Li Yuanxi took Wei Shu’s commonly used notebook from the shelf and wrote on the blank page: I also have a lover, Li Yuanxi, duh~
Li Yuanxi buried her head and wrote eight hundred words of love declarations, four hundred of which just repeated the same thing—Wei Shu, Wei Shu, as if those two characters were the only words she knew.
Having just tasted the affairs of the heart for the first time, a fire would kindle within her at any moment, and only Shu Shu could quench it.
She would occasionally glance with bright eyes at the woman sleeping in the bed. Li Yuanxi’s face flushed red as she giggled secretly to herself. I’m done for. I think I’ve got skin hunger, she thought blissfully, and the only cure is my Shu Shu.
Li Yuanxi filled three whole pages before finally stopping, reluctant to put the pen down. She flipped through the pages one by one, reading the diary entries. They were mostly records of what she and Wei Shu had done together, and what they were planning to do.
Wei Shu’s writing was different from hers. Li Yuanxi’s words were filled with emotion, while Wei Shu’s were just simple descriptions, straightforward and concise.
【Maybe one day, we’ll go back home and have two lovely children.】
Li Yuanxi stared at that sentence under Wei Shu’s diary entry, lost in thought. She reached out and traced the characters slowly, a new idea forming in her mind.
She silently calculated the time. Over three months had passed. The rescue team should have expanded their search area by now, but she still had no idea if the airline had found the black box.
Li Yuanxi lifted her head to look at the cave, which could only be described as shabby. Everything inside, for eating and using, had been gathered and built bit by bit with tremendous effort.
She hadn’t even had a chance to catch her breath before winter had descended. There wasn’t a single piece of clothing in the cave that could withstand the bitter cold. They relied entirely on the roaring fire every day to maintain the temperature inside.
“I wonder if the drift bottles we threw out this time will be brought back by the ocean current,” Li Yuanxi muttered to herself. She and Wei Shu had tossed out many drift bottles before, but they always ended up washed back ashore by the current.
Li Yuanxi put away the diary and sat on the edge of the bed, gazing quietly at the sleeping Wei Shu. She leaned down and gently kissed Wei Shu’s rosy lips, breathing in the scent of herself that clung to her.
Li Yuanxi and Wei Shu stayed in the cave for several days. Only when Li Yuanxi had fully recovered did she allow herself to go outside and collect the venison.
The sea breeze had dried the strips of venison quite thoroughly. They hurried to gather them up as dark clouds gathered in the sky and the wind turned wild and unruly.
After collecting the last strip of venison, Li Yuanxi grabbed Wei Shu, who was being pushed backward by the wind, and pulled her back into the cave.
As soon as they were inside, Li Yuanxi quickly used the wooden door to block the entrance, keeping the gale out. The flames inside the cave flickered violently, and much of the accumulated warmth dissipated.
The large iron barrel outside was sealed tight. The palm leaves covering it flapped wildly in the wind, weighed down by a ring of stones to prevent them from being blown away.
The plastic film covering the woodpile behind the rocky wall to the left of the cave fluttered constantly, nearly ripped off several times by the fierce wind.
“Shu Shu, you stay here. I’m going to check on the firewood. Just in case, I’ll move some of it inside first.” Li Yuanxi put down her backpack basket and quickly said a few words to Wei Shu before rushing back out.
The moment Li Yuanxi stepped out of the cave, the fierce wind nearly knocked her backward. She had to shield her forehead with her hand and struggle forward against the biting gale. When she reached the woodpile, the plastic film had already been torn off.
Without a second thought, Li Yuanxi grabbed the rope, threw it on the ground, stepped on one end, and began stacking firewood vertically on the rope. After piling up a good amount, she tied it up and carried it back into the cave on her back.
She made several trips back and forth, her face turning purple from the cold, before she finally stopped. She used stones to weigh down the plastic film again, specifically picking a few heavier rocks to place on top.
When Li Yuanxi returned to the cave, she felt her numb, frozen face slowly recover in the warmth. Wei Shu held her hands, breathing warm air onto her fingers, helping her regain her body temperature.
Wei Shu knelt in front of Li Yuanxi, placing her hands on her own cheeks. She kept rubbing her face against Li Yuanxi’s fingertips, not minding the dirt on them.
“I’m fine now, I’m not cold anymore.” Li Yuanxi, who had warmed up by the fire, quickly came back to her senses. A heavy rain began to fall outside the cave with a loud crackling sound, the wind violently slapping the raindrops against the rocky walls.
Worried that the wooden door might be blown open, Li Yuanxi added a stick to brace it from the inside. She peered through the small square opening and saw waves at the foot of the mountain churning like a dragon turning over in the sea.
Li Yuanxi’s heart sank. Her expression turned grim, her gaze thoughtful. She remembered again that the wild deer and porcupines on the mountain never came to the base of this slope to forage.
Could there really be a tsunami this winter? Li Yuanxi’s brow furrowed unconsciously as she stared at the storm outside the cave. She now had to consider the worst-case scenario.
If a tsunami really came, what would she and Shu Shu do?
She hadn’t found a suitable shelter on the mountain, and any temporary structure they built might not withstand winds of Force 12 or even higher. Li Yuanxi’s fingers tapped restlessly on her leg, a growing anxiety bubbling inside her.
“Chuyi.” Wei Shu tugged at Li Yuanxi, whose mood was growing darker by the minute. Li Yuanxi turned and forced a smile. “What is it, Shu Shu?”
Wei Shu took her hand. “Don’t keep staring. Staring won’t change anything.” Wei Shu’s voice was calm and soothing. She knew what Li Yuanxi was thinking. The problem they had both forgotten before had resurfaced.
“We only had a few days of peace,” Li Yuanxi said, her head drooping with a hint of dejection.
“It might not be as bad as we think. I went out looking for wild vegetables earlier…” Wei Shu didn’t get to finish before Li Yuanxi cut in, “No, you mean wild grass.”
Wei Shu’s dark pupils bored into Li Yuanxi with such intensity that Li Yuanxi had to lower her head, no longer in the mood to joke.
“I didn’t find any traces of seawater having flooded the rocks and trees below the cave. I only saw signs of seawater damage near the inner edge of the woods,” Wei Shu said, reaching out to touch Li Yuanxi’s ear.
“Oh, right. I’ve been all around this area, and there’s no trace of flooding either. At most, it’s in the woods at the foot of the mountain. Too bad about my seafood, though,” Li Yuanxi said, her spirits lifting and her focus derailing again.
Wei Shu pressed her hand to her forehead, not wanting to deal with this idiot. Her train of thought was always so bizarre. She restacked the firewood Li Yuanxi had brought back, taking out a piece whenever needed. It didn’t take up much space.
For the next three days, Li Yuanxi couldn’t sleep a wink. She kept glancing at the small window in the wooden door. The rain never let up. The bucket she’d placed outside to collect water filled up quickly with freshwater.
The sky was a gloomy gray, the wind howled, and the freezing rain pounded the ground, splashing up tiny craters.
Thousands of miles away, the Wei family was still searching. Everyone was clinging to unrealistic hopes.
The black box that Li Yuanxi had been worrying about had been found the day before. It had fallen into a deep-sea trench thousands of meters below, and they were still trying to retrieve it.
And that location wasn’t that far from the island they were on—only about seven or eight hundred nautical miles away.
The search route had been expanded based on this new area, but their small island was still perfectly excluded. The search area had been widened to five hundred nautical miles, but they were even further away than that.
A cold ocean current had hit the small island, so the recovery work had been halted.
The rain kept pouring down, as if the sky itself had a hole that couldn’t be patched.
Wei Shu was cooking inside the cave when Li Yuanxi couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to go check if the seawater had risen.
“Little Shu, I…”
“Go ahead. It’ll put your mind at ease.”
Li Yuanxi nodded. She put on the raincoat Wei Shu had made, which covered her head and upper body, and pulled a large plastic bucket over her head. She dashed out into the rain.
Wei Shu paused her cooking and stood at the cave entrance, waiting for her return. Ignoring the cold, Li Yuanxi jogged all the way, constantly wiping the rain from her face. Her breath, forming white puffs, was scattered by the rain before it could even dissipate.
She finally reached the foot of the mountain. Just as Wei Shu had predicted, the salt pond they had built was already submerged by the seawater. The entire beach was underwater.
Li Yuanxi didn’t go any further. She looked up at the dark clouds in the sky and silently prayed. Please, God, make the rain stop.
The rainwater falling into her eyes made them sting. Li Yuanxi had to close her eyes. The combined assault of rain and wind sent chills through her entire body. She turned and ran back to the cave.
Wei Shu had prepared scalding hot water, clean clothes, and a towel, waiting for Li Yuanxi to come home.
Li Yuanxi ran back into the cave, bringing in a trail of water. The sudden shift from cold to heat made her shiver violently. Wei Shu hurried over. “Take off your clothes and drink the ginger soup.”
Li Yuanxi stripped off her wet clothes right in front of Wei Shu and gulped down a mouthful of the hot ginger water, still shivering. Wei Shu helped her into dry clothes, dried her hair, and then sat her down on a stool to soak her feet and ward off the cold.
“You can relax now, right?” Wei Shu said, vigorously drying her hair and ears. Li Yuanxi nodded quickly. “Yeah, I feel better. I just don’t know how much longer this rain is going to last.”
“That depends on when this cold current decides to leave.” Wei Shu paused for a moment before continuing to dry her hair.
Li Yuanxi lowered her head and took a deep breath of the scent on the blanket. “You smell so good.” She looked up at Wei Shu, completely satisfied. Wei Shu poked her forehead and told her to put her head down so she could finish drying her hair.
An orange-red helicopter struggled through the black clouds, shaking violently several times in the strong wind, before finally escaping the gale and leaving the waters.
Li Yuanxi thought she heard something. She quickly stood up and walked to the cave entrance, straining her eyes to see outside. But there was nothing, only the blur of endless rain.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” Wei Shu had just finished drying her hair when she saw Li Yuanxi running out barefoot again. She frowned, a bit displeased.
“I thought I heard a sound,” Li Yuanxi said, shaking her head, thinking she might have imagined it.
“Go wash your feet. Dinner’s almost ready.” Wei Shu set out the chopsticks and closed the wooden door, bracing it with a stick to keep the rain from blowing in.
While they were eating, the black box that had been intermittently salvaged was finally recovered and immediately flown away by helicopter.
This time, the helicopter deliberately avoided their sea area altogether. The pilot and co-pilot complained, “I hate going into that area. The weather is unpredictable, and tsunamis are common there.”
“The investigation into the 9/5 incident finally has a breakthrough,” the co-pilot said, looking at the black box being guarded in the back. He thought of the victims they had been searching for all this time and silently mourned.
No one else spoke. The silence was heavy. Even the captain fell silent.
That winter was hard for everyone. Li Yuanxi and Wei Shu were no exception. Even with a lover by their side every day, being stuck in a cave watching the rain was incredibly boring.
When people get bored, they tend to engage in physical activities. Li Yuanxi held Wei Shu, easily slipping off her clothes and trapping her in her embrace, kissing her gently. The pheromone level in the cave had gone through the roof.
“Chuyi… stop…” Wei Shu covered Li Yuanxi’s mouth with her hand. She reached back to touch her own gland, feeling something wasn’t right. Her longing for Li Yuanxi, both physically and mentally, intensified.
“I think my heat is starting.” Wei Shu’s face flushed, and she let out a soft moan, collapsing onto Li Yuanxi. Li Yuanxi held her tight. “This time, I can be with you through it all.”
Wei Shu rolled her eyes. “Oh, thank you so much.”
“Hehe, you’re welc~” Li Yuanxi kissed her beautiful eyes and listened to the rain outside the cave with Wei Shu.
It wasn’t even nightfall yet when Wei Shu’s heat began in earnest. Weak all over, she slumped onto the table. Li Yuanxi was washing the dishes and chopsticks, not noticing.
Wei Shu watched her busy figure from the table, then looked down at her own hands. Her hands weren’t chapped yet. There was a thin layer of calluses on her palms, but the backs of her hands were still fair.
But Li Yuanxi’s hands were constantly in water, washing dishes and cooking every day. They had already started to crack, and sometimes they would even bleed.
How much longer would this kind of life have to go on?
Wei Shu’s eyes grew vacant. The signal markers she and Li Yuanxi had set up were submerged by the seawater. The rain, which had been falling for over a month, made it impossible to even light a signal fire.
They had arrived here on September 5th. Over four months had passed. Were they truly outside the search range?
Wei Shu couldn’t figure it out. She closed her eyes and decided not to think about it anymore. She would just live one day at a time.
The intoxicating pheromones spread from the back of her neck. Li Yuanxi hadn’t reacted yet, but the agarwood scent from her own gland began to respond eagerly.
Li Yuanxi immediately washed her hands, warmed them by the fire, and sat down beside Wei Shu. Wei Shu lifted her eyelids to glance at her. Li Yuanxi understood. She reached out and lifted Wei Shu, settling her in her lap.
She used her pheromones to soothe Wei Shu. At first, Wei Shu didn’t feel too uncomfortable, just a bit weak. Li Yuanxi’s pheromones effectively alleviated her craving for an alpha’s scent.
Wei Shu’s fingertips traced slowly over Li Yuanxi’s thin lips. “Chuyi, take me.” Her red lips parted, whispering the words only in her ear, and Li Yuanxi was lost.
Make baby quick