If Horace did nothing else but just looked at her, Clara would just let it go; yet he then said something that made Clara roll her eyes upward.
“Oh? Can’t you just bear one second not looking at me?”
Horace asked with a flash of teasing smile in his eyes.
Yet it disappeared so soon that even Clara who was staring at him did not notice it.
“Don’t overthink,” rolling her eyes upward again, Clara took out the magazine she took with her from home and started reading.
Clara knew that the phone was banned on the plane and she also would not want to play her phone on the plane, so she took several magazines with her.
So that she could kill time when she felt bored on the plane.
Besides, if there were good stories in those magazines, she could read them to Neo as bedtime stories.
Seeing that Clara began to read magazines, Horace held Neo in his arms and closed his eyes to take a rest.
Neo was too young to sit there alone, so Horace decided to sit with him in his arms.
Horace was worried that, although there were security belts attached to seats, Neo would fall down from his seat when he was asleep.
Then, the three of them had a wonderful time on the plane.
They did not realize the passage of time until the plane began to land.
When they were about to disembark, Clara was reading an interesting article.
They stuffed everything in their bags and got off after the plane successfully landed.
They went to the hotel they had booked with their luggage.
Clara was the one who booked the rooms. She did not know which hotel was better, so she randomly chose a relatively clean five-star hotel.
Yet, Clara and Horace could not find the hotel.
Horace decided to call a taxi since the driver could take them there.
“Hi! Please take us to I-DO hotel,” Clara got in the car with Neo and told the driver their destination.
“I-DO? Do you guys want to go to I-DO?” the driver was shocked by them as if they had just spoken in pig Latin.
“What’s wrong with I-DO?” Clara asked. She had never been to Shangri-La, so she chose the hotel in a random way.
Why did the driver react like this?
Clara began to doubt whether she had chosen a terribly notorious hotel.
“Nothing, nothing special,” the driver shook his head with fear and then started the car.
“Mommy, daddy, if we go to the hotel first, what will we do in the evening?” although they had a long-time airline journey, it was only noon when they arrived.
So Neo wondered what they should do in the evening if they took a rest in the hotel now.
Neo knew that he could not fall asleep again if he was going to sleep now.
“We won’t sleep now. We will just take a rest in the hotel and then we will have a good sleep in the evening. OK?”
Clara knew his son well and put forward practical advice.
“Yes!” Neo smiled at Clara and then began to doze in her arms.
The driver drove at such a high speed that they arrived at the hotel within half an hour.
They found that the hotel actually looked good.
Clara grinned and paid the driver.
The driver bit some words back and drove the taxi away.
When they entered the hotel, they discovered that there were almost no customers in that hotel, which was more than bizarre since now was the peak season for travel.
Both Clara and Horace noticed this strange phenomenon but they could not figure the truth out.
They wondered whether it was because the hotel was too expensive or too infamous.
And their questions could only be answered by staff and receptionists.
Clara walked toward the reception, hoping to ask the receptionist about it. Yet, she could not find anyone working there.
She looked around and yet she still could find no staff in the hotel.
She turned around to look at Horace, hoping that he could help her.
Suddenly, with a strange and shocked expression, Horace rushed towards Clara and took her by her hand.
“Clara, are you OK?” Horace observed Clara from top to toe in order to check whether she was fine.
Then he was relieved when he found that Clara was totally fine, which mystified Clara to a great extent.
What’s wrong with Horace?
When Clara cast a questioning look at Horace, she found that he was staring at the reception, transfixed.
Clara also turned to look at the reception and the scene startled her.
She was sure that there was no one standing by the reception just now, and yet now someone was standing there.
After she tried to recall what she saw just now and became further sure about her memory, she was also transfixed. She wondered whether she had a wrong memory.
Yet, it was obvious that she had the right one since Horace was also scared by the scene.
“I’m sorry to scare you. I was looking for something under the table, so I didn’t notice your arrival.”
The receptionist apologized for scaring them.
Clara recovered her composure but was still chilled by the heavy make-up that the receptionist had.
Fully aware that she should not judge how the receptionist wear her make-up, Clara walked towards the reception.
Horace slightly grabbed Clara’s hand and signaled to her not to go. However, Clara smiled at him and walked toward the receptionist.
“Hi, I want to know why there are so few customers in this hotel. Isn’t now the peak season for travel?”
Compared with other hotels, this one was indeed deserted.
“Well, Miss, our hotel is a five-star one and is located somewhere a bit difficult to find. Besides, most of the travelers won’t spend their money on living, right? That’s why we don’t have too many customers here. I believe that the popular hotels you have seen are probably not five-star.”
According to Clara, the receptionist explained the phenomenon in a plausible way.
“Indeed, those popular hotels are all not five-star,” Clara recalled that, although the hotels she saw on their way to I-DO were indeed popular, they were not titled as five-star online.
“That is why we don’t have too many customers here,” the receptionist answered with an appropriate smile, which relieved Clara from her doubt.
“Fine, then we’d like to book a deluxe suite? We’ll stay here for three nights,” Clara gave her bank card to the receptionist.
“OK,” the receptionist smiled at her and then went through the formalities quickly.
“Miss, your room number is 55218,” the receptionist said, handing Clara the room card.