Su Xiaobo spoke in a very low voice. He leaned over the back of the seat to whisper in Xie Lin’s ear, and with the car just starting and all the chaotic road noise outside, it was hard to hear.
Xie Lin glanced at Chi Qing and happened to catch the exact moment Chi Qing failed to look away in time.
Chi Qing had scanned those three words on the phone screen.
Oh, it’s that one again.
Although Chi Qing didn’t offer a friendly face to anyone, he generally didn’t grow to hate people in particular; he usually found everyone equally annoying.
Today, however, Xie Lin’s interaction with this female teacher was different—it sparked a rare, specific feeling of irritation in him.
Chi Qing couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of his mouth: “It hasn’t even been ten minutes since we left, and there’s already some important information to tell you?”
Chi Qing continued.
“Is there no police left on that side?”
“Is it necessary to send messages to a consultant privately when they could just tell the police? Is that how she usually works?”
“…”
As Chi Qing said this, he felt a strange sense of self-loathing. Even though he was usually sharp-tongued, there was a clear difference between an unconscious observation and consciously saying something nasty. He hadn’t understood it when Ji Mingrui had pointed it out to him before.
He fell silent after those few sentences, noticing that both Xie Lin and Su Xiaobo were staring at him.
Su Xiaobo said blankly: “Uncle Glove, this is the first time I’ve ever heard you talk so much.”
“I am not called ‘Glove’,” Chi Qing said, finding Su Xiaobo equally displeasing. “And I’m not a mute. Why is it so strange that I can speak?”
Su Xiaobo shook his head, intending to return to memorizing the first page of his English vocabulary manual: “…No, not strange.”
Only Xie Lin, one hand resting on the steering wheel, suddenly let out a laugh. The sound felt quite abrupt in the somewhat serious atmosphere.
The phone screen beside them dimmed after going too long without receiving further input.
Xie Lin thought back to the moment they walked out of the office; Chi Qing hadn’t been acting normally then, either.
He even said he found him displeasing.
Xie Lin believed that even though they were together, given Chi Qing’s personality—where he might suddenly say, “Maybe we should just end this relationship”—he couldn’t afford to be careless with their bond. He had to be cautious even in times of peace, so he spent no less time on his grooming every day before going out.
He didn’t think he was displeasing enough to warrant that reaction.
He hadn’t done anything; he’d just chatted with that teacher for a bit…
The problem lay with that teacher.
Perhaps Chi Qing.
Was jealous.
Chi Qing felt very uncomfortable being laughed at by him: “What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, just thought of something,” Xie Lin said. He paused, then said intentionally: “Back in the office, Teacher Wu told me a joke. It was pretty funny. Do you want to hear it? Shall I tell you?”
Chi Qing: “…”
He didn’t want to, hear, a, damn, thing.
Su Xiaobo, exhibiting his true colors as a poor student, leaped up from the back seat and shouted: “I want to hear it! I want to hear it!”
Chi Qing didn’t want Xie Lin to repeat the joke Teacher Wu had told: “Sit back down and memorize your words.”
Su Xiaobo: “Sometimes, learning requires a balance of work and rest!”
Chi Qing asked: “What does ‘ability’ mean?”
Su Xiaobo: “…”
With so many ‘a’s, how was he supposed to remember?
Chi Qing: “You’re taking a break before you’ve even finished memorizing the first page, and yet you still want to reach Rome?”
“…”
Probing to this extent, Xie Lin could almost confirm that Chi Qing was indeed jealous.
The two dropped Su Xiaobo off at the police station, telling him to do his homework at Su Xiaolan’s desk. It was the first time in Su Xiaobo’s life he had brought a workbook home. The notebook was brand new; he opened it solemnly to the first page and wrote the character “Jie” (解) on the first line.
He paused for a long time, then moved his pen down, skipped a large space, and wrote “Jie” again.
By the time he had finished writing “Jie” after every question, a long time had passed. Su Xiaobo let out a long sigh, as if doing this homework was incredibly exhausting: “Studying is so hard. I’ve worked so hard, I hope the ‘Dunce Serial Killer’ won’t come looking for me.”
Xie Lin: “…”
Chi Qing: “…”
Having never fallen below the top three in their grade during their student years, the two of them completely failed to understand the world of a poor student.
They didn’t stay long at the police station. On the way back, Xie Lin occasionally brought up Teacher Wu’s name: “Being a teacher is quite exhausting. She has to prepare lessons every day, and the students in her class don’t obey her very well.”
Only one sentence echoed in Chi Qing’s mind:
Are you done yet?
Every time Xie Lin spoke, the urge Chi Qing felt to be sharp-tongued surged.
When the car pulled into the garage, Chi Qing unbuckled his seatbelt and pushed the car door open. He didn’t wait for Xie Lin at all, nor did he care if Xie Lin was following him.
After Chi Qing entered the elevator, Xie Lin slid his hand into the closing door gap just a second before it shut.
Chi Qing: “I don’t want to see you right now. Take the next one.”
Xie Lin squeezed into the elevator, wanting to get him to clarify: “…Why don’t you want to see me? Why do you find me displeasing?”
Chi Qing: “Do I need a reason?”
Xie Lin: “Of course you do. For example, is it because I… do something specific? Think carefully, why?”
Xie Lin wanted to guide him to realize that this emotion was called “jealousy.”
Realizing that Chi Qing was jealous, Xie Lin was happy.
Chi Qing’s emotions were usually very faint; he didn’t seem to have the feelings of an ordinary person. Although he had told him he liked him, he wouldn’t take the initiative to send him messages, let alone… act jealous like he did today.
However, Xie Lin waited for a while, giving Chi Qing time to think.
Before the elevator opened, Chi Qing found an explanation for his feelings and replied: “If you need a reason… it might be like what they say on TV.”
“They all say that love sometimes goes very fast,” Chi Qing analyzed earnestly, “like a tornado.”
“…”
Chi Qing: “I feel like that might make some sense now.”
Xie Lin had never imagined Chi Qing would conclude with such nonsense, and his temple throbbed fiercely.
The elevator reached their floor.
Once Chi Qing had “figured it out,” his mood felt less stifled.
The word “jealousy” didn’t exist in his vocabulary, so his train of thought took eighteen turns, finally ending bizarrely at “love goes too fast.”
So this was the elusive nature of love.
No wonder so many people were troubled by it.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to be happy.
With this thought in mind, Chi Qing intended to give himself some time to reorganize. Just as he reached the door, the cat inside heard their footsteps, jumped off the sofa, and sat at the door to greet them. Yet, despite the cat staring longingly for a long time, the door didn’t open.
Chi Qing took off his gloves to type in the password. His fingertips touched the touchscreen, and just as he hit the halfway point, his wrist was grabbed by Xie Lin, and he was pulled in the opposite direction.
Chi Qing was dragged to the apartment across the hall. Once the door opened, he was pinned against the wall.
Not even the lights in the entryway were on.
The hallway was very dark. Chi Qing watched as Xie Lin raised his hands and loosened the tie at his chest, bit by bit. Xie Lin looked like he was in a bad mood; he rarely acted like this. His slightly raised eyebrows were drawn down, creating a sense of invisible pressure. But his face was so uniquely gifted that even with a cold expression, the action still gave one a sense of lingering, tender reverie.
He lowered his head, meeting Chi Qing’s eyes, and repeated, word for word: “Love goes too fast, like what? A tornado?”
“Where do you even see these messy things?”
Chi Qing: “On TV.”
For the first time, Xie Lin let out a string of foul language: “TV dramas are all damn unrealistic.”
Chi Qing: “?”
Even after Xie Lin pinned him there and said all that, Chi Qing still didn’t know what the theme of this conversation was supposed to be.
Xie Lin felt that words alone wouldn’t make Chi Qing understand, so he took his phone out of his jacket, gritted his teeth, and said: “Like a tornado, right? Fine. I’m calling Teacher Wu right now.”
The tornado in Chi Qing’s heart began to swirl violently, almost blowing him away. He frowned, suppressed his annoyance, and said: “What does she have to do with anything? Why are you calling her?”
Xie Lin: “I’m in a bad mood, just looking for someone to talk to.”
Having said that, Xie Lin actually typed a string of numbers onto the screen. But just as he finished, the phone was taken away by a pale hand, which deleted the numbers one by one.
After deleting them, Chi Qing found himself an excuse: “Not disturbing people outside of working hours is the most basic social etiquette.”
Having said that, he couldn’t go on.
He, a person who didn’t socialize at all, was preaching about social etiquette to Xie Lin.
The atmosphere remained quiet for two seconds.
“I don’t like you smiling at her, and I don’t like you calling her,” Chi Qing said during those two seconds of silence, casting aside all excuses and voicing his most honest, most unreasonable thoughts. “It’s best if you stop replying to her messages, too.”
“Every time you talk to her, I think you look especially displeasing today.”
Having said this, Chi Qing prepared himself to be scolded with a “Are you sick?”
How could a normal person have these thoughts? They were just talking, just making a phone call.
…
However, Xie Lin let out a sigh of relief. He loosened his hands from against the wall and pinched Chi Qing’s ear: “I thought you were going to continue telling me about the tornado. It seems you still have a conscience after all.”
“You are jealous.”
Xie Lin sighed. “It’s not because the tornado went too fast; it’s because you care about me, so you don’t want to see me talking to others. Understand?”
Xie Lin led him to recognize, bit by bit, what this emotion actually was.
“Only when you like someone do you act like this.”
“If you get too close to others, I won’t be happy either, but it’s not because I find you displeasing. On the contrary, it’s because I like you that I feel this way.”
Xie Lin swiped open his phone, navigated to the chat history with the new contact, and showed him the screen.
In the chat record, Teacher Wu was very polite, saying “Thank you for the coffee” and including a very cute sticker.
Xie Lin’s reply was relatively long: “You’re welcome. My partner also really likes drinking coffee from this shop.”
Perhaps the words “my partner” were too direct; they carried too much destructive power.
The other side didn’t reply again.
Looking at those three words, Chi Qing found that the indescribable discomfort vanished in an instant.
When Chi Qing was acting in the past, he always thought the director’s requirements were unreasonable—how to act “happy but not happy,” or “wanting to see someone but not daring to”—it was like being asked to find a “colorful black” in the darkness.
But now, he seemed to understand a little bit.
Liking someone.
Or rather, the word “love.”
It is the source of all human emotion.
