The next morning, when Zhao Yuan got out of his tent, he discovered something unusual. “How come there are two holes in the tents? Did some mouses come to gnaw on the tent? But these holes are about one meter above the ground? How could mouses do that?”

He deliberately remained silent about that, and made a fire to cook noodles for everyone. The team had enough noodles but did not have enough sauce. In the end, among the seven bowls of noodles he cooked, only five had sauce. He went to ask Lin Wenxi to get up, but he still looked sleepy. He wiggled a little with a meaningful smile on his face.

“You brat…” Zhao Yuan thought and pinched his ear. Lin Wenxi finally got up while smiling.

After that, Zhao Yuan went to the other tents to wake up the others. Soon enough, nearly everyone got out of their tents and ruched toward the noodles. Although Chen Wanxin was a girl, she showed a raw energy like a man and quickly finished her bowl of noodles. In the meantime, Lin Wenxi was still slowly enjoying his noodles with some pickles on top.

When the other two girls wearily crawled out of their tent with dark circles around their eyes, they were disappointed to find out that there were only two bowls of plain noodles left for them.

“Did you two sleep well last night?” asked Zhao Yuan. He smiled slightly and added, “We don’t have enough sauce for everyone, so I hope you can enjoy your plain noodles. By the way, didn’t you get up quite early before?”

“Uhm, there were some very noisy bugs outside our tent last night. We’ll choose a good spot to put up our tent and have a good sleep tonight,” Shu Xiaoman said while massaging her waist. It was clearly not easy for her to swallow those plain noodles. Zhang An’an twitched her face, trying her best to force a smile. She whined a little and then snatched Lin Wenxi’s bowl from his hands to pour half of his soup into her bowl. Upon seeing that, Lin Wenxi put down his chopsticks. Zhang An’an smiled and said, “Ah, you don’t want to eat anymore?” With these words, she poured all his noodles and soup into her bowl. She even used her chopsticks to stir the food in his bowl to further disgust him.

“What? Do you think that you’re eating some two-flavor hot pot?” Wang Xiang twitched his mouth and said somewhat grumpily.

“Yes,” Zhang An’an nodded and replied.

Wang Xiang gave his bowl to her and said, “Add one more flavor to it. I still have some soup left in my bowl.”

Zhang An’an was irritated. After chasing after Wang Xiang quite a long time, she finally tucked his head into a backpack to punish him.

After the meal, they continued their journey. At about 10 p.m., they put up tents to take a rest again.

Before going to sleep, Zhao Yuan gave Lin Wenxi a black ball pen and two pieces of oval paper plates while saying, “Here you are. Draw my eyes on them.”

“What?” Lin Wenxi asked, his eyes widened in surprise.

“Don’t ask me why I know that you can draw. Didn’t you remember that I used to search all your closets and cases for facial masks?”

“Um,” Lin Wenxi replied nonchalantly.

“Come on, draw my eyes on them as fast as you can.” Zhao Yuan pressed the papers and the pen into Lin Wenxi’s hands. Lin Wenxi picked up the pen and asked Zhao Yuan to sit still. After quite a long time, Zhao Yuan felt that his legs became numb, but Lin Wenxi was still busy drawing on the papers. He could not help but ask while panting, “How long do I have to sit still?”

After a while, Lin Wenxi replied slowly, “Uhm, I just spend some time enjoy it.”

…

Zhao Yuan swallowed hard and then snatched the paper plates from Lin Wenxi. The eyes looked sharp and shiny, but they apparently did not look like Zhao Yuan’s eyes.

“They don’t look like my eyes,” Zhao Yuan said confusedly as he thought, “I’ve sat still and kept my eyes widely opened for such a long time. Did I do anything wrong?”

“Uhm, it’s dark here. I can’t see your eyes clearly, so I just drew what I wanted.”

“Lin Wenxi… Lin Wenxi…” Zhao Yuan was stuck for words. He had managed to keep still for such a long time for Lin Wenxi, but Lin Wenxi had just drawn something else without even telling him. He wondered, “Can I cut off all my meridians to explode myself together with this Lin Wenxi like the guys in kung fu fiction did?”

Right at this moment, Lin Wenxi took out a red pen and added something to the paper plates. A moment later, Zhao Yuan found out that the eyes were filled with blood and looked spooky and dreadful.

“You want to play, so let’s play hard,” Lin Wenxi smiled slightly and glanced at the two holes in the tent. Upon seeing that, Zhao Yuan made a thumb up sign to Lin Wenxi.

Late at night, someone screamed outside their tent and woke up nearly all the people around this place, including the young military instructor who was put in charge of the students’ safety. The military instructor crept all the way from his tent toward where the sound came from. When he was near to the place, he saw students in the neighboring tents all come out to hold two girls. When he got closer, he discovered that the two girls were trembling with fear while pointing their fingers at Zhao Yuan’s tent. One of them mumbled, “Oh my goodness! Eyes, big eyes, bleeding big eyes!”

No one could hear a sound from the tent.

“Oh no! Did something terrible happen to the students in the tent?” With this in mind, the military instructor immediately approached the tent from its back, opened it and turned on his magnesium flashlight. The next moment, he saw Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi sleep soundly together with their ears stuffed with cotton balls. Zhao Yuan smacked his lips in the sleep and then turned around, putting his thigh on Lin Wenxi’s waist.

The military instructor asked the students what was going on and then checked the two boys in the tent again to make sure that they were alright. After that, he left the place. The two girls who had screamed just now were Zhang An’an and Shu Xiaoman. They had planned to steal a glance at Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi tonight. Although now they did not want to get close to their tent anymore, they could not help but wonder why they had stuffed their ears with cotton balls. They also remembered that Zhao Yuan seemed to be smiling when the flashlight lit up his face.

Zhao Yuan and Lin Wenxi remained silent for quite a long time inside the dark tent after the incident. When everything quieted down outside, Lin Wenxi suddenly pinched Zhao Yuan’s arm and asked, “Did you feel happy by putting your thigh on my waist?”

Zhao Yuan remained still.

“Stop pretending that you’re fast asleep. You really think that I don’t know what you’re doing! Your thigh is so heavy. Get off me!” Lin Wenxi continued to pinch Zhao Yuan’s arm.

“Ah, stop. You’ll make wounds open again,” Zhao Yuan contorted his face and whined.

Lin Wenxi immediately drew back his hand and mocked, “You acted well!”

Zhao Yuan grinned slyly, and then they slept face-to-face for the rest of the night.

The next day was a nice sunny day, but all the food they had now was bread. Wang Xiang looked at the map and told the team that they still had at least 80 kilometers to walk. “If we continue to travel with our girlfriends, we’ll need at least 3 or 4 days. During the past few days, about 10 people had surpassed us. And all of them were single and energetic boys,” said Wang Xiang.

“What? Who’s your girlfriend?” Zhang An’an pinched Wang Xiang’s arm and then she suddenly noticed that there was a bruise on Zhao Yuan’s arm. She turned to look at Lin Wenxi and teased, “Wenxi, you don’t need to pinch and torture Zhao Yuan like that, even if you really feel hurt.”

Upon hearing that, Chen Wanxin immediately approached Zhao Yuan. Zhao Yuan rolled his sleeves down and said smilingly, “I think that it was you who wanted to be tortured by him.”

Zhang An’an thought of what she had experienced last night. She felt scared and was rendered speechless.

They continued to walk until noon. When they reached the end of the road, they saw only a long-neglected riverbank ahead, which seemed to stretch toward the end of the sky. It seemed to have stood there for years and it looked out of repair. Under the clear blue sky, the riverbank was surrounded by withered and yellow reeds. Some birds flew out and back into the reeds now and then. The scenery was good, but the team was too hungry to enjoy it.

The girls were discouraged upon seeing the riverbank, as they could not spot a single tree ahead. Upon thinking that they had to spend the rest of the day walking under the scorching sun, they felt feeble and collapsed to the ground.

“No matter how much I hate it, I have to swallow this dry bread for my lunch,” Zhang An’an thought and looked sad. She would have given up this journey a long time ago if she had not been so intrigued by some of her teammates. She had a thicc body (Wang Xiang said that she was a little fat) and felt really tired after hiking day after day. She and the other two girls were lying down in a shade and chatting now while Zhao Yuan and Zheng Kai went down into the river. No one knew what they were doing out there.

“You’re really good at it. You got five fish.” Half an hour later, they saw Zheng Kai and Zhao Yuan walk back to them. They carried an earthen jar which was filled with some silvery things. All the team members came over to surround them, except Lin Wenxi. They were surprised to find out that Zheng Kai and Zhao Yuan had caught 7 or 8 living fish in such a short time. They looked so hungry as if they were about to eat those fish alive. When they asked Zhao Yuan how did they catch these fish, he just replied, “I caught them with just a hook and some angleworms.”

They made fire, hung a wok over it and then poured some oil into the wok. Zhao Yuan rubbed each fish with his hands before putting it into the wok. He said compassionately, “Alas, these poor things. They’re so simple and naive.”

Wang Xiang twitched his mouth and mocked, “Look at the merciless face of you, Zhao Yuan. You’re nemesis of simple and native things, such as the fish and the wide gooses.”

The girls smiled meaningfully upon hearing that, but Zhao Yuan and Zheng Kai just confusedly looked at each other.

Wang Xiang waved his hands and added, “It’s really hard to communicate with rough guys.”

Zhao Yuan lifted up his head and shouted to Lin Wenxi, who had remained silent all this while. “Hey, the compassionate guy, if you don’t come to save the fish now, they won’t have the chance to transform into beautiful girls to repay your kindness in your next life.”

“Just like Wang Xiang said, the moment these simple and naive things met you, they were doomed to die. Why do I bother saving them?” To everyone’s surprise, Lin Wenxi talked back to Zhao Yuan. He had seldom retorted Zhao Yuan before.

Zhang An’an asked smilingly, “Wenxi, do you mind telling us whether you’re a fish or a wide goose?”

Lin Wenxi replied, “‘Wide gooses flew into the clouds, and white fish swam in the water.’ I stand on the ground. I’m a man.”

Shu Xiaoman added smilingly, “The line after ‘Wide gooses flew into the clouds, and white fish swam in the water’ is ‘This sadness could not be told to anyone’. So, Wenxi, why are you sad?”

“He’s sad because the fish is so delicious but Zhao Yuan didn’t just cook it for him. Alas, let’s leave all the fish for Wenxi. Zhao Yuan cooked the fish for him,” Wang Xiang laughed and said.

“Okay, you don’t want to eat the fish. I see,” Zhao Yuan said smilingly when the smell of the fish made everyone’s mouth water.

When the other team members chatted, Zhao Yuan began cooking the fish. He added some dry twigs to the fire now and then and added salt and different sauce to the fish at the proper time. He fried the fish from side to side and sent out tantalizing smell to the crowd. Before taking the fish out of the wok, he even added some wild vegetables that no one knew where did he get them. He skillfully finished the process, attracting everyone’s attention.

The entire team was excited as they had not eaten meat for days. When Zhao Yuan began to give the fish to the team members, Wang Xiang even stuck out his tongue like a dog, waiting eagerly for the food. However, Zhao Yuan gave everyone on the team a fried fish except him. Zhang An’an looked at Wang Xiang and frowned. “Hey, why don’t you wag your tail?”

Zhao Yuan pointed at a fish who was still struggling and wiggling in the earthen jar and said to Wang Xiang, “It’s yours.”

“Brother Yuan, how can you…” Wang Xiang rubbed his hands together and swallowed hard.

“Some people just like to use their mouths to talk instead of eating. You can speak as much as you want now,” Zhao Yuan said and then excitedly stuffed a chunk of fish into his mouth in front of Wang Xiang. Lin Wenxi could not help but curl his lips into a smile upon seeing that. Zhao Yuan was pleased.