Can't Wait to Take Their Place... (strikethrough)

The taxi pulled over by the roadside.

Tang Qinqin stepped out.

Looking at the grand, modern building with its semicircular arch, she asked reflexively,

“Are we going to a museum?”

“It’s a bathhouse.”

After paying the fare, Lin Yu got out hand in hand with Tang Manman. Standing beside Tang Qinqin, he answered matter-of-factly.

“A bathhouse!?”

Tang Qinqin’s eyes flew wide open. She turned to stare at Lin Yu, looking as if she were saying, “Go on. Say that again if you dare.”

Lin Yu ignored her.

Holding Tang Manman’s hand, he led her into Qinglin Pavilion.

“You two go soak first.”

He pointed toward the women’s bathing area and said to Tang Manman,

“We’ll meet on the third floor later.”

“Then we can go have the buffet together.”

“What, what, what?”

“There’s a buffet too?”

Still reeling from the shock, Tang Qinqin hurried after them, looking around in every direction.

When she heard there was a buffet as well, her delicate brows shot up and her eyes widened like saucers.

Lin Yu nodded.

Seeing how hopelessly excited she looked, he couldn’t help reminding her,

“Don’t eat too much fruit while you’re soaking.”

“Otherwise, you won’t have room left for the buffet.”

“There’s fruit to eat while you soak?”

Tang Qinqin looked as though her entire world had just been turned upside down.

She was practically itching to try it, like a fierce bulldog straining at its leash.

It felt as if, the moment no one was watching, she would charge straight into the bathing area and viciously tear into all that juicy fruit.

Lin Yu couldn’t be bothered with her anymore.

After waving goodbye to Tang Manman, he took his wristband and towel and shuffled into the bathing area in slippers.

After giving himself a quick rinse in the shower area,

Lin Yu lowered himself into the hot spring.

The forty-one-degree water felt absolutely amazing.

When he first stepped in, his skin tingled with a pleasantly scorching heat.

But once he sank fully beneath the water, all that remained was an overwhelming comfort so intense it felt as though even his soul could sigh in bliss.

Like sacred water from some myth, capable of curing illness and fatigue.

It washed away the weariness from a full day of sightseeing.

After soaking for a while,

Lin Yu got out when his head began to feel slightly light and stuffy.

He picked up a bath towel by the entrance and dried himself off.

Then he changed into the bathhouse loungewear and headed straight up to the third floor.

Girls always took forever to bathe.

That was something Lin Yu had learned firsthand.

He had been waiting on the third floor for nearly half an hour before he finally spotted the two of them by the elevator.

They looked as though they had soaked downstairs for quite a while.

A noticeable rosy flush had risen over their fair skin.

Beneath the loose shorts provided free of charge in the bathing area, their two pairs of long, pale legs now carried a soft pink hue.

Like pink meat tucked beneath a thin layer of rice-noodle roll.

It gave him an inexplicable urge to take a bite.

Having just finished bathing, neither of them wore any makeup.

As Lin Yu watched them walk slowly toward him side by side,

he instinctively began comparing the two.

As though he were playing a game of spot the difference.

After examining them carefully for a few moments...

Lin Yu found the resemblance between the two sisters genuinely fascinating.

When they stood together, if you caught only a quick first glimpse, you might think they were a pair of twin sisters—so alike it was as though they had been stamped from the same mold.

But once that fleeting impression passed—

you would realize that they were completely different people. Though there was some similarity between their brows and eyes, the differences between them were still pronounced.

So pronounced that there was no chance of mixing them up, making you wonder whether that first impression had simply been some absurd illusion.

And yet, if you looked at them closely enough—

you would find that Tang Qinqin and Tang Manman had remarkably similar eyes, noses, lips, even face shapes.

If you compared their features one by one, you would strangely find them growing more and more alike.

What was this?

Schrödinger’s resemblance?

Lin Yu could not help wanting to laugh.

Tang Manman looked as if she had soaked in the hot springs for far too long. With heavy eyelids, she walked over, her whole body seeming listless and drained of energy.

Sitting in a beanbag chair, Lin Yu opened his arms to her.

The moment Tang Manman saw him—

a pure, adorable smile curved her lips, and she lazily curled up in his embrace.

Lin Yu naturally wrapped an arm around her.

That brief contact was enough for him to conclude that she had definitely overdone it in the hot spring.

Her entire body radiated a comfortable warmth.

Like an oversized heating pad with an exceptionally nice feel.

“Sis.”

“Don’t fall asleep.”

“We’re still going to the buffet later.”

Tang Qinqin even had the presence of mind to remind her sister.

Though she looked even worse off than Tang Manman at the moment.

There was a slight unsteadiness to her steps, as if she might topple over at any moment and fall asleep right there on the floor.

She followed behind her sister.

Tang Manman sat down beside Lin Yu, comfortably nestling into his arms.

She was not so sleepy that she could no longer recognize her brother-in-law.

She merely sat down beside her sister,

then wrapped her arms around her sister’s slender waist and rested against Tang Manman’s back.

There did not seem to be anything wrong with the arrangement of the three of them.

Tang Manman was leaning against her boyfriend, while Tang Qinqin was leaning against her sister.

Those who should rely on each other relied on each other.

Those who should have nothing to do with one another had nothing to do with one another.

But to outsiders, the three of them looked a little... questionable.

Since Tang Manman wanted to find a more comfortable position in his arms, she shifted around a few times against Lin Yu, practically sinking her entire body into his embrace as she lazily held onto him.

And Tang Qinqin was practically draped all over her sister...

So, from an outsider’s perspective—

it looked exactly like some blond-haired guy holding two girls.

Like he was shamelessly trying to have them both... *scratch that*—

like he was shamelessly trying to earn everyone’s condemnation and scorn!

The third-floor lounge was crowded with people coming and going.

And nearly every passerby cast strange looks in the direction of the three of them.

Even Lin Yu, thick-skinned as he was, found it hard to endure those gazes, sharp as little blades slowly carving him apart.

Freeing one hand, he patted Tang Qinqin’s flushed, warm cheek and said irritably:

“Hurry up and go lie down somewhere else.”

“Don’t crowd me!”

The gentle pats against her cheek made Tang Qinqin furrow her delicate brows. She gave a couple of disgruntled little huffs and protested without even opening her eyes:

“No!”

“I’m lying on my sister. What does that have to do with you, you big bad guy?”