WWY Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Stinky Baozi! If I weren’t married…

Chapter 21: Stinky Baozi! If I weren’t married…

As dusk approached, the brightly lit barbecue restaurant gradually filled with customers.

A burst of loud laughter suddenly erupted from a corner of the restaurant, a young man’s voice, clear and not unpleasant. People in the restaurant turned to look, but the area was conveniently blocked by a rack of artistic potted plants. They retracted their gazes and quickly forgot about it.

Lan He, who had been collapsed against the back of the chair beside him laughing for a while, noticed that Tuxi Ling opposite him was acting strange. He looked up and saw that his face was completely red, and he was practically steaming.

He quickly sat up straight and raised three fingers, “Officer Ling, I was just talking nonsense! Your virility is unmatched! I’m definitely the bottom, absolutely me!”

Tuxi Ling’s face twitched, turning even more red.

His mind was filled with that pile of condoms on the floor. He didn’t know when he’d get over that hurdle.

He said with difficulty, “Back then, with your heart condition, how could you mess around like that?”

Lan He tilted his head and looked at him, quickly searching for an excuse in his mind.

But then he heard him say, “Were you doing it on purpose? Did you drug me? Otherwise, in that situation… there’s no way you’d be completely unconscious.”

After years of holding it in, Tuxi Ling blurted it out, then regretted it a bit. He pretended to be calm and started eating, his head almost touching the tabletop, afraid to lift his eyelids.

Stinky Baozi!

Lan He bit his lip and chuckled noncommittally, “First of all, I’m not admitting to your accusations, okay! I’m just asking, if I really did drug you, would you be angry?”

“Of course I’d be angry! But we police officers act based on evidence.” Seeing Lan He still smiling, he sighed, “How could you risk your own body like that?”

Lan He looked at his embarrassed and dejected appearance, a light flashing in his eyes that others couldn’t understand, and explained calmly, “I wasn’t that sick back then.”

Tuxi Ling seemed to confirm something and nodded vigorously, “No wonder!”

His gaze scanned his face for a moment, then slowly moved to his white turtleneck sweater, noticing some black smudges on the collar. He leaned over and reached out to brush it off for him.

Lan He was startled and grabbed his fingers, “What are you doing?”

“It’s dirty, probably from when you fell, right? Let me brush it off for you.”

“I tried, it won’t come off. I don’t know what it is, it’s okay, I’ll have Auntie Long wash it when I get back, she’ll definitely have a way.” Lan He pushed his hand away with a smile, taking the opportunity to change the subject, “Ugh, bad luck! I really shouldn’t have gone out today. Good thing I didn’t run into that suspect you mentioned, or he might have killed me too!”

“Your luck was indeed a bit off, but dating…” Tuxi Ling took out his phone, flipped to the local news, and held it up for him to see, “Look, you’re in the headlines again!”

Lan He glanced at the news title, almost spitting out the juice he had just drunk. He took it and looked at the photos, occasionally commenting on his own appearance in the pictures.

Seeing that he was smiling and seemed to be in a good mood, Tuxi Ling asked as he ate, “When are you planning to have the wedding?”

Speaking of this, Lan He’s good mood seemed to vanish. He sighed and rested his chin on his hand, looking at him.

“Ugh, you know, a marriage of convenience, there’s no interest in having a wedding.”

Tuxi Ling smiled slightly, “That’s not good, is it? I think Miss Gu likes you quite a bit.”

“I can’t just sleep with her because she likes me, can I?” Lan He filled his cup with juice, “Sleeping with someone should be consensual, right?”

You didn’t say that when you drugged me!

Tuxi Ling cursed the double standard in his heart, but he also blamed himself for not being vigilant enough about that matter.

As if reading his mind, Lan He raised his eyebrows, his eyes full of teasing, “I’m saying, Officer Ling, if I weren’t married, would you be friends with me?”

Tuxi Ling froze, then lowered his eyes.

Since their reunion, he had tried hard to wrap his heart in reason, morality, responsibility, and other ethereal things, layer upon layer, clumsy and stubborn. But his hypothetical pierced through the armor he thought was impenetrable like a sharp arrow, piercing his heart and striking his soul.

As a police officer with keen intuition, back then, he had suspected he had been drugged immediately.

Afterward, why didn’t he immediately get a blood test, why didn’t he use his authority to detain him, but instead silently swallowed his anger? Are the poor excuses he used to comfort himself really valid?

It seemed that his instinct didn’t reject having sex with someone he was attracted to. Or maybe he had a natural insensitivity in that area, or perhaps…

He didn’t dare continue thinking. The other person was now married, he couldn’t make another mistake.

He felt the heat of the other person’s gaze on him. He couldn’t hide in such a gaze. His reason told him he should leave immediately, so he looked up, only to see him stretching and standing up, rubbing his stomach.

“I’m full, let’s go!”

He probably realized he had misspoke, right?

It was just a hypothetical, a hypothetical that would never come true. He was already married, it was a marriage of convenience. Going back on it would cause earthquakes in two families. As the heir to the family, he couldn’t do something so stupid.

If that was the case, he would pretend he didn’t hear it.

He stood up as calmly as possible and smiled, “I’ll pay.”

Lan He stretched lazily and squeezed out a long “Okay.”

It was already dark outside. Among the countless streetlights and neon lights, a few lonely stars flickered lazily.

Lan He took a deep breath of the fresh air and asked Tuxi Ling, “Officer Ling, where are we going?”

Tuxi Ling opened the car door for him, “I’ll take you home first, then go back to the station.”

Lan He was surprised, “Weren’t you off work today?”

“There’s a case, how can I distinguish between working and off work?” Tuxi Ling pushed him into the car, went around to the driver’s seat, and rubbed his sore eyes, “It’s too far to go home, I’ll just crash at the station for the night.”

Lan He frowned. As he started the car, he turned to look at the bright lights beside him, and sure enough, he saw a familiar LOGO on a tall building not far away.

“Go there.” He pointed, “Get a room and sleep well for the night.”

Tuxi Ling saw the LOGO high on the building and refused directly, “Let’s not, the cost of that sleep is too high.”

White Oak Hotel, it was said that the cheapest single room was nine hundred a night, and the most expensive suite was as high as thirty-two thousand. And yet, it dared to boast that it had many tiers and friendly prices.

“It’s okay, it doesn’t cost money.” Lan He curled the corners of his mouth, “It’s our own family’s business, just use my face.”

Tuxi Ling: “…”

He thought about it and still refused, “I’m not going, I can’t sleep in a different place.”

Lan He turned his head to look at him, and Tuxi Ling looked back. The dim streetlight shone through the windshield, making the outlines of the two people particularly deep, their gazes clear and profound.

He suddenly smiled cunningly, “I’m not going home tonight, I’m staying at the White Oak, take me there!”

Tuxi Ling choked and stepped on the accelerator, annoyed.

The street scene turned into streams of light passing over the car body, and they fell into a bizarre and chaotic sea.

“Officer Ling, are you afraid?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t you want to take a shower?”

Tuxi Ling’s first reaction was to raise his sleeve and smell it, “Do I stink?”

Lan He threw mud, “You’re completely pickled!”

Tuxi Ling thought of the few chimneys in the Criminal Investigation Team, he was probably smoked by them, plus, he hadn’t showered for two days.

“The White Oak is on the way to the Public Security Bureau, it’s still in time to go back if something happens. You take a shower and get a good night’s sleep.”

“…”

Seeing that he was still hesitating, Lan He glanced at him amusingly, “If you’re worried I’ll take advantage of you, we can just get two rooms this time.”

Tuxi Ling compromised.

He had already said that much, it would seem pretentious if he didn’t agree.

His own family’s property was easy to deal with. The lobby manager recognized Lan He at a glance and trotted up to greet him.

Lan He requested two single business rooms in a low-key manner. After Tuxi Ling entered his room, he heard him lock the door.

He smiled and bit his lip, turning around to press the down elevator.

Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one in the elevator, he pulled down the turtleneck sweater and looked in the mirror of the elevator car, seeing that the blood marks on his neck had turned dark purple.

He tried touching it with his fingers, a piercing pain.

He gasped and cursed “bastard” silently, then took out his phone, “Jiu Ya, come pick me up, White Oak Hotel.”

–

Qi A knew how powerful Tianyan was. After leaving the underground parking lot, he circled around Global City and returned to Hetian, going up to the top floor from another passage.

He hid until the police downstairs packed up and left, then changed his clothes and swaggered downstairs.

Like all the white-collar workers in the city who clocked out on time, he unlocked a shared bicycle and slowly rode on the congested road, then obediently parked the bike at the return point and went to a 24-hour convenience store to buy a few boxes of self-heating hot pot.

Walking through several streets, as he approached a cluster of buildings, it was already dark. The towering buildings under the dark blue sky looked like the fangs of a monster, without a trace of light or life.

This was a cluster of unfinished buildings. The buildings were built, the community was planted with trees, and the progress of the house decoration was halfway through, but the developer went in. Currently, there was a lawsuit, the government was unwilling to take over, and no successor could be found. It belonged to a three-no-man’s land.

For Qi A, it was a good place to settle down.

He walked to the most remote building, lifted the long hair beside his ear and looked up, pale lighting shining from the windows on the fourth floor.

This window faced a large scenic lake, and on the opposite side of the lake was a mountain. He wasn’t worried about being discovered, and even if he was discovered, they would only think he was an owner who moved into the unfinished building in advance. After all, this place had been unfinished for a long time, and many relocated households couldn’t withstand the pressure of rent, so they simply moved in. No matter what, it was a house that could provide shelter from wind and rain, just without water and electricity.

He tore off the big wave wig, went upstairs quickly, and tiptoed into the house without a door, coming to the room with lights.

A man was sitting cross-legged on the ground, facing away from him, looking at the faint light reflected on the lake.

“Father.”

The man turned his head, raised his index finger to his lips in a “shh” gesture, and the light shining from below made his face look like it was carved out with a knife, “Quiet, don’t wake my good daughter, she just fell asleep.”

Qi A turned his head and glanced at the dark room next to him, and hurriedly nodded.

The man got up and walked out. Qi A hurried to follow. The two of them went to the lake one after the other, stepping on unmanaged weeds, their strides leisurely, as if they were taking a walk.

“Did you see him?”

“I saw him.”

“What did he say?”

“He refused to come with me.”

The man stopped, and when he turned around, a trace of ruthlessness flashed on his habitually tense face.

He scrutinized Qi A and asked suspiciously, “Then why didn’t you kill him?”

Qi A didn’t dare to meet his eyes and lowered his head, “Father, the police here are not quite the same as you remember. They have become very powerful. Why don’t you go back first, so that even if I fail, I won’t implicate you.”

“What? If you fail, I can’t go back?”

“No, I don’t mean that! Of course you have a way to go back! It’s just, it might be more troublesome…”

The man raised his hand to interrupt his explanation, turned around, and patted his shoulder kindly, “I’ll give you another week. If you can’t do it, I’ll have someone else do it.”

Qi A swallowed the fearful saliva and secretly glanced at his face that wasn’t much more mature than his own, nodding stiffly.

This hegemon who dominates one side in the shadow world will really personally pursue and kill anyone who betrays those he cherishes all over the world.

He had said this before, and he did what he said!

–

Late at night, the lights were still on in the Dongjiao Villa. Two retro white wind lamps hung in the hall, and all the soft furnishings in the living room had been replaced with white. There was a small altar in the location facing the door, with a dead-looking photo of Weiyu He.

“Easy, ouch! Jiu Ya, you little bastard!” Lan He grabbed the bed sheets and kicked his legs, howling like a ghost.

He was well-maintained, and even the skin on his neck was very white and tender. It had been repeatedly tightened and rubbed by the rope, and scraped all afternoon by the rough sweater collar. In addition to a few obvious broken skin areas, there were also blood spots and swollen blood streaks. His good neck was messy and a bit scary.

But he insisted on not going to the hospital and warned Jiu Ya not to tell anyone about the afternoon, including Si’nian He.

Jiu Ya understood the rules and quickly agreed. He just wasn’t used to helping people treat wounds yet and was a bit clumsy.

While he was wiping the medicine to reduce swelling and remove blood stasis for Lan He, he blamed himself, “It’s all my fault, I didn’t protect Young Master Lan!”

Lan He’s neck was twisted into a strange angle, the cold sweat from the pain in his back almost soaking through his silk pajamas, his forehead against the pillow in helpless rage, “Then you should commit seppuku!”

He turned his head and saw Auntie Long coming in with gauze, her eyes red, so he forced back his shouts.

Auntie Long was probably the one who cared about him the most in this family, he shouldn’t make her worry so much.

So, under her gaze, he silently allowed Jiu Ya to apply the medicine. After the medicine was absorbed, the two worked together to wrap several circles of bandages around his neck, their movements were extra careful, but it still made his heart jump with pain.

Afterward, as if he had finally survived a great tribulation, he propped up his shoulders and sent Auntie Long away.

As soon as the door closed, he collapsed on the bed with a life-weary expression.

Jiu Ya carefully watched the employer’s face, and found that he didn’t seem to really blame himself, it seemed that the seppuku thing was just talk, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Young Master Lan, is that person your enemy?”

“Sort of.”

“He… wants to kill you?”

“What do you think?”

“Jiu Ya thinks… maybe…” Jiu Ya sized up Lan He’s small body and bravely made a conclusion, “If he wanted to kill you, maybe Jiu Ya wouldn’t have had a chance to save you!”

Lan He glanced at him and lazily moved his gaze away again.

This made Jiu Ya wonder if he had said something wrong, and his hands were a little nervously clasped together, and he couldn’t help but take a few steps back, until he reached the window.

Unexpectedly, he looked over again, his gaze as cold as if it were mixed with ice, making the community backbone who was used to “big scenes” feel a chill down his spine.

“Jiu Ya, get some weapons.”

Jiu Ya “brushed” and conjured a sharp black metal sheet, showing it to him like he was grabbing a poker card, proudly, “Jiu Ya always carries weapons!”

“Are you an idiot? What’s the use of your broken thing besides cutting gas pipes?” Lan He glared at him fiercely, “I mean firearms!”