek against Shu Yao’s fingertips.

She had noticed her girlfriend’s avoidance after their intimate contact during dinner. A skilled hunter always knew how to use their advantages to lure their prey back into the trap.

And sure enough.

Shu Yao’s pupils quaked when she saw her action. “!”

By the time she reacted, the two were already standing very close, face to face. Lin Ran turned her cheek toward her, her voice low and sticky, like a sweet piece of bread smeared with cheese on a trap. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Shu Yao nodded like a chick pecking at rice.

After she leaned in, what her lips touched was not the cheek that had been at her mercy in her palm just now, but the other’s equally soft lips.

…Did I fall for it?

As she murmured the thought in her heart, Shu Yao was lifted up by Lin Ran. To avoid falling, she reflexively clung to the other’s neck, her legs wrapping around her slender waist. Her eyes were dazed, filled with the scattered light of the starlight lamp.

Anyone who didn’t know would have thought she was full of passion, actively jumping into the other’s arms for a passionate kiss.

Lin Ran chuckled lowly, held her waist, and before kissing her again, her tone was filled with a light and joyful happiness:

“I caught you again,” she said.

The consequence of being repeatedly caught by her girlfriend to practice kissing was that the next day, when Shu Yao entered the office, her expression was particularly cold, and her whole body was filled with a world-weary aura of “don’t talk to me, I’ll leave you on read.”

Even after a night of sleep, her mouth still felt numb.

At that time, she had been growing mushrooms gloomily in her corner desk for half the morning, until she heard the other teachers start to talk about their summer vacation plans.

Fan Xin was planning to take her child to the zoo and aquarium in the neighboring city to enrich his extracurricular activities. Teacher Chen wanted to go to Europe with a friend, so they asked Mu Qing.

“Me?”

“I like the sea, after all, so my trip will probably be related to it, like a cruise or something?”

Hearing this, Shu Yao, who was folding a rose from the leftover construction paper from Children’s Day, lifted her eyelids.

But just then, Mu Qing turned around and gently knocked on her desk partition. “What about Teacher Shu? Where are you planning to go?”

Shu Yao thought of her and Lin Ran’s incompatibility and inexplicably didn’t want to reveal her travel plans. So after thinking carefully for a long time, she said:

“I don’t have much of an opinion. I just go with my friend, whatever she arranges.”

Mu Qing realized, and then very naturally continued, “Then is your girlfriend also going with you?”

Shu Yao nodded vigorously.

Lin Ran had told her at the end of the free clinic that she had already spoken to her superiors about her leave, and that she would be able to finalize her vacation in a few days and arrange her department’s affairs in advance.

Mu Qing’s smile became meaningful. Before Shu Yao could analyze it, she heard her sigh with genuine admiration, “That’s so great.”

Shu Yao took this as her blessing for her relationship and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

…

As the summer vacation slowly approached, Shu Yao had more good news.

With Lin Ran’s arrangement, she found time to go to Nanshan Hospital for another brain MRI. Apart from a slight straightening of her cervical physiological curvature from sitting in the office for a long time, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her brain.

And after the check-up, she never encountered those strange incidents again, as if everything was just as Mu Qing had guessed. The prankster behind those strange scenes just liked to tease people who were alone. Once there were more people, it was too scared to show its face again.

In this state of everything going smoothly, Shu Yao and Lin Ran welcomed the cruise trip arranged by Situ Jin.

Under the blue sky, the white seabirds flying in the distance were like sails, gliding across the skyline. And in the nearby port, there was an extremely magnificent cruise ship. At first glance, the snow-white deck went up, with the room windows of more than ten stories high. For someone who had never sailed on the sea before, just looking out from the ticket hall, one would be overwhelmed by the ship’s presence.

Luxurious, magnificent, enormous.

These were the only words that could come out of Shu Yao’s barren vocabulary. She could even only let out a dog-like sound, “Wow…”

Situ Jin proudly took off her sunglasses next to her, whistled, and asked her, “How about it, not bad, right? This ship’s route is currently the longest in the world for a round-the-world trip, with the most countries visited. And the entertainment on board is also the most complete. I guarantee you won’t get bored for at least three months.”

Shu Yao’s eyes lit up as she nodded.

The most normal-looking one was Lin Ran. She just glanced at the ship and calmly looked away, as if looking at this was less interesting than choosing which flavor of juice to give her girlfriend.

Situ Jin thought to herself, as expected of Lin Daiyu. Whether she has seen the world or not, her presence is never lacking. So she asked, “Director Lin has been on a ship before?”

Shu Yao also looked over curiously.

Lin Ran thought for a moment. She had once, out of boredom, climbed up along the crevices of the abyss. When she was infinitely close to the depth of the trench detected by humans, she had explored some shipwreck fragments.

A shipwreck was also a ship. How could going in for a look not be called having been on a ship?

So she nodded.

Only then did Shu Yao realize that she hadn’t really talked to Lin Ran about her family and upbringing. Because her own story was unremarkable, she had never asked the other person. But now, she suddenly had a greater desire to explore Lin Ran.

She wanted to know how the other person had become such an outstanding being, from where she had walked step by step into her world.

“Did you grow up by the sea?” she asked.

Lin Ran looked into her eyes and suddenly replied, “My hometown is the sea. I grew up in the sea.”

The first half was quite romantic, but the second half, combined with her current achievements in the medical field, made it completely unimaginable how she could have ended up in such a different environment from her childhood.

Shu Yao couldn’t help but ask, “So did you like to study since you were a child?” Only with amazing perseverance could one walk a different path from one’s parents, right?

Study?

Lin Ran tilted her head slightly. “There were no lights where I lived…”

And no light.

So she didn’t study.

But these words had a completely different meaning in Shu Yao’s ears. In that era, twenty or thirty years ago, in a poor small fishing village where even electric lights were not affordable, there was such a girl who would shine in the field of surgery in the future, studying hard and creating an inspirational story of leaving a remote fishing village and entering a top hospital in a big city.

Her eyes were filled with emotion.

Even Situ Jin next to her crossed her arms and clicked her tongue, not expecting this Lin Daiyu to be so cunning, to even learn to play the victim without batting an eyelid to gain her girlfriend’s sympathy.

It was at this moment that the announcement to board the ship was made.

The topic was conveniently cut off here. After all, it didn’t seem appropriate to start a happy journey with a sad story. Shu Yao secretly decided that she must be better to Lin Ran in the future, and strive to let her walk out of the hardships of her childhood and immerse herself in the happy present!

Situ Jin had reserved a couple’s suite for the two of them. As soon as they entered, they saw a bouquet of fresh flowers on the table, with a card from the cruise manager wishing them a pleasant journey.

And Shu Yao also found that the sofa in this room was very similar to the one in her home, with a thin houndstooth-patterned blanket on it. These two details immediately made her look forward to this trip with great anticipation.

However, a couple’s suite naturally only had one large bed—

No matter how luxurious and soft it was, it seemed to mean that the two of them would have to sleep in the same bed on this trip.

When Shu Yao’s eyes landed on the bed, her mind began to overheat a little—but she couldn’t exactly rush out now, drag her friend aside, and explain the overly sensitive-sounding line: “Don’t get the wrong idea just because we live together—we haven’t even shared a bed yet.”

She could only quickly pull Lin Ran’s hand and change the subject. “Why don’t we go outside and have a look first?”

Lin Ran nodded.

And so, Shu Yao was able to sunbathe on the deck of this floor, blow in the sea breeze, and look back at the entire city of Nancheng.

She squinted her eyes, basking in the gift of nature, when she suddenly heard a song from the side:

“Every night in my dreams”

“I see you, I feel you”

“That is how I know you go on…”

It was a song that everyone was familiar with, the theme song of the movie Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On.” The Chinese version was called “My Heart is Eternal.”

Shu Yao hummed along for a couple of lines and saw a Bluetooth earphone roll to her feet. As she bent down to pick it up, a lively little braid with a colorful ribbon came into her view.

She was suddenly pulled by the wrist by Lin Ran next to her.

And the other person had already bent down to pick up the fallen earphone, and said first, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to play it out loud. I—huh? Teacher Shu?”

At this moment, standing in front of the couple, who else could it be but Mu Qing?

The person, who had straightened up again, had a look of utter surprise on her face. “You booked this cruise too? What a coincidence.”

Shu Yao reflexively glanced at Lin Ran’s expression next to her, not knowing whether to nod or not.

However, for Mu Qing to be able to appear on the deck of this floor meant that not only had they coincidentally booked the same travel route, but they might even be able to see each other face to face from their room balconies.

She was still at a loss for what to do when Lin Ran had already calmly met Mu Qing’s gaze. A moment later, a smile with a hint of a predator appeared on her face:

“Yes, what a coincidence.”