They had booked all the rooms in the homestay, so there would be no other guests besides them, but even so, there weren’t enough rooms. They needed to arrange two people per room, but no one objected to this. After all, in such an unfamiliar place, no one wanted to stay alone in a room in the middle of the night, especially the boys.

Fang Chuning and Gao Qiong were assigned to one room. As soon as they entered the room, she lay down on the bed.

Gao Qiong took out her binoculars and looked out the window, “Where should we go later?”

“…”

“Are there any fun places nearby?”

“…”

“There are so many trees here, can’t see anything.”

Fang Chuning on the bed was a bit impatient, “Don’t talk.”

The room fell silent, followed by the sound of the room door opening and closing.

Fang Chuning slept heavily until the entire room darkened. She woke up groggily and checked the time to find it was already 7 pm. She had slept for a full five hours.

After brushing her teeth, her stomach was growling with hunger. She pitifully took out a sandwich from her backpack and finished it, but was still hungry.

Fang Chuning called Gao Qiong while going downstairs. As soon as the call connected, she heard the noisy hubbub on Gao Qiong’s end, faintly hearing the sound of card playing.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“In the lobby on the first floor! If you’re awake, come down quickly, you’re the only one who hasn’t eaten!”

Fang Chuning hung up the phone and took the elevator down to the first floor. As soon as the elevator doors opened, she heard the girls talking. The homestay’s decor was of the warm and comfortable type, with a spacious lobby and two rest areas, very fitting for a homestay style, one larger and one smaller. The girls were in the larger rest area, while there were also a few boys sitting in the smaller rest area chatting.

Then she noticed Xu Muzhou was among them, dressed in a stylish casual outfit, holding a book he was reading.

Sensing the gaze falling on him, Xu Muzhou looked up. The moment their eyes met, his heart fluttered slightly, his gaze instinctively avoiding, but the young girl didn’t pay him any more attention, walking towards the girls’ rest area instead.

The hand holding the book tightened until his knuckles turned white, an enormous sense of loss enveloping him. His throat felt like it had a fishbone stuck in it, that suffocating discomfort no less than when he saw her laughing and joking with other boys on the bus.

Xu Muzhou lowered his head, his bangs hiding his distorted, tearful eyes. No one noticed his unusual state.

Fang Chuning, having eaten her fill, sat on the sofa watching them play cards. She didn’t join in, occasionally sliding her phone screen.

Her phone rang with a WeChat notification. Fang Chuning clicked in, it was from the boy she often played games with.

Sugar Jiajia: What are you doing?

Chu Wang: Nothing much

Sugar Jiajia: (Pouting finger)

Sugar Jiajia: You’re so cold~ (Accusation)

Fang Chuning sent him a black question mark face.

Sugar Jiajia: You’re really straightforward, you won’t get a boyfriend like this~

Chu Wang: Long live being single

Sugar Jiajia: (Ghost face) Hey, can I ask you a question?

Chu Wang: ?

Sugar Jiajia: Which city are you in?

Chu Wang: ?

Sugar Jiajia: Just wanted to ask, what if we’re in the same city?

So what if they were in the same city? Fang Chuning didn’t reply to him anymore, instead turning her gaze to outside the homestay. This place seemed isolated from the world, completely removed from the hustle and bustle of the city, unconsciously making people feel calm and peaceful.

“Hey, let me tell you,” Gao Qiong leaned over mysteriously, “I saw with my binoculars today that there’s a field of rapeseed flowers behind this mountain, shall we go take a look tomorrow?”

“A rapeseed flower field?”

“Mm-hmm!”

Fang Chuning pulled out a photo, “Like this?”

“Hmm… more or less.”

“Alright.”

In fact, Gao Qiong’s so-called “more or less” was complete nonsense. The reality was vastly different from the photo, and it wasn’t even a rapeseed flower field, but clearly a rice paddy.

Moreover, because of a little rain last night, the small and narrow muddy path would ruin your shoes with one step.

Even more unfortunately, she accidentally stepped one foot into the muddy field. Thankfully she didn’t have any obsessive-compulsive disorder, otherwise she would have had a breakdown.

Fang Chuning looked up at the sky helplessly, struggling to pull her foot out of the mud and using a stick to scrape off the mud. Then she saw an unidentified object sticking to her calf.

When she realized that half of this thing had already burrowed into her calf, Fang Chuning completely lost it, “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Gao Qiong!!!”

Gao Qiong, who had never felt so needed by her best friend before, came sprinting over from twenty meters away, looking panicked: “What’s wrong, what’s wrong??”

Fang Chuning tilted her head back high, not daring to look at her own calf, screaming: “Quickly pull it out and tear it to pieces!!!”

Gao Qiong looked down at her leg. That black thing just happened to wiggle a bit, as if it wanted to burrow completely into the flesh. It was so disgusting she almost threw up!

“Holy crap, what is that!?”

“Don’t worry about what it is, just help me pull it out quickly!”

Gao Qiong swallowed hard, picked up a thin tree branch from the ground and tremblingly reached out to poke at it. Not only did she fail to poke it out, it seemed to have burrowed in even deeper.

Seeing that the other end of the thing had also burrowed into the flesh, Fang Chuning felt like this leg couldn’t be saved anymore.

“Wait a moment, I’ll go find someone!” With that, she had already run far away.

Fang Chuning felt a bit desperate. Although the bite didn’t hurt, the visual impact was too great. The blood was still flowing. She picked up the tree branch and poked hard at it, but it had no effect at all. She threw away the branch and tried to use her hand, but as soon as she touched that texture, it made her scalp tingle.

It was soft like a worm but stickier than a worm.

After an unknown amount of time, there was a faint sound of footsteps from behind. Fang Chuning thought it was Gao Qiong bringing someone back, but when she turned around, she saw that it was actually Xu Muzhou who had come.

He was wearing a loose-fitting, fashionable red and black wide-striped T-shirt paired with casual trousers. His slender, fair wrists were adorned with black Nike wristbands. Today he wasn’t wearing glasses, and his almond-shaped eyes looked down at her from above.

His fashion sense was surprisingly good. Perhaps because she had become numb over time, Fang Chuning still had the leisure to think about such strange things.

“Hi,” Fang Chuning greeted him weakly.

Xu Muzhou’s gaze moved from her face to her calf. Suddenly, he crouched down by her feet, not minding the mud on her calf. His fair hand grasped her ankle, while the other hand forcefully patted the skin around the wound. After about twenty seconds of patting, the leech that had been clinging to her leg finally let go and fell to the ground.