Chapter 235 - 216: Nocturne

Chapter 235: Chapter 216: Nocturne

"Hey..."

"My name isn’t ’hey.’ It’s..." Lin Fan’s body was a bit stiff as he responded mechanically.

"Mr. Chu, right?"

Ye Qingniao cut him off, speaking with perfect ease.

"Help me wash my hair..."

"..."

Lin Fan hadn’t even spoken when a small, dark figure swayed from behind him to stand in front of him. The lemon scent grew stronger, more potent than a handful of shampoo lathered in his own hair.

"Hurry up... I already helped you scrub, you know."

Ye Qingniao reached back with her small hand, grabbed Lin Fan’s wrist, and pressed it onto her head.

"My hair used to be longer than this. I cut it short myself to make things easier. Does it look ugly...?"

She muttered to herself.

"I haven’t washed my hair since I left Jishan. It was itchy at first, but I got used to it."

The light from the flashlight behind them scattered in the rain, casting them both as black silhouettes. Even Lin Fan himself could only make out a dark outline of her.

Lin Fan clenched and unclenched his fingers. He followed Ye Qingniao’s lead, naturally working her hair with both hands, spreading the clump of shampoo with the rainwater and working it into a lather.

"Short hair is easy to manage, but I think it would look better a little longer..."

Lin Fan chatted with her idly as he massaged her scalp, as if they were the only two people left in the world.

"A little longer?"

She tilted her head back, the back of it thudding solidly against Lin Fan’s chest. But instead of flinching, she seemed to have found a backrest, letting her entire weight fall backward. Just like that, they were pressed against each other.

Rainwater and foam streamed down their shoulders, instantly warmed by their body heat.

"Wouldn’t that be just like those two women you have with you...?"

She tilted her head up, her one visible, bright eye looking at Lin Fan as she asked,

"You have a thing for short hair?"

"Don’t call them ’women’ like that... And what ’thing for’?"

Lin Fan casually tapped her on the forehead, correcting her and straightening her head at the same time, then continued washing her hair.

"The world’s falling apart. We’re all just huddling together for warmth."

"Scumbag!"

Ye Qingniao cursed under her breath.

"You’re the scumbag. You’re not that old, but you’ve got a lot of moves. Who taught you to be so smooth?"

Lin Fan was slowly getting the hang of it. He applied more pressure as he scrubbed her hair, retorting.

"Gently..." Ye Qingniao grabbed Lin Fan’s wrist with one hand, as if to keep him from scrubbing her bald, and said in a low voice, "I... I learned it from the movies."

"What movie? Let me study it too..."

Lin Fan retorted, not to be outdone, but Ye Qingniao quickly followed up:

"There’s no internet. You can’t watch it even if you wanted to. It’s out of print."

But as she felt Lin Fan’s fingers run through her wet, short hair, gently massaging her scalp, she seemed to have suddenly found a point of counterattack. She turned her head and asked,

"Who taught you to be so skilled?"

"Skilled at what... Oh, you mean washing hair?"

Lin Fan was taken aback by her strange question for a moment, but he quickly recovered and answered casually,

"I’m a vet... I’ve washed plenty of furry things over the years... Some of them scream like a pig being slaughtered the moment water touches them, you can’t even hold them down... Close your eyes."

Before Ye Qingniao could react, Lin Fan shielded her forehead with one hand and combed her hair back with the other, letting the heavy rain rinse out the foam.

"All done. That’ll be eighty."

Lin Fan patted Ye Qingniao’s shoulder, but the feel was suddenly different—no longer the firm, muscular resistance he was used to, but something smooth and slender. It still felt a little strange.

"What a rip-off!"

"It’s a small business. Just trying to earn an honest living."

Hearing this, Ye Qingniao chuckled softly, picked up the bottle of body wash from the ground, and passed it to Lin Fan behind her back.

"We’re not done yet..."

"Is there no end to this? Don’t you have hands? Wash yourself..."

Lin Fan casually took the bottle, squeezed a few generous dollops onto Ye Qingniao’s shoulder, gave her a push forward, and then started squirting it all over himself.

The viscous liquid, colder than the rain itself, trickled onto her shoulders. Ye Qingniao, who was already feeling a little chilly after they’d separated, suddenly shivered. She whipped her head around to see Lin Fan lathering himself up with the body wash and exclaimed in exasperation,

"I’m offering you a perk and you’re turning it down?!"

"With that small frame of yours, are you offering me a perk or putting me to hard labor?"

Lin Fan spread the slick body wash over his skin. It had a completely different scent from the shampoo, more like bar soap. He fobbed her off with a casual reply as he lathered up.

He had barely started when a small, cold hand suddenly grabbed his wrist with surprising accuracy, yanked it forcefully, and pressed his palm against something soft.

"Who’s comparing me to your dairy cow!"

Ye Qingniao gritted her teeth, her voice trembling slightly.

"I... I’m comparing myself to the other one..."

Although he couldn’t see her expression, the heartbeat under his palm proved that Ye Qingniao wasn’t as composed as she was pretending to be.

Even without a stethoscope, the deafening THUMP-THUMP traveled up his arm and into his head, drowning out the endless patter of the rain.

The center of his palm met something firm, his fingers sank into softness, her heartbeat was scorching hot, and the rain was ice-cold.

This extreme contrast made Lin Fan’s mind go blank for a second.

"Then I wouldn’t know..."

he replied subconsciously. But then he thought again—that wasn’t right. He thought he *did* know.

So, his fingers curled slightly in the slick foam. He then pulled his hand back, scratched his chin, and recalled...

"Hers are still a bit bigger..."

Lin Fan gave his objective and fair assessment.

"Right?!"

A fire seemed to ignite in Ye Qingniao’s blue eye, making it shine with extraordinary brightness.