Blinded by Lust chapter 3

After being away for a while, the ship’s cook was running out of ideas, and everyone was tired of the food. They decided to go ashore to eat at a restaurant, as the kitchen’s supplies were running low, and it would be a good opportunity to replenish them.

A few younger sailors couldn’t hold back their excitement and rushed to the front of the crowd. Wu Bie watched them from behind and shook his head helplessly. He had long outgrown their youthful impatience and had become very composed, able to face anything with calm.

“Mr Zhang, I’ll go with you to buy ingredients,” Wu Bie said to the cook. With everyone gone, there were many ingredients needed for the ship’s crew, and one person couldn’t manage alone. Along with Wu Bie and Mr Zhang, there was also Mr Zhang’s young assistant.

This town had relatively complete living facilities and rich food supplies, mostly seafood. Having worked and lived on the ship for years, Wu Bie was tired of fish, which was the most common meat. He looked at the seafood with some distaste.

Neither he nor Mr Zhang spoke the local language; only the young assistant could communicate with the locals, relying on gestures and facial expressions to infer that he had negotiated a good price.

“ Mr Zhang, give me the money.”

The cook was retrieving the money while Wu Bie was distracted by a brightly colored fish at the stall. It looked quite attractive. Many deep-sea fish are beautiful, and their meat is exceptionally fresh. He took a photo of the fish with his phone.

Just as he finished taking the photo, he received a notification about his data usage—it was completely exhausted, not a bit left. Wu Bie frowned deeply. He had planned to send someone a video.

“Wu Ge, you and Mr. Zhang should go find the others first. I’ll bring the stuff back and then join you.”

Wu Bie extended his arm and put it around the young assistant’s shoulder. “I’ll go with you. Mr Zhang, you go ahead; it’s too much for him alone.”

The young assistant, small and delicate, was practically tucked under Wu Bie’s arm. He looked a bit dazed and saw Wu Bie raise an eyebrow at him.

“Alright, then I’ll go ahead.”

After Mr Zhang left, Wu Bie pulled the young assistant towards the small store. The assistant, dragging a small cart, struggled to keep up with Wu Bie’s pace.

“Ge, where are we going?”

“Help me buy a phone card with a lot of data,” Wu Bie pointed to the advertisement for phone cards on the store’s wall.

The young assistant stabilized himself. For people in their line of work, running out of data was common. When the ship was at sea, there was no network, and no one could afford satellite data, so everyone lived isolated from the world. But once the ship docked, everyone had to catch up on what they missed.

“Maybe you should download a few more movies while you’re at it; otherwise, the data on the phone card might not be enough.”

Wu Bie waved his hand. “I don’t use my phone to download movies; I have a computer.”

He bought the phone card to satisfy his fans’ wishes. It was rare for video bloggers like him to be so considerate of their fans.

With the young assistant’s help, Wu Bie spent a fortune on the phone card and happily installed it on his phone.

The young assistant saw this and guessed that Wu Bie stayed behind just to buy the phone card. “Ge, the card is bought. You should go eat; I’ll take this back myself.”

“How can that be?” Wu Bie said. “It won’t take much time. Come on, I’ll go back with you.”

The young assistant’s eyes brightened as he looked at Wu Bie with admiration.

“Uh… you…” Wu Bie looked the young assistant up and down. He had been around for a while and looked familiar, but he didn’t know his name. “What’s your name?”

“Tan Yi!”

Tan Yi was very excited. On the ship, he was at the very bottom of the hierarchy, always staying in the kitchen and hardly ever talking to the sailors. No one hang out with him, and others just called him “Hey,” rarely ever asking for his name.

“Tan Yi? Tan Yi! Okay.” Wu Bie waved his hand, “Let’s go.”

Back on the ship, the few sailors who had stayed behind were busy sanding down the rust they had knocked off yesterday, and after sanding, they would have to start painting.

The fact that Wu Bie helped him bring his stuff back was already something Tan Yi was deeply grateful for. “Wu Ge, why don’t you go ahead? I still need to take the ingredients into the kitchen.”

Now that they were back, Wu Bie wasn’t in a hurry. “You go ahead. Finish up, and then we’ll talk.”

It looked like Wu Bie was going to wait for him, which nearly moved Tan Yi to tears. He hurriedly started to put away the ingredients on the small cart.

Most of the people on the ship had gone out for a group meal. Wu Bie, not in the mood to change clothes, also didn’t help with the painting. Instead, he slowly strolled to the stern of the ship to smoke. Just as he lit his cigarette, his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was a notification from a video app. At this time of day, Wu Bie figured that the college girl must be awake. He opened the app, and sure enough, there was a message from the seagull-avatar.

“Good morning, Ge.”

That “Ge” made Wu Bie’s heart flutter. Although the people on the ship always called him “Wu Ge,” they were all big, sweaty men. When they called him “Wu Ge,” it even smelled like sweat. But this college girl was different—she must be fair and clean. Just the thought made Wu Bie happy.

Wu Bie quickly sent the college girl a photo of the deep-sea fish he had just taken at the market. “You have great timing. Look at the fish I just took a picture of.”

“Looks good! Ge, did you catch it yourself? That’s amazing.”

Wu Bie was so flattered that he couldn’t stop smiling, hurriedly typing out a reply, afraid of being too slow.

“I just saw it at the market, but we usually fish too, and what we catch looks pretty much like this.”

“We even catch better-looking ones sometimes. I’ll show you when we do.”

The college girl was good at keeping the conversation going, never letting it get awkward. “Did you just get back from outside, Ge?”

“Yeah, there weren’t many ingredients left on the ship, so I went with the chef to buy some. Just got back.”

“You just got back from buying ingredients, so you haven’t eaten yet, right?”

With a cigarette hanging from his mouth and his wrist resting on the railing, Wu Bie squinted against the smoke, but he made sure to reply to the college girl first.

“Just dropped off the ingredients. I’ll go eat out later.” As the conversation flowed, Wu Bie casually asked, “Have you eaten?”

The chat showed that the other person was typing, and Wu Bie watched eagerly until a “Not yet” finally popped up.

“Huh.” Wu Bie checked the time—it was about time to eat, after all. Then another message came through.

“The lady who brings my meals didn’t come this morning. Maybe she forgot.”

“You’re alone in the hospital? Where’s your family?” Wu Bie took the cigarette out of his mouth and forgot to keep smoking, letting the sea breeze finish it off.

“My family’s busy. Usually, the lady brings my meals.”

Reading this, Wu Bie started to feel a bit disoriented, imagining the college girl as a poor student neglected by her parents.

Even though she was sick and in the hospital, no one was there to take care of her. No matter how busy they were, they should take the time to check on their child. Even if they hired a caregiver, they should find a reliable one. How could they forget to bring her meals? Isn’t that mistreating a patient?

“23-08, whose delivery?”

Huo Zhanyan tilted his head slightly, “Mine.”

This morning, the caregiver had messaged him asking for leave, so by lunchtime, he had to order takeout himself. Given his current state, eating was a bit difficult. Looking at the tightly packed takeout box, he was too tired to get up and struggle with it. He turned back to message “Wu Ge” again.

“I ordered takeout.”

The reply came quickly, “That’s good.”

Soon after, he received a few photos—blue skies, the sea, and the lifeboat at the bow of the ship. Unfortunately, none of them were selfies of “Wu Ge.”

“Wu Bie was quite the chatterbox, sending Huo Zhanyan a long string of messages. “This is the lifeboat we use during escape drills. It’s a small dinghy, but it can fit quite a few people. See the bow of the ship over there? That’s where I usually hang out.”

Just from the height alone, you could imagine how magnificent the view must be.

“Oh, by the way, why didn’t we add each other on WeChat? It’s kind of a hassle to keep chatting on this app.”

Huo Zhanyan paused, not expecting the other person to be so forward. “Is that okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

After this message came a string of numbers. Huo Zhanyan didn’t hesitate, quickly switching to WeChat. Once he entered the number, the account popped up.

Wu Bie.

Huo Zhanyan quickly sent a friend request, and it was promptly accepted. As soon as they became friends, he clicked on Wu Bie’s profile picture and eagerly browsed through Wu Bie’s Moments.

The photos in Wu Bie’s Moments were much clearer than the ones on the video app. Wu Bie was shirtless, the glaring sunlight shining on his toned body, and he was smiling brightly.

Huo Zhanyan was so absorbed in looking at Wu Bie’s Moments that he didn’t even notice that Wu Bie had sent him several messages.

“It’s you, right?”

“Why aren’t you replying?”

“Hmm?”

Wu Bie felt a bit disappointed. After adding the college girl on WeChat, he eagerly checked her Moments, only to find it empty, with nothing there.

“Ge, you have so many photos in your Moments that you didn’t post on the video app.”

Wu Bie had a strong urge to share. After showing off in his Moments, he had to show off on the video app too, so he posted a lot, sometimes forgetting where he had posted and where he hadn’t.

Hearing the college girl say this, he also opened his Moments to take a look, and the first thing he saw was a photo posted by Chen Xian. He was traveling with Shen Jixue, smiling so wide it looked like his face would crack. It was disgusting.

“Ge? Are you mad because I didn’t reply earlier?”

Wu Bie was indeed angry, but not at the female college student. “No, I’m mad at my buddy. That guy ditched me, leaving me on the boat while he’s out traveling with his boyfriend.”

“Your buddy’s partner is a guy?” The female college student, being sharp as she was, caught on to the key point in Wu Bie’s words.

Wu Bie was momentarily stunned. Although Chen Xian and Shen Jixue’s relationship wasn’t exactly a secret, he didn’t expect her to guess it so quickly.

He immediately wanted to distance himself from this socially unacceptable “dog food couple,” worried that the female college student might think he was ‘abnormal’ too.

“Not me though! I’m a real man who only likes women.” He was quick to clarify that he wasn’t like Chen Xian and Shen Jixue, who defied nature’s reproductive rules. He didn’t want to be misunderstood.

But the girl’s reaction was strange, “Oh.”

She had been quite chatty, but suddenly saying “Oh” left Wu Bie at a loss for words. He glanced at the female college student’s WeChat name, “seagull,” which was in English and he didn’t understand.

“By the way, I’m Wu Bie. What should I call you?”

He couldn’t just keep addressing her as “you,” that would be too distant.

“Zhanyan.”

Zhanyan—just the name sounded like that of a great beauty.