Here’s the thing; Lei Yirui has kissed girls before. Some of them have been girls she really liked, one was a high school crush, and there were a good few that were the result of some games of truth or dare. 

 

But she had never felt quite this giddy, which is only a little bit embarrassing because Jia Yuxing is embarrassed about it and it’s rubbing off on her. Lei Yirui is wiggling around so much on the horse that the saddle keeps shifting and Jia Yuxing won’t stop complaining about it. Lei Yirui would honestly really like to keep sucking on Jia Zhenzhen’s face a little more, but she really doesn’t think that’s going to happen until they have a proper talk about it, which she doubts will happen until they get back to the palace. 

 

It’s okay! Lei Yirui can respect boundaries! She can respect them so hard that they’ll cry about how respected they feel!!

 

They’d all hightailed it out of the city as soon as they could, with Jia Yuxing and Lei Yirui on the horse, and Jia Zhenzhen walking beside it. According to Jia Zhenzhen, they were on the way to their hometown. (Which was named Leng He, apparently! She’d totally forgotten!!) Jia Yuxings worries that they’d be followed back were extinguished by Jia Zhenzhen reassuring him that Tang Xiaodan was the only one who would have been able to associate Jia Zhenzhen with anything. 

 

Er, until Lei Yirui chipperly pointed out that there were spies in the palace, which was news to Jia Zhenzhen, and just made Jia Yuxing drop his forehead against Lei Yirui’s back and whine.

 

She didn’t mean to ruin the mood, she promises!! She doesn’t remember the names of those characters, but she can probably identify them in a line-up!! Not to worry!

 

Even so, Jia Zhenzhen’s brooding expression hadn’t lasted long, because she kept trying to secretly side-eye Lei Yirui, but Lei Yirui was already staring at her! It was nice to see Jia Zhenzhen’s flushed face as she looked at the floor and walked a little more resolutely, but the girl wouldn’t even talk. She was like a child in denial about her first crush, but she and her crush had already swapped spit and done plenty of ambiguously homoerotic things.

 

“You’re so mopey!! You know I’m not going to make fun of you, right?” Lei Yirui asks, gripping the reins and grinning broadly at Jia Zhenzhen, who looks at her with a furrowed brow. 

 

“... You’re making fun of me.” she responds, crossing her arms. Lei Yirui giggles, tucking her chin to her chest as she laughs softly. 

 

“Maybe a little bit! But you make it easy, you know. You get so red. It’s okay if you look.” Lei Yirui says, and fights the urge to run her hand seductively along the length of her body. It probably wouldn’t have the desired effect, because she’s never really ridden a horse before and is kind of clinging to it like a lemur. Not much to be found sexy about lemurs. Still, she reaches over to lightly tug on Jia Zhenzhen’s hair. She makes a quiet, disgruntled noise, before snapping her head over when Lei Yirui makes an aborted noise of discomfort as Jia Yuxing pounds on her back with his fists. 

 

“Stop flirting!” he whines.

 

“Sh—she’s not flirting.” Jia Zhenzhen says, clearly embarrassed. 

 

“I definitely was.” Lei Yirui says, before yelping and ducking as Jia Zhenzhen scoops a twig off the floor and throws it at her. 

“Shameless!” she scolds, and Lei Yirui snorts as she shakes her head to get out the yellow dirt that came along with the stick.

 

“You got me dirty! When will I get to take a bath?” she complains, and Jia Zhenzhen, covered in dry blood and soot, looks at her like she kind of wants to light her on fire, but in an affectionate way!! 

 

“In a day. You’ll be fine.” she says. For a moment, they’re all quiet. 

 

“Ah, are we going home? That’s just a day away. Are you— er, are you going to leave me there?? Please don’t! I miss you, you have to let me come with you!” Jia Yuxing says, reaching towards Jia Zhenzhen, who steps to the side enough that he can’t reach her, with a little smile playing at her lips. 

 

“Yes. I’m going to leave you at the fish market forever. You can peddle fish.” Jia Zhenzhen jokes, nodding resolutely. Jia Yuxing starts whining, and Lei Yirui genuinely cannot tell if he’s playing it up or not. 

…

It turns out that, “in a day” was absolute bullshit!! A lie!! A falsity!! Lei Yirui is going to sue! See you in court, Jia Zhenzhen!

 

Jia Zhenzhen, the snake, offhandedly mentions the fact that she hasn’t slept since three and a half (3!!!! ½!!!!) days ago when she first departed. Lei Yirui nearly falls off of the horse and concusses herself on a rock in shock, and heartily declares that she’s going to hold Jia Yuxing hostage if they don’t stop to sleep. Jia Yuxing, who’s suddenly sleepy as well, agrees to being a hostage. Jia Zhenzhen ignores them both, until their nagging gets annoying enough that she gives in.

 

And so, here they are.. The first town they’d come across since Lei Yirui’s demands, and Jia Zhenzhen is apparently broke, and Lei Yirui has exactly no money on her, so they can’t afford the nice inn on the west side of the town, and have to take the shitty one. 

 

When Lei Yirui asks about a bath, the woman who owns the place seems weirdly pleased, so Lei Yirui just cringes and decides that she can wait a little longer for another bath. 

 

Inside the small room, Lei Yirui removes all of the jewelry she was given. She doesn’t necessarily like all of this gaudy shit, but it seems like something Meng Ai would enjoy. Maybe she can pawn it off to her in exchange for some cool ass brushes of her own. Er, maybe it’s not really a fair trade if Lei Yirui had technically stolen all of the jewelry, but Meng Ai doesn’t need to know. And Jia Zhenzhen doesn’t like Meng Ai enough to tell her about it. 

 

Lei Yirui is wondering how much a particularly shiny red gem would cost, and wondering why they didn’t just look for some sort of exchange shop when Lei Yirui is clearly dressed like a very expensive bat right now. Suddenly, she hears Jia Zhenzhen exhale softly. She glances over, and Jia Zhenzhen is seated on the edge of the bed, where Jia Yuxing is passed out in a position like he’s trying to dislocate every joint in his body, and softly petting his hair,

 

Lei Yirui nearly bashes her head on the wall. That’s!! So!! Cute!! She wishes she had one of those polaroid cameras so she could take a picture and treasure the memory forever. 

 

Hah, not many soft official pics of Jia Zhenzhen existed since she was usually such a rigid character— she was really getting a VIP experience!! The one Limitless poster Lei Yirui had on her wall, which was all wrinkled and a little water damaged since she had stolen it out of a display sign on the street, looked like just about every other promotional image. Jia Zhenzhen, front and center, her usual brooding look on her face as Zheng Xiaosi and Lei Shunyuan looked on behind her with longing looks on their airbrushed faces. 

 

Look at her now!! A soft smile on her face, looking kindly at her brother as her loose hair falls in a curtain off the side of her head. It’s always nice to see her hair down. This is definitely something she would make her phone background. 

 

Lei Yirui is about as bad at Jia Zhenzhen with staring subtly, because Jia Zhenzhen looks towards her when she notices, her gentle expression turning a little bit bashful. 

 

“You’re looking at me.” she says. Lei Yirui kind of wants to squish her until she explodes in the way that people want to squish cute things. But Jia Zhenzhen isn’t really that squishy, which she knows from experience. The two of them have sort of been all over each other since they met… which is honestly, a pretty pleasing thought— anyways, she knows that Jia Zhenzhen is mostly tough and rigid all over, other than her surprisingly fluffy cheeks. Lei Yirui babies everyone and everything if the opportunity arises, never underestimate her! Tell her you wouldn’t do the same with your favorite character, okay?? Jia Zhenzhen was right there!! And offering!! (Well, maybe not offering. But she never seemed opposed, so it’s still a win.)

“I like looking at you.” Lei Yirui says simply, shrugging her shoulders. Jia Zhenzhen’s resulting eye-roll is also very cute to Lei Yirui. 

 

Jia Zhenzhen stares for a moment at the bloodied leather armored covering, which had been folded over on a chair in the corner of the room. Her under layer is on, but whoever the outfit was made for was clearly bigger and broader than Jia Zhenzhen, because there are some gaps in the folds when Jia Zhenzhen moves a particular way that Lei Yirui will resign herself from staring at until she gets express permission. Self control!! She has it, believe it or not! Especially when things are now in a defined romantic context! Sometimes!! 

 

“You need to go to sleep!” Lei Yirui announces brusquely, rising to her feet. Jia Zhenzhen watches her, before shooting a perfunctory glance towards where Jia Yuxing is taking up as much space on the bed as someone who’s about 155cm possibly could. 

 

“I’m alright.” she says, and she opens her mouth like she’s about to continue and make Jia Yuxing her excuse for not sleeping before thinking better of it. She pauses, and thinks for a moment, before her expression is serious again and she looks searchingly at Lei Yirui. 

 

“Yirui,” she begins, and Lei Yirui has to blink at unmatched speeds to mentally catch up with the sudden emotional tone her voice has taken on. “About earlier. I’m really, truly happy, and I know it can be hard to tell with me. But, please know th—”

 

“Stop. Go to sleep, I don’t want to hear this.” Jia Yuxing mutters, his voice muffled from the sheets.

 

Lei Yirui shoots him an annoyed look despite knowing he can’t see it, but has to smack her hand over her mouth to cover her laughter when Jia Zhenzhen’s head turns to look at him like she’s the fucking Terminator ready to vaporize him.

 

“You’ve been… awake? And you still took all this space? Move, you selfish child!” she starts. 

 

“Yeah, Jia Zhenzhen has to sleep!! Roll over!!” Lei Yirui joins in, her smile visible in her voice because it’s fun to lightheartedly pick on others, really! 

 

“We both do.” Jia Zhenzhen adds, and Lei Yirui’s amused look is ignored because Jia Zhenzhen and her tomato face are pointedly refusing to turn even one tenth of a degree in Lei Yirui’s direction after that comment. Jia Yuxing moves his face so he can glance at them, before rolling over, right into the middle of the bed. He crosses his arms and shuts his eyes. 

 

Jia Zhenzhen looks like she might overheat, either with agitation or embarrassment, but Lei Yirui is still cackling inelegantly into her hand, even as she settles down on one side of the human barrier.

…

The town of Leng He is honestly very cute. 

 

Lei Yirui didn’t pay all that much attention to it while watching Limitless, because anytime it was shown it was either a brief flashback or some shit was on fire. Right now, well, it definitely looked like some things were being rebuilt from the last Very Bad Thing that happened, but they seem to be doing fine otherwise.

 

One thing was unavoidable; it absolutely was a fishing town. Fish here, fish there, fish everywhere!! There was a river running through the middle of the town that had plenty of little wooden river boats floating along. The market sold 90% fish, and Lei Yirui had to be dragged away by Jia Zhenzhen when she kept trying to veer the horse in that direction as they were led… wherever they were going. 

 

Ah, but Jia Zhenzhen says that they’re about to eat anyway, so she can hold back. Definitely!!

 

Even if something does smell really good.

 

Jia Yuxing seems happy to be back, and Jia Zhenzhen just seems happy that he’s happy. It's her usual way of showing she’s happy, which is the bare minimum of not looking immensely pissed, but Lei Yirui gets the idea!! It’s all very heartwarming, but she’s very fucking hungry and sitting on a horse for so long has made her hurt in her fucking everywhere. She hops off the horse the first chance she gets, doing a series of stretches she remembers watching on some cheap work-out video. They work, okay?!

 

“What is this?” Lei Yirui asks, stretching her arms above her head as she looks at the plain wooden building crammed between two slightly less plain wooden buildings. 

 

“Our house,” Jia Zhenzhen says, before ushering Jia Yuxing and Lei Yirui in through the door. “Wait. I’ll be back.” she says, before immediately leaving with no preamble. 

 

Lei Yirui stares blankly at the doorway for a moment, before turning to take in the house as Jia Yuxing sets his cane by the door and follows the wall into a side room. Just leaving her in here, hm?? Does being a bad host just run in the family, then?

 

It really is very plain, but it’s also very clean. Maybe a little dusty, but Jia Yuxing appears to have just fucked off for a little jaunt at Evil Palace Incorperated for a while, and Jia Zhenzhen has been having a frankly domestic little moment at the palace for even longer. There’s a table in the center, some cushions that appear to be homemade, a shelf covered in a few pots of home remedies and general household materials, and there are some hooks holding up four canes carved in various cute designs, with one set of hooks being empty. 

 

Beneath them sits a chest, and when Lei Yirui crouches down to peer into it, there are a number of numbing creams and pain-relief tablets. 

 

Gah!! Not her business! She didn’t mean to rummage around in your medicine cabinet, Jia Yuxing!! 

 

Lei Yirui shuts the chest, rising back to her feet and folding her hands behind her back, pacing around in the room until Jia Yuxing returns with a neatly folded pile of clothes and a bunch of… soaps in his arms?? Why are there so many?? 

 

“We have a bath you can use. Uh, not now, obviously, but when Zhenzhen gets back she can get water. She’s always the one who does that, since the water pails heavy enough for it to hurt when I, uh, lift them. You could also go get it, but, er, you look a little weak.” he says, dropping the pile onto the table. 

 

“Thank you!! And that’s true!! But… What's with all the soap? I don’t need that much. You could probably clean the entire world of every particle of dirt with all this shit.” she says, lifting one of the little containers and peering at it. She pops it open and sniffs a little at it, before wrinkling up her nose. It smells like straight up cooking oil.

 

“You rich people use all kinds of fancy soap, don’t you? Er, that’s what Zhenzhen told me when she used to work for that wealthy family. We just have the normal stuff, so I just brought you a lot of it.” he says, shrugging. 

 

Lei Yirui realizes that she’s exactly like that. She probably uses at least 7 vials of different sweetly smelling soaps every time that she bathes, and several different flowers just bobbing along in there. How wasteful!! Gone are the days of the cheap body wash from the corner store near her dorm that smelled obnoxiously intensely of peppermint!! She’s too spoiled now!

 

“Fancy soap…” Lei Yirui mumbles, placing the container back down just as the door opens again. Jia Zhenzhen is joined by a guy their age that Lei Yirui has never seen before. Er, if she has, it’s not surprising that she would forget. He’s got kind of a forgettably boring face, with the only standout feature being the small birthmark above his eye. 

 

But he’s carrying food. 

 

“Ah, hello! We’ve never met before. I’m Lei Yirui, it’s nice to meet you.” she greets, rushing over to help him set down the food. Jia Zhenzhen eyes them for a moment, before she goes to move everything off of the table. 

 

“Nice to meet you, too. I’m— no, this one is He Huan. You a palace girl?” he asks, and Lei Yirui nods rapidly. He looks a little more interested, all of a sudden.

 

“Agh, something like that!! What is this?” she asks quickly as she helps him set out the food. 

 

“Steamed fish and some mixed vegetables. The fish is fresh, so it should be good. I don’t know if it’ll meet your standards though.” he says, shooting her a kind smile.

 

“What!! Don’t worry, don’t worry! I’m not picky. It smells good, I’m sure I’ll like it.” she says, shooting him a grin. He Huan looks a little rejuvenated by that. 

 

The four of them settle down to eat together, and Lei Yirui is a little surprised when Jia Zhenzhen and Jia Yuxing both perform a quick prayer to their parents first. Lei Yirui kind of wants to bash her head against a wall because of how sweet it is. Neither of them seem particularly… sad, just very wistful. Lei Yirui offers Jia Zhenzhen a small smile when they actually start eating, and Jia Zhenzhen’s face goes through a few very cute emotions before she settles on quickly eating her food and turning pink. 

 

Jia Zhenzhen honestly eats like she has a gun pressed against her skull, and Lei Yirui giggles about it the whole time, while refusing to elaborate on what she finds so funny. Jia Zhenzhen finishes eating very quickly, and charges off like a bull to go get water for the bath. 

 

At some point, Jia Yuxing harasses He Huan to grab his canes off of the wall to show them to Lei Yirui. Upon closer inspection, the canes he’s showing her are made much more brilliantly than the one he’s been using, with intricate patterns and smooth details that look like they were carved by a master of the craft. She kind of expects him to say that his parents made them, or something, and the more rudimentary one he’s been using was his own attempt to learn. 

 

Ah, but no. Apparently, Jia Yuxing is just really artistic, and the one he prefers to use is one he had led Jia Zhenzhen through making. He shows it to her, and is in the middle of gleefully showing her the places in the wood where Jia Zhenzhen had just stabbed the thing in anger when she couldn’t get the shapes right when the woman herself returns with the water. She looks a little like she might lunge at him, until Lei Yirui chirps at her with thanks for getting the water. She bats her eyelashes a little bit, and Jia Zhenzhen caves immediately and rushes to go fill the bath. 

 

Hm. That makes a pleasant flush come to Lei Yirui’s cheeks.