Chi Qing didn’t catch the underlying meaning behind Xie Lin’s probing.
After Xie Lin finished asking, he watched Chi Qing chop a piece of beef into slices with a swift and practiced motion, rendering all his previous plans void.
…Honestly, this particular hobby of his was something he couldn’t handle. He certainly couldn’t just jump off the balcony right now and turn himself into a corpse.
During the meal, Chi Qing noticed that Xie Lin, who was usually talkative enough to make one want to gag him, was uncharacteristically quiet. He ate in silence, washed the dishes in silence, and then, under the cat’s unfriendly gaze, cleaned the litter box in silence.
As Chi Qing was seeing him out, he couldn’t help but ask, “Was my cooking that bad?”
Xie Lin decided he needed to go back and rethink his strategic deployment. “No, it’s just that I’ve encountered some setbacks in life.”
Chi Qing thought to himself: It’s just a meal. Do setbacks really come that suddenly?
He had no idea that he himself was the very obstacle in Xie Lin’s path.
After returning home that night and showering, Xie Lin dragged Wu Zhi away from the nightlife scene. His hair was dripping wet; he wiped it while asking, “Ask you something—of all the tricks I taught you, which one is the most useful?”
Wu Zhi, just getting high on alcohol, was jumping around at a booth while holding a champagne glass, shouting, “What? What tricks?”
Xie Lin: “…You have two minutes. Find a quiet place to take this call.”
When Wu Zhi’s voice returned, it was much quieter. “What tricks?”
Xie Lin scratched his hair. “The ones I taught you before. The tricks for pursuing someone.”
Wu Zhi suspected that the alcohol he’d been drinking was being poured into Xie Lin’s brain instead. “Aren’t those things you taught me? Why would you need to ask me?”
It was precisely because Xie Lin couldn’t remember a single thing when he was in front of Chi Qing that he had to ask.
After a long pause, Xie Lin pulled the towel from around his neck. The only time he showed anything close to a normal person’s impatience was in front of those he was close to. “My memory is bad, I forgot. You talk too much, just answer the question.”
Wu Zhi thought for a moment. “Cater to their preferences?”
“…”
If he followed that solution, he would be back at the starting point, which was effectively suicide.
Xie Lin asked, “Anything else? I taught you so much, and after thinking for so long, that’s all you could squeeze out? Did my words go into a pig’s brain?”
Wu Zhi: “I… let me think more.”
Wu Zhi squatted on the side of the road, sobering up in the cold wind. “I remember you saying before… adults rely on seduction? That was actually quite useful.”
Xie Lin repeated the word “seduction” to himself.
A few minutes later, Chi Qing had finally managed to lie down in bed. After Xie Lin left, he had a half-hour long negotiation with the cat: “No entering the bedroom, no clawing at the door in the middle of the night. Living room, guest room, study—stay wherever you want, understand?”
The cat: “Meow?”
Chi Qing: “If you don’t listen, I’ll call the guy from across the hall to deal with you.”
The cat: “…?”
Xie Lin was quite useful; much like the bogeyman from childhood whose name alone could terrify children into crying, the cat hesitated at the door of Chi Qing’s bedroom. It looked longingly into the room several times, but in the end, it did not enter, even retreating a few steps away from the door.
However, the moment Chi Qing got into bed, the “bogeyman” from across the hall sent a message.
—Are you asleep?
Chi Qing replied: Asleep.
—Are you replying in your dreams?
A few minutes later, Xie Lin sent two more words.
—Open the door.
Chi Qing pulled the door open. “What now?”
Xie Lin’s hair was still wet. After his call with Wu Zhi, he had gone back into the bathroom and poured water over his hair, which he had finally managed to dry. The man’s eyes were slightly narrowed, his expression languid and tired. His collar was calculatedly open below his collarbone, and the scent of his body wash was distinct, carrying a hint of coolness as he drifted in. “My hairdryer is broken. Do you have one?”
Chi Qing: “Wait.”
The cat hadn’t expected that even after it had obediently gone to sleep in the living room, Chi Qing would still let that person from across the hall in. Its tail stood up, eyes wide in a defensive posture, looking between Chi Qing and Xie Lin. The latter walked in, lowered his head to adjust his sleeves, pulled at his collar, and then crouched down to deliberately tease it.
Xie Lin grabbed both of the cat’s front paws and leaned in to whisper in its ear, “You don’t like me, right? I’ll give you a chance—scratch me.”
The cat struggled violently in his hands—
“Meow (Are you sick in the head)!”
Xie Lin had just rolled up his sleeves, revealing a clean wrist. He smiled and bargained with it, “It’s useless to just run away when you meet someone you hate. What are your claws for? Can you scratch someone or not? I’ll let go once you do.”
The cat struggled even harder. Even if it didn’t like Xie Lin, it didn’t want to scratch him; it had been well-trained by the cat house since it was a kitten.
Even a dog will jump a wall if cornered, let alone a cat.
In the struggle, the cat’s claw accidentally left a scratch on Xie Lin’s wrist.
Xie Lin looked at the mark connecting his wrist and the back of his hand, satisfied, and let it go. “Although it’s a bit shallow… it’s enough. If you had just scratched me earlier, it would have been fine.”
The cat fled under the sofa like a bolt of lightning: “Meow meow meow (You really are sick)!”
So, when Chi Qing found the hairdryer in the bathroom and handed it to Xie Lin, he found that in less than two minutes, the man had gained a bright red wound on his hand.
Chi Qing: “…”
Xie Lin: “Your cat scratched me.”
Chi Qing had a one-sided feud with the cat, but after a few days, he understood its cowardly nature: “It usually doesn’t extend its claws.”
Xie Lin held out his wrist and gently wiped the blood with his finger, smearing the scratch. “Then you’ll have to ask it. I was just trying to pet it.” Having said that, Xie Lin presented his ultimate goal, “Anyway, tell me what to do. My hand hurts; I’m afraid I can’t blow-dry my hair.”
“The debt has a debtor; the wrong has a perpetrator,” Chi Qing pointed at the cat, refusing to accept this pretext. “Tell it to blow-dry your hair for you.”
Xie Lin: “?”
Chi Qing: “I’ve been looking at this cat with annoyance for a long time anyway. Do whatever you want with it.”
If that cat could understand human speech, it would have discovered that its life was very difficult under these two people. It was just a cat—how did it end up encountering two lunatics?
However, given that Xie Lin had an attitude of if you don’t blow-dry it, I’m not leaving, Chi Qing eventually had to take the blame for the cat. After confirming with Ren Qin one more time that the cat had been vaccinated, he cold-facedly pressed Xie Lin down on the sofa to blow-dry his hair.
Xie Lin’s hair was damp, and warm air flowed from the dryer. Chi Qing hesitated before placing his fingers into Xie Lin’s hair; he couldn’t wear gloves to blow-dry, otherwise the gloves would get wet too.
The next second, the wind caught a few strands of black hair, brushing against Chi Qing’s fingers, which were hovering in mid-air.
The hair was cool, but the wind was hot.
Chi Qing froze for a moment, then rotated his wrist to change the direction of the wind.
Xie Lin’s hair was a bit long, usually styled in a middle part; sometimes the bangs were combed back, making his features appear more striking—like a young master. He was well-suited for suits. When this person wasn’t smiling, he often reminded one of red wine.
A dim yet vivid red, a danger one couldn’t get close to.
Chi Qing was standing, and from his angle, Xie Lin’s collar was open just right, half-concealed and half-revealed; one could vaguely glimpse the contours below the collarbone, and further down, the lines of his figure were swallowed by the layered shirt fabric. This angle looked exactly like a magazine shoot.
Chi Qing looked away. “Aren’t you cold?”
Xie Lin: “Just finished a shower, a bit hot. What’s wrong?”
Chi Qing wanted to say “pull your clothes up,” but that would make it seem like he cared too much about the matter. He increased the wind speed nonchalantly, calculating how to finish quickly.
The cat under the sofa was a bit bored, cautiously poking out half its little head, chin resting on the floor, watching the two of them.
Blow-drying hair was actually a very private act.
The wind was soft, and the hair was soft, carrying a very secret intimacy.
This kind of intimacy had always been far from Chi Qing’s world, as if he had been backed into a corner, forced to look straight at his own messy, recent thoughts. Both his heartbeat and his dreams were looking for a way out.
Xie Lin raised his hand to touch his hair to see if it was dry. Just as he reached back, his hand happened to touch Chi Qing’s hand, which hadn’t had time to pull away.
The man’s voice was very low, sighing: [Blow-drying hair—is it really that fast?]
Chi Qing just wanted to put the dryer down as quickly as possible. His thoughts were a mess, so he answered casually: “Seven minutes. It’s not fast. If you’re not done, hold it and do it yourself. I’m going to sleep.”
After Chi Qing said he was going to sleep, he truly ignored him, leaving Xie Lin alone in the living room to tidy up the power strip and wires. Although he had come over with a purpose—deliberately making Chi Qing blow-dry his hair—when Chi Qing actually did it, his own brain started to short-circuit.
His head was filled with the sensation of Chi Qing’s hand brushing against his hair.
By the time Xie Lin had neatly wound the wires, he finally regained his focus.
He realized a very strange detail.
He had just thought that time had passed too quickly, but he hadn’t said it out loud. So, how had Chi Qing answered his inner thought so accurately?
To take a step back, it wasn’t impossible for Chi Qing to have guessed, but his tone had been far too certain.
Certain as if… the two of them were just chatting as usual; Xie Lin said something, and Chi Qing replied to it.
But he hadn’t said a single word.
Sentiments as lingering as “feeling the time pass too quickly while blow-drying hair” could only be kept hidden in the depths of his heart for the time being.
Only one sensor light was on in the living room. Xie Lin lowered his eyes, standing silently in the darkness. Previously scattered details came one after another, like fragments being pieced together, eventually forming an image of a puzzle being solved.
—”He has germaphobia and doesn’t like people touching him.”
—”He wears black gloves wherever he goes.”
At the entrance of the bathhouse:
Chi Qing carrying a plastic bag while saying to Ji Mingrui:
—”Why are you standing there watching me? Why don’t you go in and catch the person?”
—”Ren Qin is very likely the next victim.”
—”There was no evidence pointing to Ren Qin; how did you know?”
…
The trivial fragments gradually gathered.
Finally, they stopped at those words just now—
Blow-drying hair—is it really that fast?
Seven minutes. It’s not fast.
“Meow…”
A faint meow came from under the sofa.
The cat was staring straight at Xie Lin, as if asking, “Why aren’t you leaving yet?”
Xie Lin bent down to put the hairdryer away. “Alright, leaving now.”
“You’re just like your master; in terms of being unwelcoming to people, you’re exactly the same,” Xie Lin looked helplessly at the claw poking out, muttering to himself in a low voice, “…If you’re going to hide, hide properly. Leaving a claw out like that, as if you’re afraid someone won’t see it.”
