"Hmm..." Yu Wanwan bit her lip, hesitated for a moment, but to avoid looking like a poor sport, she reluctantly agreed through gritted teeth: "Fine, I promise. But if the request exceeds what I can handle, I have the right to refuse."
"Don't worry, it won't." He looked at the awkward woman with a calm gaze and a faint smile.
"Then one more round." Yu Wanwan clenched her fist, trying to turn the tables in the next round.
Fortune favored her small request quickly. Zhang Jingxu didn't win this round.
To avenge her previous loss, Yu Wanwan forced him: "For fairness, this time you have to choose dare too. You can't have all the good stuff."
"Fine." Zhang Jingxu spoke with a doting tone, as if he would agree to anything she said. "I choose dare."
Yu Wanwan's lips curled into a smug smile. She began to think about how to get back at him.
After thinking hard for a while, a light bulb went off in her head. She said in a mischievous tone, "I want you to confess to the last person who messaged you on WeChat, regardless of gender. If it's a man, tell him you're actually gay."
She guessed that Zhang Jingxu's WeChat didn't have many women, but he probably had plenty of male contacts from business. Imagining what was about to happen, Yu Wanwan couldn't help laughing in advance.
Zhang Jingxu looked at the girl beside him, who suddenly smiled like a blooming flower. Some place in his heart inexplicably softened. His eyes, tender as water, gazed at her, and his voice, light but extraordinarily solemn, said, "I like you."
"..." Hearing those four words, Yu Wanwan's laughter abruptly stopped.
She was stunned for a moment, then said with a speechless expression, "Bro, I meant for you to confess to the last person who messaged you on WeChat, not to me."
Cheating, downright cheating!
Zhang Jingxu's expression remained calm, his voice as gentle as if coaxing a child: "But the last person who messaged me on WeChat... is you."
Yu Wanwan didn't believe it: "Impossible. You haven't even checked!"
She clearly hadn't sent him any messages all day. How could the last person to message him on WeChat be her?!
"But I already checked just now." Faced with Yu Wanwan, who had suddenly switched to an irritable rabbit mode, Zhang Jingxu was extremely patient. He picked up his phone from the edge of the hot spring, unlocked it, and handed it to her as evidence.
Yu Wanwan stared at her own chat at the top of the WeChat interface and realized that at some point, she had gone crazy and sent him over a dozen meme stickers of a monkey saying, "Report to the central government! I want to report to the central government."
She checked the time—it was almost an hour ago, when she had slipped and accidentally pulled him into the hot spring together... The phone must have briefly malfunctioned due to water damage and sent them on its own.
Damn it! Why did she keep digging pits for herself?!
She really wanted to report to the central government now.
Yu Wanwan suddenly realized that she was getting the short end of the stick in this game.
Her eyes darted, and she started to backtrack: "No, I need to revise the request. You have to..."
"But I already did what you initially asked," Zhang Jingxu interrupted, his tone teasing. "What, you couldn't cheat earlier, and now you want to cheat again?"
Seeing the amusement in his eyes, Yu Wanwan felt a pang of unease, even a strange palpitation.
Having been outwitted by him twice in a row, Yu Wanwan completely cracked and decided to end the game: "Not fun anymore. I quit!"
With that, she stepped out of the water, took the camera from the shore, and headed into the room without looking back.
Seeing her huff off, Zhang Jingxu couldn't help but laugh.
In the distant bamboo grove, intermittent chirps of insects began to sound. After a bout of rain, many visible stars suddenly appeared in the sky.
Zhang Jingxu didn't rush to go inside. Instead, he poured himself a glass of wine and leisurely admired the starry sky.
When he returned to the room, Yu Wanwan had just come out of the shower. Seeing him, she was still puffed up like a pufferfish. She sat on the sofa, one hand pinching her shower cap on top of her head, sulking.
Not until the sound of running water came from the bathroom did Yu Wanwan pour herself a glass of red wine. She gazed at the mottled bamboo shadows swaying in the moonlight outside the window.
For some reason, ever since she left the hot spring, she had felt an inexplicable panic, especially the moment their eyes met.
Yu Wanwan probably knew the specific reason for this panic, but she preferred to attribute it to an illusion caused by soaking too long in the hot spring.
She poured herself another glass of wine and downed it like a soft drink, trying to drown her unease with alcohol, until she had finished half the bottle.
So when Zhang Jingxu came out of the bathroom, the room was filled with the rich aroma of red wine. Yu Wanwan, utterly drunk, was lying face-down on the table, asleep.
She hadn't even blow-dried her hair. The shower cap had slipped off, revealing her wet, long hair.
Zhang Jingxu sighed. Gently, he picked up the unconscious woman and placed her on the bed, letting her head hang over the edge.
He crouched by the bedside, carefully straightening her wet hair with his fingers. He turned on the hairdryer, tested the temperature on his hand, and then carefully dried her hair from the forehead, inch by inch, his movements gentle as if handling a fragile treasure.
Throughout the process, Yu Wanwan was like a sleeping beauty under a spell, completely unresponsive.
Zhang Jingxu slowly dried her hair. Finally, he tiptoed to turn off the hairdryer, unplugged it, and put it back in its place.
Coming out of the bathroom again, he carefully laid Yu Wanwan flat on the bed and thoughtfully covered her with a blanket.
After tucking the blanket around her shoulders, Zhang Jingxu didn't get up. His gaze was fixed on the woman on the bed.
His throat tightened slightly. At that moment, looking at Yu Wanwan's peaceful face, he suddenly felt an urge to kiss her.
Actually, back in the hot spring, he had had many opportunities to kiss her, but he had been restraining himself, afraid that being too rash would scare her.
Now, the irritable woman who, during the day, would argue with the head chef at the drop of a hat, was lying quietly on the bed, fast asleep. He could easily stop holding back. Even if he kissed her now, Yu Wanwan wouldn't know.
He struggled inwardly, but ultimately, reason triumphed over desire.
Forget it. The most meaningful first kiss should be reserved for a sober lover.
Zhang Jingxu took a deep breath, stood up, and walked over to the other empty bed to lie down.
The room, with the lights off, was pitch black and utterly silent. Zhang Jingxu tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep no matter what.
In such a fine environment, he actually had insomnia.
The pillow still carried the unique scent of Yu Wanwan's hair. Zhang Jingxu turned over and gently sniffed the lingering fragrance, tracing the outline of his beloved in the darkness.
Thinking that they would be leaving the day after tomorrow, he felt a bit reluctant.
Because she had drunk the night before, Yu Wanwan didn't wake up until after 10 a.m. the next day. Zhang Jingxu hadn't had the heart to wake her.
The afternoon sun was scorching, so they stayed put, holed up in the room.
After waking up, Yu Wanwan seemed to have forgotten her defeat in the hot spring the previous night. She lay sprawled on the bed, playing with her phone, occasionally sharing a few funny videos with him.
At four o'clock, Yu Wanwan put on a sun-protective jacket and took Zhang Jingxu to the ancient town near the resort for the final activity of their resort trip.