TIMO - Chapter 73
Chapter 73
Fu Zhao spent her twenty-fifth birthday peacefully and safely.
No unexpected situations arose. They simply finished making that oddly shaped cup at home together and passed a peaceful twelve o’clock together.
After 23:59, the hour hand turned to 0. Everything could start anew.
The matter Shi Nan had been constantly worried about had finally come to a close.
However, she still didn’t let Fu Zhao leave. Even though the event was completely over, she held on to the habit of wanting Fu Zhao in her sight every minute of every second.
She wanted to spend this night with Fu Zhao.
But because the little Alpha felt extremely flustered and helpless about this kind of behavior…
They ended up just like in the very beginning: she lay on the bed, and Fu Zhao lay on the sofa bed on the other side.
There was some distance between the two beds, yet they were close enough to touch if they reached out.
Shi Nan was a little dissatisfied with this distance. After all, before Fu Zhao’s differentiation, the two beds had been much closer.
So, looking at Fu Zhao, who had already closed her eyes and was planning to sleep, she felt a momentary surge of annoyance. She stretched out her leg and lightly kicked Fu Zhao’s side. The force wasn’t strong, but the spot she touched was surprisingly soft.
Then, Fu Zhao slowly opened her eyes. Her gaze was clear and bright, ripples in her eyes shimmering with the moonlight from outside the window. “Not sleeping? You have to leave in a few hours.”
“I can’t sleep.” Shi Nan closed her eyes, her tone nonchalant. “On second thought, you shouldn’t come to see me off tomorrow.”
“Really?” The voice that came back was softer, tinged with a trace of sleepiness, along with the rustling sound of a quilt being adjusted. “Then I won’t go. Actually…”
Shi Nan didn’t want to hear any more. She simply turned over, her back to Fu Zhao, wishing she could make the sound of her rustling blankets earth-shattering to drown out those annoying words.
The movements behind her stopped for a moment, and then a deliberately quieted voice reached her ears. “I haven’t finished speaking yet?”
“I’m sleepy.” Shi Nan pressed her lips together, her eyelids lowered.
“Didn’t you just say you couldn’t sleep…” Fu Zhao’s voice grew even softer, carried over with her warm breath. “Then you should sleep-”
Before Fu Zhao could finish her sentence, Shi Nan turned back again and stared straight at her for a long time. Meeting those pure, clear eyes, like a puppy’s, she sighed as if half-surrendering. “Actually what?”
“Huh?” Fu Zhao didn’t react for a moment, her eyes blinking in confusion as her eyelashes fluttered.
Shi Nan’s gaze fell on Fu Zhao’s disheveled collar, where a large patch of fair, translucent skin was exposed. The line of her collarbone was straight and distinct, both sexy and captivating.
But after just one glance, it was quickly covered by the adjusted quilt.
Only a small head was left exposed, looking at her with those dazed and innocent eyes.
Shi Nan silently averted her gaze, then looked back into Fu Zhao’s eyes. After a slight flicker, her gaze returned to calm. “You just said you wouldn’t see me off. Actually what?”
“Oh, that.” Fu Zhao remembered, her eyes brightening a little. Her soft, gentle voice echoed in the quiet room.
“I don’t really like partings.”
“Even though I know we might see each other again soon, and I know it’s not like you’ll never come back, I just always feel… I especially dislike the atmosphere of a farewell. Maybe I’ll get used to it in a few hours or a few days, but before that…”
“I have to go through a parting, a send-off. I have to remind you of many things, and you have to remind me of many things.”
“Then I’ll stand in place, watching your back slowly shrink… and finally disappear.”
“Actually…” Fu Zhao pursed her lips and tightened her grip on her quilt, curling up inside it. “More than dislike, it’s… hate.”
She dejectedly released her tightly bitten lower lip, which had turned a little pale. “I hate partings, and I hate send-offs.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m especially willful…”
“No.” Shi Nan quickly refuted Fu Zhao’s statement, gazing at her steadily, her eyes trembling slightly. “It’s not willful.”
“Being able to say it so openly, instead of bottling it up inside, isn’t willful.”
That Fu Zhao could say it so openly inevitably made Shi Nan think of her past life. Every time she left, she never looked back, while Fu Zhao was always the one left standing there, watching her back.
If she were the one who had to watch Fu Zhao leave every time now, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do either.
She could understand Fu Zhao, and she could empathize.
Staring at those moist eyes, Shi Nan couldn’t help but raise a hand to stroke Fu Zhao’s head, her voice unconsciously softening a great deal. “Then from now on, let’s not see each other off, and let’s not have partings. Whether it’s me leaving Nanke Island, or… anything else.”
“Let’s just not have you seeing me off and me seeing you off. Let’s make that a promise, okay?”
Fu Zhao stared at her blankly for a while. After a long moment, her lips moved. “But if I don’t see you off, will you be sad…?”
“No.” Shi Nan’s eyes curved into a gentle smile as she withdrew her hand. “If we’ve talked it through, I won’t be sad, and I won’t get hung up on it.”
“Because I understand all your thoughts.”
Only then did Fu Zhao finally relax a little. A curve appeared on her lips, and she nodded lightly. “Mm, I understand.”
“But you have to understand me too,” Shi Nan said distractedly after looking at Fu Zhao for a moment, her gaze flickering.
Fu Zhao froze for a few seconds, confusion coloring her eyes. “Understand what?”
The puppy blinked its innocent, harmless eyes, tentatively testing the ground with its little paws, only to obediently jump into the pit the hunter had prepared.
Shi Nan’s lips curved. Meeting Fu Zhao’s stunned gaze, she decisively threw back her covers, got out of bed, and squeezed onto Fu Zhao’s sofa bed. She brazenly wrapped her arms around her waist and shamelessly nuzzled her head into the crook of Fu Zhao’s shoulder.
Warmth enveloped her entire body, and breath lingered all around.
Shi Nan closed her eyes contentedly, her voice softening.
“Understand that I need to hug my girlfriend to sleep well.”
The embrace she was leaning against stiffened almost instantly, the tension transmitted through soft, fervent breaths.
“Relax a little,” Shi Nan said airily, her eyes still closed.
“I… I…” Fu Zhao stammered, unable to form a sentence as the heat in her body rapidly climbed.
“Don’t say anything.” Shi Nan opened her eyes and placed her index finger between Fu Zhao’s lips. The touch was warm and soft. Her gaze unconsciously fell upon them, her voice light and lazy. “I’m going to sleep. I’m really sleepy.”
Fu Zhao immediately fell silent, only looking at her with those clear, bright eyes.
A faint mist seemed to gather in their depths. When they moved, they were like stars gently flowing in the night sky; when still, they were like the crystal-clear, gurgling spring on a mountaintop-brilliant and gentle, bright and clean.
Shi Nan couldn’t quite handle such a gaze, so she leaned closer and closed her eyes.
She removed her index finger, and in its place, she covered them with her lips.
They were as soft as ever. Their teeth and lips touched, a tingling softness mixed with a slight itchiness.
Their breaths were soft, tangled together.
Other places were soft and warm too. The palm that had unconsciously wrapped around her side, the palm that slowly climbed up to her cheek…
After a long while.
Shi Nan took the initiative to pull away. Just as Fu Zhao opened her hazy, dazed eyes, she smiled, closed her own eyes, and buried her head in the crook of Fu Zhao’s shoulder, rubbing against it comfortably.
“Alright, I’m sleeping now.”
“You sleep too.”
Two lighthearted sentences interrupted the gradually rising temperature in the room.
The breathing from above her was rapid, only slowing down after a good while. Then, a tentative voice spoke up, “Are you sure you want to sleep in the same bed?”
“Mmm…” Shi Nan suppressed a laugh. “Is something wrong?”
Fu Zhao paused, then stammered, her hands and feet moving unnaturally, “I’m an Alpha now…”
“What’s wrong with being an Alpha?” Shi Nan blinked innocently. “You’re not like those other Alphas.”
“After all…” She extended her index finger and gently traced a few circles on Fu Zhao’s collarbone, her voice lazy and tinged with weariness.
“Aren’t you especially good at holding back?” she said, with complete justification.
Fu Zhao was rendered speechless. After a moment of resigned silence, her chaotic breathing calmed down. She adjusted her position slightly, straightened the quilt, and her voice came out much softer.
“Then let’s sleep.”
Then, a careful, gentle exhale of breath.
Shi Nan sighed softly and hooked her finger with Fu Zhao’s in a comforting gesture.
“I’m just afraid that when I open my eyes tomorrow morning, you’ll be gone.”
“So, just for tonight, can we sleep while holding each other?”
As soon as she finished speaking, the shoulder she was leaning on moved closer. Then, a warm, soft hand wrapped around her, and a gentle voice, carried on a warm breath, drifted down from above her head.
“Okay.”
Shi Nan actually didn’t want to fall asleep. Just as she’d said, if she fell asleep, Fu Zhao might be gone when she opened her eyes, and they would be living in two different places.
But she couldn’t hold on and drifted off to sleep.
When she opened her eyes the next day, it was a sunny day. The golden morning light slanted into the room through the open curtains, bright and brilliant.
Much of the snow outside the window had melted. The warm yellow morning light reflecting on the thin ice made it sparkle even more brightly.
There was still some warmth left by her side of the bed, as if the person had just left not long ago.
Shi Nan pressed her lips together and got out of bed. Only then did she realize she was back in the large bed, while the quilt on the sofa bed beside it was folded into a neat square.
She stared at it for a moment, sighed softly, and walked out.
After washing up and coming downstairs, the meal prepared by the housekeeping robot was on the table.
It was bland and tasteless, like chewing wax.
But perhaps it was just her poor appetite.
After eating, it was time to leave.
They had agreed not to see each other off, nor to say any words of parting before each departure, so Shi Nan resisted the urge to go find Fu Zhao again and instead tried to treat the matter with a sense of normalcy.
She packed all her clothes and locked the door.
She didn’t leave anything behind. Just be normal, she instructed herself.
It wasn’t as if they couldn’t contact each other anymore. They could still say whatever needed to be said.
Between her and Fu Zhao, they would have to get used to this kind of normalcy.
Maintaining this thought, Shi Nan took her luggage and, as soon as she stepped out the door, bumped into someone before she could even get to the car.
She felt an impact on her shoulder, but the force quickly softened. Then the impact disappeared, and a gentle force from her arm stabilized her. Only then did she raise her eyes to see who she had bumped into.
The person’s long, glossy black hair was tied into a low ponytail at the back of her head, with a few strands falling at her temples, fluttering gently in the wind.
Her eyes were long and narrow, her gentle black irises calm and mild, and at the corner of one eye was a tiny red tear mole, eye-catching and brilliant. Her nose was high-bridged, and her thin lips were slightly pursed.
She wore a black trench coat, and in the breast pocket was a bouquet of unopened peonies. The pale pink and white petals formed small buds, appearing somewhat translucent and hazy in the early morning light.
A red tear mole, a pink bouquet.
It should have been a bright and dazzling combination, but on this woman in black, it seemed cold and lonely, distant and aloof.
Shi Nan glanced at her, then nonchalantly averted her gaze and spoke with a smile, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going-”
The woman didn’t wait for her to finish. She gave a slight nod, said nothing more, and turned away.
The hem of her black trench coat was lifted gently by the wind.
Shi Nan’s gaze lingered on the woman in black for a moment. Only after the person had disappeared around the corner did she thoughtfully retract her gaze. It was a bit strange, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was strange.
Perhaps it was that despite such a significant collision, the bouquet of peonies in the woman’s breast pocket seemed to not have moved an inch.
Or perhaps it was the soft force that had come from her arm after she had nearly lost her balance.
Had she seen it wrong?
Why did she feel that the woman in black had clearly not made any physical contact with her at all?
“Miss Shi.”
The driver pulled up, got out to put her luggage in the trunk, and opened the car door for her. “The Island Master asked me to take you to the starship terminal.”
Shi Nan came back to her senses, not dwelling on the small incident. She smiled at the driver. “Okay, thank you.”
The starship terminal was bustling at this hour, with people coming and going, crowding and jostling.
But the driver Fu Zhao had arranged handled all of Shi Nan’s boarding procedures for her, thoughtful and proper, adding a sense of completeness to this departure.
There were no tearful goodbyes, no clinging and refusing to leave, no endless words that could never be finished.
There was only a tacit understanding, each person calmly going about their own business.
Everything was fine.
Except…
Shi Nan leaned back, sinking into the soft seat with her arms crossed. A voice kept popping up in her head:
It would be nice if I could see Fu Zhao one more time before I leave.
Without saying anything, without doing anything, just one look.
The next second, another voice popped up: No, if we meet again, the feeling of parting will definitely intensify.
That would be even harder to bear.
Thinking this, Shi Nan sighed softly and simply closed her eyes to rest in her seat. Perhaps by the time she opened them, she would already be on RT Planet, and then she wouldn’t have to be so hesitant.
With this thought, Shi Nan gradually emptied her mind.
Until the person in the seat next to her sat down, making a rustling sound, seemingly arranging their luggage.
The sound wasn’t loud, but Shi Nan herself was rather sensitive.
Her brow furrowed unconsciously. She pursed her lips, about to say something, when a faint, familiar, clean scent drifted over, lingering at the tip of her nose, reminding her who the person beside her was.
How could it be?
She had stressed to herself not to have expectations, because without expectations, there would be no disappointment.
But despite this, she couldn’t stop herself from opening her eyes, a sliver of hope in her heart. Before her was a woman wearing a black baseball cap, who was turning her head to speak softly to a flight attendant.
The flight attendant nodded lightly and brought over two blankets.
The woman took the blankets, said a soft thank you, and turned her head. The light in her amber eyes flickered abruptly, and her movements paused for a few seconds.
After a long moment, she came to her senses, placed the blanket in her hand over Shi Nan, and raised a hand to take off her baseball cap. Soft, fluffy black hair cascaded down, falling naturally over her shoulders, making her fair face seem even paler.
Her bright eyes flickered. Slender, bony fingertips emerged from her sleeve and pushed the ugly cup on the table over to her. Red nose, blue eyes-Shi Nan had never made such a peculiar cup.
A clear, pleasant voice sounded, tinged with a hint of caution and pity.
“You forgot to take this… If it’s not given, then my birthday gift doesn’t count as delivered.”
Her fair fingertips tapped on it, her gaze flickering slightly, with a hint of evasion in it.
“I was originally going to reveal myself after the starship took off. But since you’ve found me out now, I can only say…”
“You forgot to take me with you.”
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