Chapter 140: Ch 140: Seats and Hydrogen Peroxide

"Hey!" PD Xu Cui called out to the two omegas and the children.

Song Meiyu and the others looked up at once. Recognition landed first, then relief. The tension that had been sitting at the shaded table ever since the PD left in a hurry loosened as soon as they registered who was walking with him—and, more importantly, the state of the woman beside him.

Mo Xingxue’s face still carried the faint marks of earlier exhaustion, but the raw fracture from the forest was no longer on the surface. She looked composed. That alone was enough for both omegas to breathe properly again.

Song Meiyu and Han Jiho offered Mo Xingxue soft, careful smiles. Mo Xingxue returned them without hesitation, the exchange brief and mutual, an unspoken acknowledgment that the worst of the afternoon had passed and been survived.

Su Wanyan’s expression eased further at the sight of the children and the familiar group. Only then did she loosen her hold on Mo Xingxue’s hand.

Mo Xingxue glanced at her, a quiet question in the look. Su Wanyan lifted their joined hands slightly.

"Hold on," she said.

Mo Xingxue nodded and released her.

Su Wanyan jogged to a nearby empty table, collected two chairs, and carried them back. She set the first one down beside Leilei and angled it toward the group.

"Here, PD."

She gestured at the seat, completely unaware that PD Xu Cui currently maintained a private, entirely one-sided grudge against the small girl beside it—a grudge built on ice cream spoons, future "abductions," and a protective ache that had not yet found a reasonable outlet.

PD Xu Cui looked at the chair, then at Leilei, and for a fraction of a second his expression did something complicated.

Su Wanyan placed the second chair beside Shen Guoxing, adjusted it for space, then turned to the omega.

"Xuexue."

Mo Xingxue’s smile answered the consideration before her feet did. She walked over, and Su Wanyan pulled the chair out farther, steadying it as the omega settled into the seat.

"Thank you, Yanyan," Mo Xingxue said, the words soft and gentle.

Su Wanyan smiled and gave her hair a gentle pat. "You’re welcome."

Then she turned and went back for a third chair, already calculating where she herself would sit—close enough to reach Mo Xingxue without thinking about it, close enough that the earlier promise of, "I will never leave again,"—could remain a physical fact rather than only a sentence spoken under the trees.

Meanwhile, hearing Su Wanyan’s casual assignment of the chair, Leilei straightened at once. Her shoulders drew in and her whole small frame tensed as she registered PD Xu Cui now squinting at her with open scrutiny. Whatever private case he had been building against her since the shared spoon, it was clearly still under active review.

PD Xu Cui opened his mouth. "Fin—"

He never finished the word. Song Meiyu was already rising from her own seat.

"I’ll sit beside her," she said gently. She turned to PD Xu Cui with a slight theatrical bend of her upper body. "I’m returning your rightful seat to you, sire."

PD Xu Cui laughed, the earlier investigative intensity breaking under the performance. "Thank you, young lady." He took the chair she had vacated and, in doing so, spared Leilei the full force of the analytical stare she would otherwise have endured for the rest of the day.

Leilei exhaled in secret relief and looked at Song Meiyu with clear appreciation. Song Meiyu, sensing the gaze, glanced over and found the child watching her with bright, grateful eyes. A soft chuckle escaped her.

How cute, she thought. She then shot Leilei a playful wink, followed by a soft smile.

Leilei smiled back, the last of the tension leaving her posture. It’s a relief the nice aunt is going to sit beside me, she thought, privately thinking to herself that she was fortunate that it had not been the grumpy grandpa instead.

Across the table, the man currently holding the title of "Grumpy Grandpa" sneezed without warning.

Is someone cursing me?? PD Xu Cui wondered, a rapid flip-book of aggrieved faces from the entertainment industry passing through his mind. He remained entirely unaware that the actual suspect was seated only a short distance away, still glowing with relief at having escaped him.

"Bless you," Su Wanyan said as she set her own chair down an inch away from Mo Xingxue’s.

"Looks like someone is cursing you, PD," Song Meiyu added as she settled in beside Leilei, the joke landing with perfect timing.

Han Jiho chuckled. "You took the words right out of my mouth." He raised a hand; Song Meiyu met it. The high-five cracked loud and clear across the crowded table.

PD Xu Cui shook his head. "You rascals." The annoyance in his voice was thin; the fondness underneath it was not.

"Tsundere~" Han Jiho teased, poking him in the side.

PD Xu Cui jolted and glared, though there was no real heat in it. "I was going to give you a bonus pay, but it looks like you don’t want it."

Han Jiho only laughed harder. "I’ll just take Zhao Yichen’s then."

A round of delighted "oohs" rose from the table, followed by fresh laughter. Su Wanyan let her own laughter slow as a practical thought surfaced. She glanced around the group, one eyebrow lifting.

"Oh—that reminds me. Where are the others?"

In response to her, Song Meiyu shrugged, helpless and unsurprised. "I think they got lost. You know how those two are."

Another wave of laughter moved around the table. The assessment was, unfortunately, plausible.

"That isn’t far-fetched," Mo Xingxue added, shaking her head as she recalled the pair’s usual brand.

PD Xu Cui wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye and shook his head. "While that may be true—" He waited until their attention settled on him again. "—unfortunately or fortunately, they’re on the bus." A smirk tugged at his mouth. "Fixing up ’something.’"

He left the "something" unspecified. The chuckle that followed was quiet and distinctly pleased with itself.

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Meanwhile on the bus, Qin Yuran was wrapping a roll of gauze around Gu Chengze’s head with the focused seriousness of someone performing a critical procedure.

The aisle floor made a poor operating table: too narrow, too hard, and already scattered with torn packaging from everything else they had decided the patient required. Gu Chengze remained unconscious through most of it, which Qin Yuran privately classified as a convenience.

Zhao Yichen, who was in the process of placing a bandage over one of Gu Chengze’s completely uninjured eyes, looked at her work and shook his head in theatrical disappointment.

"You’re doing it wrong," he said. "He isn’t even injured there."

The criticism would have carried more weight if he had not been committing the exact same crime two inches away.

Qin Yuran only smirked. She tore off a strip of medical tape and secured the gauze with a firm press. "No. He is injured here." She reached for a cotton ball, tipped the alcohol bottle, and soaked it until the sharp smell filled the narrow aisle.

Zhao Yichen raised an eyebrow. "How? Su Wanyan didn’t even punch him in the head."

Qin Yuran looked up and wiggled an index finger in front of his face, the gesture pure classroom scolding.

"No, no." She shook her head as if correcting a particularly slow student. "Of course Su Wanyan didn’t punch him in the head." She lowered her hand. "What I’m telling you is that his brain is injured. That’s why he’s so narcissistic and full of himself."

Zhao Yichen burst out laughing. The sound bounced off the bus windows and came back slightly loud for the space.

"So you’re bandaging his head for brain damage?" he asked, still grinning as he looked down and picked up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Ooh. What’s this? He thought, mildly intrigued by the unfamiliar name.

"Yeah," Qin Yuran said, already rubbing the alcohol-soaked cotton along the dried blood at the right corner of Gu Chengze’s mouth. "I’m hoping this will mend his broken brain."

Gu Chengze’s brow furrowed. Even unconscious, the sting found him. A low, unhappy sound escaped before his face settled again into bruised stillness.

Qin Yuran chuckled at that and even pressed there harder, satisfied as Gu Chengze let out another pained groan.

While she was busy "cleaning" Gu Chengze’s face, Zhao Yichen remained focused on the hydrogen peroxide bottle. He turned it once, read the label without absorbing most of it, then called out.

"Qin Yuran."

"Huh?" She looked up. The alcohol-soaked cotton ball was resting squarely against Gu Chengze’s lips.

Zhao Yichen took in the placement and offered her a wry smile. "He’ll die if alcohol goes into his mouth."

Qin Yuran followed his gaze. The cotton sat exactly where it should not have. "Oops." She pulled her hand back at once, the motion a little too fast to look professional.

Zhao Yichen shook his head, then held the bottle up for her inspection. "What does this do?"

Qin Yuran leaned in, tilted her head, and studied the label with the same incomplete confidence he had. "Maybe people put it on wounds or cuts? Like alcohol?"

It was less an answer than a shared guess. Zhao Yichen nodded anyway and looked back down at Gu Chengze. With most of the dried blood wiped away, a small laceration at the corner of the mouth had become visible—short, open, and still edged with red.

"Oh. He has one." Zhao Yichen pointed.

Qin Yuran looked. "Oh. He does."

They sat with that information for a second. Then Zhao Yichen twisted the cap. "Hold him down." He reached for the scissors to break the seal on the bottle.

"Got it." Qin Yuran gathered Gu Chengze’s free hand and the one still trapped under his weight, pressed both against his stomach, and locked them there with her full weight. She nodded once she was secure. Zhao Yichen nodded back.

He took a fresh cotton ball and turned Gu Chengze’s head carefully to the left, placing the cotton as a barrier so nothing would run into the mouth. The precaution was thoughtful. What followed was not.

Zhao Yichen tipped the bottle and poured a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide directly onto the laceration.

It began to bubble at once—white, active, and far more dramatic than either of them had expected.

"Ooh," they said together, leaning in slightly, treating the reaction less like a medical response and more like the interesting stage of a science project they had not fully read the instructions for.

Gu Chengze’s face tightened. A low sound escaped him. Neither of them released their hold. The aisle of the bus remained a narrow, poorly lit clinic of their own making, and the patient—still mostly unconscious, newly foaming at the corner of the mouth—had not yet found the breath to object at full volume.

That would come later. For now there was only the soft fizz of peroxide, two alphas watching it work with open fascination, and a first-aid kit that had already given them far more confidence than skill.

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SO SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE, Y’ALL! I WAS SUPPOSED TO RELEASE THIS YESTERDAY, BUT MY PHONE GOT CONFISCATED BECAUSE MY COUSINS FORCED ME TO PLAY CARD GAMES WITH THEM ༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽ !