Chapter 937: Extra 10: Camping 3

Chapter 937: Chapter 936: Extra 10: Camping 3

“They’ve got a point. If we’re waiting for the stars and then the sunrise, we won’t get much sleep tonight. You should grab some sleep now.”

Mu Qiu blinked. “But I’m not sleepy at all.”

Cheng Zhirang pulled open the tent zipper, knelt on one knee by the edge, and tugged her down.

“Even if you’re not sleepy, at least doze a bit. I’ll stay with you. Or you can keep running around now and wear yourself out, and then we’ll just skip the stargazing tonight.”

“…You’re being mean to me.”

She climbed into the tent, took off her snow boots, set them at the zipper, then kicked him once with her socked foot.

Zhirang laughed, caught her ankle, gave it a pull, then leaned over and kissed her.

“Come on, rest for a while. Weren’t you saying how tired you were when we were hiking up?”

Mu Qiu pouted, then lay back on the mat with a sigh. “Some men are just like this—keep saying they love me to death, then the next second they’re being fierce with me. Maybe this is the emotional trial that smart, beautiful women have to go through.”

Zhirang took off his shoes and sat down beside her, half amused and half helpless at her words.

“What emotional trial? The trial of me making you sleep instead of letting you run around?”

“We get to a new place, everything’s still fresh, and you won’t let me go out and play. You even use ‘no stargazing for you’ to threaten me… Men’s hearts, honestly, are so hard.”

She folded her hands behind her head as a pillow and sighed again, soft and melancholy.

Zhirang lowered his head to look at her, thought for a moment, then said, “Alright, you can go out, and you can look at the stars. But if you get sleepy later and pass out, you can’t blame me. And if you can’t get up in the morning, you still can’t blame me.”

“……Annoying. I’m going to rest!”

She rolled over, lying on her right side, pointed the back of her head at him.

He held back a laugh, took off her scarf, unfolded it, then folded it into a small, thin little blanket and laid it over her.

“I brought you fuzzy floor socks. Want to put on an extra pair?”

Those socks were loose enough that you could layer them.

Mu Qiu gave a little hum and ignored him. After a while, she rolled back over and tugged him down to lie beside her.

“You rest with me too!”

“Okay,” he replied without resistance, “come closer, I’ll hold you.”

Human body heat is always warmer than anything cold around it. Mu Qiu snuggled in, tucking her head into the crook of his neck.

The tent zipper slid shut. Now it was a sealed little world for just the two of them.

Mu Qiu closed her eyes and drifted off quickly.

She might be excited, but between the hike up and all the running around, she really was worn out. Curled up against her source of warmth, she was so comfortable she fell into even breathing in less than ten minutes. Zhirang kept his eyes open, lightly patting her back now and then.

He wasn’t planning to sleep.

After all, they were outside, separated from the world by just a thin tent. It still didn’t feel entirely safe; he needed to stay alert.

It was already close to dark outside. Most of the tourists had gone back to their tents. In the murky blackness, only their voices drifted over.

Almost no one had turned on their lights. Everyone seemed to be planning to get some rest now, then wake up in the middle of the night to watch the stars.

This was actually his first time, since his debut, visiting a popular scenic spot like this—playing tourist and waiting, together with a bunch of strangers, for a shared surprise of a star-filled sky and a sunrise.

And—

He turned his head to look at the person beside him, smiled gently. And his fiancée.

Mu Qiu slept straight from a bit past six to a bit past ten.

Because it wasn’t her usual sleep time, she couldn’t sleep that long. At ten-thirty she woke up, then sat up, leaning against Zhirang.

“Let’s unzip it and take a look.”

In the dark she couldn’t see his face clearly, and through the thick tent she couldn’t tell if anyone outside had turned on flashlights or anything.

Zhirang reached out and pulled down the zipper, and a rush of crisp, cold air slipped into the tent.

She crouched by the opening and stuck her head out for a look.

“There are already stars out, and so many of them! Oh my god, the sky feels so high!”

In the city at night, no matter when you look up, the sky’s always a dingy, dead black with no light at all, not a single visible star. In the suburbs you can vaguely see a few, but the sky still hangs low overhead, like it could sink down at any moment and bury the whole city.

The night sky here was different—vast and boundless, and at a glance you could feel how far, far away it was from them.

The galaxy and starfields really are way, way out there.

Her excitement bubbled back up, and Zhirang shifted closer, poking his head out beside hers to look.

“You’re right, it feels really bright, but it doesn’t actually light up the ground at all. It’s very far away. I’ve never seen a night sky like this. The ones I saw abroad were beautiful too, but out in the wild there weren’t this many people—it felt like a patch of abandoned stars.”

“I’ve never seen a starry sky this pretty either. You can only get a sky like this in a place like this—the geography is unique. Other places don’t have this kind of setup.”

She tilted her head, barely making out his profile in the dark. “But it’s still not the main event yet. They said the truly shocking part doesn’t start until after midnight. It’s already this gorgeous now—how amazing is it going to be after twelve?”

Zhirang reached for the camera she’d put down before she fell asleep and handed it to her.

“Want to take a couple shots first? I can see some people have already gone to stake out their photo spots.”

Mu Qiu fiddled with the camera. “Should we go pick a spot too?”

He shook his head. “Not safe. We can just shoot from right outside our tent. Okay?”

“Fine,” she didn’t push it, “help me adjust it. I feel like the shots I take won’t look good at all.”

The two of them bent their heads together, tinkering with the settings.

Outside, the people waiting to shoot the stars had already claimed their spots and were chatting quietly. Now and then someone would flick on a flashlight to check the area, and there were also people coming over to call to them.

“Are you two coming over to shoot?”

Zhirang answered, “We’ll stay here, thanks. We’re not that professional, just snapping a few shots for fun.”

His voice was pleasant, and in the dark the woman calling them glanced at him a couple more times.

Even though she couldn’t really see what he looked like—everything was pitch black.

By the time it hit midnight, Mu Qiu was already getting sleepy again.

She yawned as she leaned against Zhirang to put on her shoes.

Snow boots are easy—you just step in and give a little push and that’s that. She hopped out of the tent, stomped her feet on the spot, then called to him cheerfully.

“Come on, come on, it’s way more breathtaking from out here!”

A sky jammed with stars, with a marble-like swirl of nebula slanting from right to left. That part of the sky was the brightest and the most beautiful, like a band of jade set into the deep, elegant blue-black curtain overhead.

The heavy, painted night-sky canvas was sprinkled with tiny points of starlight, so beautiful it made your heart loosen and expand.

Zhirang walked up beside her, raised the camera, took two shots, then handed it over. “Take a look—does this work?”

She hugged the camera and squinted one eye in a “tactical” way to peer at the screen.

“Looks great. Maintain this level, okay, big bro? Take a few more.”

Zhirang took the camera back. “You should take plenty yourself in a bit too. If you want me to take more… you’ll have to call me ‘big bro’ a few more times.”

Mu Qiu fixed him with a bizarre look, as if to say “I can’t believe you’re this kind of person,” staring at his tall silhouette in the dark. Then she called out sweetly:

“Big bro big bro big bro, biiig bro~”