CH 102

Wang Chao was terrified when he heard Xing Conglian say, “Come here”…

Lin Chen was unable to guess what the hell was going on, but no matter what it was, he felt he should do as he was told, so he walked towards Xing Conglian.

There was no explanation, no greeting. Seeing him approach, Xing Conglian turned around and walked in the other direction, towards the milk tea shop.

He’s not going to buy milk tea, right?

Or was he taking him to apologize because he stepped on someone else’s chair?

Lin Chen couldn’t help but give Wang Chao a confused look, but at the critical moment, Wang Chao looked away while still standing by himself in the elevator, pretending that he didn’t exist.

Lin Chen had no choice but to follow Xing Conglian.

There was a worker from the shop tidying up the seats by the door. Seeing them come, the girl’s eyes flickered, and then she silently retreated to the counter without even asking, “Sir, how can I help you?”

Looking at the worker, Lin Chen felt there was nothing wrong with his intuition. It wasn’t just him who felt Xing Conglian’s aura.

Naturally, a cup of milk tea couldn’t cure anger, so of course Xing Conglian didn’t want to buy milk tea.

Xing Conglian stood at the entrance of the milk tea shop, bent over slightly, dragged a plastic chair out, took two steps, and placed the chair beside a stone pillar.

Lin Chen looked at the chair and fell into a state of confusion he had never seen before. What was Xing Conglian doing?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Sit down.” It was as if Xing Conglian was cherishing his words like gold.

Lin Chen thought there was something wrong with his hearing. He took him to the entrance of the milk tea shop just to ask him to sit down?

He pointed to himself and made sure again, “This is for me?”

“Yes.”

Lin Chen inaudibly sighed as he slowly walked to the plastic chair and calmly sat down.

But in the next moment, he was stunned.

He saw Xing Conglian take out a cigarette, take a puff, and then slowly squat down in front of him with a careless attitude.

Lin Chen sat on the chair, looking at the top of Xing Conglian’s hair and face as if nothing had happened, and became extremely lost.

A person like Xing Conglian wouldn’t ask for other people’s opinions on what he wanted to do. He lowered his head slightly and his eyelashes drooped, as if he were too lazy to speak. After taking two puffs of his cigarette, he reluctantly said, “Stick out your left hand.”

Lin Chen had no choice but to comply.

Xing Conglian’s gaze fell on his wrist that was covered with a plaster, and he then lightly said, “Hold tight…”

Lin Chen clenched his fist subconsciously.

At that moment, Lin Chen suddenly understood that Xing Conglian was checking his injuries.

This kind of cognition made everything seem to stand still.

He looked at Xing Conglian, who was examining his hand.

Xing Conglian’s gaze was focused. From his point of view, the man’s face was almost hidden by the occasional rising smoke. He could only see a straight nose bridge, slightly pursed lips, and his thick eyelashes.

Strangely, at this moment, Lin Chen was suddenly distracted and thought about Xing Conglian’s mother. He thought she must be an extremely gentle and beautiful woman.

Soon, Xing Conglian’s light voice brought him back from his thoughts. “Hold your hand flat,” Xing Conglian said.

Lin Chen straightened his hand, and in the next second, his wrist was grabbed.

Xing Conglian was holding the cigarette in his mouth, so his voice was muffled, but Lin Chen could clearly hear him asking, “Does it hurt?”

Probably, among the irresistible romantic words in the world, there had to be such a simple question.

“Does it hurt”, “Are you okay”, “Is it uncomfortable”, “Is this better”; such words were always irresistible. No matter how painful reality was, as long as someone asked you it, the pain would ease.

Lin Chen thought, ‘Of course it hurts.’

He even felt that just thinking about it made the smell of the mint tobacco that Xing Conglian normally smoked more pleasant. He remembered the description he gave to Su Fengzi. Xing Conglian was truly sweet.

It was natural that if someone you like asked you this, of course you would start to think about it.

It seemed that the originally tightly isolated part suddenly broke open through a gap, and water was leaking out along the chiseled breech and was slowly flowing to other parts.

For the first time in his life, Lin Chen experienced a strange struggle with thinking. The rational part of his mind was telling him that Xing Conglian was just worried about him since he was pushed and injured a second time. This was a normal concern between colleagues. If something like this were to happen to Wang Chao, Xing Conglian would probably pull the kid’s hair and drag him to a chair to check on him. But the other part of his mind that was irrational and emotionally manipulated was saying, ‘What do you think? How can there be colleagues who care about you like this? Perhaps he might like you too…?’

—He might like you too.

If there was any magic statement in this world that could make people instantly happy, the line “I’ll pay for you” would assuredly be selected.

Lin Chen thought it was funny that he would have such an irrational day.

However, looking at the serious face and concerned gaze from Xing Conglian, he realized that if he were irrational for a second now, he would be happy all day long because of such irrationality.

“It hurts.”

So he gave a response like so.

Sure enough, Xing Conglian withdrew his hand and said coldly, “I knew it.”

Lin Chen looked down at Xing Conglian, feeling that a good attitude towards admitting mistakes must be the only way to win leniency, so he said solemnly, “I’m sorry, but at least it’s not a big deal. I was careful…”

But it may be that his apology wasn’t sincere enough. When Xing Conglian heard this, he suddenly got up, crossed his arms, stood behind him, then straightened, extended, and rotated his arms in various directions before asking, “Does it hurt from any angles?”

His answer to “pain” just now was obviously the wrong answer, so this time Lin Chen cleverly changed it. “It doesn’t hurt.”

He replied with great certainty.

In short, this was probably the correct answer.

After several seconds of silence, Xing Conglian finally dropped his arm and walked away.

Lin Chen turned back inexplicably but saw that Xing Conglian had returned to the milk tea shop and asked the worker, who was pretending to clean the tables, “Do you have mineral water?”

How can a milk tea shop sell mineral water…

Lin Chen wanted to speak but saw the worker nodding vigorously and then replied, “Yes, yes. 2 yuan.”

Xing Conglian didn’t say much, but simply took out 2 yuan from his pocket, put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the trashcan, and walked back with the mineral water. He unscrewed the cap and handed it over to Lin Chen.

Lin Chen glanced at the bottle of water. He didn’t need Xing Conglian to give him any more instructions. He consciously picked up the bottle and began to drink it.

In order to show his sincerity and tell Xing Conglian how thoughtful he was to bring him this water since he was incredibly thirsty, Lin Chen quickly gulped down half the bottle. He realized that Xing Conglian kept leaning on the side of the stone pillar and didn’t have any intention of moving.

Does he want me to continue drinking or stop?

Lin Chen glanced at the elevator. The teenager who had been hiding there shook his head at him.

What does shaking your head mean?

Continue to drink or not?

Thinking of this, Lin Chen simply slowed down his drinking speed, hoping Xing Conglian would say something to him so he would have a good reason to put the water down.

However, people’s hearts were unpredictable. It wasn’t until he finished the entire bottle that Xing Conglian finally spoke.

In the end, he put down the empty bottle of mineral water with great difficulty. Only then did Xing Conglian come over and take the bottle from his hand and put the cap back on, then he threw it in the trash.

Xing Conglian frowned slightly as he asked, “Why are you so thirsty?”

……

What does it feel like to get your life back?

This was probably how Wang Chao was feeling.

The forensic department had finally arrived, so his captain was called downstairs after he finished throwing away trash.

Wang Chao finally breathed a sigh of relief and sent a text message to his comrades who had been camping on the shore of a certain ocean: [The alarm has lifted!!!]

[Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I already bought a spaceship ticket to Alpha Nebula. Are you going to pay for it?]

[Isn’t it good that you’re alive???]

As soon as he finished replying to this text message, he heard Lin Chen’s voice ringing in his ears.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Chen asked.

Wang Chao wanted to say, “Even though he didn’t know what kind of illness Xing Conglian is suffering from, it’s obviously not because of Huang Ze or you, but really it’s because of Huang Ze and you!”

He was extremely upset when he saw Huang Ze forcibly kissing you. This was most likely the reason for him to be so angry today, but how could Wang Chao say this!

Wang Chao suppressed the words that were bursting in his heart. After three long, deep breaths, he smiled at Lin Chen and said, “A’Chen, have you ever experienced the beauty of life?”

“What do you mean?”

“Live well!” He patted Lin Chen’s shoulder hard.

“I mean, what’s wrong with your captain today?”

“Men have those few days every month!” Wang Chao made a very appropriate excuse.

“Is that so?”

“A’Chen, do you think I should buy some meditative oral liquids for the captain?”

“That has no effect on regulating men’s mood, right?”

The topic gradually developed in an academic direction, and as an academic, Wang Chao had to posture himself in front of A’Chen. He quickly found an appropriate topic that he could fully control. “A’Chen, you were standing in front of the milk tea shop, then you must’ve seen which passage the girl who slit Li Jingtian’s neck escaped from.”

Lin Chen shook his head. His expression turned grave. “Although I was paying attention to the passages of the emergency exit on the 1st through 4th floors, I didn’t see which one she took. The scene was densely crowded, and she was wearing a mask when she was on stage. As long as she simply changed clothes in the stairwell, she could instantly become another person, making it difficult for us to track.”

“Fuck, I’m so angry when I talk about it. It’s all because of that poster that the stage was blocked, and I can’t even fucking track her through surveillance. Argh, I’m so pissed!” As Wang Chao spoke, he was smacking the laptop in his arm and then suddenly paused. “A’Chen, do you think this was premeditated? Covering her face, slitting his throat, and blocking the surveillance? Did they take into account the complex flow of people on the scene in the first place? I can’t believe that this isn’t something that was meticulously planned ahead. So this means that fatty Huang is extremely suspicious!”

The more Wang Chao spoke, the more he felt his deductions were correct. He sat down on the ground and said, “Wait for me to pull up surveillance of that fatty Huang. A’Chen, see if there’s anything suspicious…”

“It doesn’t seem likely that Huang Wei would murder his promotional guest at the opening ceremony of his shopping mall…”

“Since you say so, it must be true.” Wang Chao paused again. He raised his head and asked, “Are you hungry? Should we go for noodles?”

At this moment, a horrified scream suddenly came from the hall downstairs.

Wang Chao jumped up abruptly and rushed to the edge of the railing.

He looked at the stage and saw the forensic personnel on the scene step back and stand still on the edge of the cordon. They were staring sharply at the bouquet of roses on the ground as if they had encountered some extremely strange situation.

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Huang Ze: ……