Xie Lin was not deterred.
– So heartless?
– Sending you a message is different from hailing a ride.
Wu Zhi’s curiosity was completely piqued, and he couldn’t help but keep peeking at his Brother Lin’s phone screen.
The impervious one replied: It is different.
– Hailing a ride can get you home, but I will leave you lying on the street overnight.
Wu Zhi: “…”
This is completely devoid of humanity.
His Brother Lin had walked the scene for many years. Even though he never personally went into the field to flirt, just giving advice from afar had successfully helped Wu Zhi get a girlfriend quite a few times. To think there would actually be a day when he crashed and burned.
Wu Zhi muttered in his heart, discovering that his Brother Lin wasn’t actually angry. Leaning against the bar counter, Xie Lin continued sending messages, seemingly quite happily.
However, before he could finish typing and send a string of messages, the other side was faster. Probably seeing the ‘Typing…’ indicator at the top, the impervious one made a prompt decision and preemptively sent two messages.
– Roll out to the street early, and you might still be able to grab a good spot.
– Send another message and I’ll block you.
Wu Zhi felt a profound sense of respect.
Ji Mingrui had comforted him: “It’s fine. It’s normal not to be able to invite that Master Chi out. Unless a heavy rain suddenly falls and makes him feel like he’s in a good mood tonight, only then is it up for discussion.”
On the other side, Master Chi put his phone aside after sending the message, preparing to lie down and sleep.
As a result, not even ten minutes after closing his eyes, just as he was about to fall asleep, his phone started vibrating again.
After his warning of “Send another message and I’ll block you,” Xie Lin indeed stopped sending messages. He directly called with a voice call.
[Your friend ‘Xie Lin’ invites you to a voice chat.]
Chi Qing: “…” Is there an end to this?
Chi Qing answered the call: “You’d better…” You’d better actually have a reason.
A “bang” sound came from the other end of the phone, followed closely by Xie Lin speaking at a faster pace. He sounded quite helpless too: “Those few lines just now were teasing you, but this time something really came up.”
Sometimes life is just this unpredictable.
In just a short ten minutes, an unexpected accident occurred in the bar. The originally orderly environment had now become a mess. That “crash” sound just now was a beer bottle shattering.
The bartender at the counter was perfectly fine mixing drinks, when a girl charged in all the way, ignoring the security guards’ attempts to stop her. She glanced around, put down her bag, picked up a bottle on the bar, and smashed it fiercely against the bartender’s head: “You scumbag!”
This smash was so hard that even the music in the bar stopped.
People looked over towards them: “What’s going on?”
As a people’s police officer, Ji Mingrui’s bodily reactions were faster than his brain. Before the girl could strike a second time, he took wide strides, bounding over the seats in two or three steps, and rushed over: “What are you doing! Put down the bottle!”
In the end, the bottle was put down, but alcohol was splashed all over Ji Mingrui.
After briefly explaining the situation, Xie Lin added: “He wants to ask you to help buy a wearable piece of clothing and bring it over.”
Wu Zhi: “Didn’t he say just delivering a piece of clothing would do? Why specifically buy one?”
Xie Lin shot him a sidelong glance, signaling him to shut up: “I’ll send you the address, it’s not far. Coming over is quite convenient. If it were far, I wouldn’t have called you.”
The person Chi Qing wanted to kill right now had become Ji Mingrui.
After a long moment, he raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose and said, “Tell him to wait.”
The bar was indeed not far away. The only relatively lively area at night around here was the old city district. Even without Xie Lin specifying, Chi Qing would never bring his own worn clothes to Ji Mingrui. To a germophobe, no one was allowed to touch his clothes, not even his best brother.
By the time Chi Qing walked into the bar wearing his black gloves and carrying a bag, the farce had already ended.
The rookie team’s team-building plan was completely ruined. They were gathered around a girl at the bar, doing mediation work: “We are police officers. Don’t worry, if you have any issues, you can tell us, don’t get physical. We are a civilized society, we need to be civilized.”
The girl was very young, in her early twenties, fashionable and pretty.
She wore a very delicate bracelet on her wrist. As she spoke, the star-shaped pendant swayed constantly, indicating that she was still trying hard to suppress her emotions: “For him, I gave up my job in my hometown. I specially came all the way from Xiacheng… But him? He actually got together with my best friend behind my back a long time ago.”
The bartender’s eyes darted evasively.
After the girl’s extreme anger passed, she calmed down and loosened her tightly clenched fists: “I was foolish too. I should have thought of this earlier. Before I came, he refused to let me live with him, saying something about how two people still need their own space even when dating. I see now that he just wanted me to make room for you two.”
Ji Mingrui and the others were handling the mediation work with proficient ease.
As a woman, Su Xiaolan had the most right to speak: “A two-legged toad is hard to find, but there are plenty of two-legged men.”
The girl: “But I really like him.”
Su Xiaolan: “I understand you. It’s okay, girl. Your life is still very long. Just treat this relationship as a scenic spot you briefly stopped at. Remembering the beauty of when you first fell in love is enough. Maybe when it’s time to get off the bus, things aren’t very pleasant between you two, but you can’t let the ending ruin the journey.”
Su Xiaolan knew that her words couldn’t be too sharp at this time, so she softened her voice and said: “When he loved you in the beginning, it must have been true. It’s just that the him now is no longer the him from back then.”
The girl couldn’t hold back the tears falling from her eyes.
Xie Lin didn’t say much. He listened quietly and handed a tissue to the girl at the right moment: “Don’t cry.” His finger joints curled slightly, showing a bit of unintentional gentleness as he handed over the tissue. “Tears don’t suit a pretty girl like you, and neither does that person.”
Xie Lin’s comfort was very effective, but it easily made one’s imagination run wild. People couldn’t help but feel like the subtext should include a line like: “He doesn’t suit you, but what do you think of me? Do you want to come home with me?”
But after he said it, he withdrew his hand, stepping back into a safe social distance. Then he looked up and saw a certain impervious person.
Chi Qing held out the bag containing the clothes: “Your clothes. If there’s a next time, just streak naked.”
Ji Mingrui was sticky all over. Having waited for the clothes for a long time, he took the bag and prepared to head to the restroom: “Thanks, big bro. Sorry to make you take a trip. I’m going to change. Wanna sit for a bit? And maybe help comfort this girl while you’re at it.”
Chi Qing: “Why should I help?”
Ji Mingrui: “…Since you’re already here.”
Chi Qing reluctantly spared a bit of attention for the sobbing girl, entirely unable to empathize with her current emotions.
After Ji Mingrui left, Xie Lin naturally sat down beside Chi Qing: “You’re here. What do you want to drink?”
Chi Qing: “Water.”
Chi Qing added another sentence: “Mineral water, lemon water, either is fine.”
Xie Lin: “You came to a bar just to drink water?”
Chi Qing couldn’t be bothered to explain the reason he didn’t drink alcohol, directly stating: “Allergic to alcohol.”
“Germophobia, allergic to people, and allergic to alcohol too,” Xie Lin said while asking the waiter to prepare a glass of lemon water for him. “You’re quite hard to serve.”
Wu Zhi patted Xie Lin’s shoulder and asked in a low voice, “Is this the ‘impervious one’ from just now?”
Wu Zhi had been hovering on the sidelines as an onlooker for a long time. Having stuck around until now, he finally laid eyes on his true face.
He had spotted Chi Qing the moment he walked in. Black gloves, beautiful but quite gloomy. Even amidst the dense crowd of heads in the bar, he remained extremely striking.
As the girl cried and cried, her gaze eventually drifted onto Chi Qing as well.
Chi Qing endured it for a while, and, finding his conscience, decided to help his friend out once.
He took the water glass handed over by the waiter, his black gloves covering the side of the glass. He coldly spat out three words: “Congratulations.”
The girl: “?”
“Breaking up at this time isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you got married and then broke up,” Chi Qing paused, then said, “it would be very troublesome for everyone then.”
“…”
Even though these were absolute truths, cold and sharp as they were, they made sense.
However, very few girls wanted to hear this when breaking up; they wanted to be comforted.
Chi Qing completely didn’t understand: “Why is she crying again.”
Su Xiaolan didn’t know what to say. She was the one who wanted to ask that! I finally managed to coax her into calming down, and you made her cry again just like that.
Xie Lin propped a hand against his forehead: “…Although what you said makes a lot of sense, she can’t digest it right now. Forget it, you’d better just drink your water.”
Chi Qing didn’t care either. Fundamentally, this girl’s breakup had no direct connection to him. Furthermore, he didn’t understand what kind of feeling it was for a person to be in pain over a breakup.
Therefore, he lowered his head and took a sip of water.
Xie Lin looked at him: “You said just now that if I sent another message you’d block me. Were you serious?”
Chi Qing also glanced at him: “If you can’t wait, I can do it right now.”
“…”
Having caused this whole incident, the bartender got off work early. He completely didn’t dare to confront the woman face-to-face, so he used the excuse of going to the restroom to hastily slip out the back door.
Chi Qing, having drank half his lemon water, casually placed the glass on the bar counter. Ji Mingrui just happened to return from changing clothes and was dumbfounded: “Why is she crying even harder?”
Chi Qing: “I don’t know.”
“…”
“If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving.”
Ji Mingrui hurriedly said, “Wait a sec, we’re almost done too, let’s leave together.” He then added, “Xiaolan, you should escort the girl back.”
While waiting for him, Chi Qing reached out to grab his original water glass. Xie Lin happened to reach for his glass at the same time. With this movement, he almost bumped into Xie Lin’s hand—even wearing gloves, Chi Chi was exceptionally cautious. He quickly reacted and halted his movement.
“You’re already wearing gloves and you’re still this careful,” Xie Lin said. “…Don’t worry, I won’t touch you.”
As Xie Lin spoke, he picked up a glass.
However, when he brought the glass to his lips, he paused.
He didn’t fully take this gulp. As soon as the contents of the glass touched his lips, he tasted a bit of lemon water. It was very faint, almost just plain water, vaguely carrying a slight lemon flavor.
The glasses in the bar all looked very similar. Depending on the beverage, they would be served in different shaped glasses.
His and Chi Qing’s glasses happened to be identical—both were rectangular, straight highball glasses.
Xie Lin’s drink was colorless, and as a garnish, a few slices of lemon were also placed in the glass.
From the corner of his eye, Xie Lin noticed the rag in the waiter’s hand, realizing that when the waiter wiped the table just now, he might have moved the positions of the glasses.
Just as he was about to give a reminder, he noticed that Chi Qing had already taken a sip.
