The ring Xie Lin took off was lying in Chi Qing’s hand. Because the “treatment” was still ongoing, one of his hands was still being held by Xie Lin. He wanted to give the ring back, but when he tried to pinch the band with one hand, he couldn’t get a good grip. The cold, silver-lustered ring slipped down from the tip of his index finger.
His fingers were slender, and the ring met no obstruction from his knuckles as it slipped, sliding smoothly all the way down to the base of his finger: “…”
Xie Lin: “This one is too big for you to wear. If you like it, I’ll ask the store clerk if this style is still in stock.”
Chi Qing’s fingers were indeed slender; wearing it left a very obvious gap.
Chi Qing thought to himself, Who else is as bored as you, buying rings for yourself to wear for no reason.
Chi Qing: “I don’t like it.”
Chi Qing had never worn rings, nor had he ever worn any hand ornaments. After all, accessories affected his hand-washing speed.
Moreover, wearing gloves normally made it inconvenient, let alone wearing someone else’s ring… He didn’t even want to touch people, let alone touch other people’s things.
He bent his fingers, taking the ring off with great discomfort: “It accidentally slipped down by itself.”
Xie Lin didn’t say much else, taking the ring and casually slipping it onto his ring finger.
This unexpected topic of the ring was quickly turned over, and the two didn’t say anything more. The sleepiness that Chi Qing had forgotten just now struck again. With his fingertips resting in Xie Lin’s palm, he realized that the initial discomfort was also fading. He even felt that when he was in Xie Lin’s home… he was much more relaxed than in his own home.
Chi Qing leaned against the sofa and slept for a while. He didn’t have any dreams, didn’t hear any voices, and didn’t need to worry about being startled awake by someone’s voice halfway through his sleep. He only vaguely heard the sound of the man beside him turning pages while reading documents.
By the time Chi Qing caught up on his sleep and woke up, it was late at night again.
No matter how much he didn’t want to pay attention to Xie Lin, he had to admit that acting like this was indeed disturbing his rest.
So, as Xie Lin walked him to the door, Chi Qing stopped and stood at the doorway for a moment: “Are you free tomorrow night?”
Xie Lin looked at him and asked in return: “I’m free. Are you coming home with me again?”
“…”
Chi Qing: “Treating you to a meal.”
“Are you sure?” Xie Lin said with a skeptical tone. “If we eat at home, washing a dish is like taking your life. If we eat out, you complain there are too many people.”
When Xie Lin mentioned washing dishes, he was referring to what happened after they ate last time. Looking like he completely didn’t want to touch tableware others had touched, Chi Qing still had to carry the plates to wash them.
Chi Qing thought about it and felt it was indeed the case: “Then forget it.”
Xie Lin leaned against the door: “You give up quite fast.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Xie Lin added: “Actually, there’s no need to go through so much trouble. If you want to pay me back, I happen to have something I want your help with.”
After returning, Xie Lin had taken off his jacket, leaving only a dark-colored sweater with a loosely hanging collar. Paired with his face, he looked like he had just gotten out of bed.
“?”
“You should have heard that I returned to the General Bureau,” Xie Lin paused and said, “The case is quite complex, so I’m missing an assistant.”
Chi Qing lay on his bed. At this hour, there wasn’t much noise in the building.
There was a girl staying up late watching a drama, currently crying her eyes out over a tragic Korean drama: [No—turn around and look at him!]
“…”
[He’s actually lying to you! He didn’t fall in love with that woman, he just got a terminal illness and doesn’t want you to suffer. Just talk it out clearly, don’t break up qaq! Can’t you walk the last leg of life’s journey together!]
[…]
While listening to this messy, incomprehensible plot, Chi Qing was thinking about that sentence Xie Lin had just said.
Before Xie Lin spoke, Chi Qing had imagined what kind of demands he might make. He imagined many things, but the only thing he hadn’t considered was an invitation to become a “General Bureau Consultant Assistant.”
His phone screen suddenly lit up.
On the screen was a new message:
– Think about it, give me an answer tomorrow.
Chi Qing was indeed considering it.
If Xie Lin had said this half a month ago, he definitely would have unhesitatingly told him to shake the water out of his brain, and then told him to go back wherever he came from.
But compared to hiding in the building every day, irresistibly receiving all kinds of voices every day… he admitted that staying by Xie Lin’s side, having a place with a “one-click mute” button, was indeed very attractive to him.
Chi Qing’s past work experience was very simple. He acted in plays. Although his roles were all very small with only a few lines, during other times, as long as he was willing, he could run small gigs acting as background boards—but he complained there were too many people. Even if he went, he wouldn’t give anyone a good face, staying three meters away from other guests. He was frequently criticized for this.
He had no interest in people. Even when he previously learned that a murder had occurred near his home, he didn’t feel anything.
It was very hard for him to feel sympathy for the victims or fear of the killer.
But he admitted that, putting other things aside, he did have some interest in the cases themselves.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have impulsively gotten involved in the cat killing case on a rainy day, nor would he have followed the buzz-cut guy all the way down the street.
So he wasn’t very repulsed by the nature of this work.
Coupled with the fact that he needed Xie Lin’s help with his “treatment”… After weighing the pros and cons, Chi Qing’s attitude wavered.
“You want to bring an assistant?” Early the next morning, Wu Zhibin couldn’t help but raise his voice on the phone, doubting if he had heard wrong. “Who? Chi Qing?”
Xie Lin didn’t deny it, changing the subject: “Have you eaten yet? Don’t skip meals just because your body has no problems right now.”
Wu Zhibin cut off the question about eating: “First tell me, is it him?”
Xie Lin: “It’s him. Who else could it be.”
Wu Zhibin: “…”
Wu Zhibin really wasn’t sure if Xie Lin and Chi Qing getting too close was a good thing or not.
Xie Lin caught Wu Zhibin’s brief silence: “Brother Bin, your reaction wasn’t quite right last time I mentioned him either.”
Wu Zhibin touched his nose: “I just feel that he… looks quite dangerous.”
After a long while, Wu Zhibin heard Xie Lin say: “I’m quite dangerous too.”
This statement left Wu Zhibin not knowing what to say for a moment.
Xie Lin normally acted too relaxedly, making people lower their guard. He was no different from a normal person, and was even more capable of gaining others’ trust than many people—this often made Wu Zhibin forget about that psychological evaluation report of Xie Lin’s from years ago.
“Why him?” Wu Zhibin finally asked. “You rarely keep people by your side.”
Xie Lin thought for a moment and gave his answer: “He really can be helpful to the case.”
Although he had a certain degree of selfish motives, he didn’t deny the objective reasons: “…He is very smart.”
So smart that it often made people feel he had entered the wrong profession. Besides his excessively beautiful face that sometimes reminded people of the word “celebrity,” Chi Qing had absolutely nothing to do with the acting profession. Case investigation clearly suited him better.
“There’s one more thing. Currently, I haven’t found any suspicion on him,” Xie Lin said. “But maybe it’s intuition… I always feel he’s still hiding something.”
Xie Lin admitted he was curious about Chi Qing.
Wu Zhibin muttered: “That guy might not even be willing to come.”
The night was already deep. Xie Lin stood by the window. Outside the large floor-to-ceiling windows, it was pitch black. He stood there for a while and said: “He might not necessarily be unwilling.”
Because “treatment” seemed to be Chi Qing’s fatal weakness. No matter how hard Chi Qing normally was to talk to, when treatment was mentioned, he could barely transition from “extremely hard to talk to” to “not very easy to talk to.” Although both were hard to talk to, the degree had decreased.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have really repeated his words to the downstairs tenant just now.
So Xie Lin guessed that if it was under the premise of treatment, he might not refuse.
That morning, a striking private sedan was parked next to the row of police cars at the entrance of the General Bureau. After this period, everyone knew that a new “consultant” had arrived at the General Bureau, so they were no longer surprised by that slightly incongruous black sedan.
After Xie Lin rolled down the car window, passing staff members greeted him: “Consultant Xie, morning.”
Xie Lin smiled and responded: “Morning, quite busy today, huh.”
That staff member was just about to say “serving the people,” but before the words left his mouth, through the car window, he noticed that Consultant Xie hadn’t come alone today. There was another person sitting in the passenger seat. At first glance, he didn’t clearly see what the person looked like, but he did notice that before getting out of the car, the person took two black gloves out of his jacket pocket. Slender fingers grasped the black fabric, leisurely putting the gloves on.
Inside the General Bureau.
Since Xie Lin’s return to the General Bureau, no big news had happened in the bureau. But today, there was an extra piece: “Consultant Xie… who is that beside him?”
A few people whispered among themselves: “Which one?”
“The one in black clothes, wearing gloves, looks quite pretty.”
The word “pretty” was rarely used to describe a man, but no one would object when applied to this strange man.
Someone remembered something: “I’ve seen him before. He came here once. I remember he sat in the hallway outside the interrogation room for a long time.”
There were also those who had just returned from snooping for news: “Heard it’s the assistant Consultant Xie found.”
“Consultant assistant?” someone said. “…Then he can be considered the second consultant. Our General Bureau actually hired two consultants, it’s truly a rare sight.”
In formal positions, there was actually no such thing as a consultant assistant. If he was to assist in investigating cases together, according to the rules and regulations, he belonged to the position of a second consultant.
The person they were discussing was currently sitting in the conference room.
Around the long table were all detectives in uniform. The number of people sitting there looking out of place had gone from one to two.
Chi Qing’s black-gloved hands rested, folded on the table. With his eyes lowered, he accepted the scrutinizing gazes of the others.
Two hours ago, Chi Qing had just woken up. After washing his face, the water dampened the broken hair on his forehead. Just as he was about to dry his face, he saw a message from Xie Lin: How is your consideration coming along?
Chi Qing blinked, and the water droplets pressing on his eyelashes slid down with the movement.
He pulled down the towel hanging on the wall, dried the water off his fingers, and sent back four words.
– How long is the term.
Xie Lin replied quickly.
– That depends on how long your treatment period is.
[No, you promised to go see the first snow of winter together, how can you leave first QAQ—Why must cancer separate you two—]
After a whole night, the girl in the building watching the drama finally reached the end of the tragic romance, crying with increasingly genuine emotion.
[I’d rather be the one to die than have the couple I ship not be together!]
[…]
Having experienced a night of torment, Chi Qing, as if possessed, agreed.
But when he actually sat down in the conference room and heard the pile of noises around him, he began to wonder if his decision was too arbitrary.
The news of the General Bureau getting another consultant spread quickly. The hardworking police officers at the Yongan Police Station also soon received this news: “Heard a second consultant arrived at the General Bureau.”
As soon as Ji Mingrui started work, he got a big scoop of gossip: “Second consultant, that awesome?”
Ji Mingrui was full of enthusiasm, thinking it was a criminal psychology expert specially invited by the General Bureau: “Elaborate in detail.”
“To elaborate in detail, this person seems to be quite good-looking,” the person holding the firsthand gossip source said.
Ji Mingrui was very supportive: “A handsome guy, huh.”
The gossip source continued: “Heard that although he’s good-looking, he seems quite unapproachable.”
“Awesome people tend to have more personality,” Ji Mingrui smacked his lips. “Understandable.”
“Also likes wearing gloves, heard he has germophobia.”
“…?”
Ji Mingrui froze for a moment. As he kept eating this melon (gossip), why did the flavor seem a bit familiar?
