“Who gave you the right to make decisions here!” On the projector, Yellow Hair questioned Sisi. His voice wasn’t loud, but the anger in his eyes had solidified on his face. The mole on his chin trembled with an evil red light.
The focus of the conflict instantly shifted between Sisi and Yellow Hair. Ji Xun suddenly went from being in imminent danger to watching the fire from the other side of the river.
He even managed a slight smile at the leader holding the watermelon knife.
However, his smugness didn’t last long. A little afraid of being charged with murder, but also equally afraid of her financial backer, Yellow Hair, Sisi came up with a terrible idea from her tight spot:
“Brother Chen, don’t be anxious. Wasn’t there another police officer with the surname Huo who was chasing you with him? It doesn’t make sense to just punish one and let the other go. We should use the person we have to lure him over and cut the weeds by the roots. This way, we can also prevent that well-coordinated cop from finding clues and locating us right away, just like he said, right?”
“That makes some sense.” Yellow Hair looked at Sisi, then at Ji Xun. “But how are you going to lure a police officer over? He’s a criminal investigator, his guard will be up…”
“I can try.” Sisi volunteered, bent down, picked up Ji Xun’s phone from the floor, and started operating it with her head down.
The phone had already been hacked, so the lock screen was useless.
Sisi easily opened Ji Xun’s WeChat and found Huo Ranyin’s contact—this was also simple, as Ji Xun had just sent Huo Ranyin a message hinting for him to bring people over.
“Sarcastic generous cheapskate.” Sisi read out the nickname Ji Xun had given Huo Ranyin on WeChat, word by word. “This is it, right?”
Ji Xun kept his mouth tightly shut, not wanting to answer.
Yellow Hair, however, said, “I want to watch your conversation with the police officer.”
Sisi said coquettishly, “When I do things, does Brother Chen not trust me?”
Yellow Hair said impatiently, “Stop acting cute, hurry up.”
So Sisi had to project the phone screen. All at once, the chat interface between Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin was magnified several times, appearing for all to see.
Ji Xun quickly recalled his chat history with Huo Ranyin and secretly breathed a sigh of relief:
Fortunately, he and Huo Ranyin mostly worked on cases together, so they didn’t chat much on WeChat. They also didn’t like to say anything outrageous, provocative, or secretive on WeChat…
Then, the bathroom photo Ji Xun had once sent to Huo Ranyin appeared on the screen.
A few water droplets hung on the edge of the white bathtub, and the red wine in a wooden tray rippled in the steaming water.
When this photo appeared on the big screen, Ji Xun felt gazes shooting at him from all directions, with Sisi’s being the most meaningful.
“And you said you weren’t GAY. I knew it. With my sharp eyes, how could I be wrong,” Sisi pouted.
“…” Ji Xun.
One misstep leads to eternal regret.
“Actually…” he tried to say something, to explain, to gloss over.
Sisi didn’t give him the chance. She gave Ji Xun a smirk that said, “keep pretending,” first telling Yellow Hair, “Have the hacker unlock the phone’s controls,” then lowered her head, and with a tap-tap-tap, her rhinestone-adorned fingertips flew across the phone’s keyboard. Ji Xun saw these four words appear in his chat box with Huo Ranyin.
“What are you doing？”
Half of the four words were tone particles, coquettish and flirtatious.
Ji Xun instantly relaxed: This was definitely not the tone I usually use with Huo Ranyin.
He started to mock, “Huo Ranyin won’t let his guard down just because you’re messaging him from my account. I advise you to be more cautious, lest he turns the tables on you and tricks you into revealing the location…”
Before he could finish, the phone screen flashed.
Huo Ranyin had replied, and quite seriously at that: “Team dinner.”
“…” Ji Xun.
Ji Xun spoke with difficulty, “I have an idea. How about I sacrifice my body a little? You guys can beat me up and send him a photo of my battle-damaged state. Let’s not do this unreliable chatting thing. Or how about this, you beat me up, then let me record a video, I guarantee all the injuries will be from me falling on my own, and it will have nothing to do with you, Yellow Hair. It’ll satisfy your desire for revenge, and you brothers won’t have to bear criminal responsibility. Isn’t that the best of both worlds? If that’s not good enough, I can perform a fracture. Not the right hand, I need that to write. A cast on my left hand for a month or so is also fine—how about considering it?”
However, no one paid him any attention. He was completely ignored. Sisi had a triumphant smile on her face because after the “team dinner,” Huo Ranyin had sent another message: “Yuan Yue is also here.”
“Who is Yuan Yue?” Sisi asked.
Ji Xun’s spirits lifted, but then he saw Sisi looking at him with ill intent, slowly and delicately typing on the screen.
“Why do you always mention Yuan Yue when we’re talking?”
“Oh…” Huo Ranyin replied, and as if that wasn’t enough, he sent a [Nodding] sticker.
“…” Ji Xun.
He looked at Sisi for the third time. Sisi gave him a cold, emotionless smile.
Trying to teach me how to seduce someone? When I was seducing people, you were still playing with mud in kindergarten.
Today’s Ji Xun was extra talkative. After he sent the sticker, Ji Xun continued:
“Do you miss me?”
Huo Ranyin’s fingers paused. He didn’t reply immediately.
“I miss you,” Ji Xun said again. “You don’t miss me at all? I’m going on a business trip tomorrow.”
“…It’s only for three days,” Huo Ranyin.
“A day apart feels like three autumns,” Ji Xun. “You’re so bad, I want to bite you.”
Huo Ranyin looked at the sentence that popped up, somewhat bewildered, and for a moment suspected that the effects of alcohol had been transmitted from their table to Ji Xun’s side through the air. Or had Ji Xun been drinking and gotten drunk while writing at home?
Ji Xun continued: “Bite your buttons, from the first button, all the way down, bite to the last button. Then bite further down, bite your belt. Captain Huo, do you wear a belt?”
Huo Ranyin stared at the sentence. The faint scent of alcohol suddenly became intoxicating, choking his throat, yet also exuding a thick sweetness.
They had just seen each other yesterday. More than just seen. His shoulders still remembered the coldness and hardness of the window glass in Ji Xun’s home, and the scorching breath that simultaneously brushed against his neck.
Ice and fire.
His body became a zither, played upon by the other’s rhythm of light and heavy strokes, resonating with loud twangs.
“Come, come, everyone, let’s have a toast!” A clamor suddenly erupted from the table. Tan Mingjiu, drunk, slammed the table and stood up, pulling Hu Yuan who was sitting next to him. The female medical examiner gave Tan Mingjiu a displeased look. “Captain Huo, you solved three cases in one month. Awesome, I’m impressed, I toast to you.”
Huo Ranyin was suddenly startled, like someone whose deepest secret was on the verge of being discovered, filled with guilt and nervousness. He quickly hid his phone under the table. He stood up, raised his glass, and drank with the people at the table.
When he sat down again, his gaze shifted downwards and saw, under the table, on the brightly lit screen, a new message from Ji Xun:
“Do you miss me?”
…I do.
That word popped into Huo Ranyin’s mind. He wrote it in the chat box, deleted it, wrote it again, always feeling too embarrassed. His fingertip slipped, and he accidentally dialed the number.
But the call was immediately hung up.
In WeChat, a location was sent over.
“Don’t think you can brush me off.” Ji Xun commanded him lightly, quickly, and imperiously. “Come find me. I want to see you.”
In the unfinished apartment, watching the chat history appear line by line on the screen, Ji Xun felt… social death.
“This isn’t necessary,” Ji Xun said, devoid of any will to live. If he could turn back time by a few minutes, he would never have run his mouth off like that. “Anyone will do, a knife to the chest, just give me a quick end!”
The only response he got was Sisi’s mockery: “He’s coming.”
She shook the phone at Ji Xun. At the same time, Ji Xun saw Huo Ranyin’s reply on the screen. It was just one word.
“Okay.”
Huo Ranyin casually made an excuse and left the hotpot restaurant. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a casual sweatshirt. Although it was spring, the wind was still cold, which was just right to blow away some of the heat from his face.
He stood silently, leaning against the wall, scrolling through their chat history.
His fingertip scrolled up bit by bit, to the bathroom photo Ji Xun had sent him, then to the time they talked about a late-night snack. Finally, he swiped the screen back to tonight’s conversation and read those few sentences over and over again, especially the call he had made that was cut off.
Then, the warmth on his face was finally swept clean by the wind.
He closed his phone, turned back inside, picked up his jacket hanging on the chair, shook it, and put it on.
Tan Mingjiu, with drunken eyes, asked, “Captain Huo, are you done eating? Are we leaving?”
“Yeah.” Huo Ranyin reached out and turned off the hotpot. “Stop eating. Get up and get to work. We have a kidnapping case, victim is Ji Xun.”
The bustling, festive dinner table was as if someone had pressed the mute button.
Those drinking, those grabbing food, those scrolling on their phones, all looked up in unison, their gazes fixed on Huo Ranyin.
The fire was out, and the white steam dissipated into the cold air. Amidst a sea of stunned faces, Tan Mingjiu let out a comical “Gack.”
