A week later.
Aboard the cruise ship Nancy.
Xiao Yu and Liu Shan stood hand in hand on deck, looking out at the sea.
"Xiao Yu, when we first saw the sea yesterday, I felt so refreshed, but we've only been aboard for a day, and somehow I'm already getting bored..."
"Because wherever you look out at sea, the view is always the same. Once the novelty wears off, of course you'll get bored."
In fact, what really made Liu Shan feel bored was an invisible sense of "exclusion and distance."
It wasn't that anyone was actually excluding her.
Rather, everyone aboard was a foreigner, speaking English or other countries' languages. Apart from her and Xiao Yu, not a single person spoke Chinese.
And everyone else gathered in groups of three or five, with their own little circles. Only she and Xiao Yu knew no one.
It would have been fine if her father had been there. He could have introduced them to new friends and helped them fit into the others' circles.
But the problem was that her father wasn't there either.
On top of that, neither Liu Shan nor Xiao Yu was the type who liked striking up conversations with strangers everywhere.
So they had ended up in this awkward situation.
Fortunately.
They were invited guests, after all.
Once the "leading man and lady" realized they had neglected their guests, they came over to greet them.
The Willow Family and the Nancy Family had quite a good relationship.
"Hi, Miss Liu Shan, Mr. Xiao. Are you settling in all right aboard the ship?"
"Please don't mind if there's anything we've overlooked."
"I noticed you've been standing here for quite a while."
"There are actually plenty of recreational facilities inside: bars, internet cafés, swimming pools, gyms, and all that!"