Going All In

Li Lan’s voice was very low. Zhu Qing didn’t think she’d ever spoken to her like that before.

Zhu Qing froze for a moment, her gaze dropping to Li Lan’s hand.

She was holding her wrist. The pressure was heavy, and the warmth of Li Lan’s palm slowly seeped through her skin.

A shiver ran through Zhu Qing. Starting from where they touched, it crackled up her nerves like fireworks.

“Darling,” Zhu Qing drew in a breath, “this is a dating show, and you’re my wife. That question is… really not great.”

The next second, Zhu Qing twisted her wrist, took Li Lan’s hand in return, and pulled it over so she could lightly rub her cheek against it.

“Come on then; are you in or not?” Zhu Qing’s voice was muffled against her throat as she exhaled, soft and seductive. “I bribed the cameraman. He won’t film this part.”

Li Lan sat as straight as ever; only the slightly reddened tips of her ears betrayed her.

“If you don’t say anything, I’ll take that as a yes.”

The words had barely left her mouth before Zhu Qing yanked hard. Li Lan was forced to lean forward. “Hey—”

Their lips met in something soft and warm. Li Lan blinked very slowly; she could hear her own heartbeat, one beat, two beats, three beats…

Three seconds were up!

Zhu Qing curved her brows at her mischievously, like a cat that had just stolen a fish, and slowly leaned back. Her moist tongue flicked over the corner of her lips, and she looked utterly refreshed, smug, and pleased with herself.

Li Lan pressed her lips together lightly; Zhu Qing’s warmth still lingered there.

Zhu Qing’s lips were fuller, especially in the center. After being kissed and sucked on too much, they took on a rich, blood-red fullness.

By now, they should have looked even redder, more vivid.

Zhu Qing always complained that Li Lan didn’t get close enough to her, that her desires went unfulfilled. Sometimes, Li Lan even had the absurd feeling that the one who was starved was herself.

She was the plaintiff, and somehow she’d become the defendant; on top of that, she had to keep restraining herself every moment.

Zhu Qing bore some responsibility for that.

Li Lan suddenly stood up.

Zhu Qing instinctively rose too. She thought Li Lan had been made uncomfortable by her and was about to storm off, and was just about to coax her when Li Lan suddenly reached out, looped a hand behind Zhu Qing’s head, and pulled her forward hard.

The distance between them became zero again.

Or rather, negative.

Li Lan’s force was great; Zhu Qing had no room at all to refuse. The moment she parted her lips slightly, Li Lan had already captured every breath she had.

Soft laughter sounded around them; out of the corner of her eye, Zhu Qing saw a server grinning in their direction.

The pleasant scent of Li Lan’s perfume filled her nose. She had just drunk iced tea; her lips were cool, but the tip of her tongue was hot.

This Li Lan was even more aggressive than before, as if she were in a hurry, or as if she didn’t want anyone else peeking in. She simply took a domineering bite, briefly satisfying a hunger.

Very quickly, maybe three seconds, maybe five, Li Lan let go.

Zhu Qing sank back into her chair, so overwhelmed she couldn’t speak.

The server came over smiling to return their dessert discount. Li Lan lifted her chin and said, without the slightest change in tone, “Give it to her; she wanted it.”

Zhu Qing stared at the plate in front of her without speaking, her neck and face already flushed bright red.

She took the change in a daze and gulped down a large glass of iced water, only barely managing to pull herself back from that state. Then Li Lan’s elegant, cool voice sounded again.

“It’s been filmed. This material is good,” Li Lan said. “Send it to the production team tonight.”

Zhu Qing jerked her head up so fast her neck gave a faint creak.

“What? You can’t release that!”

Li Lan said calmly, “Why not? You like it, don’t you?”

Zhu Qing said indignantly, “How can you be so petty? I just flirted with you a little. Was it really necessary to get revenge right away?”

Li Lan shot her a flat look. “I thought you wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

This was a corner, with curtains blocking the view; not everyone around them could see, but it was still a public place. Zhu Qing glared at her. “This kind of thing—me, you, and you even reaching out to—how can that be the same?”

Li Lan said, “When the magistrate sets the house on fire, did I not already tell you not to flirt?”

Zhu Qing’s momentum immediately died. “…”

Li Lan didn’t feel as if she’d regained the upper hand. Zhu Qing could be satisfied with just a rub and a kiss, but Li Lan still had memories of what normal couple life between them was like; not only memories in her head, but muscle memory in her body as well.

Every time Zhu Qing leaned in, Li Lan noted it down. By now, the little notebook was already so scribbled over that it was barely legible.

Li Lan stood up calmly and patted Zhu Qing’s head, where she was hanging there with her head down like a quail. “Follow your heart. Get up; we’re going home.”

Zhu Qing followed behind her out of the restaurant at a dawdling pace, only coming back to herself halfway there.

Follow your heart. Chicken.

Zhu Qing: …

“Necessary to point out,” Zhu Qing said at once, confidence returning as she caught up to Li Lan, “last time it was you who chickened out, so that’s why you’re ‘following your heart.’ Li follow-your-heart, Li Chicken.”

Li Lan gave a cold laugh. “What makes you think you won’t chicken out after I agree?”

Zhu Qing said, bewildered, “I’m the one asking for it. Why would I chicken out?”

Li Lan looked at her for a long time, the meaning in her gaze too rich to describe. Then she said, “...Fine. You’d better remember that.”

“Good. Then don’t you forget either; you promised me you’d give me an answer after the show ends.”

Li Lan sighed. “With you reminding me eight hundred times a day, how could I forget?”

Zhu Qing held up the countdown timer again. “Don’t worry; even if you forget, I won’t.”

Li Lan: …

The two of them stood on the street, silently staring each other down. They both found their incompatible thought process rather funny, but because they kept failing to get on the same page, they were a little annoyed too; still, neither of them knew who they should be annoyed at, so they just froze face-to-face like that.

At that moment, a little girl came over from the sidewalk nearby.

“Do you want some flowers?”

It was a little flower seller.

“These are firethorn, jacaranda, and red jasmine?” Zhu Qing’s eyes lit up.

Li Lan looked around, then took out her wallet and paid. “I’ll take them all.”

Zhu Qing said, “Huh? You’re buying all of them?”

Li Lan said, “Don’t you like flowers? There aren’t any like this at home. If you like them, buy more and put them by the hotel bed.”

Warmth rose in Zhu Qing’s chest. She said sweetly, “Thank you, Teacher Li. Darling, you’re so good to me. I like you so much.”

Li Lan glanced at her indifferently. “You’re awfully sweet-tongued now.”

Zhu Qing: “Heh heh.”

What Li Lan took out was Kenyan shillings, the common currency in Nairobi. One yuan was worth about eighteen shillings, so it wasn’t very valuable; the highest denomination Li Lan had prepared was the one-thousand-shilling note, which had an African elephant on it.

The little girl’s eyes locked instantly onto the stack of African elephants.

Li Lan asked her in English how much it cost.

The little girl said a number.

Li Lan narrowed her eyes. She happened to have eight notes in hand.

A small bunch of flowers, eight thousand shillings?

The little girl’s gaze never left the stack of money; she stared at it intently. Zhu Qing felt that something was off, so she tugged on Li Lan’s hand. “How about we buy them somewhere else?”

The little girl suddenly moved. She lunged, thrust the flowers into Zhu Qing’s arms, and with her other hand quickly snatched at the money in Li Lan’s hand.

Her filthy fingers were strong; before Li Lan could react, the girl had already grabbed half of it.

“Give it to me!” the little girl rasped, a ferocity in her eyes utterly unlike her age. She looked like a small beast driven into a corner; seeing that Li Lan still wouldn’t let go, she opened her mouth and tried to bite.

Meeting the little girl’s eyes, Li Lan seemed to remember something. The moment the bodyguards behind her rushed forward, she let go.

The little girl stumbled back two steps, clutching the crumpled money in her hand, and ran for her life.

Zhu Qing rushed forward a second too late. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”

Li Lan looked at the little girl’s retreating back and gently shook her head.

Zhu Qing raised the bunch of flowers, as if about to smash them on the ground. “Why would she bite you!?”

Li Lan hurriedly grabbed her. “It’s fine; don’t smash them. The flowers were expensive.”

Zhu Qing’s eyes turned red with anger; she nearly cried. “How could we run into someone like that? You weren’t even refusing to give her the money. Why did she have to grab it…"

“Don’t be angry. I’m fine.” Li Lan’s peripheral vision caught something; she turned her head and said, “Look.”

The little girl was clutching a handful of coins and running desperately, but before she had even made it out of one intersection, she was surrounded by a group of people who rushed up.

They were all men, about seventeen or eighteen, apparently having seen the whole thing already and waiting for her to come running with the stolen money.

The little girl let out a shout, screaming wildly. Zhu Qing was more than ten meters away from her, but she could still hear it clearly, and her heart trembled.

Very soon, those people took her money. They had appeared all at once and disappeared just as quickly, leaving only the little girl on the ground, sobbing so hard it sounded like her heart was being torn apart.

Li Lan sighed. “Let’s go.”

Zhu Qing held the flowers and got into the car with her head down, her mood low.

On the way back, Zhu Qing kept thinking about the little girl falling to the ground.

On the way there, she had seen a four- or five-year-old girl sitting on the ground eating filthy bread. On the way back, she had seen a girl over ten years old selling flowers to survive, only to be robbed the moment she turned around.

On the streets of a poor place, this kind of thing seemed commonplace.

“After we get back, I want to go to the West Garden Welfare Institute.” Zhu Qing suddenly said.

Li Lan looked at her quietly. “Why do you suddenly want to go there?”

“Just because I want to take a look,” Zhu Qing lifted her head and stared at Li Lan without blinking, her eyes round. In a small voice, she said, “I want to know how you grew up.”

Li Lan fell silent.

At times, Zhu Qing could be surprisingly sensitive. She had been standing right beside Li Lan just now, and she had seen the change in Li Lan’s eyes when the money was snatched.

The bodyguard’s reaction had been very fast. The instant the little girl reached out and grabbed the money, he moved; if Li Lan had let go a second later, she would absolutely have been lifted by the collar and thrown aside.

The bodyguard was more than twice Zhu Qing’s size, let alone that scrawny little girl; handling her would have been like handling a chick.

But Li Lan had let go.

Ten thousand shillings was only a few hundred yuan to her. This bunch of flowers wasn’t worth much either, but Li Lan didn’t want to haggle over any of it.

Li Lan had seen too many girls like that, with no one to rely on.

“Girls have it harder than boys,” Li Lan said. “But it’s still fine; in the welfare institute… whether male or female, none of them are valued. If you want to go take a look, you have to agree to one thing first.”

Zhu Qing’s eyes were wet. “What is it?”

“Look, and that’s enough. Just take a look, learn a little; you don’t have to keep it in your heart,” Li Lan said flatly. “That’s all in the past. I don’t care.”

“But I care. If I want to understand you, then of course I want to understand everything about you; to understand how you came, and where you’re going,” Zhu Qing said in a voice only the two of them could hear, close to Li Lan’s ear. “Then I’ll walk with you.”

Li Lan’s breathing seemed to catch slightly. A faint light appeared in her eyes, only to be quickly hidden beneath her lowered lashes; her throat moved gently, as if words were about to spill out.

Zhu Qing squeezed Li Lan’s hand. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Li Lan turned her face away. Light cast a pale shadow along the bridge of her nose; all her tenderness was held there, silent and unreadable.

“Fine,” Li Lan said, her voice carrying a smile. “Walk with me then, curious little girl.”

Zhu Qing wrinkled her nose. “You’re the one bringing up age this time.”

Li Lan smiled faintly. “Of course. Only I’m allowed to say it.”

Zhu Qing muttered, “You’re the magistrate.”

Zhu Qing held the flowers and returned with Li Lan to the production team. The two of them brought back a pile of souvenirs, leftover ostrich bones, Maasai bracelets, and other cheap little trinkets.

Hu Xu and Liu Yini brought back even more down-to-earth things. They seemed able to get along with ordinary people wherever they went; many of the items were things only local households would have.

Xu Yuzhi worked hard enough just to avoid eating insects. At a glance, she had clearly gone through every market big and small; what she brought back was varied and colorful, and the quantity was the largest of all.

That left only Yu Ling and Qi Yao’s group.

Everyone waited for them to return, and waited until the sun went down.

Zhu Qing had already prepared herself to come in last. She and Li Lan had spent the entire afternoon eating, drinking, and having fun; the first two groups had either found more down-to-earth items than they had or simply more of them. Seeing Yu Ling and Qi Yao return, Zhu Qing let out a long sigh of relief.

They came back carrying a basket of “junk” and dumped it with a clatter in front of everyone.

Zhu Qing lowered her voice to celebrate with Li Lan. “We don’t have to eat insects!”

Li Lan stared at the pile and frowned slightly. “Not necessarily.”

Zhu Qing was surprised. “Why? Those are just rags and pebbles.”

Before Li Lan could speak, the two of them introduced the items on camera.

They hadn’t gone to the Maasai market. Instead, they had gone to the slums, used their budget to buy a large amount of filling noodles, and distributed them to hungry children by the roadside.

There was only one requirement: each child had to find something to bring them. Broken ceramic pieces they didn’t want at home, scraps of cloth, straw hats, stones they’d picked up, even leaves they found by the roadside; anything they liked would do.

So the basket was full of things the children had brought. Looking closely, there were very round little stones, leaves as big as a palm and perfectly symmetrical, a balloon painted with a smiling face… At first glance, all of it looked unremarkable; everyone thought it was junk. Yet it was full of a child’s rare innocence, and an atmosphere that was faintly poor and sad.

Hu Xu said slowly, “That should definitely be first place.”

There was something called positioning. This afternoon had originally been a last-minute reshoot after yesterday’s incident delayed the schedule, and probably no one had expected Yu Ling and Qi Yao to come up with such a method to complete the task.

The production team clapped and said, “All right, after the overall ranking, the group with the fewest points is…”

The director looked at Li Lan and Zhu Qing; both of them wore helpless, resigned expressions, so it seemed there was no objection.

Just as the director was about to announce the result, one of the cameramen said something quickly into his ear.

The director froze and asked, “Really?”

The cameraman nodded.

The director looked at the bunch of flowers in Zhu Qing’s hands, thought for a moment, and asked, “Does the youth group need to add one more item?”

Zhu Qing followed his gaze to the flowers in her own hands and smiled. “No need. I want to keep this bunch for myself.”

“These items have already been filmed. If anyone wants to take anything back, you can choose a few things,” the director stressed. “These flowers can also be taken back. Do you want to think about it again?”

Zhu Qing hesitated. “Can I take them back? Then add them…”

Li Lan cut her off. “Director Liu, they can’t be added.”

The director was stunned. Li Lan glanced at the camera and gave a subtle reminder. “This shot can’t be used. Even in another country, it’s still inappropriate.”

This time, the director took a little longer to react—only half a minute—before suddenly coming to himself.

Filming the poor and chaotic side of another country wasn’t the original purpose of the show.

They had come to see the animal migration and to show the beauty of nature. Their cooperation with the local side had also been negotiated on the basis of “boosting tourism revenue”; it was absolutely not meant to film poverty.

If they aired Li Lan being robbed after buying flowers today, the audience would inevitably focus on Kenya’s disorderly side; not to mention that the little girl’s stolen money was quickly stolen again by another group.

Children wandering the streets, disorder, savagery, desolation; all of these were negative signals. If the audience saw Kenya like that, the Kenyan side would certainly be dissatisfied. And then what about them, still on Kenyan territory—would they be safe?

This material was absolutely not suitable for broadcast as a gimmick.

The director broke out in a cold sweat. He hurriedly told the staff beside him, “Cut this entire segment.”

After that, he returned to the previous topic and was just about to announce today’s winner and loser when he froze again.

If Li Lan being robbed couldn’t be broadcast, then by the same logic, were Yu Ling and Qi Yao’s food distribution in the slums also unsuitable for airing?

The director fell silent and waved for filming to pause.

Yu Ling and Qi Yao looked at each other and whispered, “Why did they suddenly stop?”

Yu Ling said, “The stuff we brought back is definitely more valuable.”

Qi Yao worried, “Then why hasn’t the winner been announced yet?”

Yu Ling shot Li Lan a quick glance and sneered. “Maybe someone doesn’t want to eat insects. But it’s not up to them. Even if the production team doesn’t declare them the losers, once the episode airs, there’s no doubt our segment will get more discussion. The audience has sharp eyes.”

Qi Yao nodded in agreement. “Exactly. We were the only ones doing a good deed; they were just spending money. Especially Li Lan and Zhu Qing. At a glance, it’s obvious they didn’t prepare properly.”

The next second, the director walked out of the tent and looked at the two of them meaningfully.

“The bottom group is the youth group.”

Yu Ling and Qi Yao’s eyes went wide.

They said in disbelief, “What!?”

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There should only be a few chapters left of the variety show. Almost there [lop-eared rabbit head]