・・・☆・Forty・・・☆・

Upon approaching the front door of the villa Yingyue let out a laugh of pure glee for she had won the little race against Ximen. Sure she had an unfair advantage by not allowing him to prepare but he had longer strides and could have easily caught her up. She suspected that he had purposefully let her win and sure it meant her win was ill founded but she did not care. She just wanted to be the first one there it would also help considering the reservation was under her name after all. Though as she paused at the front door to catch her breath and to wait for the others a weight collided into her back. She let out a huff of air and the sound of 'oof' at the collision as she head a chuckle from the figure which wrapped their arms around her. 

"Sorry princess, it was just too tempting." Ximen's words were spoken through bouts of laughter and she only rolled her eyes at his behaviour not really expecting much else from him at this moment. She watched on as the rest of their little group made their way up to the front door. Lei and Meizuo had taken on an extra suitcase each and Yingyue could not be more happy that she did not have to trapse all the way down again to collect her belongings. 

"Everyone ready?" Meizuo announced when Shancai and Xiaoyou finally joined the group being the two slowest up the small incline which led to the villa. 

"Shall we head in, it's absolutely freezing out here." Lei commented as he went to pass over the extra suitcase he had brought up the remainder of the walkway. Yingyue reached to grab it first considering it was her's yet a hand beat her to it. She turned to see a cheeky smile being given by Ximen before he titled his head in the direction of the door. The message was clearly received as she went to knock on the door. 

The front door was opened by the two maid's assigned to the villa for the duration of the groups stay. Yingyue wondered if these were the chalet girls she could recall from that one film from the early 2000s she had watched whilst trying to learn English. As long as one of the two girls did not try to pull a Kim Matthews on her fiancé she was sure she would not mind their help throughout the short stay the group had planned. Plus it would be nice for one of them to not have to cook considering that always ended up being part of any holiday at some point. Yingyue took a moment to study the two attendants one was much taller with blonde hair and green eyes and the shorter one had much darker almost black hair and dark brown eyes. The pair both wore the same uniform a classy maids outfit paired with a black stiletto. She could not clearly see a name badge which would inform her as to what to properly call either girl but she was sure she would pick up their names by the end of the night. 

"Thank you both." Yingyue spoke to the two attendees in English for it had been a short whilst since she had used the language herself but she had been practising it more often now as she got involved with the family business, and therefore opened her arms in welcome to the newest chance for her to practice her skills. 

"The fire is already pre lit, did you call up and request this yingyue?" Meizuo asked as the group enjoyed the sudden warmth they were being provided with the instance they stepped in the villa. 

"No that wasn't me." Yingyue's voice rung out but she wasn't overly concerned about the fire her attention being more drawn to the architecture of the room, how well everything blended and how nice a fireplace looked. Her and Ximen had been arguing over having one put in for a week or so now, she had been skeptic to it not really knowing how she would style the room around one not to mention the building work that they would have to have done. Yet this one and the way the room was built around the fireplace here was doing a small amount to convince her to come to the other side of maybe considering having one put into place. 

"Daoming Si." Shancai's voice rung out and Yingyue finally turned her attention to the figure sat in the corner of the room. He appeared to be pretty warm as though he had been in the villa for a short period of time prior to the group arriving, and she could only internally roll her eyes. It was no surprise that he had actually turned up to the group trip. After all she had placed a bet on him coming because he would be completely unable to stay away knowing at Shancai would be present and around Lei alone. She just wasn't sure how he had gotten here before her or knew the actual address unless he had been planning this for a lot longer than she realised and knew the basics of where they were going to be. The only thing that annoyed her slightly was that she had forked out the money for him to come and she wasn't sure he would actually pay her back. Sure it wasn't a large amount of money to her, not with the amount in her bank account already but this would not be the first time he had played this game nor the first time she had paid for him to do something so he could do his normal flip of ideas and come last minute and he had not paid her back. 

Shaking off the doubt for the moment and focusing back on what was actually going on in the room Yingyue came face to face with a group of people bickering. They were bickering over ice cream of all things. As it would appear that Si had arrived in the early hours of the morning and had gone shopping before he could actually enter the villa they had booked out. Yingyue decided that watching them all argue or in particular Si and Shancai would just be much easier if she was sat on one of the sofa's near the fire helping herself to one of the many pots of ice cream they had available. After all, considering Si had stood up now to argue with Shancai much more confrontationally, it was only Lei enjoying the ice cream and considering how many pots there were it would take him a long while to actually finish it all. She was being nice to offer her services. 

Flopping onto the sofa with as much grace as she possibly could, considering the three girls who she did not know very well were watching her with hawk like eyes in that moment, Yingyue relished in the soft comfortable feeling. This sofa was a much nicer seat than the ones she had been in since having awoken that morning. Lei handed her one of the carboard containers for the icecream to which Yingyue sent him a small smile not wanting to interrupt the absolutely thrilling argument the two most stubborn individuals in the house were having. Yingyue wanted nothing more than to just force the pair to get along, whether it be through locking them in the same room until they swore to be nice to one another and they saw evidence of that happening, or handcuffing them together so they learnt to get along. Either would be beneficial in that moment as Yingyue was sure the arguing couple were giving really good first impressions to whomever was on their first trip with the group, including the two girls whom Yingyue wasn't too sure on how to feel about still. 

"Will you two stop flirting" Lei's classic one liner called out from where his face was buried in the container as she continued to shovel ice cream into his mouth like it was going to be taken away at any given moment. Yingyue flicked her eyes over to the pair to see how they were going to react to that statement. 

"Who's flirting with whom?", "Who's flirting with whom?" Typically the pair responded together to deny what they were doing. But it was as clear as day what the pair were actually doing at the present, how wasn't it? Si had paid no attention to the two stragglers to the trip not even when they had said hi to them, Shancai barely looked at any other man that Si, Lei didn't really count in this matter. Yingyue wanted them to like kiss and make up or something, the amount of sexual tension between the pair was way too much, she didn't even care if they decided they didn't want to be together they just had to work out whatever that energy was and get rid of it. 

Yingyue had to ponder if this feeling was what her friends had felt for years as they watched her and Ximen bounce between being just friends and slightly more than friends. For she was sure she could remember exact moments like this which occurred many times over the years only the pair never actually denied flirting with the other they just got blushing and awkward. A slight difference to what was currently happening but Yingyue supposed this was what they were going to get considering the stark differences between the two couples. 

"Are you guys done here? I'd like to show everyone their rooms but if you're not I suppose we can wait a little longer." Yingyue was the one to finally speak to the couple her lack of patience regarding their argument was showing in her words. Her tone was rather snippy, but she had not come here to argue she wanted to spend her holidays enjoying herself relaxing and having fun. This attitude two of the group were currently presenting her with was nothing along those lines and she was rather miffed. It would appear her attitude towards the situation and snappy tone was enough to stop the argument in its path. 

"Sorry Yeye, let's get settled." Shancai was the one to reply and Yingyue had to pause for a moment considering the younger girl had used a nickname for her. It wasn't as though she had not known the girl for a short period of time anymore a good couple of months, the only problem was that she wasn't sure where she stood in terms of liking the girl. She liked her well enough to almost consider her on the friend level, the only problem was Shancai's complete disregard for anyone's feelings which were not her own or not involved in her little love triangle. Considering the effect the girl's previous actions had upon Ximen, Yingyue wasn't overly confident in the girl. It would appear that the only girl who had come on this trip Yingyue actually liked completely was Xiaoyou at present and considering she had seen the younger girl oogling at Lei she was sure this may improve as it appeared that the younger girl had no intent to go after her fiancé which was a different idea that Yingyue had gotten a few days ago at first in the tea shop. Maybe her not so subtle hints regarding who was engaged to whom was working in Yingyue's stride. 

Yingyue went around dishing out the rooms for each person to stay with. Starting off with the two girls she was not a major fan of, Xinhui and Baihe, giving them the smallest and least warm room. She dropped Shancai and Xaioyou off at the next double room bidding the two younger girls a goodbye for now. The boys split off after a little roughhousing regarding which one was going to get one of the other three bedrooms that was available considering Yingyue had once again claimed the room with the balcony for her own. 

"I bet the reason you're going to want to move house when we get back will be because there isn't a balcony, but you'll state it's because we don't have enough room." Ximen's word were only teasing as he sat on the bed watching Yingyue wonder her way around the room looking at all the decorations and stylistic features. 

"I don't know what you mean, our house is perfect as it is. We don't need a balcony. It would just be nice." Yingyue tried to protest. 

"Still you would want to move to another house with one. And you know I'd say yes." Ximen by this point had laid himself back onto the bed his hat flopping centimetres above his head as he worked on removing his gloves and other outerwear. 

"That's what it's like to be whipped, I'm probably be no better. I know I'd be no better, if you turned around and said we needed to move house because you need a bigger library and we could not physically fit one in our current house I'd do it without a second though." Yingyue counteracted as she stopped her pacing and sat on the bed by Ximen's head close enough that she could run her fingers through his hair. he responded well to her movements as he moved to place his head on her lap as she readjusted and the pair got as comfortable as possible. 

"Thinking about it, we could have a whole room as a library that would be nice." Ximen added as a final note. 

Author's note:

I just wanted to pop in and say I can't believe were actually on chapter 40 of this book! I never thought it would get this far and I honestly don't know when I'll stop. Considering we are only officially on about episode 15/16 of the show and the show is like 40 something episodes long. 

I just wanted to thank everyone for their continued support, for those who have been around for absolutely ages now and continued to come back even when it has been months between updates. You guys are the reason I'm continuing on with this book and the reason I rediscovered my love for this character and her story.