Not long ago, the relationship between these two was still one tying the other up with a necktie, and the other holding an umbrella in the rain pointing the tip at the other.
Because of the treatment for losing control, they could actually stand together calmly and talk now.
Before coming, Chi Qing wasn’t sure if Xie Lin had fallen asleep. After finishing his sentence, he finally realized how sudden his visit was. Ever since his mind-reading ability lost control, even his own actions had started becoming uncontrollable.
“…” Xie Lin motioned for him to come in: “Come in and wait a bit first, let me dry my hair.”
Xie Lin had just taken a shower. The tips of his hair were still dripping water. The bangs that were normally parted to the sides were now docilely scattered over his forehead, covering those slightly upturned eyes. A water droplet dripping down from the tips of his hair fell precisely onto the back of Chi Qing’s hand.
Feeling the coldness on the back of his hand, and struggling against his insomnia, Chi Qing finally said rationally: “If you’re planning to sleep, we’ll do it another day.”
Finding it inconvenient to see with water dripping, Xie Lin half-squinted his eyes: “Didn’t plan on sleeping. Come in.”
Chi Qing found a spot on the sofa to wait for him.
Xie Lin came out of the bathroom when his hair was half-dry. Without any styling, his hair became exceptionally straight and smooth. He opened the refrigerator and poured a glass of ice water: “Did you take your medicine?”
Chi Qing distinguished Xie Lin’s voice from a messy pile of sounds. Giving an “Mm,” he was afraid Xie Lin would keep asking, so he added: “The fever went down.”
But he looked truly devoid of energy, making this statement very hard to believe.
So without waiting for Xie Lin to speak—being both sleepy and annoyed by the noise, shrinking into the sofa with his eyes half-closed—Chi Qing was caught off guard when someone used their hand to brush up the bangs on his forehead: “…”
Xie Lin had stood in front of him without him noticing. Being very close, he leaned down slightly, a mixed scent of shampoo and body wash drifting over. The smell was like a certain light perfume, carrying a hint of crisp, clear tobacco.
After brushing up the hair on Chi Qing’s forehead, he gently pressed the back of his other hand against it.
“Don’t move,” Xie Lin said. “Let me check your temperature.”
Chi Qing didn’t know what there was to measure: “I checked it before I came. Or do you think you’re more effective than a thermometer?”
Xie Lin: “I’m not more effective than a thermometer, but I can know if you’re lying. After all, some people would rather run a fever than go to the hospital.”
After Xie Lin finished speaking, he looked at him again and said: “…You seem a bit stiff.”
“…”
Due to his stiffness, Chi Qing’s entire sitting posture looked unnatural. Although he hadn’t touched Xie Lin’s hand, the moment Xie Lin reached out and pressed against him, it achieved the same effect. As his body excessively tensed up, his ears suddenly became quiet, with no sounds at all.
Not resisting or feeling disgusted didn’t mean he was used to it, especially since he was accustomed to keeping a distance from people year-round.
Xie Lin withdrew his hand, confirming there was no abnormality in his temperature: “Your complexion isn’t very good. Are you feeling very uncomfortable?”
Chi Qing gradually relaxed his body, and the distorted voices returned to his ears: “Still bearable.”
Xie Lin indeed hadn’t planned on sleeping. After sitting down in the empty sofa chair closest to Chi Qing, he held his phone in one hand and offered his free hand to Chi Qing: “Try it out. If it feels uncomfortable, let go.”
Chi Qing’s fingers reached out from his sleeve, unable to achieve too much contact area. In the end, he only grabbed one of Xie Lin’s fingers.
At the base of that finger was a faint ring mark.
In an instant, all the sounds were like a magic box suddenly snapped shut. Several kinds of voices that were squeezed together, constantly entering and exiting his ears, were instantly retracted back into the magic box.
Although Xie Lin usually didn’t have much to do, with dedicated personnel managing his family’s business affairs, he still normally needed to frequently read email reports.
As he swiped past a few pages, a message from Wu Zhi suddenly appeared in the notification bar.
Wu Zhi: Jianghu emergency.
Wu Zhi: Just five seconds ago, my romance appeared again.
Wu Zhi was currently in a bar. His overall conditions were quite good, but he still cowardly hugged his phone and hid in a corner, deciding not to rashly go up and hit on her before Xie Lin replied to his message.
However, his second parent acted entirely out of character today, only replying with two words.
Xie Lin: Not free.
– ???
– Not free?
– What are you busy with?
– Not exactly busy.
Xie Lin replied.
Looking at these few words, Wu Zhi became even more curious.
– ?
– Can you speak human words? So are you busy or not?
Xie Lin actually couldn’t concentrate much on reading his emails; with someone hooking his hand, it was very hard to focus.
He looked down along his arm and saw those two fingers resting lightly on his knuckles, only a small half extending out from the jacket cuff. The nails were trimmed very cleanly. The pale, slender fingers resting on his hand created a sharp contrast in skin tone.
But the instigator was thoroughly lacking a conscience, having already consciously found a good posture on the sofa and fallen asleep.
Chi Qing bent his legs, curling his entire body up. His loose jacket draped over his body, and his hair covered half of his face, revealing only a thin jawline and lips that were somewhat enchantingly red.
Xie Lin shifted his gaze away from him, returning it to his phone screen to type with one hand.
– Inconvenient today.
– I lent my hand out.
Holding his phone, Wu Zhi suspected whether the DJ at the bar tonight was too crazy, vibrating his brain into a headache and making it hard to function; otherwise, why couldn’t he understand these words Xie Lin sent.
Chi Qing slept for over two hours. When he opened his eyes, he even thought he had returned to before he lost control, that the series of effects caused by the alcohol was just a dream.
He squinted and rested for a moment. Feeling the warm knuckles grasped between his fingers, his consciousness gradually returned.
“Awake?” Xie Lin had just finished handling all his affairs and logged out of his email.
Chi Qing let go. He realized that at this hour of the night, not many people were talking, and almost everyone upstairs and downstairs had fallen asleep: “Sorry.”
“You could have called me.”
Xie Lin didn’t mind: “It’s fine. I just finished my work and wasn’t planning on sleeping yet anyway.”
Chi Qing remembered the last time he entered Xie Lin’s house was also late at night.
It was close to 4 AM at the time, and he hadn’t slept yet.
Chi Qing had been too annoyed by the noise to care before, and only asked now: “Do you always work at night?”
Out of consideration for the “treatment assistance” relationship, he weighed his words carefully, not directly saying ‘No wonder you’re so free during the day.’
Xie Lin caught the word “always” and also recalled the time Chi Qing came knocking last time.
According to his usual style, he probably would have said something nice to gloss over it, like “How could I wait for you if I don’t sleep late,” or something similar. But when the words reached his lips, they took a turn: “…No, it’s just that recently there’s something I don’t know whether I should go do or not.”
“?”
He didn’t know why he could bring this up to Chi Qing.
“A position at the police bureau,” Xie Lin said. “Consultant.”
An old voice surfaced from deep within his memories.
— “Xie Lin, the final assessment result of your psychological evaluation report is… high risk.”
— “We hope you will leave the general brigade. Prolonged exposure to these cases might be detrimental to the development of your psychological health.”
…
— “Before we still had Xie Feng, but now Xie Feng is gone. Who can control him? Who could possibly control him?!”
Chi Qing couldn’t understand: “Why not go?”
Xie Lin raised an eyebrow: “Why must I go?”
Although Chi Qing found it very hard to feel sympathy for the victims’ encounters, his perspective was therefore even more rational and objective: “Because you can solve cases.”
Habitually shrinking his hands back, Chi Qing stated the fact: “If no one had discovered there was a problem with those cat corpses before, what happened to that infant in the end might not have been as simple as just getting a slash.”
Xie Lin froze.
Those voices from Bureau Chief Yuan ten years ago, along with the voices of the other detectives, slowly faded away.
In the end, only one sentence surfaced from his memory.
Only the sentence spoken amidst the sound of explosions— “…you can help many people.”
It was already very late. It was inconvenient for Chi Qing to stay and disturb him any longer. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, looking very exhausted. Before leaving, he said a “Thank you.”
Xie Lin walked him to the door, leaned against it, and laughed: “I’m the one who should thank you.”
The next day.
Inside the still-busy General Bureau, numerous detectives hurried about. Some returned from outside with clues, while others received news and immediately led their teams rushing out. Over these ten years, many batches of new faces had been added to the General Bureau.
Two consecutive cases of people living alone, with extremely little progress over so many days, caused the pressure of public opinion to increase drastically day by day. There were even news reports openly pointing fingers at the investigating police officers.
The killer’s overly proficient modus operandi made them suspect this wasn’t the first or second case. After conducting cross-provincial case transfers, they truly found a few extremely similar cases. These similar cases all came from the neighboring Xiajing City. The landlords involved in those cases said: “I thought she moved out. I told her two months in advance that I wanted the apartment back. I originally found a buyer and planned to sell it. My son is getting married next year, and I wanted to add some money to buy a new place. Who would have known that when I called the cleaning lady over to clean, we found someone dead in my apartment.”
Thus, the General Bureau had to specifically establish an emergency task force to participate in the investigation of the solo-living cases, merging these cases together.
In the already busy General Bureau, these past few days could be described as being terribly overwhelmed with work.
So when Wu Zhibin and Bureau Chief Yuan led a massive group of people to personally welcome someone at the entrance, everyone in the General Bureau felt extremely apprehensive, thinking that the prolonged failure to solve the case had drawn the attention of some big shot.
“Who is it?” someone asked in a low voice, trying to fish for information.
“Don’t know,” another answered. “Such a huge spectacle.”
Everyone was still busy with the tasks at hand, but they occasionally kept an eye on the movements at the entrance.
However, the person who arrived was beyond their expectations.
Not long after Wu Zhibin and Bureau Chief Yuan arrived at the entrance, a car that looked quite expensive slowed down, turned the corner from across the street, and cut across. It then stopped in a very eye-catching manner at the entrance of the General Bureau. The car window slowly rolled down.
A face completely out of place with the General Bureau appeared in the line of sight of everyone who wanted to look but didn’t dare. The atmosphere in the General Bureau was serious and stern, with everyone looking stiff and rigid in their uniforms. But this face clearly had absolutely nothing to do with the word “serious”; instead, he looked like he was here for fun.
Xie Lin rested one hand on the steering wheel, turned his head sideways to look at them through the car window, and greeted them with a smile: “Although I haven’t been here for a long time, I still remember the way into the General Bureau. No need to bring so many people to the entrance to act as my tour guides, Bureau Chief Yuan.”
